7 George Washington 7

George Washington

(b. Feb. 22 [Feb. 11, Old Style], 1732, Westmoreland County, Va.,
U.S.—d. Dec. 14, 1799, Mount Vernon, Va.)

A

general and the commander in chief of the colo-
nial armies in the American Revolution (1775–83),
George Washington subsequently became the first
president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. So
great were his contributions to the founding of the
United States that he is known simply as the Father of
His Country.

Childhood and Youth

Little is known of George Washington’s early childhood,
spent largely on the Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock
River, opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia. Mason L.
Weems’s story of the hatchet and cherry tree is an apocry-
phal effort to fill an obvious gap. When Washington was
11, his father, Augustine, died, and he became the ward of
his eldest half brother, Lawrence, on whose 2,500-acre
(1,000-hectare) estate, Mount Vernon, he lived (though
he spent some time near Fredericksburg with his other
half brother, Augustine). Washington attended school
irregularly and at age 16 became a surveyor. Upon the
death of both Lawrence and his daughter in 1752,
Washington inherited Mount Vernon, becoming, at age
20, head of one of the best estates in Virginia. For the next
20 years, his life revolved around the work and society of
the estate. Although he strongly disapproved of slavery
and hoped for some mode of abolishing it, at the time of
Washington’s death, more than 300 slaves were housed in
the quarters on his property—although he is said to have
given them exemplary treatment.