Washington

GEORGE WASHINGTON

“THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY”

BORN: February 22, 1732 in Westmorland, Virginia, British America

DIED: December 17, 1799 in Mount Vernon, Virginia, United States

SPOUSE: Martha Dandridge Custis Washington

RELIGION: Anglican/Episcopal

GEOGRE WASHINGTON

“THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY”

Introduction:

George Washington was born on February 22 “February 11, Old Style,” 1732 in Westmoreland county, Virginia and died on December 14, 1799, in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Washington was an American General and Commander in Chief of the Colonial Armies in the American Revolution War “1775–1783” and subsequently became the first president of the United States within the years “1789–1797.”

Augustine Washington, Washington’s father, attended school in England, tasted seafaring life, and then settled down to manage his growing Virginia estates. George’s mother was Mary Ball Washington, whom Augustine, a widower, had married early the previous year. Washington’s paternal lineage had some distinction; an early forebear was described as a “gentleman,” Henry VIII later gave the family lands, and its members held various offices. But family fortunes fell with the Puritan revolution in England, and John Washington, grandfather of Augustine, migrated in 1657 to Virginia. The ancestral home at Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, is maintained as a Washington memorial. Little definite information exists on any of the line until Augustine. He was an energetic, ambitious man who acquired much land, built mills, took an interest in opening iron mines, and sent his two eldest sons to England for schooling. By his first wife, Jane Butler, he had four children. By his second wife, Mary Ball, he had six. Augustine died April 12, 1743.

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 stories of the hatchet and cherry tree and of young...