Independence Day and the North-East

The younger daughter of the family will celebrate this 4th July working in the Land of the Free, not far from the small town in Indiana which was home to her Geordie grandmother for many years.

It was from the small town of Washington, then a village,in County Durham, that the ancestors of George Washington, the first President of the United States, emigrated to Virginia in 1657; and it was Washington who led the American Army to victory over Britain in the American Revolutionary War aka the American war of Independence (1775–1783)

So quite clearly the north-east of England played a significant role in the founding of the USA, a country that once welcomed, and was home to, the Matriarch and daughter, who schooled in Virginia, and which now plays host to the baby of the family. And she, no doubt, will recognise this bell in a clearing somewhere near Detroit.