Ferry Farm History

The first European settlement of the land of Ferry Farm was in 1666 by a man named John Catlett, who had gained a land patent for a large tract. It was subdivided over the next fifty years with Augustine Washington buying the portion known as Ferry Farm in 1738 from William Strother. Augustine was already a profitable businessman, owning part of Accokeek Furnace six miles away, as well as other plantations. One of those was Mount Vernon (Little Hunting Creek), where they had just lived; another, Pope's Creek had been George's birthplace and is now a National Park Service site.

Ferry Farm was used to grow tobacco, corn, and wheat. Despite tobacco being the best cash crop in Virginia at the time, land along the Rappahannock River was poor to grow that crop and it became less of the staple of Ferry Farm as the year went by.

Augustine Washington had built the original house in 1738, now reconstructed. It was fifty-four feet wide and twenty-eight feet deep, quite large for the time period. Young George, as he grew, became a surveyor at age sixteen, and did not really appreciate Ferry Farm due its busy location. He would acquire two thousand acres by the time he could legally own Ferry Farm.

George Washington moved permanently to Mount Vernon in 1754. The Washington Ferry Farm house had been the second built on the property and was in poor condition by 1833. There would be three more structures built on the farm during its lifetime.

Photo above: Ferry Farm, circa 1900-1920. Courtesy Library of Congress.

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Life After Ferry Farm

By the time Washington had moved permanently to Mount Vernon in 1754, he had already gotten a commission to join the Virginia Militia at the suggestion of brother Lawrence, who owned Mount Vernon at the time. For two years, Washington was head of one of four militia districts, and had joined parties, as special envoy, in 1753, to demand the French leave what thought British Territory in the Ohio Valley. Once he arrived, they refused. However, that would not end the subject.

Washington would become lietenant colonel of the three hundred man Virginia Militia in February 1754, second in command and ordered by Lt. Governor Robert Dinwiddie to confront the French. This would lead to the battle of Fort Necessity. The French and Indian War had begun.

At the age of twenty-six, George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, a widow, in 1759, still working for the British in their attempt to end the final French and Indian War. They were happily married, it is said, but had no children together, raising her children and grandchildren from her previous marriage. He had inherited Mount Vernon wholly when his half-brother Lawrence passed in 1752.

Photo above: Martha and George Washington dancing at Mount Vernon after George moved there in 1754, 1904, Sherman-Brown Shoe Co. Courtesy Library of Congress. Below: President George Washington. Courtesy National Archives.

Slavery at Ferry Farm

Slavery had unfortunately been a part of the culture of Virginia since 1619 and that was true of Ferry Farm as well. There were twenty slaves on the property at the time of Washington's upbringing, some working in the fields and others in the house and gardens. There were also seven other slaves who worked other properties that Augustine and Mary owned.

Some of the slaves lived in the Ferry Farm house, as well as traveling guests once Augustine had died and Mary ran the plantation. When Mary moved into town in 1772, George Washington sold Ferry Farm.

Photo above: Guest room at Ferry Farm House, 2022, America's Best History. Below: Gardens, outbuildings, and stockade in front of Ferry Farm House, 2022, America's Best History.

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