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206 father. Renewing, it is supposed, a passing acquaintance, he was captivated with Mary Ball and married her. They returned to this country and to his Westmoreland plantation of Wakefield on the Potomac, where George Washington, their son, was born February n, 1732. In 1735 their dwelling was burned to the ground. Instead of rebuilding upon the site of the old homestead, Augustine Washington removed to his plantation "Pine Grove," in Stafford County, upon the Rappahannock River, opposite Fredericksburg, where he died August 12, 1743, aged forty-nine years. They took him back to Westmoreland County, and laid him in the family vault at Wakefield, and the widowed mother returning to the home thus suddenly bereft of its honored head, gathered about her the fatherless children and "took up with both hands life as God had made it for her." Her own five, and the two little lads who had been left to her guardianship, with their several estates, were a burden and responsibility to appall the stoutest heart; but she shrank not from it, and so faithfully and judiciously did she carry the burden, that she won and retained the affection and respect of all till her life's end—turning over, with added value, the shares of her step-sons' property when they arrived at maturity. We know with what care and judgment she trained her own eldest born for usefulness; how her wisdom and firmness kept him from service on a British man-of-war, and saved him to his country. The civil engineer of sixteen years of age soon became the brave and successful soldier and officer, and defender and hope and pride of his country—the great General who struggled through eight weary years of war to its triumphant close. Early in the struggle her son earnestly entreated her to leave her plantation of "Pine Grove," and take refuge in the town for better protection and safety, which she finally but reluctantly did, establishing herself in a snug home near her only daughter, Betty (Mrs. Fielding Lewis),