1735. The family moves to another plantation at Hunting Creek, fifty miles northward up the Potomac. This plantation was called Washington, and later was named Mount Vernon.
1739. When George is seven the family moves again, this time down to Stafford along the east side of the Rappahannock River, opposite the town of Fredericksburg.
1743. George’s father dies, aged forty-nine, when George is eleven. He leaves a widow and seven children: George’s two elder half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, and the younger sister and brothers—Betty, Samuel, John Augustine and Charles. George is willed the Stafford plantation; other plantations and properties are willed to the other children. The mother is guardian.
1743–1745. George continues his schooling which first was under the direction of a church sexton, Mr. Grove, whom the boys called “Hobby,” at the Stafford plantation; and next under Mr. Williams, near Wakefield where, after his father’s death, George lives for a time with Augustine, its owner. By his mother he is taught religion and courtesies. From his father, a very powerful man, he inherits great strength, so that he is a leader in athletics. He is a fearless horseback-rider and is fond of hunting and fishing and playing at soldier. In mathematics he is good, in grammar and spelling and language not good; but he pays much attention to copying business forms and is neat in his papers. He likes the problems and out-door life of land surveying.
1746. At fourteen he decides to go to sea and become a merchant captain or an officer in the British Navy. But his mother opposes, and at the last moment he yields to her. He attends school kept by the Reverend James Marye, a Frenchman, in Fredericksburg.
1747. Leaving school he lives with his half-brother Lawrence upon the Mount Vernon plantation. Lawrence had married a daughter of William Fairfax of Belvoir, up-river from Mount Vernon. The Fairfax family was distinguished in England and in Virginia. At Belvoir there was also Lord Thomas Fairfax, elder brother of William Fairfax, recently arrived from London to enjoy his vast estate of 5,700,000 acres of Virginia lands. The boy George Washington is much at Belvoir, and Lord Fairfax takes a great liking for him.
1748. In March, having just turned his seventeenth year, George is appointed by Lord Fairfax to survey the immense tract of land which as yet has scarcely been explored. He sets out with only George William Fairfax, the twenty-two-year-old son of William Fairfax, and the two spend a month in the Virginia wilderness.
1749. In July, George Washington, now seventeen years of age, is appointed public surveyor of Virginia lands. This engages him through two years; he is out for weeks at a time, in all kinds of weather, and grows accustomed to hardships, woods lore and Indian ways. Between whiles he is frequently at Greenway Court, Lord Fairfax’s residence seat near Winchester, Frederick County, where he studies and hunts with his old friend; he visits his brothers and his mother.
1751. At the age of nineteen he is commissioned by the Governor of Virginia as an adjutant-general, with rank of Major, in charge of a district of the Colonial Militia. His brother Lawrence, who had served with a British regiment in the West Indies and the Spanish Main, and was adjutant-general in Virginia, recommended him. This suits George. He studies military science and fencing.
1751–1752. In September of 1751 Lawrence Washington sails for Barbadoes of the British West Indies, to gain health. George, who loves him dearly, goes with him. At Barbadoes George is stricken with the smallpox, which scars his face. He returns in the winter to Virginia, to escort his brother’s wife to the Bermudas in the spring and there meet Lawrence. But Lawrence cannot wait, and comes home.