20 Facts About John Washington

John Washington was an English-born merchant, planter, politician and military officer.

John Washington was the first member of the Washington family to live in North America and was a paternal great-grandfather of George Washington, the first president of the United States.

John Washington was born to rector Lawrence Washington and wife Amphillis Twigden, about 1633, likely at his maternal grandparents' home in Tring, Hertfordshire.

However, as an adult, John Washington gave his age in a Virginia deposition as 45, which would put his birth two years earlier.

John Washington had been born at Sulgrave Manor near Banbury in Oxfordshire.

When John Washington was eight, his father enrolled him in Charterhouse School in London to begin preparing for an academic career, but the boy never attended the school.

In 1633 the senior John Washington had left Oxford to become the rector of All Saints Parish in Purleigh, Essex.

John Washington's widow returned to her parents' family home in Tring, Hertfordshire, and in 1655 John became administrator of his widowed mother's estate.

John Washington was apprenticed with a London merchant through the help of his Sandys relatives.

John Washington gained a valuable education in colonial trade, as England had colonies in the Caribbean and North America.

John Washington served as Master's Mate on board a tobacco ship when he first came to Virginia.

In 1656 John Washington invested with Edward Prescott in a merchant ship which transported tobacco from North America to European markets.

John Washington secured tobacco contracts in Europe, joined Prescott's ship in Denmark, and sailed as second mate for the Colony of Virginia.

In 1664, John Washington bought 100 acres on Bridges Creek near the confluence with the Potomac River, and settled there, in what is part of George John Washington Birthplace National Monument.

John Washington became a successful planter, depending on the labour of Black slaves and white indentured servants to cultivate tobacco as a commodity crop as well as kitchen crops needed to support his household and workers.

John Washington's will disposed of more than 8,500 acres of land.

John Washington served as trustee of Westmoreland County estates and guardian of children.

John Washington served alongside planters Isaac Allerton, Gerrard Fowke and his cousin Nicholas Spencer.

In 1672, John Washington received promotion to lieutenant colonel in the local militia, as relations with Native Americans again became troubled.

John Washington's vault is the largest in the small family burial plot.