History Lessons

George Washington was born on February 22nd, 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He was the oldest child of Mary Ball Washington and Augustine Washington and came from a very wealthy and prosperous English lifestyle and family. He lived with his family on the estate on Pope’s Creek that was alongside the Potomac River.

When he was young he was given the opportunity for a proper education for a boy of his age where he studied mathematics, the classics, surveying, and the “rules of civility”. It was in 1743 that George suffered a great loss - the death of his father. It was not long after this that he went to live with his half-brother Lawrence who lived at Mount Vernon - a plantation on the Potomac.

Lawrence was like a father figure to George because he had married into the Fairfax family - a very influential and prominent family from Virginia. It was his new family that helped to launch George’s career.

An early ambition to go to sea had been effectively discouraged by George’s mother; instead, he turned to surveying, securing an appointment in 1748 to survey Lord Fairfax’s lands in the Shenandoah Valley. He helped lay out the Virginia town of Belhaven (now Alexandria) in 1749 and was appointed surveyor for Culpeper County. George accompanied his brother to Barbados in an effort to cure Lawrence of tuberculosis, but Lawrence died in 1752, soon after the brothers returned. George inherited the Mount Vernon estate.

In 1753 the rivalry that existed between the French and the British had grown stronger and the two were fighting for control of the Ohio Valley. This rivalry eventually led to the French and Indian War (1754-1763). This gave George his chance to pursue the career that he loved and had always wanted.

He was very ambitious and it was no long before he was dispatched in October of 1753 by Governor Robert Dinwiddie to warn the French commander at Fort Le Boeuf against further encroachment on the territory that had been claimed by the British.

Washington’s diary account of the dangers and difficulties of his journey, published at Williamsburg on his return, may have helped win him his ensuing promotion to lieutenant colonel. Although only 22 years of age and lacking experience, he learned quickly, meeting the problems of recruitment, supply, and desertions with a combination of brashness and native ability that earned him the respect of his superiors.