After the service there was more "visiting together" in the churchyard, and the men had business transactions to make.

Near the church there was a spring, and a kiln where the bricks had been burned for the church when it was built in 1706.

Mary Ball lived among the gentle people of this region until she was married. There are no early portraits of Mary Ball, but tradition says that at the time of her marriage she was "a healthy orphan of moderate height, rounded figure and pleasant voice, aged 23."

_AUGUSTINE_

Augustine Washington was "connected by marriage" with Colonel Eskridge.

He probably met Mary Ball on one of his visits to Sandy Point.

Sandy Point was an ideal place for romance but there is not even a traditional account of the courtship of Mary Ball. Even the scene of her marriage is not known, but it was probably at Sandy Point or at the Bonum home. Mary Ball and Augustine Washington were married by the Reverend Walter Jones, on March 6, 1731. Ministers at that time usually received "for marriage two shillings."

Mary's new husband was "blond, of fine proportion, great physical strength and stood six feet in his stockings, and had a kindly nature."

He was called Gus by his friends.

Gus took his bride to his home on Popes Creek, in upper Westmoreland County. Mary was not the first mistress at Popes Creek, for Augustine had been married before, to Jane Butler, half-sister to Colonel Eskridge's second wife. Jane had been dead for about three years.

At Popes Creek now there were the servants and little Jane, who was about nine years old. Augustine's other two children were teen-age boys, Lawrence and Augustine, who were then at Appleby's School in England.

Gus himself had been educated at that school.

Augustine Washington, while not a man of great wealth, owned land and buildings in at least three counties, and he was part owner of two iron furnaces. He was prominent in his community, having held at various times the positions of Justice of Westmoreland County court, Captain in the county militia, Sheriff of Westmoreland County, and he was a vestryman in the church. Although he was not one of the wealthiest planters in the Northern Neck, he was on an equal footing with them socially.

_POPES CREEK_

When Mary came to Popes Creek to live she had some housefurnishings of her own to bring with her. There was the feather bed, and her mother had left her a bedstead to go with it, a quilt and a pair of blankets. She had also left Mary two table-cloths "marked M. B. with inck," two pewter dishes, two basins, one large iron "pott," one frying pan, one "Rugg"

and "one suit of good curtains and fallens" (valance). It must have been with great joy that Mary arranged these things in her own home.

The house at Popes Creek was not a magnificent residence such as Stratford Hall or King Carter's manor at Corotoman. It is believed to have been "a simple abode," but it was comfortable and it had a quality that was lacking in the splendid mansions--it was homely. It was the kind of place where a planter could sit with his family in the evening and feel close to them and close to his earth.

The house was situated on the west side of Popes Creek, about three-quarters of a mile from the point where the creek emptied into the Potomac. About a mile to the northwest was the last habitation of John Washington, the immigrant, and near it was the family burying ground.

Augustine had bought his tract of one hundred and fifty acres of land on Popes Creek from Joseph Abbington in 1718. David Jones, a local builder and undertaker, had contracted to build the home for five thousand pounds of tobacco with extra amounts in cash for incidentals. He was probably assisted by Augustine's slaves and indentured servants. The house was completed and occupied by Augustine and his first wife about 1726, so it was still rather new when Mary came to live there.

Mary probably found it not too difficult to assume her duties as mistress of the plantation for the farm activities at Popes Creek were about the same as those she had known before her marriage on the plantations in lower Westmoreland.

Many years later the Popes Creek plantation became known as Wakefield.

_THE WAR PATH_

The Shenandoah Valley was the historic war trail of the Six Nations of Indians of the north in their warfare with the southern Indian tribes.

These wars had commenced before the settlement of Jamestown. There is no evidence to show that the Valley was inhabited to any extent by Indians immediately before the coming of the white man to the New World.

Scattered burial mounds prove that Indians lived there at an early period but their history has been lost.

Governor Spotswood believed that this migration of Indian warriors from north to south would hold back the settlement of Virginia. He called a conference which was attended by the northern Indians and the governors of New York and Pennsylvania, and himself and other representatives from Virginia. At this conference the Indians were persuaded to limit their travel. In the Treaty of Albany, signed in 1722, the northern Indians promised to let the southern Indians live in peace, and agreed that their warriors would not cross Virginia without a passport. Disregard of this treaty was punishable with death or transportation to the West Indies and sale into slavery.

Governor Spotswood bound the bargain by dramatically handing the interpreter his "golden-horseshoe," which had been pinned at his breast, and bidding him to give it to the speaker and to tell him that "there was an inscription on it which signified that it would help him to pass over the mountains; and that when any of their people should come to Virginia with a pass, they should bring that with them."

After this treaty was signed the Northern Neck could be opened to settlers westward. And the planters could now patent immense tracts of land.

_FALMOUTH_

About this time there was considerable trade between the Northern Neck and both Ireland and Scotland. It has been said that Virginia tobacco helped Glasgow, Scotland, to prosperity. A street in that city was named for Virginia, and at one time Virginia merchants "thronged that street and were regarded with such respect that other men gave way that they might pass." Among these gentlemen were some of the planters from the Potomac. In 1720 George Mason III, was given the freedom of the city of Glasgow, in the form of a parchment "Burgess Ticket."

Falmouth, in Stafford County, was founded in 1727 by Scotch merchants.

Boats from Scotland came directly to this trading village situated near the head of the Rappahannock River. Something of this once thriving trading center of the Neck is told in a letter written by a visitor by the name of Ellen Gray. The undated letter was written to her friend, Rose Douglas of Loch Lomond, Scotland. It says:

"Dear Rose:

"Falmouth is on a river that empties into Chesapeake Bay. The houses are perched on declivities and hills. There are mills. I love water wheels when they glisten.... We saw scenery much wilder than any in Scotland. It consisted of islands in the Rappahannock, lying above Falmouth. We gazed on them from a long plank bridge. What a pity the Virginians will span their streams with plank instead of stone! A stone bridge overgrown with moss is a bewitching sight. Several Scotch families have lived in Falmouth, tho the place is called Fal from a river in England. Among its most successful merchants was Basil Gordon.

He arrived a poor boy in Falmouth. He died a millionaire after a life of patient industry."

Basil Gordon is believed to have been one of America's first millionaires.

_BURNT HOUSE FIELD_

It was a cold night in January, 1729. Thomas Lee was ready to go to bed.

He had probably checked the doors and windows and all seemed well at Matholic.

His family were already asleep but perhaps Thomas lingered awhile, thinking about his new home, Stratford, which he was building on his own plantation twenty miles away. How good, he may have thought, it would be to have something of his own. For Matholic, this ancestral Lee estate in Westmoreland where he was now living, did not belong to Thomas. He was leasing it from his older brother, the third Richard Lee.

Thomas Lee was a younger son and therefore he had received little in the way of a heritage; even his education had been neglected. His older brothers had received the customary classical education, while Thomas learned only reading, spelling and ciphering, probably from an indentured servant. He had been ashamed of his lack of education. To pass in the elegant society to which his family were accustomed it was necessary to have a knowledge of Latin and Greek. After he was a mature man he studied long hours alone until he had mastered these subjects.

Thomas' father, the second Richard, had thrown at least one crumb in the direction of his younger son. When he was compelled by age to resign as naval officer of the Potomac, in 1710, the elder Lee persuaded Governor Alexander Spotswood to give this post to his son, Thomas. So, before he was twenty-one, Thomas was reporting on the maritime trade of his district, and collecting fees from the ships' captains.

Through his uncle, Edmund Jenings, Thomas had acquired the position of manager of the Northern Neck proprietary. His uncle, who was then in England, had a lease on the proprietary at that time. Thomas had opened a land office at Matholic. He also traveled on horseback all over the Northern Neck so that in this way he well knew the lands of that vast domain.

By the time Thomas was established, and thirty-two years old, his thoughts turned to marriage. He went "a-courting" down at Green Spring, near Jamestown, and won the hand of young Hannah Harrison Ludwell. When Hannah came as a bride to Matholic she added to the family fortune with her dowry of six hundred pounds sterling.

Things were going well with Thomas Lee. Now, on this winter's night, he probably went up to bed with a contented mind.

Sometime during the night Thomas awoke suddenly to find the house in flames around him. He shook Hannah and they grabbed up the children from their beds and started for the stairs only to find that it was too late to get down that way. The heat was hot on his back when he helped Hannah over the window sill and watched her fall to the ground--fifteen feet.

He dropped his small children and then jumped himself. Just in time, too, for he was hardly on the ground before the roof caved in--too late to save the twelve-year-old white servant girl who was asleep in the house.

Shivering in their night clothes the family watched the barns and outbuildings burn to the ground, shocked into silence by the loss of the little servant.

Later the ashes of the house were searched for Hannah's silver. When not a trace of it was found the origin of the fire seemed evident--burglars had broken in, stolen the silver and other valuables, and then set fire to the house.

The villians who burned the house were never caught. There were at large a number of English convicts who had been transported to Westmoreland as indentured servants. They had joined together and formed a lawless gang--they frightened and robbed the citizens of the countryside. Thomas Lee in his line of duty as a local magistrate had no doubt at some time given them reason to want revenge. These convicts may have burned the house.

As naval officer of the Potomac, Thomas had to prevent smuggling. A year before Matholic was burned his life was threatened by the crew of the _Elizabeth_. No doubt some of his enemies made in the line of his duties were at the bottom of this outrage. At any rate the Lords of Trade in London thought so, for they sent him a bounty, three hundred pounds of which was from the privy purse of Queen Caroline. Tradition says that this bounty helped Thomas Lee to finish building his home, Stratford.

In the meantime he built another house on the Matholic estate at a spot removed from the original house. The new house was called Mt. Pleasant.

The site of the destroyed house was ever after known as Burnt House Field. It was used as a family burying ground.