CHARLES TOWN — Long before it was incorporated in 1801, Jefferson County was already becoming a location of note, both for its excellent agricultural prospects and for the influential people who came to the area to take advantage of them.

Among those people was the future, first president of the United States.

“The first member of the family to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains was George Washington who, at age 16, as part of a surveying party for Lord Fairfax, came across the Blue Ridge into what is now Jefferson County, West Virginia,” said Walter Washington, referring to Thomas Fairfax, who owned the Northern Neck Proprietary in the Colony of Virginia. “He was so impressed by the quality of the soil, the fertility of the soil and the abundance of water that we have — we have two rivers a

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