Tell about George Washington ?

Two years later, Washington became America’s first president. Realizing that the way he handled the job would impact how future presidents approached the position, he handed down a legacy of strength, integrity and national purpose.

Less than three years after leaving office, he died at his Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, at age 67.

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at his family’s plantation on Pope’s Creek in Westmoreland County, in the British colony of Virginia, to Augustine Washington (1694-1743) and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington (1708-89).

George, the eldest of Augustine and Mary Washington’s six children, spent much of his childhood at Ferry Farm, a plantation near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

After Washington’s father died when he was 11, it’s likely he helped his mother manage the plantation.

Did you know? At the time of his death in 1799, George Washington owned some 300 slaves.

However, before his passing, he had become opposed to slavery, and in his will he ordered that his slaves to be freed after his wife's death.

Few details about Washington’s early education are known, although children of prosperous families like his typically were taught at home by private tutors or attended private schools.

It’s believed he finished his formal schooling at around age 15.

As a teenager, Washington, who had shown an aptitude for mathematics, became a successful surveyor.

His surveying expeditions into the Virginia wilderness earned him enough money to begin acquiring land of his own.

In 1751, Washington made his only trip outside of America, when he travelled to Barbados with his older half-brother Lawrence (1718-52), who was suffering from tuberculosis and hoped the warm climate would help him recuperate. Shortly after their arrival, George contracted smallpox.

He survived, although the illness left him with permanent facial scars.

In 1752, Lawrence, who had been educated in England and served as Washington’s mentor, died.

Washington eventually inherited Lawrence’s estate, Mount Vernon, on the Potomac River near Alexandria, Virginia.

In December 1752, Washington, who had no previous military experience, was made a commander of the Virginia militia.

He saw action in the French and Indian War and was eventually put in charge of all of Virginia’s militia forces.

By 1759, Washington had resigned his commission, returned to Mount Vernon and was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, where he served until 1774.

In January 1759, he married Martha Dandridge Custis (1731-1802), a wealthy widow with two children.

Washington became a devoted stepfather to the children; he and Martha never had any offspring of their own.

In the ensuing years, Washington expanded Mount Vernon from 2,000 acres into an 8,000-acre property with five farms.

He grew a variety of crops, including wheat and corn, bred mules and maintained fruit orchards and a successful fishery.

He was deeply interested in farming and continually experimented with new crops and methods of land conservation.

By the late 1760s, Washington had experienced firsthand the effects of rising taxes imposed on American colonists by the British, and came to believe that it was in the best interests of the colonists to declare independence from England.

Washington served as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 in Philadelphia.