Sample

George Washington (1732-1799), President 1789-97

George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States on the balcony of Federal Hall in Wall Street, New York, on 30 April 1789 amid scenes of great jubilation. He was a reluctant President. Both before and after his unanimous election to office there were those who scurrilously suggested that he would be king. Washington did indeed have a aristocratic background. The family had held office under Henry VIII and been rewarded with lands in Northamptonshire. The family's ancestral home in Sulgrave, Northants, is now preserved as a memorial.

Washington's great grandfather John Washington emigrated to the Virginia colony in 1657, following the parliament's victory in the English Civil War and his father, Augustine Washington, maintained ties with England. He was educated there and sent his two oldest sons to school in England. However, despite his royalist ties George Washington was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Augustine was an energetic, ambitious man who overstretched himself acquiring land, building mills and opening mines. He had four children by his first wife, Jane Butler, and six by his second, Mary Ball.

George was one of the second family. He was born at his parents' farm at Pope's Creek, Virginia, on 11 February 1732 - though when the British government adopted the Gregorian calendar twenty years later this was changed to what is now officially Washington's Birthday, 22 February.

He spent his early childhood at Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg, Virginia, Little is known about his early life there. The story of him owning up to the felling of a cherry tree with the immortal line: \"Father, I cannot tell a lie\" is almost certainly apocryphal. Its source is Mason Locke Weems who published the first biography of Washington in 1800. However, the story does not appear until the fifth edition, printed in 1806, though Weems maintained he was told it twenty years before by a distant relative of Washington.

Washington's schooling was intermittent, but he became a skilled surveyor and read the classics of English literature. And a copybook in which he had transcribed the \"Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation\" at the age of fourteen has been preserved.

When George Washington was eleven, his father died leaving 5,000 acres of farm land and 22 slaves, but little else. George went to live with his half-brother Lawrence in at the 2,500 estate he had inherited and named Mount Vernon in honour of the Admiral who he had served under at the siege of Cartagena. Lawrence Washington had married into the family of Lord Fairfax, who employed the 16-year-old George to help survey his holdings in the Shenandoah Valley. Sleeping out under verminous, threadbare blankets and an encounter with a Indian party carrying scalps on this surveying trip were Washington's first tastes of adventure.

The patronage of Fairfax gave Washington access to Fairfax's extensive library and led to his appointment as official surveyor of Culpeper county.

In 1751, Lawrence contracted tuberculosis and George accompanied him to Barbados to recuperate. This was George Washington's only trip out of what was to be come the United States. Washington, himself, caught smallpox in Barbados and bore light scars of the disease on his face for the rest of his life.

Lawrence died the following year. His wife followed two months later. They had no children so, at the age of 20, George Washington inherited his beloved home Mount Vernon. He set about improving the house and extended the estate to 8,000 acres. He had increased the 18 slaves that came with the property to 49 by 1760. However, while he bought slaves, he never sold them, disapproving of trafficking in human beings. Throughout his political career, he hoped to find a way to abolish slavery - but it would take another hundred years and a bloody war to achieve that.

Washington enjoyed farming and studied new scientific methods of crop rotation and livestock management. He was a prominent member of the community and a vestryman in Episcopalian Church. For pleasure, he turned to riding, foxhunting, horse racing, dancing, billiards and cards. But all this was not enough for George. John Washington had been a celebrated Indian fighter and George has been deeply influenced by Lawrence's war stories. He longed for adventure.

In 1752, Washington was appointed adjutant of the southern district of Virginia by the governor Robert Dinwiddie - at a salary of

View Synopsis View Information Purchase Options