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It is pretty common knowledge that Washington, DC was named after the United States' first President, George Washington, and founded in 1791.
However, is there any other place, in the United States, that held this name prior to that time?
Inspired by this question on another Stack Exchange.
According to this article from the Free Lance-Star (referencing American Philatelist), there were seven other US towns called "Washington" that were established prior to Washington D.C.
It indicates that Washington, Virginia was the oldest to be surveyed and populated in 1749 (although it only achieved 'town' status in the 1790s) and Washington, North Carolina was the first to achieve town status (e.g. a population over 200) in 1776.
is their any other place that could have held this moniker prior to that time?
Yes. Washington (population 67,000) is a town in historic County Durham in England. The earliest extant references to it appear in Old English and date to 1096. As your question didn't specify that the place had to be within the United States, this would be the oldest place with this moniker, and the origin of the surname. Washington Old Hall is the family home of George Washington's ancestors.
The very George Washington's surname suggests that his ancestors originated from a similarly called place in England.
Washington, Georgia claims to be the "first city in the nation to be established in the name of George Washington, 1780".
There is a village called Washington in West Sussex, England. According to the Washington Parish Council:
Its name – first recorded in 947 AD – means, in Old English, ‘Homestead of Wassa’s people’.
This etymology (home of Wassa) is also the etymology of the name of President Washington and thus also Washington DC. The fact that the etymology is the same, however, does of course not imply that George Washington himself originates from this particular village.
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This is a very interesting discussion! Here is a place you may not be aware of: Washington Bottom, a rural community in present-day Wood County, West Virginia, was land granted to George Washington for his service in the the French and Indian War. Washington visited the area in 1770, and saw "he saw a bottom of 'exceeding good land' and thought there might be two or three thousand acres of bottom and flat land together."
He had his agent Col. William Crawford survey it for him in the summer of 1771. Washington received a grant for this survey from the governor of Virginia in Dec 1772. Col. Crawford reported at the time that they were having a hard time keeping squatters from settling on the land, and recommended hiring men to live on it. Col. Crawford and his brother Valentine became Washington's agents to start a settlement there.
They started clearing/building on it for Washington late in 1774, but with the onset of the Revolutionary War, the few who had settled there were driven out and structures burned. Raids by Indian allies of the British kept them out until the end of the war. The area began to be settled again after the end of the war, although not intensively due to continued raids by Indians until 1793. However, there was a permanent settlement by 1785. A blockhouse called Neal's Station was built south of the Little Kanawha River, at the north end of Washington Bottom, in that year. And, "In a letter written to Thomas Freeman in 1785, he referred to it as the tract 'commonly called and distinguished by the name of Washington Bottom.'" Settlement picked up after General Wayne's ruthless campaign of extermination in 1793 drove the Indians out of the area.
The land was bequeathed to an heir of George Washington after his death, Betty Carter; she sold it to associates of the Washingtons from the Loudoun/Fairfax County Virginia area, who moved their whole extended families there. So when would you say this place was started, or named? And was it named for George Washington, or by him?
Information from History of Washington Bottom,http://www.wvculture.org/history/agrext/washbott.html
United States. I think that would explicitly imply I am asking about that country, no?