Life
He was the son of Bryan Fairfax and Elizabeth Cary, sister of Sally Fairfax. George Washington and Martha Washington who traveled to Towlston Grange after his birth to stand as his godparents. Ferdinando was also the heir to George William Fairfax.
He was a justice of the peace for Jefferson County, Virginia and was, at the same time, the largest slave owner in the County.
From the 1770s to 1780s, several people developed plans as possible ways of abolishing slavery. Fairfax offered his "practicable scheme" for resolving this enduring dilemma when he developed his “Plan for Liberating the Negroes within the United States” in 1790. All of these plans were similar in that they wanted the abolition of slaves to be gradual, they wanted the government to compensate the slave owners for the lost property, and they wanted to colonize the freed slaves in a separate place from the white society.
He later squandered his inheritance on visionary schemes and squatters lawsuits.
Ferdinando married his first cousin Elizabeth Blair Cary, daughter of Wilson Miles Cary and Sarah Blair. The couple had children: George William Fairfax (born November 5, 1797), who married Isabella McNeil; Wilson Miles Cary Fairfax, who married Lucy Griffeth; Farinda Fairfax, who married Perrin Washington; Mary Fairfax; Sally Fairfax; Ferdinando Fairfax II, who married Mary Jett; Christiana Fairfax, who married Thomas Ragland; William Henry Fairfax; Thomas Fairfax; Archibald Blair Fairfax.
Donald McNeill Fairfax was his grandson.
Read more about this topic: Ferdinando Fairfax
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The touchstone for family life is still the legendary “and so they were married and lived happily ever after.” It is no wonder that any family falls short of this ideal.”
—Salvador Minuchin (20th century)
“Your Christians, whom one persecutes in vain, have something in them that surpasses the human. They lead a life of such innocence, that the heavens owe them some recognition: that they arise the stronger the more they are beaten down is hardly the result of common virtues.”
—Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)