Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/403

Rh WASHINGTON, George, first president of the United States, b. at Pope's Creek, near Bridge's Creek, Westmoreland co., Va., 22 Feb., 1732 ; d. at Mount Vernon, 14 Dec, 1799. Of his English ancestry vari- ous details are given in more than one form- al biography of him, but none of them can be safely followed while several questions of genealogy re- main unsolved. His earliest an- cestor in this country was John Washing- ton, who had resided for some years at South Cave, near the Humber, in the land, and who came over to Virginia, with his brother Andrew, in 1657. Purchasing lands in Westmoreland coun- ty and establishing his residence at Pope's Creek, not far from the Potomac, he became, in due course, an extensive planter, a county magistrate, and a member of the house of burgesses. He distinguished himself, also, as colonel of the Vir- ginia forces in driving off a band of Seneca In- dians who were ravaging the neighboring settle- ments. In honor of his public and private char- acter, the parish in which he resided was called Washington. In this parish his grandson, Augus- tine, the second son of Lawrence Washington, was born in 1694. By his first wife Augustine had four children. Two of them died young, but two sons, Lawrence and Augustine, survived their mother, who died in 1728. On 6 March, 1730, the father was again married. His second wife was Mary Ball, and George was her first child. If tradition is to be trusted, few sons ever had a more lovely and devoted mother, and no mother a more dutiful and affectionate son. Bereaved of her husband, who died after a short illness in 1743, when George was but eleven years of age, and with four younger children to be cared for, she dis- charged the responsibilities thus sadly devolved upon her with scrupulous fidelity and firmness. To her we owe the precepts and example that gov- erned George's life. The excellent maxims, moral and reHgious, which she found in her favorite manual — " Sir Matthew Hale's Contemplations " — were impressed on his memory and on his heart, as she read them aloud to her children ; and that little volume, with the autograph inscription of Mary Washington, was among the cherished treasures of his library as long as he lived. To her, too, under God, we owe especially the restraining in- fluence and authority, that held him back, at the last moment, as we shall see, from embarking on a line of life that would have cut him off from the great career that has rendered his name im- mortal. Well did Dr. Sparks, in his careful and excellent biography, speak of •' the debt owed by mankind to the mother of Washington." Unhap- pily no authentic portrait of her is extant, though a pleasing conjectural picture, not without some weight of testimony, has been adopted by Mr. Loss- ing in his " Mary and Martha." (See vignette.) She delighted in saying simply that " George had always been a good son " ; and her own life was fortunately prolonged until she had seen him more than fulfil every hope of her heart. On his way to his first inauguration as president of the United States Washington came to bid his mother a last farewell, just before her death. That parting scene, however, was not at his birthplace. The primitive Virginia farm-house in which he was born had long ceased to be the family residence, and had gradual- ly fallen into ruin. The remains of a large kitchen- chimney were all that could be identified of it in 1878, by a party of which Sec. Evarts, Gen. Sher- man, and Charles C. Perkins, of Boston, were three, who visited the spot with a view to the erection of a memorial under the authority of congress. Not long after the birth that has rendered this spot forever memorable, Augustine Washington removed to an estate in Stafford county, on the east side of the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericks- burg, and resided there with his family during the remaining years of his life. That was the scene of George's early childhood. There he first went to school, in an " old-field " school -house, with Hob- by, the sexton of the parish, for his first master. After his father's death, how- ever, he was sent back to the old home- stead at Pope's Creek, to live for a while with his elder half - brother, Augustine, to whom the Westmoreland estate had been left, and who, on his marriage, had taken it for his resi- dence. There George had the advantage of at least a better school than Hobby's, kept by a Mr. Williams. But it taught him nothing except read- ing, writing, and arithmetic, with a little geometry and surveying. For this last study he evinced a marked preference. Many of his copy-books of that period have been preserved, and they show no inconsiderable proficiency in the surveyor's art, even before he finally left school, toward the close of his sixteenth year. One of those manuscript books, however, is of a miscellaneous and peculiar- ly interesting character, containing carefully pre- pared forms for business papers ; a few selections or, it may be, original compositions in rhyme ; and a series of " Rules of Behavior in Company and Con- versation," fifty-seven in all, compiled or copied, doubtless, from some still untraced original, em- bracing many moral and religious maxims, of which the last and most noteworthy one niust never be omitted from the story of Washington's boyhood : " Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, Conscience." All these school-boy manuscripts bear witness alike to his extreme care in cultivating a neat, clear, and elegant handwrit- ing, and his name is sometimes written almost as if in contemplation of the great instruments and state papers to which it was destined to be the at- testing signature.

Meantime he was training himself for vigorous manhood by all sorts of robust exercises and athletic sports. He played soldier, sometimes, with his school-mates, always asserting the authority of captain, and subjecting the little company to a