George Washington

The Washington family was a wealthy Virginia planter family that had made its fortune through land speculation and the cultivation of tobacco. Washington's great-grandfather John Washington emigrated in 1656 from Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, England, to the English colony of Virginia where he accumulated 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of land, including Little Hunting Creek on the Potomac River. 

George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, in the British colony of Virginia. He was the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. His father was a justice of the peace and a prominent public figure who had four additional children from his first marriage to Jane Butler. The family moved to Little Hunting Creek in 1735. In 1738, they moved to Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River. When Augustine died in 1743, Washington inherited Ferry Farm and ten slaves; his older half-brother Lawrence inherited Little Hunting Creek and renamed it Mount Vernon.

Washington did not have the formal education his elder brothers received at Appleby Grammar School in England, but he did attend the Lower Church School in Hartfield. He learned mathematics, trigonometry, and land surveying and became a talented draftsman and map-maker. By early adulthood, he was writing with "considerable force" and "precision". In his pursuit of admiration, status, and power, his writing displayed little wit or humor. As a teenager, Washington ranked and compiled over a hundred rules for social interaction styled "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation". He had access to an English translation of a French book of manners.

Washington often visited Mount Vernon and Belvoir, the plantation that belonged to William Fairfax, Lawrence's father-in-law. Fairfax became Washington's patron and surrogate father, and Washington spent a month in 1748 with a team surveying Fairfax's Shenandoah Valley property. The following year, he received a surveyor's license from the College of William & Mary when he was 17 years old. Even though Washington had not served the customary apprenticeship, Fairfax appointed him surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia, and he appeared in Culpeper County to take his oath of office July 20, 1749. He subsequently familiarized himself with the frontier region, and though he resigned from the job in 1750, he continued to do surveys west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. By 1752 he had bought almost 1,500 acres (600 ha) in the Valley and owned 2,315 acres (937 ha).

In 1751, Washington made his only trip abroad when he accompanied Lawrence to Barbados, hoping the climate would cure his brother's tuberculosis. Washington contracted smallpox during that trip, which immunized him and left his face slightly scarred. Lawrence died in 1752, and Washington leased Mount Vernon from his widow Anne; he inherited it outright after her death in 1761.

Washington was somewhat reserved in personality, but he generally had a strong presence among others. He made speeches and announcements when required, but he was not a noted orator or debater.[410] He was taller than most of his contemporaries; accounts of his height vary from 6 ft (1.83 m) to 6 ft 3.5 in (1.92 m) tall,he weighed between 210–220 pounds (95–100 kg) as an adult, and he was known for his great strength. He had grey-blue eyes and long reddish-brown hair. He did not wear a powdered wig; instead he wore his hair curled, powdered, and tied in a queue in the fashion of the day. 

Washington frequently suffered from severe tooth decay and ultimately lost all his teeth but one. He had several sets of false teeth which he wore during his presidency. Contrary to common lore, these were not made of wood, but of metal, ivory, bone, animal teeth, and human teeth possibly obtained from slaves. These dental problems left him in constant pain, which he treated with laudanum. As a public figure, he relied on the strict confidence of his dentist. 

Washington was a talented equestrian early in life. He collected thoroughbreds at Mount Vernon, and his two favorite horses were Blueskin and Nelson. Fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson said Washington was "the best horseman of his age and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback"; he also hunted foxes, deer, ducks, and other game. He was an excellent dancer and frequently attended the theater. He drank alcohol in moderation but was morally opposed to excessive drinking, smoking tobacco, gambling, and profanity.