It is an easy pilgrimage, and one well worth the making, from the city which bears his name to the three places which above all others are associated with the life and presence of Washington, — Fredericksburg, scene of his youthful exploits and burial-place of his mother; Mount Vernon, his residence in maturer years; and quiet grass-grown Alexandria, which knew him as burgher, citizen, and neighbor.

Fredericksburg, which borrowed its name from one of the sons of George I., has now become doubly historic from the great battle fought there in December, 1862, but its charm for the visitor still abides in its cherished relics of Washington and his mother. These include the old house within the corporate limits of the town in which both lived and in which she died: the tomb above her grave; the site, on the farther shore of the Rappahannock, of the house in which he first lived after his removal from his native Westmoreland, and the fields about wherein were enacted the boyish exploits recorded in the praiseful but not always veracious chronicles of Parson Weems.

Both of Washington's grandfathers came from England in 1657 and made new homes in the same section of Virginia. Augustine, first of the Washingtons born in America, chose for his second wife — by his first he had two sons, Lawrence and Augustine —  Mary Ball, a girl of fortune and excellent birth, who became, in due time, the mother of George Washington, the first of a family of six children. When George was five years old his father removed from Westmoreland to a plantation which he owned on the bank of the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg. The house in which Washington lived with his parents was torn down threescore years ago, and its site, on the top of a hill, perhaps a hundred yards from the river, is now covered by a frame cottage of modest size. Directly below lies the ferry where Washington when he was ten years old, according to Weems, — although this, like many another of the parson's stories, must be taken with a grain of allowance, —  threw a stone across the Rappahannock. Fredericksburg folk, it may be added, scout the tale, and even at the present time, with the river sadly shrunken from its former width and depth, the feat described by Weems would be a difficult one for a man of mature years and strength.

Augustine Washington died in 1743, and his widow remained faithful to his memory until her death, nearly fifty years later. Moreover, she reared her children wisely, and one by one saw them prosperously settled in life. With the coming of the Revolution and when he was about to set out for the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Washington, with loving regard for the comfort and safety of the aging woman, induced his mother to leave her country home and remove to Fredericksburg, nor did he rest content until he had seen her settled in her new quarters. The house Mary Washington selected as her home still stands in Charles Street, but not in its original form. One end has been altered and the roof raised to give a full second story, changes which have nearly destroyed its former quaintness of aspect.

Fredericksburg saw nothing of Washington during the seven critical, troubled years that followed Lexington and Bunker Hill, but when, shortly after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the patriot captain, attended by an imposing suite of French and American officers, started upon what quickly became a triumphal progress to Philadelphia, he stopped on the way to visit the mother who awaited his coming with serene and quiet joy. The meeting took place on the 11th of November, 1781. Washington, “in the midst of his numerous and brilliant suite,” I quote from the quaint account of the event given by George Washington Parke Custis, “sent to apprise his mother of his arrival, and to know when it would be her pleasure to receive him. Alone and on foot the general-in-chief of the combined armies of France and America, the deliverer of his country, the hero of the hour, repaired to pay his humble tribute of duty to her whom he venerated as the author of his being.” The first warm embrace of greeting over, she drew slowly back, and looking with loving earnestness into his face, said, very softly, “You are growing old, George; care and toil have been making marks in your face since I saw you last.”

She, too, had grown old in the intervening years, but when she appeared that night at the ball given by the citizens of Fredericksburg in honor of the victors, leaning on the arm of her son, her noble bearing and the quiet dignity with which she received the addresses of those who came to do her honor prompted Lafayette to remark that he had seen the only Roman matron who was living in his day.

Memory of another meeting between Washington and his mother, last and tenderest of all, comes to mind as one stands before the quiet house in Charles Street. It was in April, 1789, that he came to bid her farewell before leaving for New York to enter upon his duties as first President of the Republic. He found her weak and worn in body and already stricken with the hand of death. When he told her that as soon as his public duties would permit he should return to her, she gently interrupted him, saying that should meet no more, but that he must go to fill the high place destiny had assigned him. And so they parted, the strong man sobbing like a child as he left her presence for the last time. Four months later she had ceased to live. Washington was at dinner with Baron Steuben and other friends when word came to him that his mother was dead. “My uncle,” writes his nephew, who was present, “immediately retired to his room, and remained there for some time alone.”

It is a pleasant ride from Fredericksburg to Mount Vernon and takes one along winding country roads often traversed by Washington. In 1741 his half-brother Lawrence served with Admiral Vernon in the disastrous campaign against Carthagena in South America. The following year he returned to Virginia, and was about to sail for England to enter the regular navy when beautiful Anne Fairfax captured his affections, and the spirit of war yielded to the gentler argument of love. They were married in the midsummer of 1748. The death of the elder Washington a few months before had made the young husband owner and master of an estate extending for miles down the Potomac below Alexandria, and Lawrence Washington built for his bride a plain but substantial mansion on the most commanding river outlook, giving it the name of Mount Vernon, in honor of the admiral with whom he had served in the West Indies.

A swift fever made an end of Lawrence Washington in 1752, and his estate passed to his daughter. She soon followed her father to the grave, and by the terms of the original bequest young George Washington, who from the first had been a frequent and much-loved visitor at the mansion, became the master of Mount Vernon and its wide-reaching acres. From his father he had already inherited large landed holdings on the Rappahannock; his new acquisition made him one of the wealthiest planters of the Old Dominion. Coincident with his taking possession of Mount Vernon he began his labors in the service of the colony, first as a surveyor exploring and laying down the bounds of great estates, and then in the military service for the extension of colonial authority and British empire on the Ohio. In the five or six years which followed he rose to a high place on the roll of sagacious military commanders, and the fame of his martial exploits reached the uttermost limits of the colonies.

Frequent absences, however, did not prevent Washington from exercising close and prudent watch over the affairs of his estate, or from prosecuting those affairs of the heart which lend a piquant interest to his career, for the young master of Mount Vernon, like most strong men, was all his life a lover of women, and before he was eighteen had already suffered the pangs of unrequited love. He speaks in letters written at this time of his passion for the “Lowland Beauty,” and to the same period may also be assigned two love poems, one an acrostic to “Frances,” no doubt some fair maid of Alexandria, and the other a sonnet, interesting only because it shows the depressed state of mind into which its author was thrown by his affairs of the heart. When he was nineteen he courted and was refused by pretty Betsy Fauntleroy, and a little later there grew up in his heart the master passion of his life, — his love for Sally Cary, wife of his friend George William Fairfax and sister-in-law of his half-brother, Lawrence Washington. Sally Cary was already married when Washington first met her, yet this did not prevent him from cherishing a regard for her that for a time threatened to assume “sovereign control” of his ardent nature. His letters are proof that the love he had felt for other amiable women was as water unto wine beside this hopeless attachment for his beautiful neighbor, but fortunately, thanks to time, to the lady's subsequent absence in England with her husband, and, above all, because, Washington being a man of honor and resolute will, the feeling was gradually subdued by him, and his marriage with Mrs. Custis happily ended the episode.

It was in April, 1759, three months after her marriage to Washington, that Martha Custis became the mistress of Mount Vernon. Daughter of Colonel John Dandridge, a belle of the colonial court at fifteen, wife of Colonel Daniel Parke Custis at seventeen, and a widow with two children at twenty-four, Washington met her for the first time while on a military errand to the old Scotch governor, Dinwiddie, at the colonial capital. Their marriage gave him absolute control of one-third of the Custis patrimony, one of the largest fortunes in America. The remainder of the estate came into his hands as guardian.

Washington at this time was in the early flush of his magnificent physical manhood. Straight as an Indian, with limbs cast almost in a giant's mould, his self-contained countenance, agreeable speech, and dignified bearing made his personality most impressive. Probably half of his time at home was spent in the saddle, and this active out-of-door life gave him a glow of health and sense of vigor. Never more at home than on horseback, fox-hunting was his favorite sport, and in his diary for January and February, 1768, it is recorded that he followed the hounds sixteen days and shot on five. Now and then his boldness brought him to grief, but these mischances failed to deter him. At fifty-five he wrote that he was still fond of the chase, which he occasionally indulged in until near his death.

For fifteen years George and Martha Washington enjoyed life at Mount Vernon, he serving in the House of Burgesses and managing his vast estates, she taking complete charge of the domestic economy of the household, and both joining in the exercise of a hospitality as gracious as it was open-handed, unceasing and lavish. The master of Mount Vernon played a forceful part in the events which led up to the Congress of 1774 and finally to the war for independence; and in those trying times his wife supported him with words of approbation and encouragement, writing to a relative, “My mind is made up. My heart is in the cause. George is right. He is always right.”

The second Continental Congress met, and Washington was a delegate. Lexington and Concord had fired the heart of the colonies, and the Continental army was organized in June, 1775, with Washington as its commander-in-chief. He wrote to his wife at Mount Vernon giving directions about the management of his estate, enclosed his will, which “he hoped would be satisfactory,” and at once set out from Philadelphia to take command of the Continental forces at Boston. Mount Vernon saw him only twice during the following eight years, and then in the line of military duty, but each winter Mrs. Washington joined her husband at head-quarters to assist in raising the heavy spirits of officers and men and to minister to the sick and suffering.

It was in September, 1781, that Washington suddenly arrived at Mount Vernon, his first visit since 1775, on his way to take command of the forces at Yorktown. But a single night was his stay, and he moved on to close the war in the South and to put an end to the last hope of Great Britain's recovery of her lost colonies. Cornwallis having surrendered at Yorktown, Washington spent a week at Mount Vernon, and then, accompanied by his wife, left for the North to resume command of the army in the vicinity of New York, to put the finishing touches to the war and to give Congress the benefit of his counsel. In November, 1783, Mrs. Washington returned to Mount Vernon, after an absence of two years. The British hauled down the royal standard of King George and evacuated New York. Washington having taken leave of his sorrowing veterans, repaired to Annapolis, where Mrs. Washington joined him to witness the most heroic act of his noble career,  — the return of his commission and a conquered nationality to Congress. The same day, December 23, as plain Mr. and Mrs. Washington, they left for Mount Vernon, where they arrived amid the greatest joy of the neighbors on the Christmas Eve of 1783.

The world-wide fame of Washington now made Mount Vernon the shrine of the great men of America and of visiting foreigners of rank and renown. The original mansion quickly proved too small to accommodate the throng of visitors and guests, and in 1785 it was enlarged by the addition of two wings, composing the banquet-hall and the library and the piazza overlooking the river. The detached structures for the farm and domestic offices, the lawn, arboretum, conservatories, and flower-and kitchen-gardens were also constructed or laid out, giving the mansion and immediate surroundings their present appearance.

Of the Fairfaxes, Washington's constant comrades in other days, only Bryan was now left in America, and that good man was getting on in years and making up his mind to take priestly orders. Of Washington's other neighbors, the most important one still living within easy reach of Mount Vernon was George Mason, of Gunston Hall, a patriot of the finest type, the author of that noble paper “The Virginia Bill of Rights,” and who in the intervals of useful labor in the Continental Congress returned to his home on the Potomac. To this old manorhouse of the Masons, built in 1739 and still standing, although no longer in the possession of the descendants of its first owners, the Washington family was wont at this period to resort for tea-drinking and dinner, visits certain to be returned in kind before the month was out.

Agriculture, after soldiering, was always Washington's chief delight. To its pursuit he now returned with zest whetted by years of absence from home, and good reason had Brissot de Warville, the French traveller and author, who became chief of the Girondists and died by the guillotine in 1793, to cry out in astonishment at the general's success in farming, when, during his visit to America, he went the rounds of Mount Vernon in the autumn of 1788. The estates were then at the highest pitch of improvement they ever attained, crops of wheat, tobacco, corn, barley, and buckwheat “burdening the ground.” What excited the Frenchman's chief surprise was that every barn and cabin, grove and clearing, field and orchard, passed daily beneath the watchful eye of the master. All the busy life of the negro world was regulated by his personal directions to overseers and bailiff. No item was too insignificant to bring before his notice, and the minutest contract for work agreed upon was put into writing. How odd, for example, the agreement with Philip Baxter, the gardener, found, duly signed and witnessed, among Washington's papers, wherein Philip binds himself to keep sober for a year, and to fulfil his duties on the place, if allowed four dollars at Christmas, with which to be drunk four days and four nights; two dollars at Easter, to effect the same purpose; two dollars at Whitsuntide, to be drunk for two days; a dram in the morning, and a drink of grog at dinner, at noon.”

In barnyards, kennels, and stables there is continual interest on the part of their master. He makes experiments in breeding mules with the jacks sent him by the King of Spain, and thanks Gouverneur Morris for a couple of Chinese pigs, forwarded from Morrisania, along with a pair of Chinese geese. Washington's care of horses is too well known to need mention here, but one ceremony of his daily round of his farms, a ceremony, in season, never omitted by the general, deserves to be recalled. It was to lean over the fence around the field wherein a tall old sorrel horse, with white face and legs, was grazing luxuriously in the richest grass and clover Mount Vernon could afford. At the sight of him the old steed would prick up his ears and run neighing to arch his neck beneath his-master's hand. This was Nelson, the war-horse upon whose back, at Yorktown, Washington had received the surrender of Cornwallis. The war ended, Nelson's work was over. Turned out to graze in summer, in winter carefully groomed and stabled, he lived to a good old age, but by his master's strict command was never again allowed to feel the burden of a saddle.

Mount Vernon, Home of Washington

Thus three years passed in quiet and retirement. But they were neither years of leisure nor of rest. The cares of state were thrust upon the privacy of the home life at Mount Vernon. Washington held the leading-strings of the infant republic. The weakness of the Articles of Confederation were apparent to him, and it was in his constant thought to devise some form of strong centralized national governmental authority and administration. He was in communication with the patriots in all parts of the States, hanging together and defaulting in their duty and obligations under the free and easy system of 1777, and it was on the veranda or in the library of Mount Vernon that the preliminary steps were arranged which led to the overthrow of the system of the Confederation and the substitution of the national system in 1787.

It was on a sunny day in April, 1789, that Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, arrived at Mount Vernon with the official notification of Washington's election to the Presidency. Reluctant to leave the congenial pursuits and surroundings of Mount Vernon, he nevertheless responded once more to his country's call, and on April 16, 1789, left for New York, the journey being one constant succession of ovations. He inaugurated the new government, and soon after was followed by Mrs. Washington, who established the social institutions decided upon for the executive office and surroundings. During the years of his Presidency Washington occasionally visited Mount Vernon, passing a short time there during the adjournments of Congress. He also took an active part in the establishment of the site and laying the foundations of the capital, which bears his name and lies almost in sight of his beloved Mount Vernon.

Washington's second term as President closed in March, 1797, and he at once returned to Mount Vernon. He was now sixty-five years of age, laden with honors, surrounded by the confidence of his fellow-citizens, and in the possession of perfect health. The care of his estate gave him his greatest pleasure during his remaining years, but his regard for the public weal never weakened, and here and there in the diaries and private correspondence of the period one finds proofs of this, which afford at the same time intimate glimpses of the personality of the masterful man whose career was now near its close. Let one of these find a place in this chronicle. After Adams had been chosen President, and the outcry against the Alien and Sedition laws became so loud as to arouse Washington's apprehension that the Republicans might carry the country to the other extreme and the work of disintegration be commenced, he sent a message to Richmond with a note to John Marshall, afterwards chief-justice, saying he wished him to come to Mount Vernon for a week's visit. Marshall, who was an ardent Federalist, got ready, and in a few days reached Mount Vernon, where he was received with great cordiality.

After dinner, when all the other company had retired to the sitting-room, Washington detained Marshall, and soon told him why he had sent for him. “I am uneasy, Major Marshall,” said he, “at the rapid growth of these democratic societies and alarmed at the tendency towards the disintegration of our present system. The press is attacking all who wish to maintain the Federal government in its integrity and strength with great violence, and I fear the result of the approaching elections. We need our strongest and most patriotic men in Congress, and I want you to return to Richmond and announce yourself as a candidate.”

Marshall made answer that it was impossible; that he was a poor man, dependent upon his practice at the bar, and that the pecuniary sacrifice would be more than he could bear in his present straitened circumstances. Washington argued with him, and soon got wrought into a violent passion. No patriot, he declared, would refuse to serve his country in such an emergency; he had been making personal sacrifices for the public all his life, and no one deserving the name of a man would refuse such a call.

Marshall, in describing the occurrence, said he had never received such a torrent of abuse in his life. He thought at one time Washington would jump on him from across the table. He retired that night, but could not sleep. The insults given him seemed to blister his brain. After rolling and tossing for a time, he concluded he would get up early in the morning, slip out, get his horse, and start home before breakfast. Morning at last came, and as soon as he could see well he dressed. Fearing to awake Washington, he took his boots in his hand and started down the stairway in his stocking feet; but to his horror he met Washington in the hall.

“Where are you going, Major Marshall?” asked the old general.

“I was going out, sir.”

“It is too early for you to rise, sir. Return turn to your room, and I will have you called when breakfast is ready.”

Marshall returned to his room, as he said, “to await further orders.”

At breakfast Washington was very polite to him. Afterwards he informed Marshall that the horses were ready and that they would ride over the plantation. They rode, returning at three o'clock to dinner. No allusion was made to the row of the previous night. The result of it all was that Marshall stayed the week out, returned to Richmond, ran for Congress, was elected, and took every post that the general wanted him to take. Yet Washington's biographers merely tell us that Marshall was “persuaded by him to enter Congress!”

Once only did Washington leave Mount Vernon after the close of his second term as President. The French monarchy had been overthrown and the Directory were startling the world with horrors. Because the American government would not sanction their butcheries and help shield them from the accumulated vengeance of mankind they warred upon our commerce, imprisoned our citizens, and insulted our commissioners. War seemed inevitable, and Washington was again summoned from his resting-place to resume his arms and defend his country. It must have been a sight to see the old lion once more summoning his brindled sons to battle. His old veterans rallied around him at the sound of his voice, ready to follow their general, to repeat their old hardships, and brave their old dangers. But war was averted, and Washington retired to Mount Vernon — to die.

Two years later his brave wife followed him to the grave. After her death the Mount Vernon estate passed to Bushrod Washington, a nephew of the general. In 1829 it became the property of John Augustine Washington, a nephew of Bushrod. In 1832, Mrs. Jane Washington, his widow, was mistress of the estate, At her death in 1855 her son, John Augustine Washington, became possessor.

Neglect, indifference, and shiftless management now witnessed this once baronial estate going to decay. But some forty years ago the women of the United States came to the rescue of the home and tomb of Washington, and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association was incorporated, the mansion and two hundred acres passing into its hands for the sum of two hundred thousand dollars.

The present ownership and administration secure the mansion from unnecessary ravages of time and spoliation and vandalism of unworthy visitors. Each room in the main building having been assigned to a State, the lady regent of the State intrusted with its care supervising its restoration, preservation, and appropriate furnishing. In this way the rooms have been brought back in the style of the life of Washington and fitted up either with furniture used by Washington or of his times. The largest room, usually called the banquet-hall or state dining-room, is now known as the New York Room. Rembrandt Peale's “Washington before Yorktown” hangs on the west side of the room. It was given by the artist's heirs to the Mount Vernon Association. Washington is on horseback, and with him are Lafayette, Hamilton, King, Lincoln, and Rochambeau. The picture is framed in the wood of a tree that grew on the farm of Robert Morris. The military equipments used by Washington in the Braddock campaign are shown in a glass case. The only interesting thing in the New York Room, not a Washington relic, is an old British flag that belonged to General Grant. It is red silk, and so very old that it is quite in tatters, and to preserve it the Regents have had it mounted on plush and framed.

The Washington family dining-room is now the South Carolina Room. The side-board in this room is a veritable relic, used by Washington and his wife at Mount Vernon. It was presented by the wife of General Robert E. Lee, who wished it to go back in its original place.

Perhaps the most interesting relics in the house are those in the sleeping-chambers. “Lafayette's Room” has still the original four-poster, with heavy tester and hangings, and the desk and dressing-table, which served the marquis on his visits to the Washington family. The room of Nellie Custis has in it a quaint and beautiful chair which came over with Lord Baltimore, and the mirror at which she made her toilet and the steps by which she climbed into her lofty, curtained bed are still in their old places. In another room is a curious candlestick of Mrs. Washington's, an upright rod supporting a sliding cross-beam, in each end of which is a brass candlestick, the base of which, a tripod, rests upon the floor. However, the interest of the whole house centres in the room where Washington died, and in which the years have wrought no change. The bed in which he breathed his last holds its old place, and beside it is the light-stand, on which are the rings left by his medicine-glasses, unchanged since that day. The secretary at which he wrote, the hair-covered trunk in which he carried his possessions, the surveyor's tripod he had used, the cloak he threw about his shoulders when he went over the farm, the leathern chair in which he sat, are all there; and standing in that room one comes closer to the living presence of Washington than in any other place on earth.

A delightful sail takes the visitor from Mount Vernon to Alexandria, the quiet riverside hamlet which knew Washington as townsman and neighbor. Man and town came into active life together, for it was while Washington was passing from childhood into youth at Mount Vernon that the hamlet of Belhaven grew into the shire town of Alexandria.

Young George rode into town almost daily when at Mount Vernon, and when, his days as a surveyor ended, he was commissioned major in the colonial militia and appointed adjutant of the frontier district, he established his head-quarters at Alexandria, from this centre organizing the militia of the border counties, selecting drill-masters for the officers, attending and regulating musters, and thus slowly yet surely developing that command of detail and talent for organization which five-and-twenty years later transformed on Boston Heights a crude militia into a Continental army. From Alexandria, in April, 1754, a little army of one hundred and fifty men, with Washington at their head, marched off into the wilderness, with their faces turned towards the Ohio River. In August the remnant came back from the campaign. They had been forced to surrender to the French at Fort Necessity, but had marched out with the honors of war. They went into camp at Alexandria, awaiting orders, and it was at this time an incident occurred which in its sequel proved that Washington had already not only learned how to command men, but had become master of himself as well.

A bitter and exciting contest was in progress for the election of a member for the House of Burgesses. The contestants were Colonel George Fairfax and Mr. Elzey. Washington was a zealous supporter of his friend Fairfax, and in a dispute with a Mr. Payne, who was a small man, but stout-hearted and brave, he grossly insulted Payne, who promptly knocked him down with a hickory stick. He was stunned, and recovered consciousness just in time to prevent serious bloodshed. Several of his subordinate officers being present, they were about to demolish the Payne party, when he checked his angry comrades. Within a short time the regiment received news in their camp that their colonel had been knocked down. On they came with a rush into the town; but a few words from their commander, assuring them he was not hurt and that he had provoked the punishment he got, induced them to return to their quarters. The next day he sent for Payne, who came expecting serious results, but Washington offered his hand.

“Mr. Payne,” said he, “I find I was wrong yesterday, but I wish to be right today. You have had some satisfaction; and if you think that sufficient, here is my hand. Let us be friends.”

Years after the same Mr. Payne had occasion to visit Mount Vernon. “As I drew near,” said he, in narrating the incident, “I felt a rising fear lest he should call to mind the blow I had given him in former days,” but Washington met him cordially at the door, led him to the presence of Mrs. Washington, and introduced him. “Here, my dear,” said he, “here is the little man you have so often heard me talk of, and who, on a difference between us one day, had the resolution to knock me down, big as I am. I know you will honor him as he deserves, for I assure you Mr. Payne has the heart of a true Virginian.”

It was at Alexandria that, in 1755, Braddock, with Washington as aide-de-camp, made ready for his disastrous Western campaign, the half-built town becoming for the time the centre of British authority in America. Braddock left Alexandria on April 20; on July 9 he fell, and Washington, filling the mountain passes with troops, saved his fellow-colonials from ravishment by the French and Indians. Soon after this came the young colonel's marriage to the widow Custis, his resignation from the militia, the French power in Virginia being now broken, and his election to the House of Burgesses. At the same time he took an active interest in the concerns of the town growing up on the borders of his estate. He was made a member of the town council in 1766, and about the same time built an office in the village, — torn down only a few years before the Civil War, — where he transacted his business and met his friends. He was also vestryman of the parish which included Alexandria, helped to build Christ Church in 1769, and worshipped there until his death.

Following the opening of the Revolution, Washington was, of course, absent from Alexandria for many years, but when he returned from the war at Christmas, 1783, the mayor met him with an address, and thenceforth he never left home on a public mission that kindly official addresses were not exchanged with that functionary and the commonalty. Nor did the burden of weightier duties prevent him from at once resuming a helpful interest in the growth and welfare of the town. As soon as he had time to look into its affairs, he found that the lack of avenues of internal trade and the competition of the low Maryland tariff at Georgetown were crippling Alexandria. Accordingly, he at once undertook the removal of these obstructions. He helped to organize the Potomac Company,  — since merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, — which built locks around the Potomac Falls, and to avoid the discrimination which the lower duties at Georgetown made against Alexandria, he led the way to the appointment of commissioners from the two States to settle inter-State difficulties. These commissioners met at Alexandria in March, 1785, and agreed to a uniform tariff to be supported by a naval force in the Chesapeake. This was thought to invade the rights of Pennsylvania and Delaware, whose waters emptied into Chesapeake Bay, and a further conference was invited at Annapolis. Here the delegates discovered that a “more perfect union” was needed, and they called the Constitutional Convention which met at Philadelphia in 1787. Thus Alexandria claims, and rightfully, to be the cradle of the Constitution.

Soon after this, however, the town sunk into the heavy sleep that still locks it in its restful embrace, and looking from the river at its gray-black roofs, gabled, hipped, and gambreled, and covered with shingles put on before the century was young and now warped and moss-grown, or wandering through its ancient streets, cobble-paved and with grass growing all about, one loves to think that Alexandria has changed but little since Washington saw it for the last time. That was on election day in the late November of 1799, and the general, as was his custom, came early to vote. Access to the polls was by a flight of steps outside. These in the year named had become old and shaky, and when Washington reached them, he placed one foot upon them and shook the crazy ascent as if to try its strength. Instantly twenty stout arms, one above the other, grasped the stairway, and a dozen men's shoulders braced it. Nor did a man move until the venerable chief deposited his vote and returned. “I saw his last bow,” said one of them in after-years, “and it was more than kingly.”

Four weeks later the cold caught during a winter's ride over his estates had done its work, and Washington had become the noblest memory in our history.