OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 219 
FATHER OF OUR COUNTRY 
86. GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON, first president of the 
United States, was born at Pope’s Creek, Westmoreland Co., 
Va., February 22, 1732. His great grandfather, JoHn WasHINc- 
TON, was a Yorkshireman, and crossed to Virginia in 1657. The 
family was prominent in the history of the province, each gen- 
eration contributing materially to its social, political and eco- 
nomic life. Tradition records that the future statesman’s boy- 
hood was guided by an unusually devoted mother of scrupulous 
fidelity and firmness. To her is due his retention as an Ameri- 
can, for his older half-brother secured for him a warrant in the 
British navy as midshipman, and he only forewent its acceptance 
on her earnest remonstrance. 
His school work prepared him for a surveyor and from the 
age of sixteen until nineteen he employed himself at this pro- 
fession. His surveys of the Allegheny valleys and hills con- 
stituted a remarkable contribution to the provincial organiza- 
tion and some of his benchmarks serve as bases for the modern 
division of land in Virginia. 
In 1851 he was commissioned an adjutant of the Virginia 
militia with the rank of major, and although he journeyed 
shortly thereafter to the West Indies with his half-brother 
Lawrence, he was ultimately given charge of one of the grand 
military divisions of the province. The death of Lawrence per- 
mitted him to succeed to Mt. Vernon and he began a series of 
agricultural operations whose details will be recounted later. 
The French and Indian Wars established his military repu- 
tation. His trip to the Ohio Valley to interview the commander 
of the French forces as an emissary of GovERNOR DINWIDDIE 
permitted him to learn much of the country and tactics of 
savage warfare, and “from that moment,” says WASHINGTON 
Invinc, “he was the rising hope of Virginia.” His defense of 
Fort Necessity and his service as aide-de-camp to GENERAL 
