WASHINGTON, George (1732-1799) Autograph document signed (''Go Washington'') to John Carlyle, [Winchester, Va.], 18 April 1754.

WASHINGTON, George (1732-1799) Autograph document signed ("Go Washington") to John Carlyle, [Winchester, Va.], 18 April 1754.

One page, 145 x 192mm, docketed on verso by Washington (a few marginal chips).

En route to Fort Necessity, Washington orders his commissary to pay a Winchester, Virginia tavern keeper out of his own pay. A very early Washington document, ordering Major John Carlyle to "pay Mr. Lawrence Stephens the Sum of Sixteen pounds two shillings and sixpence by the first of July next ensuing out of my Pay". The recipient of the funds was likely Lorentz Stephan (c. 1718-1776) a German-born immigrant to Virginia who Anglicized his name to the present form (Stephens endorsed the verso of the present document as "Lorentz Stephan"). Frederick County, Virginia granted Stephens a license to keep an ordinary in July 1753 and he maintained a home near Winchester Virginia near the Great Wagon Road. (Bly, From the Rhine to The Shenandoah, Vol 3). Washington had been in Winchester for nearly a week by the time he issued this note, awaiting the arrival impressed wagons and horses which enabled him to continue the expedition to the westward. The £16-2-6 paid to Stephens was probably for supplies for his small force of 150 Virginia militia who were en route to the forks of the Ohio to contest French advances into the region. On 3 July his small force would be forced to surrender after the Battle of Fort Necessity, sparking the French and Indian War.