George Washington
Biography
I was born in Virginia on February 22, 1732, I was the eldest of ten children of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington. I spent my early years on the family estate on Pope's Creek along the Potomac River. My early education included the study of such subjects as mathematics, surveying, the classics, and rules of civility. My father died in 1743, and soon thereafter I went to live with my half brother Lawrence at Mount Vernon. Lawrence married into the Fairfax family, prominent and influential Virginians who helped launch my career. My early ambition to go to sea had been effectively discouraged by my mother; instead, I turned to surveying, securing (1748) an appointment to survey Lord Fairfax's lands in the Shenandoah Valley and mapping out the course of the Ohio River. I helped lay out the Virginia town of Belhaven in 1749 and was appointed surveyor for Culpeper County. I accompanied my brother to Barbados in an effort to cure Lawrence of tuberculosis, but Lawrence died in 1752, soon after the brothers returned. I ultimately inherited the Mount Vernon estate which contained five separate farms and covered over 8,000 acres.
In 1759, I married Martha Dandridge, a widow, who also owned a large plantation. The marriage made us one of the largest landowners in Virginia, and therefore I was one of the most important men in the colony. I was a member of the Virginia Assembly, and later attended the first and second Continental Congress in Philadelphia as an Virginian representatives. I was very critical of the London government and I was convinced that the colonists were being subjected to unfair taxation. I was seen as a patriot and agreed with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson that the colonies should break away from British rule and form an Independent American Republic.