History of Mount Vernon

Washington died in 1677, his son Lawrence, George Washington's grandfather, inherited his father's stake in the property. In 1690, he agreed to formally divide the estimated 5,000 acre (20 km) estate with the heirs of Nicholas Spencer, who had died the previous year. The Spencers took the larger southern half bordering Dogue Creek in the September 1674 land grant from Lord Culpeper, leaving the Washingtons the portion along Little Hunting Creek. (The Spencer heirs paid Lawrence Washington 2,500 lb (1,100 kg) of tobacco as compensation for their choice.)

Augustine Washington (1694–1743)

Lawrence Washington died in 1698, bequeathing the property to his daughter Mildred. On April 16, 1726, she agreed a one-year lease on the estate to her brother Augustine Washington, George Washington's father, for a peppercorn rent; a month later the lease was superseded by Augustine's purchase of the property for £180. He almost certainly built the original house on the site some time between then and 1735, when he and his family moved from Pope's Creek to Eppsewasson, which he renamed Little Hunting Creek. The original stone foundations of what appears to have been a two-roomed house with a further two rooms in a half-story above are still partially visible in the present house's cellar.

Lawrence Washington (1718–52)

Augustine Washington recalled his eldest son Lawrence (George's half-brother) home from The Appleby School, England, in 1738 and set him up on the family's Little Hunting Creek tobacco plantation, thereby allowing Augustine to move his family back to Fredericksburg at the end of 1739.

In 1739, Lawrence, having reached his majority (age 21), began buying up parcels of land from the adjoining Spencer tract,