GEORGE WASHINGTON

THE FIRST UNITED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

VERY MANY YEARS AGO, ON the twenty-second day of February, of the year 1732, a little boy was born in an old-fashioned farm-house down in Virginia. On this farm, or plantation, as it was called, tobacco was grown, instead of wheat or corn, and this was sent to England to be sold.

The name of the child’s father was Augustine Washington. His mother’s name was Mary. They gave him the name of George Washington, a name now known to everybody.

When George was a very small boy his father died, and he was brought up by his mother in an old farm-house on the Rappahannock River, just opposite the town of Fredericksburg.

The boy grew up to be honest, truthful, obedient, bold and strong. He could jump the farthest, run the fastest, climb the highest, wrestle the best, ride the swiftest, swim the longest of all the boys he played with. They all liked him, for he was gentle, kind and brave; and always told the truth.

When a boy grows up and gets to be a great and famous man many stories come to be told about him, some of which are not true. Here is a story which is often told about Washington, though no one knows whether it is true or not.

It is said that Mrs. Washington had a fine colt, which she hoped would grow into a very fast horse. But it was wild and had never been ridden, and the men on the plantation were afraid to get on its back. George was now a well-grown boy and a good rider, and he said that he could ride the colt.

He did ride it, too, so the story goes. The wild creature did all it could to throw him off, but he kept on its back and rode it around the field. In the end the animal grew so violent that it burst a blood vessel and fell dead. George was very sorry, but he went straight to his mother and, told her the truth.

She looked at him a moment, then she said: “I am sorry to lose the colt; but I am very glad to have my son tell me of his fault.”

Such is the story. It may not be true, for young boys do not ride wild colts; but it helps us to know what kind of a boy Washington was.

When young Washington was sixteen years old he gave up going to school and became a surveyor. A surveyor is one who goes around measuring land, so that men can know just how much they own, and just where the lines run that divide it from other people’s land.

This work kept George out of doors most of the time, and made him healthy and big and strong. He went off into the woods and over the mountains, surveying land for the owners. He was a fine-looking young fellow then. He was almost six feet tall, was strong and active, and could stand almost, anything in the way of out-of-door dangers and labors, He had light brown hair, blue eyes and a frank face, and he had such a firm and friendly way about him, although he was quiet and never talked much, that people always believed what he said, and those who worked with him were always ready and willing to do just as he told them.

He liked the work, because he liked the free life of the woods and mountains, and his work was so well done that some of it holds good today. He liked to hunt and swim and ride and row, and all these things and all these rough experiences helped him greatly to be a bold, healthy, active and courageous man, when the time came for him to be a leader and a soldier.

People thought so much of him that when trouble began between the two nations that then owned almost all the land in America, he was sent with a party to try and settle a quarrel as to which nation owned the land west of the mountains.

These two nations were France and England. They were far beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Virginia and all the country between the mountains and the sea, from Maine to Georgia, belonged to the King of England. There was no President then, and there were no United States, for all this country was under the rule of far-off monarchs.

George Washington went off to the western country and tried to settle the quarrel, but the French soldiers would not settle it as the English wished them to. They built forts in the country, and said they meant to keep it all for the King of France. It was a long and dangerous journey that young Washington made, through hundreds of miles of woods, with rivers and mountains to cross, and among Indians who tried to kill him. But he came back safe—after crossing a great river full of floating ice and going through other perils—and told the Governor of Virginia what the French had said.

Washington was soon sent out again, this time with a party of soldiers. He fought with the French and Indians, but there were too many of them for his few men. The King of England was very angry when he learned that the French were building forts on what he said was his land, though nobody really owned it but the Indians.

He determined to drive them away, and sent soldiers from England to fight them. They were led by a general named Braddock, who knew all about war in Europe and had plenty of courage, but had never fought in such a land as America, where there were great forests and Indians, and other things very different from what he was used to. But he thought he knew all about war, and would not listen to what anyone told him. Poor Braddock paid dearly for his conceit.

George Washington knew that if General Braddock and the British soldiers wished to whip the French, and the Indians who were on the French side, they must be very careful when they were marching through the forests to battle. He tried to make General Braddock see this too, and to tell him what to do, but the British general thought he knew best, and told Washington to mind his own business.

So the British soldiers marched through the forests as if they were parading down the streets of London. They looked very fine, but they were not careful of themselves, and one day, in the midst of the forest, the French and Indians, who were hiding behind trees waiting for them, began to fire at them from the thick, dark woods.

The British were caught in a trap. They could not see their enemies. They did not know what to do. General Braddock was killed; so were many of his soldiers. They would all have been killed or taken prisoners if George Washington had not been there. He knew just what to do. He fought bravely, and when the British soldiers ran away he and his Americans kept back the French and Indians, and saved what was left of the army.

But it was a terrible defeat for the soldiers of the King of England. He had to send more soldiers to America, and the war went on for years. Washington was kept busy fighting the Indians, to save the lives of the poor settlers on the borders. In the end the French were defeated, and had to give up all their land in America to the English. That was the war which is called the French and Indian War.

Washington had been so brave that the Legislature of Virginia spoke in very great praise of his services. Washington was there and rose to thank them, but he was so confused that he blushed, stammered, trembled and could not speak.

“Sit down, Mr. Washington,” said the Speaker. “Your modesty equals your valor, and that is greater than any language I can use.”

Soon after this Washington married. His wife, whose name was Martha Custis, brought him a large fortune, and he had a good deal of property of his own. They went to live in a beautiful house on the banks of the Potomac River, in Virginia. It is called Mount Vernon. It was Washington’s home all the rest of his life. The house is still standing, and people nowadays go to visit this beautiful place, just to see the spot that everyone thinks so much of because it was the home of Washington.

Washington showed himself as good a farmer as he had been a soldier. Daily he rode over his great estate, and everything he had to do with went on like clockwork. He was prompt, careful, and full of method, fond of his work and of hunting with horse and hounds, and would have liked nothing better than to spend all his life at Mount Vernon. But that was not to be, for a new war was coming on, and the farmer had to buckle on his old sword again.

The trouble came from King George of England, who was not satisfied with the way things were going in the colonies. He tried to make the people pay him more money in taxes than they thought was right and just. The Americans said that the king was acting very wrongly toward them, and that they would not stand it.

They did not. When the king’s soldiers tried to make them do as the king ordered, they said they would die rather than yield, and in a place called Lexington, in Massachusetts, there was a fight with the soldiers, and another at Concord. The British had to hurry back to Boston, and many of them were killed.

This is what is called rebellion. It made the king very angry, and he sent over ships full of soldiers to punish the rebels. The men in the colonies said they would fight the soldiers if the king tried to make them do as he wished. So an army gathered around Boston, and there they had a famous battle with the king’s soldiers, called the Battle of Bunker Hill, in which they showed how well they could fight.

The leading men in the colonies saw that they must put a brave man at the head of their army, and for this they chose Washington, whom they knew to be one of their best soldiers.

Washington rode all the way from Philadelphia, where he then was, to Cambridge, in Massachusetts, on horseback, for they had no steam-cars or steam-boats in those days,...