Memory Trees–Family Trees for the Scrapbooker

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/