The movement to cities did not begin until after the Industrial Revolution, and people still held the healthy notion that the country was the proper place in which to live a normal human existence.
In 1752 Lawrence Washington died.

As already stated, he was the proprietor by inheritance of Mount Vernon, then an estate of two thousand five hundred acres which had been in the Washington family since 1674, being a grant from Lord Culpeper.

Lawrence had fought against the Spaniards in the conflict sometimes known as the war of Jenkins's Ear, and in the disastrous siege of Cartagena had served under Admiral Vernon, after whom he later named his estate.

He married Anne Fairfax, daughter of Sir William Fairfax, and for her built on his estate a new residence, containing eight rooms, four to each floor, with a large chimney at each end.
[Illustration: Mount Vernon, Showing Kitchen to the Left and Covered Way Leading to It] [Illustration: _From a painting by T.P.Rossiter and L.R.Mignot_ The Washington Family] Lawrence Washington was the father of four children, but only an infant daughter, Sarah, survived him, and she died soon after him.

By the terms of his father's and Lawrence's wills George Washington, after the death of this child, became the ultimate inheritor of the Mount Vernon estate, but, contrary to the common idea, Anne Fairfax Washington, who soon married George Lee, retained a life interest.