When he was three years old the house in which he was born was burned down, and the family moved to another plantation on the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg.

He was the eldest of five children, although he had a half-brother named Lawrence, who was fifteen years older than himself.

His father died when he was but eleven years of age. But his mother, who was a strong and healthy woman, took up her burden bravely and brought up her family with great care.

It is generally admitted that Washington got his manly qualities from his mother. In features and in mental characteristics he resembled her very closely.

After the death of George's father one of his estates called Mount Vernon, on the Potomac River, was inherited by Lawrence.

Lawrence Washington was fond of George, and often invited him to spend his holidays at Mount Vernon.

An English nobleman, named Lord Fairfax, lived near Mount Vernon, and often visited Lawrence Washington. In this way he became acquainted with George. Lord Fairfax owned an immense tract of wild forest land in Virginia. He had never seen it himself, and few white men had ever been on it. Lord Fairfax was an old gentleman, but he took a great liking to George Washington. When he found that the young man understood surveying he engaged him to survey these lands.

When only sixteen George entered upon his task. This was quite an undertaking for one so young. But in three years the survey was finished; and it was so well done that it stands to this day.

Lawrence Washington died in 1752, and in his will he made George guardian to his daughter and heir to Mount Vernon in case of her death.

George had now grown to manhood. He was wonderfully strong and athletic and could out-run, out-leap and out-ride all the young men of his acquaintance.

So fully did he command the confidence of those who knew him that he was appointed to positions of great trust and responsibility.

At the age of twenty-three he was made colonel and commander-in-chief of all the forces raised in Virginia for the defense of the Western Territory against the French.

In this French War, as it was called, he received a splendid training, not only in success but in failure, and confidence in him was greatly increased when men saw how these failures and defeats raised his unconquerable spirit.

In a second expedition Washington was again placed in command of the American troops. The French had built a fort at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join and form the Ohio, which they called Fort Duquesne.

Washington decided to capture this fort; but the French garrison were afraid to risk a battle; so they burned the fort and marched away into Canada.

When Washington and his men arrived they found nothing but smoking ruins; but they took possession of the place in the name of King George.

Some time afterward, the English won a great victory over the French at Quebec. This gave them all French America from the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes as far west as the Mississippi, and south to the Gulf of Mexico. At the end of the war, Washington returned to Mount Vernon.

In May, 1758, Washington was called to Williamsburg to confer with the governor in regard to the condition of the Virginia troops. He traveled there on horseback, accompanied by his servant; and one day he stopped for dinner at the mansion of a hospitable planter.

There he was introduced to a lovely young widow, Mrs. Martha Custis. Her manners and conversation were so pleasing to him that he spent the afternoon and evening in her company; and the next morning he rode away a captive to her charms.

George Washington and Martha Custis were married on January 6, 1759. The union proved to be a very happy one. She adorned every station to which his greatness called her, and he was tenderly devoted to her till the end of his life.

For several years Washington lived the life of a country gentleman. He was very fond of horses and hounds and often went fox hunting. But like other people in the American colonies he was greatly troubled by the unjust way in which the English king and his government were acting.

The English Parliament ordered that a tax should be paid upon all the tea brought into New York, Boston, and the other ports of the colonies. As the colonists had no representative in Parliament they felt that they ought not to be taxed; and when a shipload of tea arrived in Boston a number of citizens went on board the vessel and threw the chests of tea into the harbor. This was called the "Boston Tea Party."

Washington hated the tea tax, and he and his friends refused to buy any goods that came from England. A number of men from all the colonies met together in a Congress to consider what should be done. They sent a letter to the king of England begging that they might have the same rights as those of his subjects who were born in England.