DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, most folks passing through Grayson County might not give a second glance to a historical marker sitting quiet by the roadside. But this one — this one carries a name that'll stop you cold if you let it sink in.
L. A. Washington, Jr.
And his wife, Martha A. The marker calls him a grandnephew of George Washington — that George Washington — and notes that George Washington himself had been guardian of L. A.'s father.
Let that settle for a moment. The man who crossed the Delaware, the man whose face is on the dollar bill, was the legal guardian of this man's father. That's not a rumor, not a tall tale somebody stitched together around a campfire.
That's what the marker says. L. A.
Washington, Jr. was a doctor. And in 1849, he came to Texas. Now, he didn't come empty-handed.
He brought with him an inaugural suit and personal letters of George Washington. Personal letters. Whatever those letters contained, whatever was written in that hand, L.
A. Washington, Jr. carried them into Texas in 1849, tucked away with a suit fit for an inauguration. Martha A.
Washington came from a noted West Virginia family — her own roots running deep and distinguished in their own right. Two families, two legacies, settling into Grayson County. The marker doesn't give us the ending of their story, just the arrival.
But sometimes that's enough — a doctor riding into Texas with history folded in his luggage, and nobody around him knowing quite what he was carrying.
What the marker says
Grandnephew of George Washington, who had been guardian of L. A.'s father; was a doctor; came to Texas 1849 with inaugural suit, personal letters of George Washington. Wife came from noted West Virginia family. Recorded, 1968