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George Washington Trail In West Virginia
SITE I:
GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BROTHER'S TOWN --CHARLES TOWN
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Although most of the land George Washington owned was west of the mountains, it was today's Eastern Panhandle that captured his heart. Two years after George Washington began his surveying career at 16 years old, he used his salary as a surveyor to purchase five hundred and fifty acres along Bullskin Run in Jefferson County. Today, part of the Rock Hall Tract is now the location of the elegant Hillbrook Inn.
It was 1750 and the beginning of George's lifelong investment in the land that would become West Virginia. Ultimately, he and Lawrence acquired tens of thousands of acres in Jefferson County.
The area elected him to his first political office in the Virginia House of Burgesses.
Brother Charles inherited much of the acreage and established Charles Town in 1786 with streets named for family members. Today, Washington-related sites are everywhere including a half dozen homes open for occasional tours and a cave marked with his signature. Zion Episcopal Church cemetery (1852) in the center of Charles Town has almost eighty Washington family members buried there including at least three George Washington namesakes.
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