Virginia Baron

On one level of course the work is an ably told personal political biography of Thomas 6th Lord Fairfax the Baron of Cameron (1693-1781). Fairfax was heir to his grandfather Lord Culpeper's share of the Virginia Northern Neck proprietary an inheritance that ultimately enabled him to claim over five million acres. On another level the book also furnishes a bird's eye view of daily life and culture as well as political machinations on both sides of the Atlantic. Because of the circles Fairfax walked in his story brims with a cast of supporting characters like Robert King Carter William Byrd Governor William Gooch and even George Washington. By the time of Fairfax's death in 1781 only months after Cornwallis' defeat at Yorktown we come away with a complex picture of the rise and fall of a Virginia aristocrat and the social and political evolution that led the way to the American Revolution/