The True George Washington [10th Ed.]Ford, Paul Leicester
History
The True George Washington [10th Ed.]
Ford, Paul Leicester
Generals -- United States -- Biography; Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Washington, George, 1732-1799
In addition, Washington was a partner in several great land
speculations,—the Ohio Company, the Walpole Grant, the Mississippi
Company, the Military Company of Adventures, and the Dismal Swamp
Company; but all these ventures except the last collapsed at the
beginning of the Revolution and proved valueless. His interest in the
Dismal Swamp Company he held at the time of his death, and it was
valued in the inventory at twenty thousand dollars.
The properties that came to him from his brother Lawrence and with his
wife have already been described. It may be worth noting that with the
widow of Lawrence there was a dispute over the will, but apparently it
was never carried into the courts, and that owing to the great
depreciation of paper money during the Revolution the Custis personal
property was materially lessened, for “I am now receiving a shilling in
the pound in discharge of Bonds which ought to have been paid me, &
would have been realized before I left Virginia, but for my indulgences
to the debtors,” Washington wrote, and in 1778 he said, “by the
comparitive worth of money, six or seven thousand pounds which I have
in Bonds upon Interest is now reduced to as many hundreds because I can
get no more for a thousand at this day than a hundred would have
fetched when I left Virginia, Bonds, debts, Rents, &c. undergoing no
change while the currency is depreciating in value and for ought I know
may in a little time be totally sunk.” Indeed, in 1781 he complained
“that I have totally neglected all my private concerns, which are
declining every day, and may, possibly, end in capital losses, if not
absolute ruin, before I am at liberty to look after them.”
In 1784 he became partner with George Clinton in some land purchases in
the State of New York with the expectation of buying the “mineral
springs at Saratoga; and … the Oriskany tract, on which Fort Schuyler
stands.” In this they were disappointed, but six thousand acres in the
Mohawk valley were obtained “amazingly cheap.” Washington’s share cost
him, including interest, eighteen hundred and seventy-five pounds, and
in 1793 two-thirds of the land had been sold for three thousand four
hundred pounds, and in his inventory of 1799 Washington valued what he
still held of the property at six thousand dollars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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