The Life of George Washington

Essay by Anonymous UserHigh School, 11th gradeA, November 1996

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During the last 300 years that people have been living in America, the United States has had many great leaders and George Washington is the greatest of all. While Abraham Lincoln may be remembered as the greatest president, and Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant as the greatest general, George Washington was the most important figure the country has ever known. Washington not only led the colonials that won the war of independence, but he also adjourned the committee that wrote the constitution and later became the first president and forefather of the country.

The Washington family was first represented in the new world by John Washington George's great grandfather. John Washington an Englishman came from a middle to upper class family that obtained a grant of 150 acres in Westmoreland County Virginia 1657.--1 The prime land was located right along the Potomac river and when John Washington first saw this land he saw the potential for resource and with a partner obtained a second grant of 5,000 acres 18 miles south of what we now know as Washington, D.C.1

The newly acquired land was the site of the now famous Washington home of Mt. Vernon. John Washington was well known as a planter, businessman, and military leader. The Indians called him Conotocarius 'destroyer of villages.'4 Little is known of John's son Lawrence, but his grandson Augustine left a clear record. He had many holdings farms, businesses, mines, and land. He added to the Westmoreland plantation until it included the whole peninsula between Popes Creek and Bridges Creek, small streams emptying into the Potomac. Augustine Washington had four children by his first wife. His second wife was Mary Ball Washington. Her family had been settled in Virginia in about 1650 by her grandfather, Col. William Ball. She was...