Descendant of George Washington?

-In a history book I'm reading, the section about John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry includes the following sentence: "Taking several hostages, including one descendant of George Washington, Brown's brigade occupied the arsenal."



But wait a minute! George Washington didn't have any kids, so how can he have descendants? Is that a completely incorrect statement, or can "descendant" have other meanings? I assume it's referring to a descendant of one of his step-children or his nephew. Can they correctly be referred to as his descendants?You are correct he had no children. He did have nieces and nephews and the reference is to a relative of George Washington. History Books are know to not have been written by historians and to take liberties with details. You have just proved how important knowing histories is when researching Genealogy. I have found several pedigree charts online that indicate that a relative was involved in this or that historical event, when that is totally impossible because the dates or place of the event do not match to the events of the persons life (birth and death or where they lived)
Good for you... he has no actual descendents.

What it might have meant is relatives. His siblings had children. History books take liberties sometimes, or are poorly documented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown%鈥?/a>

more details here although no specific list of the 60 prominent persons. It mentions some gates designed by George Washington in the article. Perhaps you could be the digger to delve more deeply to find the exact connection to the raid and history.