Lawrence Berry Washington

Lawrence Berry Washington (November 26, 1811 – September 21, 1856) was an American lawyer, military officer, author, Forty-niner, border ruffian, and a member of the Washington family. Washington was born on his family's Cedar Lawn plantation near Charles Town, Virginia (present-day West Virginia) and was the eldest of 13 children. He practiced law, then served as a second lieutenant in the Virginia Volunteers during the Mexican–American War. During his service in the war, Washington reportedly wore the sword of his great-granduncle George Washington.

Following the Mexican–American War, Washington traveled to California in 1849 as a Forty-niner in the California Gold Rush and authored the novel, A Tale to be Told Some Fifty Years Hence. Washington then relocated east to Missouri in the 1850s, where he remained for a few years and fought as a Border Ruffian during the Bleeding Kansas confrontations over slavery along the border between Kansas Territory and Missouri. While under the command of Captain Henry Clay Pate, Washington was present at the June 1856 Free-Stater attack known as Battle of Black Jack, where he sustained minor injuries. Washington died by drowning after falling overboard from a steamboat on the Missouri River in September 1856. His family's descendants claim Washington was murdered by Jayhawkers.

Washington was a great-grandson of Samuel Washington, a great-grandnephew of first President of the United States George Washington, a great-grandson of Robert Rutherford, a United States House Representative from Virginia, and a nephew of Henry Bedinger III, also a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.