Hello and welcome to a history of the United States.

Episode 99, George Washington. General Virginian

delegates to the First and Second Continental Congresses, commander-in-chief of the Continental

Army, and the first president of the United States of America. George Washington was born on February 22nd, 1732, in the northern

neck of Virginia. The Washington family, led by John Washington, moved to Virginia in the mid-17th century.

He started collecting land, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson,

Augustine Washington. Augustine had seven children to survive childhood. Lawrence and Augustine

Jr. by his first wife, and then George, Betty, Samuel, John and Charles by his second wife, Mary Ball.

Augustine died of a sudden illness in 1743 when George was 11, and much of the land was left to Lawrence.

This included Epsuwason, which Lawrence renamed Mount Vernon in honour of his commanding

officer during the War of Jenkins Ear. Lawrence married into the highly influential Fairfax

family, who were major landowners in Virginia. Lawrence was a great influence on the young George, but perhaps the most important effect he

would have would be that of introducing him to the wider Fairfax clan. Lord Thomas Fairfax,

the only resident peer in the American colonies, met George Washington when he was 16 in 1748, and was impressed

with his energy. He decided to hire George to survey his lands beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Lawrence died suddenly in 1752 and left George as his heir, which is how George came to own Mount Vernon,

and by the age of 20, he was a major landowner in Virginia. It pointed towards a rise towards

the top of the Virginian aristocracy, as while his father Augustine was a member of the nobility,

he did not compare, in the slightest, to the grandees.

I think it would be fair to say that George was an introverted youth.

Due to his father's early death, George didn't go to a grammar school in England like his older siblings,

and was instead taught by tutors, with some of his relatives.

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