George Washington and the West

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE WEST

GEORGE WASHINGTON

From the Virginia Colonel portrait by Charles Willson Peale, painted at Mount Vernon in 1772 when Washington was forty years of age. The original hangs in the Lee Memorial Chapel of Washington and Lee University at Lexington, Virginia. Courtesy of United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission for the celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of George Washington.

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE WEST

BY

CHARLES H. AMBLER

Professor of History West Virginia University

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

CHAPEL HILL

1936

COPYRIGHT, 1936, BY

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE SEEMAN PRINTERY,

DURHAM, N. C., AND BOUND BY L. H. JENKINS, INC., RICHMOND, VA.

THIS BOOK WAS DIGITALLY PRINTED.

PREFACE

FEW of the thousand and more books about George Washington treat exclusively of his western interests and activities. As these were extensive and admittedly determining factors in his career as a soldier and a statesman, the present writer believes there is a place for another work, to present in some detail the high spots in Washington’s relations to the West. By many, such a work may indeed be welcomed, not as a feature in the commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of Washington’s birth but as a permanent contribution to history. Certainly this will be true of all those who believe that the West was a determining influence upon American life and institutions and of all those who admit even an element of truth in the statement of the late Herbert B. Adams, that it would seem as though all lines of our public policy lead back to Washington as all roads lead to Rome.

For assistance in the preparation of this volume the author is indebted to many persons, most of them students in his classes in the West Virginia University. Accompanied by them he visited many points in the Trans-Allegheny region of the upper Ohio Valley associated with Washington legends and traditions; but specific acknowledgments are due Dr. L. D. Arnett, Librarian of the West Virginia University, for his innumerable kindnesses and his personal interest; Robert Merricks, maker of some of the maps used; my wife, Helen Carle Ambler, Dr. William E. Brooks, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Morgantown, West Virginia, and Professor Curtis C. Williams, Jr., of the West Virginia University, College of Law Faculty, each of whom criticized the manuscript while it was in process of making; Dr. William B. Hindman, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church and Chairman of the Fort Necessity Memorial Association, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, through whose kindness unexplored data on Washington’s western activities of 1754, particularly English contemporary newspaper accounts, were made available to the present writer; Dr. Solon J. Buck, of the National Archives, who read most of the galley proof and through his suggestions saved the author from a number of errors; Charles McCamie, Esquire, Moundsville, West Virginia, who read the page proof and made helpful suggestions; and his secretary, Mrs. Mary Scott Wunschel, for her patience and helpful suggestions in matters of style and format. For whatever errors this book may contain in possible misstatements of fact and interpretation the author alone is responsible.

CHARLES HENRY AMBLER.

West Virginia University

January 1, 1935

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PREFACE

     I. M AKING A F RONTIERSMAN

    II. T HE F RONTIER S URVEYOR

   III. A G RAND A DVENTURE

   IV. J UMONVILLE

    V. F ORT N ECESSITY

  VI. B ATTLE OF THE M ONONGAHELA

 VII. D EFENDER OF THE F RONTIER

VIII. T HE F RONTIER A DVANCE

  IX. I N THE R EVOLUTION

   X. I N THE C RITICAL P ERIOD

  XI. I N THE F EDERALIST R EGIME

APPENDIX A. THE BATTLE OF FORT NECESSITY

I. Contemporaneous Newspaper Accounts—II. Articles of Capitulation—III. Roster of Virginia Officers and Privates.

APPENDIX B. THE BATTLE OF THE MONONGAHELA

I. Contemporaneous Accounts in the Pennsylvania Gazette for July 24, 1755—II. Contemporaneous Account in the Pennsylvania Gazette for July 31, 1755.

NOTES

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(With the exception of the maps and line drawings, the illustrations face the pages indicated)

THE VIRGINIA COLONEL

WAKEFIELD, VIRGINIA, WASHINGTON’S BIRTHPLACE

CHAIN, COMPASSES, AND SCALE, DRAWN BY WASHINGTON

LORD FAIRFAX

COMPASS DRAWN BY WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON’S JOURNEY TO FORT LE BOEUF

WASHINGTON CROSSING THE ALLEGHENY WITH GIST

WASHINGTON’S MAP OF HIS JOURNEY TO THE OHIO, 1753

JUMONVILLE’S GRAVE

HISTORICAL MAP OF THE REDSTONE COUNTRY

SURRENDER OF FORT NECESSITY, JULY 4, 1754

FORT NECESSITY RECONSTRUCTED

BRADDOCK’S TRAIL

ORIGINAL GRAVE OF GENERAL BRADDOCK

BRADDOCK’S GRAVE AND MONUMENT

THE VIRGINIA FRONTIER, 1756-1758

ROADS TO FORT DUQUESNE, 1758

WASHINGTON’S JOURNEY ON AND ALONG THE OHIO, 1770

WASHINGTON’S MILL NEAR PERRYOPOLIS, PENNSYLVANIA

WASHINGTON’S WESTERN TOUR, 1784

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE WEST

CHAPTER I

MAKING A FRONTIERSMAN¹

A DIRECT DESCENDANT in the tenth generation from John Washington of Tewithfield, Lancashire, England, George Washington was born February 22, 1732, on his father’s estate at Bridges Creek, later named Wakefield, Westmoreland County, Virginia.² He was the eldest child of Augustine Washington by his second wife, Mary Ball, and was christened George for Major George Eskridge, his mother’s guardian, and not for the reigning king of England as has been claimed. He had three brothers, Samuel, John, and Charles, and two sisters, Mildred, who died in infancy, and Betty, who married Fielding Lewis, and lived at Kenmore on the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

With this large family, which also included for a time two half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, children of Jane Butler, his father’s first wife, George Washington made his home until he went to live with his half-brother, Lawrence. These early family contacts did much to develop in George the traits of forbearance and consideration which characterized his life to its end and largely determined its success. For each of his brothers and for his sister, he had genuine affection which with his half-brothers ripened into respect and esteem. Another characteristic of the Washington family attachments was sincerity. With George this quality became so habitual that he carried it into other human contacts, winning for himself the respect and admiration of all classes and conditions of mankind.

Authorities generally agree in giving Washington’s mother chief credit for his best qualities. The direct descendant of a long line of illustrious ancestors which may have included John Ball, the Mad Preacher of Kent, and which certainly included Mary Montague of the extinct house of Salisbury, Mary Ball was born and reared at Epping Forest on the Rappahannock River, the daughter of Colonel Joseph Ball, who died when she was young. As a girl Mary Ball was known as the Rose of Epping Forest and the Belle of the Northern Neck, but, like most girls of her day, she received little formal education. Instead she learned to do housework and to read the Bible. Later she is said to have become somewhat familiar with profound and scholarly writings of the period. More important still she was gifted with great firmness and constancy of purpose, as well as with clear judgment and remarkable mental independence.³ These traits sufficed to make her the ruler of her household, respected and esteemed by her intimates rather than fondled and caressed.

Of the many characterizations of this unusual woman, Lawrence Washington of Chotank, one of George Washington’s youthful playmates, left an intimate impression. Lawrence feared her ten times more than he feared either of his own parents, because she awed him in the midst of her kindness, for she was, indeed, truly kind. In his declining years he wrote, even now, when … I am the grandparent of a second generation, I could not behold that remarkable woman without feelings it is impossible to describe; and he traced to her the awe-inspiring air and manner so characteristic of the Father of his Country.⁴

Although independent in judgment Mary Washington was not a new light reformer. Instead, she drilled her children in the rather stiff and formal etiquette of her day and in the catechism of the Established Church. With each of them she was on all occasions the Honoured Madam, never given to praise or flattery. Successful achievement of worthy endeavor was accepted by her as matter of fact. She read to her children from the Bible, from the sermons of the Bishop of Exeter, and from Sir Matthew Hale’s Contemplations, Moral and Divine. Today at Mount Vernon there is a copy of the last named work, a flyleaf of which bears the signature Jane Washington, Augustine Washington’s first wife, in her own handwriting, and below it the additional words and Mary Washington, in her hand.⁵

WAKEFIELD, VIRGINIA, A REPRODUCTION OF THE BIRTHPLACE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON (GARDEN SIDE).

Courtesy of United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission for the celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of George Washington.

Recent authors portray Washington’s mother as a crude and illiterate woman; as having had little to do with George’s up-bringing, far less than did his half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine; and as having been an irascible person, increasingly so as she grew older: an irritant to her son and a source of worry to him.⁶ She is said to have smoked almost incessantly. It may be significant that George never smoked and that he left home as soon as he could and remained away as long as possible.

Whatever one may think of this rather Spartan yet kind woman, George Washington attributed to her chief credit for what he became.⁷ Probably more than from any other source or from all other sources combined, he acquired from her the strength of a philosopher, the truthfulness of a Christian, a fear of God, and a love of liberty and justice. Nor were the forms and conventions which she drilled into him without value. They gave her son poise and bearing and enabled him naturally to spurn familiarity and to command respect. In his subsequent intercourse with statesmen and diplomats these traits also commanded respect for the independent government which he was largely responsible in establishing.

Neither of George Washington’s grandfathers was remarkable for talents and achievements, nor did either belong to the highest class of Virginia gentry. Joseph Ball was a colonel and left his daughter, Mary, about two thousand acres in her own right. The Balls came to America as merchants and Joseph’s immediate family had English attachments, largely commercial.⁸

Nor was George Washington’s grandfather, Lawrence Washington, more distinguished. Like his famous grandson, he was the eldest child of his immediate family, but, unlike him, he did not increase its importance. He is said to have been a quiet, thrifty man who did not seek adventure either upon land or water. He died leaving a competent estate but nothing to be compared with those left by the Byrds, the Carters, the Fairfaxes, and others of their day.⁹

More can be said for George Washington’s great-grandfather, John Washington, the first of his family in Virginia.¹⁰ He was a man of great personal strength, inclined to war, very resolute, and of a masterful and very violent temper, in whom biographers have found striking resemblance to his great-grandson. Completing a sojourn in Barbadoes, John Washington, came to Virginia in 1657 and soon thereafter came into possession of a large estate in Prince William County, later called Mount Vernon, which was granted to him and Colonel Spencer for transporting an hundred laborers.

Thus established upon what was then the frontier, John Washington sympathized with Nathaniel Bacon in his difficulties with Governor William Berkeley, resulting in Bacon’s Rebellion, which occurred just one hundred years before the American Revolution. In fact, Washington was reprimanded by Berkeley for harsh treatment of Indians. What this treatment was has not been definitely determined, but there is evidence that the Indians feared Washington. For this reason they gave him the name Conotocarious meaning the Destroyer of Villages.

Whatever may be said of the relations existing between the Indians and John Washington, he died enjoying the respect and esteem of his white neighbors. In 1670 he was a member of the House of Burgesses and at other times he held public positions of honor and trust. Throughout his life he was an active churchman, which does not mean that he subjected himself to great denial, as determined by more recent standards. Rectors of his day engaged in fox hunting and gambling, and became so intoxicated that they could not perform baptismal services. He left a legacy to a church in Washington Parish, Prince William County, and provided also for the erection of a tablet therein, on which was inscribed the Ten Commandments and the King’s Arms.¹¹ Consequently some have traced George Washington’s pious and sterling qualities to others than his maternal ancestors.

Most of the traditions regarding George Washington’s early education are of uncertain origin and authenticity.¹² At least there is no documentary source available to the present writer to support the claims that Washington, when about six years old, attended a school taught by one of his father’s indentured servants, William Grove, nicknamed Hobby. This school is supposed to have been located near the Washington homestead, Ferry Farm, on the Rappahannock River, almost opposite Fredericksburg, Virginia, to which Augustine Washington moved his family, after an accidental fire in his home at Little Hunting Creek, later named Mount Vernon for Admiral Vernon, where he had been living since 1734 or 1735. It was from Ferry Farm, according to tradition, that George Washington was first sent to school. It is said that as the school was some distance from his home, he went and came on horseback in the company of a Negro, named Peter.

Equally unauthentic, but nevertheless interesting because of its admitted possibilities, is a tradition to the effect that George Washington attended a school in Fredericksburg, Virginia, taught by the Reverend James Marye. Here Washington is said to have received lessons in writing and in business accounting. If he did attend school in Fredericksburg, he probably made there his first contacts with real boys, robust fellows, his equals in wrestling and other sports. One of them, William Crawford, at whose home Washington is said to have lodged during the school week, later surveyed Washington’s western lands and in 1782 was burned to death at the stake by Indians at or near what is now Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Others of Washington’s companions of this period later fought with him in the French and Indian and other wars.

Another similar tradition regarding George Washington’s early education is that his mother wished him to enter the Christian ministry. His aptitude for learning and his alleged piety prompted this desire which, however, may have been unwittingly thwarted by the boy’s father, a typical Virginia planter, who took a keen delight in teaching his son George to ride well, to shoot accurately, and to jump and climb with agility. Tradition has it that in recognition of his accomplishments in these boyhood sports the father gave his son George a small sword with which he was greatly delighted. It is said that his attitude toward his toy disturbed his mother, who thus detected in her son greater interest in the career of a soldier than in the career which she had chosen for him. But these stories may be as baseless as those built around the cherry tree and the fiery colt.

Everything considered, particularly the scarcity of schools and the prevailing customs, it is reasonable to assume that George Washington’s early education was directed largely by his father with the possible aid of a private tutor or tutors. Confirming this idea and the belief that George’s education was directed, after his father’s death, by his half-brother Lawrence Washington, are George’s school exercise books.¹³ These fall into two distinct groups which overlap each other at dates corresponding to those of his father’s death and of the marriage of Lawrence, after which the latter presumably assumed greater responsibility for his youthful half-brother. Whatever these facts may have been, at the age of eleven George Washington could write a fair and legible, if unformed and sprawling, juvenile hand and had made some progress in the elementals of arithmetic.¹⁴

Enough of Washington’s school exercises have been preserved to give a fair idea of his educational equipment. They were written in ink, in home-made blank books of paper sheets, folded to about nine by eleven inches and stitched with thread.¹⁵ The earliest documents of this kind are devoted to arithmetic and include fractions, decimals, and interest. For a later period they are given up to trigonometry, logarithms, and finally to geometry and surveying in the pursuit of which he drew splendid illustrations of compasses and chains, the instruments he used.

Other exercise books contain copies of business forms and legal instruments. Among these are a promissory note; a bill of exchange; a general release; a servant indenture; a bill of sale; a power of attorney; and still other forms, notably bonds, judgments, transfers, conveyances, and the like. Practically all of these belong to the period following his father’s death and were the product of Lawrence’s ideas of a practical education. If more generally known, these devices would doubtless commend themselves to modern educators who claim to have found something new and original in the utilitarian idea of education.

Washington’s mathematical exercise culminated in self-assigned problems in surveying, thus further demonstrating the practical character of his education. Indeed, it seems probable that he was taught and studied for the attainment of a definite objective. Be that as it may, at an early age he was trying to demonstrate: How to take an Inaccessible distance at two Stations; How to measure any piece of Ground be it never so Irregular and to Cast up the Content thereof in Acres, Roodes and Perches.¹⁶ More important still, according to one of his most recent and authentic biographers, Washington had a natural liking for surveying. Continuing, this author says the examples are too many, too varied and too carefully inscribed to have been done entirely as tasks.¹⁷

THE CHAIN AND COMPASSES AND SCALE WERE DRAWN BY GEORGE WASHINGTON WHEN HE WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD

Washington followed his practical training in mathematics and surveying by equally practical lessons in geography, for which he seems to have had an aptitude. After a fashion somewhat original, his exercise books contained definitions of a continent, a peninsula, a promatory, climate, and the ocean. For example, A Climate is a Certain space of Earth & Sea that is included within ye Space of two Parrallels & of them there have been Anciently Accounted Seven, and the earth was Divided into five Zones.¹⁸ However naïve this phase of Washington’s education may seem, it developed him as a map-maker, an art in which he became proficient. As much as any other accomplishment map-making stood him in stead during the rest of his life. Moreover his knowledge of general geography he used almost constantly. It is well known that his ability to judge distances with accuracy approached the marvelous, and that it was next to impossible to lose him anywhere, even in the heart of a trackless forest.

Meanwhile young Washington was making other contacts with the practical side of life.¹⁹ Virginians then led active lives in the open. There were horses to ride; forests contained game in abundance; the broad rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay were full of oysters, fish, and crabs; and, in season, the marshes paralleling these rivers were favorite haunts for ducks and geese, in the pursuit of which Washington became more or less expert. Another boyhood pleasure was swimming, his favorite resort being Hobb’s Hole, the deepest place in the river. Here he and his companions became past masters in aquatic arts; here they had their clothes stolen; here they played practical jokes on one another; and here they tried the patience of parents by foolhardy darings.

A turning point in the life of this unusual yet quite human youth came in 1743 with the death of his father. Shortly thereafter, according to the prevailing custom, the Washington estates were divided, the largest ones going to the eldest sons. Thus Lawrence became the owner of Mount Vernon and Augustine of Bridges Creek, while the lands on the Rappahannock, together with a number of Negro slaves and a small amount of personal property, went to the children by his second wife who was to hold and manage the lands specifically willed to each son until he became of age; but in the event that Lawrence died without issue, Mount Vernon was to go to George.

Of greater consequence, the death of George’s father is supposed to have caused changes in plans for his son’s education. It is reasonable to presume that Augustine Washington had intended to give his eldest son, by his second wife, the same educational advantages which he gave his eldest son by his first marriage and which he himself had received.²⁰ Such a plan would have taken George to Appleby School in England, but there is no documentary proof that he attended school anywhere. Certainly whatever plans may have been made for his institutional training, they were not carried out following his father’s death, and his education continued to be of the practical sort. He was not even sent to William and Mary College in Virginia, a privilege then accorded many sons of first families. Fortunately, both Lawrence and Augustine were in a position to assume a measure of responsibility for their half-brother George.

Because Lawrence was about to be married George did not go to Mount Vernon at once following his father’s death but sojourned for a time thereafter with Augustine in his home at Bridges Creek, where George himself had been born. Although he was not able to continue there the training which his father had begun and which Lawrence later continued, Bridges Creek offered George an attractive social life. Augustine Washington had married Ann Aylett, a kind woman, very orderly and handsome, who brought to her husband a fortune. In her home and under her direction George first met gentle folk and tasted formal society. In these contacts he acquitted himself well and was a favorite with all. Handsome and mature, with a serious manner, he was not lacking in a sense of humor, and his fondness for sports and life in the open made him what would today be called a good fellow. For a boy on the threshold of adolescence this was indeed a helpful experience.

Even thus early Washington showed evidences of that moderation and restraint that characterized his later life and made him master of himself. The gay life at Bridges Creek, with its race horses and hounds, which would have distracted many another youth, did not banish from his mind the serious purpose of his visit, the furthering of his education. Although he found time to beat his brother and his brother’s friends in a fox hunt or two, he lost no opportunity to improve his knowledge of surveying. This was done by continuing his exercises and, when possible, by accompanying surveying parties into the surrounding country. More significant still, George showed as much interest in his brother’s large and well-assorted library as in his horses and his hounds. Thus in the midst of what would have been the most unfavorable conditions for a less purposeful youth, George Washington prepared for a career of usefulness, which would in all probability have led him to fame and fortune, had he not achieved them through more important rôles.

Perhaps because of possible reflections upon his limitations in the circle of the socially élite at Bridges Creek, but more probably because of a realization of the facts that he would have to educate himself and that no education is complete without finished manners, Washington early in his teens copied and formulated for his own guidance his famous Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. These rules had to do with such things as coughing, sneezing, spitting, sighing, and yawning; with the killing of such vermin as Fleas, lice, &c., in the Sight of Others; and with the proper care of one’s nails, clothing, hair and teeth. They were probably copied from a work by Hawkins, then much used in both France and England,²¹ and throughout were based upon a polite consideration for the rights and feelings of others.

Because of an absorbing attempt on the part of scholars to determine the source of these rules, Washington’s reactions to them have been overlooked. It is difficult and sometimes of doubtful value to trace character-forming influences to their sources; but Washington’s personality is such a common asset and his conduct parallels so closely some of the rules adopted for his youthful guidance, that the influence of those rules upon his character should not be ignored. For example, the seventeenth rule, Be no Flatterer, found a living exemplification in him; the thirty-ninth rule, In writing and Speaking, give to every Person his due title According to his Degree and the Custom of the Place, was observed by him in thousands of letters and otherwise; and the last rule, the one hundred tenth, Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called Conscience, is one which public men have since too frequently ignored. With Washington the obeying of this precept was habitual.

Joseph Addison’s tragedy, Cato, was also almost certainly a formative influence in Washington’s life.²² To his probable acquaintance with it writers have traced his love of the theater and his knowledge of political philosophy. His friend and adviser, Lord Fairfax, was well acquainted with Addison and several dozen copies of Cato were distributed from Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1743. It is thus reasonable to presume that Washington read this work, and, this being granted, that its high republican principles left a deep impression upon him. However that may be, "Throughout Washington’s entire life the heroics of various lines of Cato appear in his letters, and where such lines stuck in his memory, it is safe to say that the philosophy of them lingered."²³

During the remaining years that Washington resided with his mother he made frequent and extended visits with his half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, and with his cousins at Chotank. In this way he continued his informal education and kept in touch with the social life of Virginia. For these purposes he doubtless found Mount Vernon most helpful. Shortly after his father’s death Lawrence Washington married Anne Fairfax, daughter of William Fairfax of Belvoir, a near-by estate. William, a cousin of Lord Fairfax and his agent in America, had been educated in England and had seen official service in the English navy, and his accomplished daughter, Anne, brought to Mount Vernon such a gracious hospitality as to make it one of the popular social centers of colonial Virginia. Fortunately for George, the affection Lawrence had always shown him was shared by his new sister-in-law, for whom he developed a strong attachment.

In this new environment Washington learned rapidly. The Fairfaxes were frequent visitors, and doubtless he heard of the romantic adventures of the English navy, in which Lawrence had been an officer, and of British sea power. These accounts must have revived his childhood memories of 1741, when the Washington family, with eagerness and high expectations, though with some concern, sent Lawrence to join Admiral Vernon on an expedition to the West Indies. From his earliest childhood he had also seen strange sailing vessels, some of which belonged to his own father, Captain Washington, ascend and descend the Rappahannock; and now similar vessels were appearing in increasing numbers upon the Potomac, all tangible evidence of British sea strength. From the furnace of the Principio Company at Accotink, near Fredericksburg, in which he with others, mostly residents of