George Washington

George Washington (Feb 22, 1732 - Dec 14, 1799) was the 1st President of the United States, 7th Senior Officer of the U.S. Army and a Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Family
George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, in what is now Washington, Virginia. He was the son of a Virginia planter, Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball. He had five siblings; Elizabeth, Samuel, John, Charles, and Mildred. He also had four half-siblings, born by his father's first wife, Jane Butler; Butler, Lawrence, Augustine, and Jane.

Marriage and Issue
Washington married Martha Dandridge in 1759. He had no biological children with Martha, but he adopted her two children from her first marriage to Daniel Parke Custis; John and Patsy.

Early Life
In his youth, Washington had lived in various places in Virginia including; Little Hunting Creek, later renamed Mount Vernon by his half-brother, Lawrence, and Fredericksburg.

In 1743, his father died and he inherited the land in Fredericksburg as well as a few slaves. He didn't have a great education but he understood things such as math, geography, and cartography. He often visited lands owned by his half-brother and his Lawrence's father-in-law, William Fairfax.

Fairfax took note of Washington's skill in surveying land and took him along on a surveillance trip of one of his properties called Shenandoah Valley in 1748. He got an official surveyor's license from the College of William & Mary in 1752. Due to his license, he was appointed surveyor of Culpeper County by Fairfax.

In 1750, he resigned from the position, and by 1752 had his own land.

In 1751, Lawrence came down with smallpox and Washington joined him on a trip to Barbados with the hopes that the better climate would help his condition. It did very little though and Lawrence died in 1752. He also fell ill in 1752, but survived smallpox, gaining an immunity to the disease.

After Lawrence's death, Washington leased the land from his widow, Anne Fairfax. He officially owned the land after her death in 1761.