Through oral history we have been told that George (Wash)ington Rood/Lewis was born in Africa and was a member of the Maradi Tribe. He came to America at the age of twelve and was a slave on the Gibson/Rood plantation in Stewart Co., Georgia. There he met and married Caroline Brown and thirteen children were born to this union. Two of the children were sold to someone in South Carolina.

Upon becoming free Wash walked to South Carolina and got the two children and brought them back to Georgia. When he got home, he called his family together and proclaimed "we's no mo slave but free, no mo Rood but Lewis".