1732-1799

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

One might shrink from writing on such a subject as General Washington
were it not desirable to keep his memory and deeds perpetually fresh in
the minds of the people of this great country, of which he is called the
Father,--doubtless the most august name in our history, and one of the
grandest in the history of the world.

Washington was not, like Franklin, of humble origin; neither can he
strictly be classed with those aristocrats who inherited vast landed
estates in Virginia during the eighteenth century, and who were
ambitious of keeping up the style of living common to wealthy country
gentlemen in England at that time. And yet the biographers of Washington
trace his family to the knights and squires who held manors by grant of
kings and nobles of England, centuries ago. About the middle of the
seventeenth century John and Lawrence Washington, two brothers, of a
younger branch of the family, both Cavaliers who had adhered to the
fortunes of Charles I., emigrated to Virginia, and purchased extensive
estates in Westmoreland County, between the Potomac and the Rappahannock
rivers. The grandson of one of these brothers was the father of our
hero, and was the owner of a moderate plantation on Bridges Creek, from
which he removed, shortly after the birth of his son, George, in 1732,
to an estate in Stafford County, opposite Fredericksburg.

It was here that the early years of Washington were passed, in sports
and pleasures peculiar to the sons of planters. His education was not
entirely neglected, but beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, his