Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1899 — WASHINGTON A RICH MAN. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON A RICH MAN.

Owned Thousands of Acres of Land and Stock* and Negroes. When Washington died he was one of the richest men of his time. He owned lands and stock and negroe,s, and his estates amounted to .thousands of acres. He had houses in Alexandria, Va„ and property in Washington. He had valuable lands near the present site of Pittsburg. He was throughout his life a money maker, and when he was a boy he got $5 a day and upward for his surveying. He put his surplus money into lands, and an advertisement in a Baltimore paper of 1773 states that he had 20,000 acres of land for sale on the Ohio river. His will, which is now kept about twenty miles from Washington, in the safe of the old court house at Fairfax, Vn., gives a detailed statement of every article he possessed down to the calves aud sheep. His personal estate was then put down at $532,000, and this included a vast amount of tobacco, large numbers of cattle, sheep nnd horses, nearly all Of which he willed to his wife. This will is now kept in a wooden box, the top of which is covered with glass. It was torn in two some time ago by some careless sightseer, and since then no one'lias been allowed to handle it. The account books which are kept in the State Department show that Washington was very careful about keeping a record of his expenditures. He put down everything.