George Washington

George Washington was the son of a landowner in Virginia. Washington's father died when Washington was only eleven, leaving him the oldest of his father's second set of children. Washington's mother was a difficult woman with whom he would have an adversarial relationship with his entire life. In fact, Washington's mother prevented him from joining the navy as a young man, putting him on a path to the army that would define his career.

Washington trained as a surveyor as a young man and would nourish a lifelong love of land. Washington would come to own a great deal of land in Virginia as well as the Ohio valley. With the death of his older brother and his child, Washington would come to inherit a group of five farms known collectively as Mount Vernon. It would be here that Washington would build his life with wife, Martha...