George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia (biography.com). Washington served as a general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies during the American Revolution, and later became the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. He died on December 14, 1799, in Mount Vernon, Virginia.(biography.com)
George Washington could trace his family's presence in North America to his great-grandfather, John Washington, who migrated from England to Virginia.(biography.com) The family held some distinction in England and was granted land by Henry VIII. Much of the family’s wealth was lost during the Puritan revolution and in 1657 George’s grandfather, Lawrence Washington, migrated to Virginia. Little information is available about the family in North America until George’s father, Augustine, who was born in 1694.(biography.com) Augustine Washington was an ambitious man who acquired land and slaves, built mills, and grew tobacco.(biography.com) For a time, he had an interest in opening iron mines. He married his first wife, Jane Butler and they had three children.(biography.com) Jane died in 1729 and Augustine married Mary Ball in 1731.(biography.com) George was the eldest of Augustine and Mary’s six children, all of which survived into adulthood. The family lived on Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia.(biography.com) They were moderately prosperous members of Virginia's "middling class."(biography.com) Augustine moved the family up the Potomac River to another Washington family home, Little Hunting Creek Plantation, (later renamed Mount Vernon) in 1735 and then moved again in 1738 to Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock River, opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia, where George Washington spent much of his youth. Little is known about George Washington's childhood, which fostered many of the fables later biographers manufactured to fill in the gap. Among these are the stories that Washington threw a...