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CELEBRATION GEORGE WASHINGTON
George Washington, born 275 years ago
Date published: 2/19/2007
FOR US, it's an occasion to remember a local boy who made good. For the world, it's a day to celebrate the life of one of history's most remarkable men: George Washington, born 275 years ago this week in Westmoreland County. On the trip down to Wakefield on Pope's Creek, Washington's birthplace, even a 21st-century suburbanite can grasp the attraction Virginia had to colonists. The rich soil, the relatively flat expanses, the easily navigable Potomac River proved hospitable to planters. Indeed, Washington's father, Augustine, was able to establish three working farms for George and his two older half brothers to inherit--at Pope's Creek, Ferry Farm, and Little Hunting Creek, later re-named Mount Vernon. Washington's father died when George was just 11 and living at Ferry Farm. His death kept George from going to England for a proper education. Instead, he was home-schooled, tutored, and self-taught, and he would forever call his own education "defective." The hardships of Washington's life he turned to advantage by allowing them to build his character. According to a biographer, his childhood across the river from Fredericksburg exposed him to both town life and wilderness, to the opportunities of commerce and the lure of adventure. Determined to make a life as part of the Virginia gentry, he studied and adopted his now famous "Rules of Civility." He learned a profitable craft--surveying--and developed military ambitions. At age 16, he surveyed the western reaches of Virginia for Lord Fairfax; at 22, he fought bravely in the French and Indian War. He endured freezing weather and rough terrain, had two horses shot from under him and four bullet holes in his coat defending the Crown's interest in what is now western Pennsylvania (and was then Virginia). Along the way he learned to lead men. When the fighting was over, he was named commander of the entire Virginia militia.
Date published: 2/19/2007
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