Historic Boyhoods

by Rupert Sargent Holland

Shortly after they had left the river they came to a planter's house where they stayed over night. The next day they were surprised by the arrival of a war party of thirty Indians carrying scalps won in battle. The planter knew how to treat the Indians, and soon made friends with them by offering them whiskey. George had seen little of the red men and begged them to hold a war-dance.

The white men and the red went out into a meadow and there built a fire, round which the braves took their seats. The chief made a speech telling of the tribe's deeds of valor, and calling on the warriors to win new triumphs. Gradually one by one the reclining members of the band rose and circled about the fire in a slow swinging step. Two Indians at a little distance beat upon a rough drum made of wood covered with deerskin and half filled with water.

As the chief's voice rose higher and higher and the music grew louder and louder, more and more men joined the dance, until finally all the tribe was dancing about the fire, and their pace grew ever faster. Now, from time to time, one would leap in the air uttering savage cries and yells, then another, and finally all seemed absolutely lost in a sort of demon's frenzy. Suddenly, at a sharp command from the chief, the dance and the music ceased, and the warriors came up to their white friends smiling and asking for more whiskey.

The scene made a deep impression on George Washington. So far he had lived only among white people, and knew little of the Indian in his native haunts, but from the date of this war-dance he began to study the red man's character, and before long he had become an expert in the art of dealing with these people.

For a month George and young Fairfax traveled through the land that belonged to the latter's uncle, and at the end of that time the boy had made practically a complete survey of the region. By the middle of April he was back at Belvoir. His plans were examined and approved, and he was well paid for his services.

So pleased was the Englishman with George's work that he used his efforts to get him the appointment of Public Surveyor. The position pleased the boy, who at once started to make maps of the whole region lying along the Potomac. He divided his time between his mother's simple house, the big house which his older half-brother, Lawrence, had built at Mount Vernon, and Lord Fairfax's seat at Belvoir. The strongest friendship had grown up between the nobleman and the boy, and George unquestionably profited greatly by his talks with this man, who was very fond of literature and art, and who had known the most distinguished men and women of Europe.

Belvoir had a fine library, and George spent much of his spare time there reading with special eagerness the history of England and Addison's essays in the Spectator. His only schooling had been that which he had gained at a very primitive log schoolhouse, where an old man named Hobby, originally a bondsman, taught the children of the plantations reading, writing, and arithmetic. George, however, was not the boy to be content with such a simple education, and he had made up his mind that if he could not go to William and Mary College he would at least learn all he could from Lord Fairfax's well-stocked library.

Young Washington's work as a surveyor was shortly cut in upon by the outbreak of trouble with France. In looking over the youths of the neighborhood who were likely to make good soldiers, attention was almost at once attracted to him. Everybody knew he had a great sense of responsibility, and his feats as an athlete were equally well known.

As a small boy he had been unusually big and strong for his age, and had always delighted in any kind of contest of strength. He could outrun, outride and outbox any boy of either side the Potomac, and had proved it in many contests of skill. When he was at Hobby's school he had liked to form his mates into companies at recess time, with cane stalks for rifles and dried gourds for drums, and drill them in the manual of arms. They had fought mimic battles, and Washington always commanded one side. He had really learned a good deal of the art of war in this way, and so when men were casting about for likely young officers they naturally thought of the boy surveyor.

His brother Lawrence had sufficient influence to procure him an appointment as District Adjutant General, and had him make his headquarters at Mount Vernon, where he immediately began to drill the raw recruits of the countryside. But in the midst of these military operations Lawrence fell ill and had to make a sea voyage to the West Indies, taking his young brother George with him as company.