George Washington

George Washington

He was born 1732 and he died in1799. George Washington seems today a figure larger than life itself…..almost as he was when he was a familiar person in the halls, homes, shops, and bars of 18th-century city Williamsburg. On Duke of

Gloucester Street, in the Raleigh Tavern's Apollo Room, or the Governor's Palace

Gardens, his powerful frame and his nice attitude..his presence….drew to him the notice that wrote his place in the history of the city, the state, and the nation. "His bones and joints are large, as are his hands and feet," friend of

Washington George Mercer observed in 1760. He said Washington kept "all the muscles of his face under perfect control, though flexible and expressive of deep feeling when moved by emotion. In conversation he looks you full in the face, is deliberate, deferential and engaging. His voice is agreeable . . . he is a splendid horseman."

Thomas Jefferson who served with Washington in the House of Burgesses, wrote:

"On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in a few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance." In Williamsburg, when it was the seat of Virginia's government, Washington secured his first military commissions, learned and practiced the arts of politics, and moved from the attitude of being just another country squire to become the leader of a continental revolution.

Born February 22, 1732 in Westmoreland County he was the first son of his father

Augustine's second marriage: his mother was the former Mary Ball of Epping

Forest. When George was about 3 his family moved to Little Hunting Creek on the

Potomac, then to Ferry Farm opposite of Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock in

King George County.

His father died in 1743, and Washington grew nervous under his mother's guidance.

He proposed at one point to follow the sea, but he divided his adolescence among the households of relatives, finding a home and a model in his half-brother

Lawrence at Mount Vernon. From Lawrence he learned trig and surveying and accomplished a taste for ethics, novels, music, and the theater. An officer in the Virginia militia, Lawrence had served with Admiral Edward ...

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...l address on September 7, 1796, and was succeeded by John Adams the following March 4. His last official act was to pardon the participants in the

Whiskey Rebellion.

When relations with France soured in 1798, his Country once more turned to

Washington for his service. Adams appointed him lieutenant general of a provisional army. The danger lessened before the troops came together.

In December 1799, after a day spent riding on his farms in bad weather,

Washington's throat became inflamed. At 2 a.m on December14, he awakened his wife to say that he was having trouble breathing. At sunrise she sent for Dr.

James Craig, who arrived at 9 a.m. and diagnosed the illness as "inflammatory quinsy." During the morning Washington was bleeding three times and two more doctors came, Elisha Dick of Alexandria and Gustavus Brown. One counseled against bleeding, but more blood was taken. At midnight Washington said to his secretary, Tobias Lear; "I am just going. Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead. Do you understand me?"

Lear said, "Yes."

Washington's last words were, "'Tis well."