Americans know George Washington as being the first president of our country, the man who laid the first block to the massive structure our country is today. It is by the precedent he set that we live and govern our nation and ourselves. Washington was an ordinary person whose brave soul, good heart, and patriotism turned him into a brilliant general and a successful president.
George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia on February 22, 1732. He was the eldest son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Bell Washington, who were prosperous Virginia gentry of English descent. Washington spent his early years on the family estate in Pope's Creek along the Potomac River. He received most of his education at home; his early education included the study of mathematics, surveying, the classics, and the "rules of civility". Upon the death of his father in 1743, he moved to Mount Vernon with his half brother Lawrence, who became a substitute father to George. Lawrence married into the prominent and influential Virginian Fairfax family, who helped Washington launch his career. George Washington's early ambitions to go to sea were discouraged by his mother turning him to surveying. He helped lay out the Virginia town of Belhaven and was appointed surveyor for Culpeper County. Lawrence died from tuberculosis in 1752 and George inherited the Mount Vernon estate (Flexner).
In 1753, Virginia was alarmed when a French expedition from Canada established posts on the headwaters of the Ohio River. Conflict over this area eventually erupted into the French and Indian War, in which Washington played a major military role that established his reputation as a commander (Martin). In April of 1754, on his way to establish a post at the Forks of the Ohio, Washington learned that the French had already set a fort there. George quickly threw up fortifications at Great Meadows, Pennsylvania, naming the entrenchment Fort Necessity, and marched to intercept advancing French troops.