George Washington, the third son of Augustine Washington, was born on
the 22d of February, 1732, near the banks of the Potowmac, in the
county of Westmoreland, in Virginia. His father first married Miss
Butler, who died in 1728; leaving two sons, Lawrence and Augustine. In
1730, he intermarried with Miss Mary Ball, by whom he had four sons,
George, John, Samuel and Charles; and one daughter, Betty, who
intermarried with Colonel Fielding Lewis, of Fredericksburg.

His great grandfather, John Washington, a gentleman of a respectable
family, had emigrated from the north of England about the year 1657,
and settled on the place where Mr. Washington was born.

At the age of ten years he lost his father. Deprived of one parent, he
became an object of more assiduous attention to the other; who
continued to impress those principles of religion and virtue on his
tender mind, which constituted the solid basis of a character that was
maintained through all the trying vicissitudes of an eventful life.
But his education was limited to those subjects, in which alone the
sons of gentlemen, of moderate fortune, were, at that time, generally
instructed. It was confined to acquisitions strictly useful, not even
extending to foreign languages.

In 1743, his eldest brother intermarried with the daughter of the
Honourable George William Fairfax, then a member of the council; and
this connexion introduced Mr. Washington to Lord Fairfax, the
proprietor of the Northern Neck of Virginia, who offered him, when in
his eighteenth year, an appointment as surveyor, in the western part
of that territory. His patrimonial estate being inconsiderable, this
appointment was readily accepted; and in the performance of its