Washer and Christopher Lawne represented Lawne's Plantation as burgesses in the first assembly of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the lower house of the colonial Virginia General Assembly, in 1619.
"Ensign" is a military grade or rank, not the colonist's first name, and there is some suggestion that he was a lower ranking military officer before he arrived in Virginia.
Before 1619, Ensign Washer, Captain Nathaniel Basse, and Giles Jones received patents for land along the Pagan River.
Although the area was known as Captain Lawne's Plantation and its representatives were listed as representatives from the plantation, the colonists also had named the area "Warresqueak County"[3] after the Native American tribe who lived there.
[8] Records do not show him as among the dead of the Indian massacre of 1622 nor do they list him in the muster of 1624.