_gentylman_, among younger sons was substituted.--_Lower on
Surnames_, vol i.] A parish in the county of Durham bears the name as
last written, and in this probably the ancient manor of Wessyngton was
situated. There is another parish of the name in the county of Sussex.

The branch of the family to which our Washington immediately belongs sprang
from Laurence Washington, Esquire, of Gray's Inn, son of John Washington,
of Warton in Lancashire. This Laurence Washington was for some time mayor
of Northampton, and on the dissolution of the priories by Henry VIII. he
received, in 1538, a grant of the manor of Sulgrave, in Northamptonshire,
with other lands in the vicinity, all confiscated property formerly
belonging to the monastery of St. Andrew's.

Sulgrave remained in the family until 1620, and was commonly called
"Washington's manor." [Footnote: The manor of Garsdon in Wiltshire has been
mentioned as the homestead of the ancestors of our Washington. This is a
mistake. It was the residence of Sir Laurence Washington, second son of the
above-mentioned grantee of Sulgrave. Elizabeth, granddaughter of this Sir
Laurence, married Robert Shirley, Earl Ferrers and Viscount of Tamworth.
Washington became a baptismal name among the Shirleys--several of the Earls
Ferrers have borne it.

The writer of these pages visited Sulgrave a few years since. It was in a
quiet rural neighborhood, where the farm-houses were quaint and antiquated.
A part only of the manor house remained, and was inhabited by a farmer. The
Washington crest, in colored glass, was to be seen in a window of what was
now the buttery. A window on which the whole family arms was emblazoned had
been removed to the residence of the actual proprietor of the manor.
Another relic of the ancient manor of the Washingtons was a rookery in a
venerable grove hard by. The rooks, those stanch adherents to old family