The Mount Vernon Lease George Washington's forty-five-year tenure as master of Mount Vernon began on December 17, 1754, when he entered into an agreement to lease the estate from the widow of Lawrence Washington, his elder half brother. Lawrence had died two years earlier, leaving his wife, Ann, with a life interest in his Mount Vernon property. She soon remarried and moved away, choos- ing, after considerable negotiations, a most logical tenant for Mount Vernon, her brother-in-law George, who was next in line as heir to the property. The original deed of lease onto which both parties "set their heads & seals" was purchased by the Association this year with a generous grant from the Kohler Company of Wisconsin. The acquisition of this landmark docu- ment completes the Association's collection of land title papers that trace the descent of the Mount Vernon property from the time of Colonel John Washington in 1674 to his great-grandson George Washington [see box). Although the Mount Vernon land had been in the Washing- ton family for three generations, it was George Washington's father, Augustine, who seems to have been the first member of the family to live on the property. In 1735, he built a house overlooking the Potomac River and brought his second wife and their young family, including three-year-old George, to live on what was then called the Little Hunting Creek Plantation. The Washingtons remained in residence for about five years, after which time -Augustine deeded the plantation to his eldest son, Lawrence. When Augustine died in 1743, the gift of the prop- erty was confirmed in his will. Lawrence settled at the plantation, renaming it "Mount Vernon" in honor of his former naval commander, and soon married Ann Fairfax, the daughter of his prominent neighbor William Fairfax of Belvoir. George Washington, the eldest son of his father's second marriage, was only eleven when his father died. He spent much of his adolescence at Mount Vernon and looked to Lawrence, a well-connected planter and military officer, as his role model. Lawrence's death from tuberculosis in July of 1752 was perhaps the greatest blow in George's young life, but significantly, it opened up the opportunity for him to begin a military career. He took over one of the districts that Lawrence had overseen as
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