Five Virginia counties lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock constitute the Northern Neck, the region in which George Washington, Light Horse Harry Lee, and his more famous son were born and bred. There are a scant thousand square miles in these counties of King George, Westmoreland, Richmond, Northumberland, and Lancaster, and the population of the five is under fifty-five thousand. At no point are the rivers much more than thirty miles apart, and near the northern boundary line of King George the harbors on the two streams are only nine miles apart. Washington was born on a lonely plantation in Westmoreland County, bordering the beautiful Bridges Creek, within sight of the Potomac. At Colonial Beach, two or three miles across the mouth of Monroe Creek, also in Westmoreland County, stands a house in good repair, which is declared to have been the residence of Light Horse Harry Lee before he removed to Fairfax County. Washington as an infant was taken by his parents to their new home opposite Fredericksburg, in Stafford County, and at the age of twenty he inherited from his half-brother Lawrence the fine estate of Mount Vernon, in Fairfax County. Lawrence had named his estate in honor of Admiral Vernon, with whom the young Virginian had served as an officer in the campaign against the Spanish-American stronghold of Cartagena. It was Lawrence’s acquaintance with Admiral Vernon that won for George Washington the offer of a midshipman’s commission in the royal navy, an appointment that only his mother’s strong objection prevented him from accepting. From the birthplace of Washington to his second home opposite Fredericksburg is hardly more than fifty-five miles as the crow flies, and from the birthplace to the scene of his death at Mount Vernon is under seventy miles. The triangle enclosed by the lines connecting these points includes a tract of Virginia that is full of historic interest, and singularly rich and beautiful as an agricultural region. Most of the counties of the Northern Neck are increasing in population, but they lie far from railways, and their mode of communication with the outside world is the steamboats that ply from Baltimore up and down the two rivers.