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Rippon Lodge
Richard Blackburn (1705-1757), although
little noted in national history, stands out as a kind of “representative” man
of the colonial period in northern Virginia.
Born in Ripon, England, Blackburn came to America to make his fortune,
and according to his gravestone, because, “He was a man of consummate prudence,
frugality and indefatigable industry…he made a large fortune in a few years.” Among his other talents, Richard Blackburn
was a master builder, who built his own house, Rippon Lodge, and the first Truro
Parish church at Falls Church. It was to
master builder Richard Blackburn that George Washington’s father turned to
build a house on a bluff overlooking the Potomac River, the house that was
later to be known as Mount Vernon. The
survival of this early structure within the fabric of the present house is
confirmed by a diarist who in 1801 identified the central portion of the house
as having been “constructed by the General’s father.”
Colonel
Thomas Blackburn, the son of Richard, was the contemporary and comrade-in-arms
of George Washington. Thomas Blackburn
was a representative to the second, third, and fourth Virginia Conventions in
1775 and was elected Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Virginia Regiment in
1776. Colonel Blackburn served as an
aide on George Washington’s military staff until he received a disabling wound
at the battle of Germantown, after which he returned to Rippon Lodge, where he
continued to support the patriot cause, feeding and clothing a regiment of
Continental troops at Rippon Lodge one entire winter. In the spring he sent them back to the army
free of expense.
In the time of Col.
Thomas Blackburn, the Washington and Blackburn families were on close terms,
and George Washington’s diary speaks of his visits to the Blackburns at Rippon
Lodge, and frequently of entertaining the Blackburn family at Mount Vernon. Thomas Blackburn’s daughter Ann married George
Washington’s nephew Bushrod Washington, and a granddaughter (Jane Charlotte
Blackburn) married John Augustine Washington. These ladies of Rippon Lodge thus
became, in time, each in turn, the first lady of Mount Vernon.
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