GEORGE
WASHINGTON
By: Katya Zemtsova
9D, school № 17
supervisor: Beletskaya S. A.
2001
Министерство образования Российской Федерации
РЕФЕРАТ
по английскому языку
Тема: « Джордж Вашингтон »
Работу выполнила
Земцова Екатерина
ученица 9 “Д” класса
школы № 17
Работу проверила
преподаватель
Белецкая С.А
GEORGE WASHINGTON
(1ST PRESIDENT)
Plan
1. Name
2. Physical Description
3. Personality
4. Ancestors
5. Father
6. Mother
7. Siblings
8. Collateral relatives
9. Children
10. Birth
11. Childhood
12. Education
13. Religion
14. Recreation
15. Early romance
A) Betsy Fauntleroy
B) Mary Philipse
C) Sally Fairfax
16. Marriage
17. Military Service
18. Career before the presidency
A) French and Indian War, 1754 – 1763
B) Member of House of Burgesses (1759 – 1774)
C) Delegate to Continental Congress (1774 – 1775)
D) Commander of Chief of Continental Army during Revolution (1775 –
1783)
E) President of Constitutional Convention, 1787
19. Election as President, First Term, 1789
20. Election as President, Second Term, 1792
21. INAUGURAL ADDRESS (First)
22. INAUGURAL ADDRESS (Second)
23. VICE PRESIDENT
CABINET:
A) Secretary state:
B) Secretary of the treasury
C) Secretary of war
D) Attorney General
24. ADMINISTRATION
A) Presidents
B) Indian Affairs
C) Proclamation of Neutrality, 1793
D) Whiskey Rebellion, 1794
E) Jay’s. Treaty, 1795
F) Pinckney’s Treaty, 1795
G) Farewell Address, 1796
H) Sates Admitted to the Union
I) Constitutional Amendments Ratified
25. SUPERME COURT APPOINTMENTS
26. Ranking in 1962 historians poll
27. Retirement
28. Death
29. Washington’s praise (speech)
30. Washington’s criticized (speech)
31. Washington’s quote(s) (speech)
NAME: George Washington. He was probably named after George Eskridge, a
lawyer in whose charge Washington's mother had been left when she was
orphaned.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Washington was a large, powerful man—about 6 feet
2 inches tall, 175 pounds in his prime, up to more than 200 pounds in later
years. Erect in bearing, muscular, broad shouldered, he had large hands and
feet (size 13 shoes), a long face with high cheekbones, a large straight
nose, determined chin, blue-gray eyes beneath heavy brows and dark brown
hair, which on formal occasions he powdered and tied in a queue. His fair
complexion bore the marks of smallpox he contracted as a young man. He lost
his teeth, probably to gum disease, and wore dentures. According to Dr.
Reidar Sognnaes, former dean of the University of California at Los Angeles
School of Dentistry, who has made a detailed study of Washington's
bridgework, he was fitted with numerous sets of dentures, fashioned
variously from lead, ivory, and the teeth of humans, cows, and other
animals, but not from wood, as was popularly believed. Moreover, he was not
completely toothless. Upon his inauguration as president, Washington had
one of his own teeth left to work alongside the dentures. He began wearing
reading glasses during the Revolution. He dressed fashionably.
PERSONALITY: A man of quiet strength, he took few friends into complete
confidence. His critics mistook his dignified reserve for pomposity. Life
for Washington was a serious mission, a job to be tackled soberly,
unremittingly. He had little time for humor. Although basically good-
natured, he wrestled with his temper and sometimes lost. He was a poor
speaker and could become utterly inarticulate without a prepared text. He
preferred to express himself on paper. Still, when he did speak, he was
candid, direct, and looked people squarely in the eye. Biographer Douglas
Southall Freeman conceded that Washington's "ambition for wealth made him
acquisitive and sometimes contentious." Even after Washington had
established himself, Freeman pointed out, "he would insist upon the exact
payment of every farthing due him" and was determined "to get everything
that he honestly could." Yet neither his ambition to succeed nor his
acquisitive nature ever threatened his basic integrity.
ANCESTORS: Through his paternal grandmother, Mildred Warner Washington,
he descended from King Edward III (1312-1377) of England. His great-great-
grandfather the Reverend Lawrence Washington (c. 1602-1653) served as
rector of All Saints, Purleigh Parish, Essex, England, but was fired when
certain Puritan members accused him of being a "common frequenter of
Alehouses, not only himself sitting daily tippling there, but also
encouraging others in that beastly vice." His great-grandfather John
Washington sailed to America about 1656, intending to remain just long
enough to take on a load of tobacco. But shortly after pushing off on the
return trip, his ketch sank. Thus John remained in Virginia, where he met
and married Anne Pope, the president's great-grandmother.
FATHER: Augustine Washington (16947-1743), planter. Known to friends as
Gus, he spent much of his time acquiring and overseeing some 10,000 acres
of land in the Potomac region, running an iron foundry, and tending to
business affairs in England. It was upon returning from one of these
business trips in 1730 that he discovered that his wife, Jane Butler
Washington, had died in his absence. On March 6, 1731, he married Mary
Ball, who gave birth to George Washington 11 months later. Augustine
Washington died when George was 11 years old. > Because business had kept
Mr. Washington away from home so much, George remembered him only vaguely
as a tall, fair, kind man.
MOTHER: Mary Ball Washington (c. 1709-1789). Fatherless at 3 and
orphaned at 12, she was placed, in accordance with the terms of her
mother's will, under the guardianship of George Eskridge, a lawyer.
Washington's relationship with his mother was forever strained. Although
she was by no means poor, she regularly asked for and received money and
goods from George. Still she complained, often to outsiders, that she was
destitute and neglected by her children, much to George's embarrassment. In
1755, while her son was away serving his king in the French and Indian War,
stoically suffering the hardships of camp life, she wrote to him asking for
more butter and a new house servant. Animosity between mother and son
persisted until her death from cancer in the first year of his presidency.
SIBLINGS: By his father's first marriage, George Washington had two
half brothers to live to maturity—Lawrence Washington, surrogate father to
George after the death of their father, and Augustine "Austin" Washington.
He also had three brothers and one sister to live to maturity—Mrs. Betty
Lewis; Samuel Washington; John Augustine "Jack" Washington, father of
Supreme Court Justice Bushrod Washington; and Charles Washington, founder
of Charles Town, West "Virginia.
COLLATERAL RELATIVES: Washington was a half first cousin twice removed
of President James Madison, a second cousin seven times removed of Queen
Elizabeth II (1926-) of the United Kingdom, a third cousin twice removed of
Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and an eighth cousin six times removed
of Winston Churchill.
CHILDREN: Washington had no natural children; thus, no direct
descendant of Washington survives. He adopted his wife's two children from
a previous marriage, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis. John's
granddaughter Mary Custis married Robert E. Lee.
BIRTH: Washington was born at the family estate on the south bank of
the Potomac River near the mouth of Pope's Creek, Westmoreland County,
Virginia, at 10 A.M. on February 22, 1732 (Old Style February 11, the date
Washington always celebrated as his birthday; in 1752 England and the
colonies adopted the New Style, or Gregorian, calendar to replace the Old
Style, or Julian, calendar). He was christened on April 5, 1732.
CHILDHOOD: Little is known of Washington's childhood. The legendary
cherry tree incident and his inability to tell lies, of course, sprang
wholly from the imagination of Parson Weems. Clearly the single greatest
influence on young George was his half brother Lawrence, 14 years his
senior. Having lost his father when he was 11, George looked upon Lawrence
as a surrogate father and undoubtedly sought to emulate him. Lawrence
thought a career at sea might suit his little brother and arranged for his
appointment as midshipman in the British navy. George loved the idea.
Together they tried to convince George's mother of the virtues of such
service, but Mary Washington was adamantly opposed. George, then 14, could
have run away to sea, as did many boys of his day, but he reluctantly
respected his mother's wishes and turned down the appointment. At 16 George
moved in with Lawrence at his estate, which he called Mount Vernon, after
Admiral Edward Vernon, commander of British forces in the West Indies while
Captain Lawrence Washington served with the American Regiment there. At
Mount Vernon George honed his surveying skills and looked forward to his
twenty-first birthday, when he was to receive his inheritance from his
father's estate—the Ferry Farm, near Fredericksburg, where the family had
lived from 1738 and where his mother remained until her death; half of a
4,000-acre tract; three lots in Fredericksburg; 10 slaves; and a portion of
his father's personal property.
EDUCATION: Perhaps because she did not want to part with her eldest son
for an extended period, perhaps because she did not want to spend the
money, the widow Washington refused to send George to school in England, as
her late husband had done for his older boys, but instead exposed him to
the irregular education common in colonial Virginia. Just who instructed
George is unknown, but by age 11 he had picked up basic reading, writing,
and mathematical skills. Math was his best subject. Unlike many of the
Founding Fathers, Washington never found time to learn French, then the
language of diplomacy, and did not attend university. He applied his
mathematical mind to surveying, an occupation much in demand in colonial
Virginia, where men's fortunes were reckoned in acres of tobacco rather
than pounds of gold.
RELIGION: Episcopalian. However, religion played only a minor role in
his life. He fashioned a moral code based on his own sense of right and
wrong and adhered to it rigidly. He referred rarely to God or Jesus in his
writings but rather to Providence, a rather amorphous supernatural
substance that controlled men's lives. He strongly believed in fate, a
force so powerful, he maintained, as "not to be resisted by the strongest
efforts of human nature."
RECREATION: Washington learned billiards when young, played cards, and
especially enjoyed the ritual of the fox hunt. In later years, he often
spent evenings reading newspapers aloud to his wife. He walked daily for
exercise.
EARLY ROMANCE: Washington was somewhat stiff and awkward with girls,
probably often tongue-tied. In his mid-teens he vented his frustration in
such moonish doggerel as, "Ah! woe's me, that I should love and conceal,/
Long have
I wish'd, but never dare reveal,/ Even though severely Loves Pains I
feel." Before he married Martha, Washington's love life was full of
disappointment.
Betsy Fauntleroy. The daughter of a justice and burgess from Richmond
County, Virginia, she was but 16 when she attracted Washington, then 20. He
pressed his suit repeatedly, but, repulsed at every turn, he finally gave
up.
Mary Philipse. During a trip to Boston to straighten out a military
matter in 1756, Washington stopped off in New York and there met Mary
Philipse, 26, daughter of Frederick Philipse, a wealthy landowner. Whether
he was taken with her charms or her 51,000 acres is unknown, but he
remained in the city a week and is said to have proposed. She later married
Roger Morris, and together they were staunch Tories during the American
Revolution.
Sally Fairfax. From the time he met Sarah Gary "Sally" Fairfax as the
18-year-old bride of his friend and neighbor George William Fairfax,
Washington was infatuated with her easy charm, graceful bearing, good
humor, rare beauty, and intelligence. Although the relationship almost
certainly never got beyond flirtation, the two had strong feelings for each
other and corresponded often. In one letter written to her in 1758, at a
time when he was engaged to Martha, he blurted his love, albeit cryptically
lest the note fall into the wrong hands. He confessed he was in love with a
woman well known to her and then continued, "You have drawn me, dear Madam,
or rather I have drawn myself, into an honest confession of a simple Fact.
Misconstrue not my meaning; doubt it not, nor expose it. The world has no
business to know the object of my Love, declared in this manner to you,
when I want to conceal it." As heartbroken as Washington appears to have
been over the hopelessness of the relationship, the anguish might have been
greater had he pressed the affair, for the Fairfaxes would not come to
share Washington's passion for an independent America. In 1773, the year
American resentment over British taxes erupted in the Boston Tea Party,
Sally and George Fairfax left Virginia for England, where they settled
permanently, loyal subjects to the end.
MARRIAGE: Washington, 26, married Martha Dandridge Custis, 27, a widow
with two children, on January 6, 1759, at her estate, known as the White
House, on the Pamunkey River northwest of Williamsburg. Born in New Kent
County, Virginia, on June 21, 1731, the daughter of John Dandridge, a
planter, and Frances Jones Dandridge, Martha was a rather small, pleasant-
looking woman, practical, with good common sense if not a great intellect.
At 18 she married Daniel Parke Custis, a prominent planter of more than
17,000 acres. By him she had four children, two of whom survived childhood.
Her husband died intestate in 1757, leaving Martha reputedly the wealthiest
marriageable woman in Virginia. It seems likely that Washington had known
Martha and her husband for some time. In March 1758 he visited her at White
House twice; the second time he came away with either an engagement of
marriage or at least her promise to think about his proposal. Their wedding
was a grand affair. The groom appeared in a suit of blue and silver with
red trimming and gold knee buckles. After the Reverend Peter Mossum
pronounced them man and wife, the couple honeymooned at White House for
several weeks before setting up housekeeping at Washington's Mount Vernon.
Their marriage appears to have been a solid one, untroubled by infidelity
or clash of temperament. During the American Revolution she endured
considerable hardship to visit her husband at field headquarters. As the
First Lady, Mrs. Washington hosted many affairs of state at New York and
Philadelphia (the capital was moved to Washington in 1800 under the Adams
administration). After Washington's death in 1799, she grew morose and died
on May 22, 1802.
MILITARY SERVICE: Washington served in the Virginia militia (1752-1754,
1755-1758), rising from major to colonel, and as commander in chief of the
Continental army (1775-1783), with the rank of general. See "Career before
the Presidency."
CAREER BEFORE THE PRESIDENCY: In 1749 Washington accepted his first
appointment, that of surveyor of Culpepper County, Virginia, having gained
much experience in that trade the previous year during an expedition across
the Blue Ridge Mountains on behalf of Lord Fairfax. Two years later he
accompanied his half brother Lawrence to Barbados. Lawrence, dying of
tuberculosis, had hoped to find a cure in the mild climate. Instead, George
came down with a near-fatal dose of smallpox. With the deaths of Lawrence
and Lawrence's daughter in 1752, George inherited Mount Vernon, an estate
that prospered under his management and one that throughout his life served
as welcome refuge from the pressures of public life.
French and Indian War, 1754-1763. In 1752 Washington received his first
military appointment as a major in the Virginia militia. On a mission for
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