Career
In 1757 after the death of his father, George William Fairfax inherited the Belvoir plantation. His cousin Lord Fairfax moved to the Shenandoah Valley in 1752, fixing his residence at Greenway Court near White Post in Clarke County, at the suggestion of Thomas Bryan Martin.
As GW Fairfax was a mentor to the young George Washington, the younger man spent considerable time at Belvoir before his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis in 1759. From letters that have survived, it seems that Washington had fallen in love with Sally Cary Fairfax before his own marriage.
George William and his wife Sally Fairfax did not have any children. They returned to England in 1773, prior to the events of the American Revolutionary War, to take care of a family property matter. Fairfax was a Loyalist. He directed his friend Washington to rent Belvoir and sell some of his property, including slaves. The Fairfaxes did not return to Virginia afterward.
In 1774 Washington wrote to GW Fairfax with an account of actions related to his business and property affairs in Virginia; with political tensions on the rise, he assured Fairfax he was keeping quiet about his friend's plans not to return to the colony. Washington also wrote of the Virginia governor's dissolution of the 1774 House of Burgesses for passing a resolution critical of his office and the Crown, and news of tensions in the northern colonies. The two men continued to correspond during the buildup to war.
Read more about this topic: George William Fairfax
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