George Washington
A boy who lost his father at eleven, whose models included his older half-brother Lawrence, his older friend George William Fairfax, and Lord Fairfax (his father’s age), George Washington spent much of his late teenage years and young adulthood (age16-26, 1748-1758) on Virginia’s western frontier (Frederick County, VA) and the wilderness of trans-Appalachia, out to Pittsburgh and north to Lake Erie. He trained and worked as a professional surveyor (and as an excellent horseman) under Lord Fairfax, and got to know both colonists and Native Americans. He surveyed Clermont Farm (353 acres) from Lord Fairfax’s 2.5 million-acre Northern Neck Proprietary on October 19, 1750, to John Vance, a cooper, who had been farming the property since 1742, as the warrant for survey made clear.
George Washington’s Fieldnotes on his survey for John Vance of 353 acres, on October 19th, 1750 (George Washington Papers, Library of Congress)
Washington was Virginia’s special envoy in 1753 to make peace with the Iroquois Nations, and to the French, demanding their removal from the Ohio Country. He began his military career as a major in the Virginia Militia in 1752 and Colonel of the Virginia Regiment in 1754 at the beginning of the French and Indian War, when he accompanied both the Braddock (from Winchester) and later Forbes expeditions to Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh). He was tasked with building a chain of forts along the Virginia frontier to defend against the French and their Indian allies. His headquarters were located at Fort Loudoun, which he constructed in Winchester between 1756 and 1758. In 1758, he was successfully elected to represent Frederick County in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the beginning of his political career, but his marriage at age 26 in 1759 to wealthy widow Martha Custis brought him back to a settled family life at Mount Vernon as an industrial-scale agriculturist with 7,000 acres and 100 slaves.
Several men Washington worked with in Frederick County in his ten-year, wide-ranging frontier apprenticeship would become friends, business associates, and military commanders/providers during the Revolution, and all (of age) were “Washington men” who voted publicly for him in 1758, including men such as Daniel Morgan, John Neville, William Crawford, Morgan Alexander and the first four owners of Clermont Farm. Those owners included:
John Vance, 1742-1753 (served with his son Alexander on Washington’s Clermont survey crew, whose daughter Hannah married William Crawford, Washington land agent, military commander).
Thomas Wadlington, 1753-1770 (fellow parishioner with Washington at Pohick Church, Fairfax County, provided supplies to Washington during the F&I War; all five sons served in the Revolution).
Edward Snickers, 1770-1790 (mills, ferry and tavern owner, land speculator, Washington’s man-of-business in Frederick County, Commissary/Paymaster to Virginia’s Revolutionary troops, and to whom Washington offered the Wagon-Master Generalship of the Continental Army, whose daughter married Morgan Alexander, military commander of the Virginia regiment under Washington).
William Snickers, 1790-1819 (son of Edward, served under Daniel Morgan, fought a duel with one of Washington’s French commanders, joined Washington’s family, marrying his first cousin, Warner’s granddaughter, Frances Washington).
