Most of the early colonists of all classes were too busy in fighting Indians and raising the means of living to concern themselves with the relatives left in England. This indifference was not uncommon among us, and was in those early days to be expected. It explains why we and other descendants of settlers knew, and indeed cared, too little about our ancestors. I do not know what exactly was the station of the father of the brothers who first came over――John, my ancestor, and Lawrence, his brother. It is of more moment to me to know that my forefathers in this country have been gentlemen, and have in many positions of trust, both in civil employ and in the military line, served the colonies and, later, their country with faithfulness and honour. As concerns the question of ancestry and a man’s judging of himself by that alone, I am much of Colonel Tilghman’s opinion, who once said to me, speaking of Mr. B――――, that when a man had to look back upon his ancestors to make himself sure he was a gentleman, he was but a poor sort of man, which I conceive to be true. My great-grandfather, John Washington, the first emigrant of our name, was the son of Lawrence and Amphilis, his wife. He went first to the Barbados, but, not being pleased, came later to Virginia; that is, in 1657. It is certain that my great-grandfather in some respects possessed qualities which resembled those which I myself possess. He was a man of great personal strength, inclined to war, very resolute, and of a masterful and very violent temper. He was accused in 1675 of too severe treatment of the Indians in the frontier wars against the Susquehannocks, for which he was reprimanded by Sir William Berkeley, but, it is said, unjustly. He was a man had in esteem and most respectable, and held a seat in the Assembly in 1670. He was also of a nature greatly moved by injustice, for on his voyage to Virginia a poor woman on board the ship was hanged for a witch, and he made great efforts, on being come ashore, to have the master and crew punished. I find in myself the same anger at injustice. It is proper to add that there was current in the colony a story that, on account of his rigour with the Indians, he was called by them Conocatorius, which, Englished, means a Destroyer of Villages. The Half-King, an Indian chief so called, hearing my name when first we met, addressed me by this title. There must have been among these tribes a remembrance or tradition as to the name, for certainly I never deserved it, and that after so long a time it should have been remembered appears to me strange. My great-grandfather’s brother Lawrence was engaged for a time in the mercantile way, and at one time signed himself as of Luton, County Bradford, merchant. He made some voyages to Virginia and home again before he settled in the colony, and may have acquired land in England, for, as I shall state later, he devised real estate in the home country.