George Washington Biography, also known as “Father of His Country,” was an American general who served as commander in chief of the colonial armies during the American Revolution (1775–83) and went on to become the nation’s first president. He was born on February 22 (February 11, Old Style), 1732, in Westmoreland county, Virginia. He died on December 14, 1799, in Mount Vernon, Virginia (1789–97).
Augustine Washington, the father of George Washington, attended school in England, had some experience at sea, and then settled down to oversee his expanding Virginia properties. Mary Ball was his mother, whom Augustine, a widower, had married in the first few months of the previous year. One of Washington’s early ancestors was referred to as a “gentleman,” Henry VIII subsequently awarded the family property, and family members held various jobs, therefore his paternal pedigree had some distinction.
However, the Puritan revolt in England caused a decline in family finances, and John Washington, Augustine’s grandfather, moved to Virginia in 1657. As a memorial to Washington, the family home in Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, is kept up. Until Augustine, there isn’t much concrete information available on any of the line. He was an active, ambitious guy who bought a lot of land, constructed mills, showed interest in starting iron mines, and sent his two eldest sons to England for their education.
The young person first chose surveying as a career. In order to reside with his cousin George William at Belvoir and to take care of his lands, Lord Fairfax, a middle-aged bachelor who owned more than 5,000,000 acres (2,000,000 hectares) in northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, arrived in America in 1746.
Two years later, he dispatched a team to the Shenandoah Valley to map and survey his property so squatters coming in from Pennsylvania could become regular tenants. Washington accompanied the official county surveyor of Prince William as his assistant. The 16-year-old boy’s fragmented journal of the journey demonstrates his talent for observation.
In addition to an encounter with an Indian war party carrying a scalp and the Pennsylvania-German emigrants being “as ignorant a set of people as the Indians they would never speak English but when spoken to they speak all Dutch,” he also describes the discomfort of sleeping under a “one thread Bear blanket with double its Weight of Vermin such as Lice Fleas & c.
With the help of Lord Fairfax, Washington was appointed the official surveyor of Culpeper county the next year (1749), a position that kept him occupied for more than two years. He traveled well beyond the Tidewater region into the western wilderness, conducting surveys not only in the Culpeper County but also in the Frederick and Augusta counties.
He learned ingenuity and perseverance from the experience, and he became more resilient in both body and mind. It also gave Lawrence a lifelong interest in western development, which he combined with his property ventures. He had always been inclined to speculate on western holdings and to support programs aimed at colonizing the West, and he was bitter about the restrictions the crown eventually placed on westward mobility.
In 1752, Lord Fairfax made the decision to make the Shenandoah Valley his last home. He moved there and built a log hunting lodge there, which he named Greenway Court after a family manor in Kent. In addition to having access to a little library that Fairfax had been assembling at Oxford, Washington was occasionally amused there.
Death
George Washington is one of the most recognizable figures in America. Washington was not only the first president of the United States, holding the office from 1789 to 1797, but also a Virginia plantation owner, a general, and the Revolutionary War’s commander-in-chief of the colonial troops. He was devoted to his wife Martha, brave on the battlefield, and a theater and ball enthusiast.
Since George Washington’s illness struck suddenly and resulted in death, the manner of his passing has long been a mystery. Washington’s symptoms, which started off as a basic sore throat, quickly got worse over the course of a day and turned into quite serious breathing problems. He was repeatedly treated by his wife, doctors, and friends, often utilizing the technique of bloodletting, but he eventually passed away from his condition.
Although the exact reason of George Washington’s death has never been established, there have been numerous suggestions over the years. His sickness was treated with an emphasis on bringing his blood back into equilibrium. He had croup, which restricts the airway and would have explained why he had trouble breathing, doctors said after his death. But as time went on, additional medical professionals began to doubt this conclusion. Others claimed he had pneumonia, while one suggested streptococcal throat infection as a possible cause. Some thought he had diphtheria.
Modern medical professionals, particularly Dr. David Morens, contend that Washington’s early demise was caused by acute bacterial epiglottitis, a throat ailment caused by germs. Of course, it is impossible to know for sure, but according to Morens and others, Washington’s symptoms and those of this sickness match exactly.
At the age of 67, Washington passed suddenly on December 14, 1799. His death was dreadful, untimely, and torturous, just like his life had been. It is a complicated and peculiar story that begins on December 12, 1799, when he rode his horse to monitor farming activities occurring on his property, the weather changed from snow to rain during the ride, drenching Washington and making it chilly. But since he was always on time, he decided against changing into dry clothes when he got home because he didn’t want to miss dinner.
Even though Washington woke up the next morning with a scratchy throat, he continued working. His voice had grown increasingly hoarse towards the end of the day, and he had woken in the middle of the night feeling very uncomfortable. Tobias Lear, his friend and assistant, was summoned by Martha by morning, and when he arrived, he saw that Washington was having trouble breathing. Soon after, Washington instructed Mount Vernon’s overseer Albin Rawlins to bleed him when he arrived. Washington consented, and Rawlins drained half a pint of blood from him since he thought it had healed him of previous diseases.
Other remedies were tried as his illness worsened, including ingesting a mixture of molasses, butter, and vinegar that almost caused him to suffocate. They used a mixture of ointment and dried beetles to swab his throat. James Craik, Washington’s longtime physician, arrived and immediately produced a blister on his throat, repeated the bleeding, and instructed him to gargle with vinegar and sage tea.