Note 62 — JOURNAL.

Honorable William Fairfax, of "Belvoir," Fairfax county, Va., was born 1691 in Yorkshire, England, where his father that year became high sheriff of the county. His father was the son of Henry Fairfax, 2d son of 4th Lord Fairfax and Anna (Harrison) Fairfax, whose sister, Eleanora Harrison, of South Cave, married in 1689, Henry Washington; their son, Richard Washington, who resided in London, was, therefore, an English cousin of Wm. Fairfax, and a correspondent both of his and of Col. George Washington's (see Washington's correspondence, in Sparks). Wm. Fairfax lost his father when quite young and was educated at his uncle's, Sir John Lowther's College. Through the influence of Capt. Fairfax, of the Royal Navy, he entered that service in 1710 and served for two years. He then joined the British army in Spain under Col. Martin Bladen, who had married a Fairfax, and was stationed at St. Helena in 1716-17, and subsequently at the Bahamas, and returned to England in October, 1717. Having married in the Bahamas, Sarah, daughter of Maj. Walker, of Nassau, she accompanied him to England. In 1718 Wm. Fairfax was sent out with Captain or Governor Woodes Rogers as chief justice to suppress the pirates infesting the West Indies. His residence was at Nassau, New Providence. The business for which he accepted office having been completed and the climate not being congenial, he in 1725 removed to New England. Here he received an appointment to the custom house at Salem, which he held until 1734. While a resident of Salem, his first wife died and was buried there. His son George William was born in Nassau, three of his children were born in Salem. Thomas, of the Royal Navy, was killed in battle; Anne married Lawrence Washington, and was the first mistress of Mount Vernon; and Sarah married John Carlyle, of Alexandria, Va., who was a major and commissary in the French and Indian war. Mr. Fairfax married, January 18, 1731, Deborah Clarke, of Salem, Mass. Her first child was Bryan, 8th Lord Fairfax, born at Salem 1732, but better known as the Rev. Bryan Fairfax, who died in 1802. In 1734 Wm. Fairfax accepted an offer, he had before declined, to remove to Virginia and act as agent for his cousin, Lord Thomas Fairfax, in the management of the vast Fairfax land estate. He at first took up his residence in Westmoreland county and remained there for several years, but afterward improved the plantation, built "Belvoir" mansion, six miles below "Mount Vernon," and removed to it. He was residing there in 1739, when Lord Fairfax first visited Virginia and made it his home for a year. Wm. Fairfax, from his high character and acquaintance with business, soon came to the front among the leading men in Virginia. Besides being agent for his cousin, he served in the assembly of Virginia, and after the death of John Blair was president of the Provincial council and collector of his majesty's customs for the South Potomac. His second wife bore him two children, besides Bryan already mentioned, William Henry, killed at the storming of Quebec in 1759; and Hannah, who married Warner Washington, cousin to George Washington. William Fairfax was a man of great executive ability and much beloved by the community. He died September 3, 1757. His wife survived him but a few years. "Belvoir" was left to George W. Fairfax and was his residence until he went to England in 1773.