24, 1794, was proved on October 1, 1798. In it, he bequeathed his Greenway Court estate and an adjoining to his housekeeper Betsy Powers. Powers also inherited "all houses thereon, household goods (except plate and watch), one half of stock of horses, cattle, sheep and hogs and choice of ten slaves". Martin's living sisters Frances, Sybilla, and Anna Susanna Martin received "all moneys, and remainder of personal property" not bequeathed to Powers. Each of the executors of Martin's will received ten guineas. Martin bequeathed the remainder of his property and the of Greenway Court, should Powers have predeceased him, to his will executors Gabriel Jones, Robert Mackey, and John Sherman Woodcock to divide into parcels and sell, the profits from which were to be given to Martin's sisters. Powers also received a chariot, harness, and in Stafford County near Falmouth. Following Martin's death, Powers married W. Carnagy. As litigation in Virginia proceeded, Martin's brother Denny Fairfax did not want to move there to defeat the escheat actions. Instead, he negotiated with James Markham Marshall, who visited England in the winter of 1793, and represented a Marshall family coalition that wanted to buy the Leeds Manor and South Branch tracts, but did not have financing. After John Marshall negotiated a deal and the Virginia General Assembly passed a law, the Marshall group secured temporary financing, so on August 30, 1797, Martin conveyed title to "all and every of those divers tracts, pieces and parcels of land, being part and parcel of the proprietary of the Northern Neck of Va., with all beneficial right and interest of whatsoever nature the same may be". The Marshall group then conveyed its interest in the undeveloped lands to the Commonwealth of Virginia. These conveyances would terminate the Fairfax and Martin families' interest in the proprietary. In 1799, the Virginia General Assembly authorized Marshall as the legal titleholder of Fairfax's remaining landholdings. However, the Marshall coalition did not complete their final payment until 1806, when the Northern Neck Proprietary was officially dissolved and Virginia again became legal owner of the undeveloped lands. Proprietor Adam Stephen, a close personal friend of Martin, had the town of Martinsburg in Berkeley County formally established by the Virginia General Assembly in 1778. Stephen named the town in honor of his friend Martin. References Bibliography External links 1731 births 1798 deaths 18th-century American Episcopalians 18th-century American landowners 18th-century American politicians American