George 3: Surveying the Wilderness

From March to April 1748 the 16 year old George Washington was off on his first expedition into the wilderness. His assignment was to survey the land, and lay out lots, from Lord Fairfax's vast holdings along the banks of the Shenandoah River. He traveled on horseback, accompanied by the Lord's son, George William Fairfax. Many nights they slept out in the open, beside a campfire, eating wild turkey or some other game they managed to capture.

There were already some settlers out there on the frontier west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Many of the settlers were actually squatting on Lord Fairfax's land, and many of them spoke German rather than English. At one cabin the family offered to sleep in front of the fireplace and give George the bed. When he found that the bed was a straw mat with no sheet overed by a thin blanket, the whole thing swarming with bugs, George decided he would sleep in front of the fireplace as well. At one point the surveyors came across an Indian war party with a scalp and watched them dance in celebration late into the night.

We know quite a bit about this trip because George kept a journal where he recorded his observations of the land and people he came across. The surveying expedition was a great success and with his new experience and the support of the Fairfax family George became a Public Surveyor for Culpepper County, Virginia.

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Young George spent about three years working as a surveyor. He did more than 190 surveys in that time and must have been pretty well paid because he saved up enough money to buy a 1,459 acre estate on Bullskin Creek.

During these years tensions were growing between the British and the French in North America since they both laid claim to the lands along the Ohio River. The English were moving West from Virginia and Pennsylvania while the French were moving South from Canada and they were ending up in the same place – starting to crowd each other. Both sides were trying to win the loyalty and trade of the Native American tribes in the Ohio Valley while keeping the other side out.

Lawrence Washington now used his influence with Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia to have George appointed an Adjutant-General with the rank of Major. This position made George responsible for raising, organizing, and equipping militia units when he was just 19 years old. Two of Lawrence's friends were called upon to give the young officer some training. A man named Adjutant Muse started teaching him military tactics while a Jacob Van Braam taught him to fence.

George would be interested in land for the rest of his life but his professional surveying career was over. He was now starting out on a military career that would lead through many twists and turns, and one long period of retirement, but would ultimately make him known and respected around the world, and also lead to the founding of a new nation.

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Note:

My biographical study of George Washington was intended for my own education but I thought I would also like to share what I have learned here on my blog. The main sources of information I used were:

First, "George Washington: A Biography" by Washington Irving. I like this one because it was written by one of our early American literary masters and because it was written so long ago that Irving often mentions talking with people who had actually seen George.

Second, "Washington: An abridgement in one volume By Richard Harwell of the seven-volume George Washington" By Douglas Southall Freeman. I wanted the complete seven volume set but that is not yet available on Kindle. Too bad. Still, this abridgement is a great work, packed with information.

Third, "Washington: A Life" By Ron Chernow. This is an excellent modern biography that came out in 2010, helping me to get some of the more recent research missing from the older biographies.

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Copyright © 2018 by Joseph Wayne Gadway