John Washington

John Washington (1633/4–1677) was an English Virginia planter and politician. He was the immigrant ancestor and great-grandfather of George Washington, first president of the United States of America.

Early life and family
Washington, son of Lawrence Washington and Amphillis Twigden, was born at Purleigh, Essex in 1633/4. He came to own an estate situated in South Cave, East Yorkshire before he emigrated to the Colony of Virginia in 1656. He had been second officer on a merchant ship that foundered in the Potomac River, but left after the ship was refloated.

Colony of Virginia
Washington first came to Virginia in 1656 and stayed at the house of Col. Nathaniel Pope, a plantation owner. During this stay, he fell in love with his host's daughter Anne.

After his marriage to Anne Pope and the wedding gift from Anne's father of 700 acre on Mattox Creek in Westmoreland County of the Northern Neck, Washington became a successful planter. He depended on the labor of slaves and indentured servants to cultivate tobacco and kitchen crops. He was selected for the Virginia House of Burgesses and became a politician in the colony.

During the events leading to Bacon's Rebellion, Washington was appointed a colonel in the Virginia militia. He led a company to back a group of Marylanders during a planned parley with the opposition and American Indian leaders. The militia killed six chiefs of various tribes, and their peoples retaliated for the massacre in later raids and attacks against the colonists. The governor William Berkeley strongly criticized Washington for the murders of the American Indian chiefs, but colonists supported Washington in the massacre. Relations between the Indians and colonists deteriorated.

Marriage and family
He married Anne Pope in 1657.

They had three children together:
 * Lawrence Washington, born 1659;
 * John Washington II, born 1661; and
 * Anne Washington, born 1662.

After Anne Pope's death, Washington married Anne Gerrard. She also died before him. For his third wife, he married her younger sister Frances Gerrard.

Washington and his first wife Anne are buried at what is now called the George Washington Birthplace National Monument in present-day Colonial Beach, Virginia. His vault is the largest in the small family burial plot.

Legacy and honors
The name of the local parish of the Anglican Church (the established church in Virginia, and thereby a tax district of the county) was changed to Washington in his honor.