Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln | Page 2

for more than a hundred years, and
now nearly half the people in Virginia were blacks.
Very often, also, poor white men from England were sold as slaves for
a few years in order to pay for their passage across the ocean. When
their freedom was given to them they continued to work at whatever
they could find to do; or they cleared small farms in the woods for
themselves, or went farther to the west and became woodsmen and
hunters.
There was but very little money in Virginia at that time, and, indeed,
there was not much use for it. For what could be done with money
where there were no shops worth speaking of, and no stores, and
nothing to buy?

The common people raised flax and wool, and wove their own cloth;
and they made their own tools and furniture. The rich people did the
same; but for their better or finer goods they sent to England.
For you must know that in all this country there were no great mills for
spinning and weaving as there are now; there were no factories of any
kind; there were no foundries where iron could be melted and shaped
into all kinds of useful and beautiful things.
When George Washington was a boy the world was not much like it is
now.
* * * * *
II.--HIS HOMES.
George Washington's father owned a large plantation on the western
shore of the Potomac River. George's great-grandfather, John
Washington, had settled upon it nearly eighty years before, and there
the family had dwelt ever since.
This plantation was in Westmoreland county, not quite forty miles
above the place where the Potomac flows into Chesapeake Bay. By
looking at your map of Virginia, you will see that the river is very
broad there.
On one side of the plantation, and flowing through it, there was a creek,
called Bridge's Creek; and for this reason the place was known as the
Bridge's Creek Plantation.
It was here, on the 22d of February, 1732, that George Washington was
born.
Although his father was a rich man, the house in which he lived was
neither very large nor very fine--at least it would not be thought so
now.
It was a square, wooden building, with four rooms on the ground floor
and an attic above.
The eaves were low, and the roof was long and sloping. At each end of
the house there was a huge chimney; and inside were big fireplaces,
one for the kitchen and one for the "great room" where visitors were
received.
But George did not live long in this house. When he was about three
years old his father removed to another plantation which he owned,
near Hunting Creek, several miles farther up the river. This new
plantation was at first known as the Washington Plantation, but it is

now called Mount Vernon.
Four years after this the house of the Washingtons was burned down.
But Mr. Washington had still other lands on the Rappahannock River.
He had also an interest in some iron mines that were being opened there.
And so to this place the family was now taken.
The house by the Rappahannock was very much like the one at Bridge's
Creek. It stood on high ground, overlooking the river and some low
meadows; and on the other side of the river was the village of
Fredericksburg, which at that time was a very small village, indeed.
George was now about seven years old.
* * * * *
III.--HIS SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.
There were no good schools in Virginia at that time. In fact, the people
did not care much about learning.
There were few educated men besides the parsons, and even some of
the parsons were very ignorant.
It was the custom of some of the richest families to send their eldest
sons to England to the great schools there. But it is doubtful if these
young men learned much about books.
They spent a winter or two in the gay society of London, and were
taught the manners of gentlemen--and that was about all.
George Washington's father, when a young man, had spent some time
at Appleby School in England, and George's half-brothers, Lawrence
and Augustine, who were several years older than he, had been sent to
the same school.
But book-learning was not thought to be of much use. To know how to
manage the business of a plantation, to be polite to one's equals, to be a
leader in the affairs of the colony--this was thought to be the best
education.
And so, for most of the young men, it was enough if they could read
and write a little and keep a few simple accounts. As for the girls, the
parson might give