GEORGE WASHINGTON SIGNS AN AGREEMENT TO SETTLE A LAWSUIT, WITNESSED BY HIS NEPHEW, GEORGE AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON.
Washington, George (1732-1799) Indenture Signed, Fairfax County, Virginia, 10 February 1787. Folio-format laid paper bifolium inscribed over two pages, this superlative early legal agreement in a secretarial hand is perfectly signed by Washington and witnessed by Washington’s nephew George Augustine Washington (1759-1793), son of his youngest brother, Charles (1738-1799); with Edward Williams’s mark (an X). In this land transaction, Washington agrees to purchase ninety-one acres from Williams, paying him the sum of twenty pounds, dismissing a lawsuit against Williams, and allowing 130 pounds of tobacco to be deducted from the rent of the previous December; further, Washington agrees to allow Williams the use of the houses, garden, and fodder for his stock until the final day of May.This legal document is in wonderful condition with pristine pages and strong ink. 15 1/2 x 12 1/2 in.
George Augustine Washington (c.1758–1793) was the oldest son of GW’s brother, Charles. He served from September to November 1777 as a second lieutenant in Col. William Grayson’s Additional Continental Regiment and was appointed a cornet in Maj. Henry Lee Jr.’s Partisan Light Dragoons in April 1778. He remained out of the army until April 1780, when Congress appointed him an ensign in the 2d Virginia Regiment and GW took him on as a member of his personal guard (General Orders, 27 April 1780). He subsequently declined an offer to serve as Maj. Gen. Steuben’s aide, electing instead to serve as an aide to Major General Lafayette beginning in the summer of 1780. Ill health forced him to relinquish his duties in the autumn of 1782 and travel to the West Indies for a cure. He became GW’s Mount Vernon farm manager in 1786 and continued serving in that capacity until his death of tuberculosis in 1793. It was in this capacity that that he witnessed this fabulous agreement.