George Washington
1732=1799.
George Washington’s life is so well known, it is so simple, so grand, that a few words can tell it, and yet volumes would not exhaust it. His mother’s remark, “George was always a good son,” sums up his character; and his title, “Father of his Country,” sums up his life-work.
He was born at Pope’s Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia, and became a surveyor, being employed in that capacity at the early age of sixteen by Lord Fairfax, governor of Virginia. He joined the English troops sent under General Braddock against the French in 1756, and his bravery and good sense in this expedition gained him great renown. In 1775 he was made commander-in-chief of the American forces against the English and he conducted the war of the Revolution to a successful issue in 1783. He was the first president of the United States, being elected in 1789, and again in 1793, declining a third term in 1797. He retired to private life at Mt. Vernon, his home in Virginia. Here he died, and here he lies buried, his tomb being a shrine of pilgrimage for all his countrymen and admirers.
Innumerable monuments rise all over our land commemorating his virtues and pointing him out as a model for the youth of America. One of the finest is that at Richmond, designed by Crawford, an equestrian statue in bronze, surrounded by colossal figures of Jefferson, Mason, Patrick Henry, Lewis, Marshall, and Nelson. The marble statue by Houdon in the Capitol at Richmond is considered the best figure of Washington; it was done from life in 1788. Other noble memorials are the Column at Baltimore, and the great obelisk at Washington City, called the Washington Monument, the latter designed by Robert Mills, of South Carolina, and intended originally to have a colonnade around the base containing the statues of the illustrious men of our country.