George Washington.
He was born at Pope’s Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia, and became a surveyor, being employed in that capacity at the early age of sixteen by Lord Fairfax, governor of Virginia. He joined the English troops sent under General Braddock against the French in 1756, and his bravery and good sense in this expedition gained him great renown. In 1775 he was made commander-in-chief of the American forces against the English and he conducted the war of the Revolution to a successful issue in 1783. He was the first president of the United States, being elected in 1789, and again in 1793, declining a third term in 1797. He retired to private life at Mt. Vernon, his home in Virginia. Here he died, and here he lies buried, his tomb being a shrine of pilgrimage for all his countrymen and admirers.
Innumerable monuments rise all over our land commemorating his virtues and pointing him out as a model for the youth of America. One of the finest is that at Richmond, designed by Crawford, an equestrian statue in bronze, surrounded by colossal figures of Jefferson, Mason, Patrick Henry, Lewis, Marshall, and Nelson. The marble statue by Houdon in the Capitol at Richmond is considered the best figure of Washington; it was done from life in 1788. Other noble memorials are the Column at Baltimore, and the great obelisk at Washington City, called the Washington Monument, the latter designed by Robert Mills, of South Carolina, and intended originally to have a colonnade around the base containing the statues of the illustrious men of our country.
WORKS.
State Papers, Addresses, Letters—12 volumes.
Washington’s writings are like his character, simple, clear, sensible, without any pretensions to special culture or literary grace. These extracts show his modesty, his love of truth, and his general good sense. See under Madison, Weems, and Henry Lee.
An Honest Man.
I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain, what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an “honest man.”—Moral Maxims.