George William Fairfax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_William_Fairfax

George William Fairfax (February 26, 1729 – April 3, 1787) was a member of the landed gentry of late colonial Virginia. He was a contemporary and good friend of George Washington.

Fairfax was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He was the son of Colonel Sir William Fairfax, lieutenant of the County of Fairfax, and member and president of the council in Virginia, and Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron's first cousin, and land agent. His father served as a Customs agent in Barbados, and Marblehead. His mother Sarah, the daughter of Captain Thomas Walker who had been Chief Justice of the Bahamas, died January 21st, 1731.

Interestingly, within the aristocratic Fairfax clan, George Washington's brother in law and first supervisor, the Fairfaxes in London worried about his safe passage across the Atlantic and his racial appearance.

"Col. Gale has indeed kindly offered to take the care of safe conducting my eldest son George, upwards of seven years old but I judged it too forward to send him before I had your's or some one of his Uncles' or Aunts' invitation, altho' I have no reason to doubt any of their indulgences to a poor West India boy [African]especially as he has the marks in his visage that will always testify his parentage."

He came to Virginia as a child, and was a contemporary and companion of George Washington. He inherited Belvoir after the death of his father. Lord Fairfax later moved to the Shenandoah Valley in 1752, fixing his residence at Greenway Court near White Post in Clarke County, at the suggestion of Thomas Bryan Martin.

George William and his wife Sally Fairfax returned to England in 1773, prior to the events of the American Revolutionary War, to take care of a family property matter. They did not return to Virginia afterwards, due to the political difficulties of travel from England to the colonies after the war.

George Washington wrote to him with the news of the 1774 House of Burgesses, and Lexington and Concord. [edit]

References

1. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/washing...
2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/washing...
3. Thomas Kemp Cartmell, Shenandoah Valley Pioneers and Their Descendants, p.245
4. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/revolution/letters/gfairfax1...
5. http://www.familytales.org/dbDisplay.php?id=ltr_gwa2752&person=gwa