Thomas Fairfax
6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693-1781)
Owner of 2.5 million acres, from which Clermont came
Thomas Fairfax was the ultimate sole inheritor of a grant by King Charles II of 5.2 million acres in Virginia, the Northern Neck Proprietary between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. He became Virginia’s largest land developer, making grants to working farmers rather than rich speculators, often in the 350–500-acre range. To get a land agent he trusted, Lord Fairfax brought his cousin William Fairfax down from Massachusetts and then moved to Virginia in 1752 (the only British peer to live permanently in North America). He lived first near Alexandria with his cousin William’s family at their Belvoir Plantation (now US Army Fort Belvoir) and then, in 1752 and until his death in 1781, at Greenway Court in what is now Clarke County, VA, eleven miles from Clermont, where his stone Land Office still exists.
When Lord Fairfax’s cousin William died in 1757 and William’s son George William Fairfax took over the land agent’s duties. George William’s sister Anne married George Washington’s half-brother Lawrence. George William became a good friend of George Washington, and his uncle, Lord Fairfax, became Washington’s mentor at about the age of 16, providing training in surveying, which led to Washington’s first employment. When Washington qualified as a surveyor, and Lord Fairfax sent “warrants for survey” for assignment to surveyors, George William Fairfax, as agent, favored George Washington and sent them to him.
So when Lord Fairfax told John Vance in 1750 (who had been squatting on what became Clermont since 1742) that he either had to pay for and get a warrant for survey or get off the land, Mr. Vance chose to survey. Lord Fairfax notified George William Fairfax, who wrote up several warrants on Oct. 13, 1750, and assigned them all to George Washington, who promptly came out from Mount Vernon on Oct. 19 (Saturday) and performed the surveys, creating Clermont in the process.
Warrant for survey from Lord Fairfax’s agent, George William Fairfax, October 13, 1750, sent to “Mr. G. Washington” to execute John Vance’s request for “about 400 acres of waste and ungranted land where he lives near Isaac Pennington’s, 8 years seated, and, desiring a warrant to survey ……”
