Lawrence Washington

Lawrence Washington was born in 1718 and died in 1752. He was a soldier and a very important landowner from Virginia. He was the older and beloved half-brother of George Washington, and the first to live in the Mount Vernon estate, which he named.

He married Anne Fairfax in July 1743. She was 15 and he was 25 years old when they got married. He was elected into the House of Burgesses in 1744 as a representative for the Fairfax County. He was one of the co-founders of the Ohio Company in VA. They created it with the intention of opening commerce into the Potomac River.

George Washington accompanied his half-brother Lawrence to the warm springs at Bath, which Lawrence visited frequently to improve his health. In 1751, they travelled together to Barbados hoping that its climate might further help Lawrence who was now very ill with tuberculosis. This was the only trip that George Washington ever took outside the confines of what was to become the United States of America. Upon the death of Lawrence's widow, George inherited his estate at Mount Vernon, which Lawrence had named in honour of British Admiral Edward Vernon, with whom Lawrence had served. Lawrence died of tuberculosis at his "Mount Vernon home, in July 1752. His widow remarried into the Lee family shortly thereafter, allowing 20-year old George to live at, and manage, the Mount Vernon plantation.