The first recorded official document relating to the land that became the town of Washington was a land grant in the year 1735 from King George II of Great Britain to Thomas, James, and Elizabeth Kennerly. The three siblings received 1,750 acres of land located “between the mountains and the fork of the Rushy River,” in what was then Orange County, for importing six people into the colony of Virginia, payment of seven pounds five shillings of “good and lawful money,” and an annual fee of one shilling for every fifty acres of land. At this time there were virtually no Native Americans in the area and the way was open to English settlement of the Piedmont region of Virginia.