A Year With George Washington
February 28th, 1657 – John Washington, George Washington’s great-grandfather, runs aground in a storm on the Potomac and decides to stay in America.
Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s great-great-grandfather and an Anglican minister, was cast out of his parish during the English Civil War under Oliver Cromwell. Being swept up in the Puritan purge, Lawrence was summarily branded one of “the scandalous and malignant priests.” To buttress their case, the Cromwellian adherents put forth the charge (most probably false) that he was “a common frequenter of alehouses.” Scandalous, indeed!
Lawrence’s son John, ascertaining which way the wind was blowing, sensed it had a distinct westerly direction and determined to seek his fortune trading tobacco from the New World to the Old. While returning to England with a cargo of the “brown gold,” as it was called, his ship ran aground in a storm on the Potomac River. Though the ship was promptly repaired and sailed to England, John decided to stay in America. A decision that would have an enormous impact on the world, and still does.
Foretelling the future of his great-grandson a century later, John would have an enormous craving for land, political wrangling, and the martial arts. John and George even shared the same Indian sobriquet – Conotocarious – meaning “Town Devourer” or “Destroyer of Villages.”
