George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, to Augustine and Mary Washington at Popes Creek in the British colony of Virginia. When George was 6 years old, the family moved to the 600-acre Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia, where they grew tobacco, corn and wheat. When Augustine died in 1743, George inherited the farm and 10 slaves, although it would remain under his mother’s management until George was twenty-one years old.
At the Lower Church School in Hartfield, George studied mathematics, trigonometry, drafting and land surveying, acquring the skills of a master draftsman and map-maker. In 1749, at age 17, he received a surveyor’s license from the College of William & Mary and was appointed surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia. He began buying property, and by age 20 he owned over 2000 acres in the valley.
In 1752, England and France, vying for control of the Ohio Valley, were building forts between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. In October of the following year, Robert Dinwiddie, Virginia’s lieutenant governor, sent Washington as a special envoy to the French Fort Le Boeuf to request them to vacate land that had been claimed by England. Although given a cordial reception, by the French military, they refused his appeal and provided Washington and his delegation with food and warm clothes for their perilous 77-day return trip to Virginia during the harsh winter months. On his return, Washington filed a report providing information about the locations of some French forts and troop movements. A month or two later, Washington was appointed lieutenant colonel and second-in-command for the Virginia Regiment. This military unit ultimately confronted the French in what became known as the Battle of Jumonville, launching the French and Indian War that would eventually escalate into the Seven Years’ War.
When his half-brother, Lawrence, who owned the plantation known as Mount Vernon, died in 1752, George leased it from his half-brother’s widow and it became Washington’s principal residence. On January 6, 1759, at age 26, George married 27-year-old Martha Dandridge Custis, the widow of wealthy plantation owner Daniel Parke Custis. Although he and Martha never bore children together, they raised the children from her previous marriage. Washington continued to run the plantation and when Lawrence’s widow died in 1761, George inherited a one-third share in Mount Vernon and became one of the wealthiest men in Virginia.
The Seven Years’ War ended in 1763 closing the chapter on French expansion in America. However, in the decade that followed, tensions grew between England and the American colonies over governance, oppressive tax levies, and limits to territorial expansion. In July 1774, George Washington and George Mason drafted a list of resolutions for the Fairfax County committee which Washington chaired, and the committee adopted the Fairfax Resolves calling for a Continental Congress, and an end to the slave trade. On August 1, he attended the First Virginia Convention, and was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. Escalating tensions between England and the Colonies continued through the fall and winter until June 14, 1775 when Congress created the Continental Army. Washington’s successful military service in the British army against the French, leading up to and during the Seven Years’ War, prompted Samuel and John Adams to nominate him to become its commander-in-chief. He was unanimously elected by Congress the following day.
In late 1776, Washington and his troops were overpowered by the British army in the Battle of Long Island and beat a hasty retreat across New Jersey. Then on Christmas Day of that year, George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River and launched a surprise attack that achieved victories at Princeton and Trenton over much larger British contingents. In the years that followed, Washington continued to prevail in small battles against the British, culminating in 1781 with the surrender of the British army at Yorktown, Virginia thereby ending the Revolutionary War. When the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, the United States of America became a sovereign nation, and George Washington had become a national hero.
Realizing that the new nation lacked solidarity and perceiving it to be on the verge of “anarchy and confusion,” Washington pressed for the creation of a strong central government and constitution that would bind the country together. These efforts eventually led Congress to call for a Constitutional Convention dedicated to revising the Articles of Confederation into such a constitution. Between May 25 and September 17, 1787, George Washington was in Philadelphia presiding over this Convention, and on June 21, of the following year, the Constitution of the United States was ratified.
In 1796, George Washington became the first President of the United States by acclamation. Four years later, he was elected to a second term and at the conclusion of his presidency, was asked to serve again. However, Washington have given public service for 20 years and was eager to return to Mount Vernon, so he declined. Before retiring from public office, he spoke to his “friends and fellow-citizens” in what is known as his Farewell Address. In this famous speech, he warned of the dangers that threatened the continued existence of this new nation, including engagement in foreign wars, internal disintegration into smaller parochial factions and a bloated military. Reassuring his fellow citizens that his retiring from public service was in his and their best interest, he said:
Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.
At the end of his second presidential term, Washington returned to Mount Vernon, where he remained for two years before his death from a throat infection on December 14, 1799.
