The home of Washington Author:Benson John Lossing Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: men of the medal I have ever seen is in my own possession, from which the engraving was made. THB VERNON MEDAL. Lawrence intended to go to England, join th... more »e regular army, and seek preferment therein; but love changed his resolution and the current of his life, for "Love rules the court, tho camp, the grove, And man below, and saints above." Beautiful Anne, the eldest daughter of the Honorable William Fairfax, of Fairfax county, became the object of his warm attachment, and they were betrothed. Their nuptials were about to be celebrated in the spring of 1743, when a sudden attack of gout in the stomach deprived Lawrence of his father. But the marriage took place in July. All thoughts of military life as a profession passed from the mind of Lawrence, and, taking possession of his Hunting Creek estate, he erected a plain, substantial mansion upon the highest eminence along the Potomac front of his domain, and named the spot Mount Veenon, in honor of the gallant admiral. In that mansion Lawrence resided until his death, and but little change was made in its appearance from the time when it came into the possession of his brother George by inheritance, until the close of the Old War for Independence. It has been described as a house of the first class then occupied by thrifty Virginia planters; two stories in height, with a porch in front, and a chimney built inside, at each end, contrary to the prevailing style. It stood upon a most lovely spot, on the brow of a gentle slope which ended at a thickly- wooded precipitous river bank, its summit nearly one hundred feet above the water. Before it swept the Potomac with a magnificent curve, its broad bosom swarming with the graceful swan, the gull, the wild duck, and smaller water-fowl; and beyond lay the green fields and sh...« less