SIX DEGREES OF KEVIN BACON With George Washington and Nicholas Fleece

George Washington's Bathtub. Copied with permission from http://www.berkeleysprings.com/trail/gwtrail-5.html

While I have a fairly lengthy travel-based bucket list, finding "the only outdoor monument to presidential bathing" on a website named Atlas Obscura has never been one of them...

It would seem that one of my ancestors, Nicholas Fleece, and The George Washington were neighbors, of the small-town sort, in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. That's what it's called now. When Nicholas and George were there, it was Bath (or Warm Springs), Virginia.

A small portion of the plat map redrawn in 1966 by Warren G. Lintz and reprinted on what I would classify as page 14B in Warm Springs Echoes, Volume One, by Fred Newbraugh, one of my early research mentors. The original was drawn in 1776 and recorded in the Berkeley County Clerks' office in 1798 according to the note at the bottom of the page. There appears to have been 131 lots on the original plat.

Nicholas owned Lot 7 and Washington owned lots 58 and 59, about four blocks apart.

Other relatives who also owned plots included Duckwalls and the Dyches. George Washington's nephew Warner Washington owned the lot down one and catty-cornered from Nicholas (lot 15.) The website for the Museum of the Berkeley Springs, which is a very good one by the way, says that people who purchased lots 6, 7 & 8 were from Berkeley and Hampshire Counties (See end notes.)

I know precious little for sure about Nicholas. There are many Fleece researchers and he seems to be the furthest back we go with proven records - his appearance on 25 Aug 1777 to purchase lot 7 at public auction. (Presumably he purchased it himself - Washington's lots were purchased by his son-in-law for him while he was out and about fighting the British.)

Many of the original lot purchases were considered Virginia colonial elite, including three signers of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, two Revolutionary War generals and a half dozen members of the Continental Congress. One has to wonder how Nicholas ended up there, a working stiff (a blacksmith, or maybe a cooper) from what is today known as Germany. (How many of you know Germany didn't exist until 1871?)

So anyway, back to George Washington's bathtub, Ancestor Nicholas and Kevin Bacon. The existing bathtub in the first photograph is not the bathtub George...or Nicholas...bathed in. I was so bummed when I read that! You know about The Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon, right? How basically everybody is connected by six degrees or less? It would be so cool to be connected to George Washington, who left no biological children.

While Washington first visited the area in 1748 as a 16 year-old surveyor with neighbor and friend George William Fairfax, there is no record that I am currently aware of the puts Nicholas Fleece in the area before the 1777 auction.

Could they have cross paths? It is believed Nicholas died in 1795 or thereabouts because he signed his property over to his son John in Kentucky; his son Jacob who lived locally, had died in 1793. Washington still owned his property in Berkeley Springs at the time of his death in 1799 as it was part of his estate.

While I would like to picture Nick & George frolicking around in the public springs together, I'm not sure how much frolilcking the road-weary General and later retired president could muster. He is reported to have made a dozen visits, and some extended family vacations there however.

http://www.berkeleysprings.com/GWarchives/index.html
This lovely site lists, by year, George Washington's connections to the area.

Nick, a tradesman, is not likely to have run into the President, in the Springs or in a pub, because they were in entirely different social circles. There would have been a division, even in the relatively small community such as it was at that time. If Washington had needed his services, someone on his staff would have most likely taken care of it.

Also, I am not aware Kevin Bacon ever visited, not that we're on a first name basis or anything, and even though there's a lovely Bed & Breakfast across the street from where Nicholas's property was.

If Kevin has visited, well, his Six Degrees connection would be closer than my connection to Nicholas -- eight generations up the Fleece line from me. *sigh*

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End Notes:
http://museumoftheberkeleysprings.com/
http://www.berkeleysprings.com/trail/index.html
https://www.mountvernon.org/
https://wvstateparks.com/park/berkeley-springs-state-park/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/george-washingtons-bathtub
Plus Wikipedia and the Library of Congress.