George Washington of six children of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington. At the age of 16, he lived there and at other plantations along the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers, including the river later to be known as Mount Vernon. His education was simple, as surveying, mathematics, and "rules of civility." After he lost his father in 1743 at the age of eleven. He was soon sent to live with his half brother Lawrence, who had served in the Royal Navy. Who soon became something as a substitute father for George. Since Lawrence had married into the Fairfax family, influential and well-known Virginians who helped launch George's career. But his mother discouraged the Fairfax family from doing so. .
Even though George was interested in a naval career. Instead George joined a surveying party sent out to the Shenandoah Valley by Lord Fairfax, a land baron. For the next few years, George conducted surveys in Virginia and present West Virginia and gained a lifetime interest in the West. In 1751-52 he also accompanied Lawrence on a visit he made to Barbados, West Indies, in an effort to cure Lawrence of tuberculosis, but Lawrence died in 1752. George in the end inherited the Mount Vernon estate. .
The next year, Washington began his military career when the royal governor appointed him to an adjutant ship in the militia, as a major. That same year, the growing rivalry between the British and French over control of the Ohio Valley, soon to erupt into the French and Indian War (1754-63). Which created new opportunities for the young determined Washington. In 1754, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel and then colonel in the militia, Washington led a group that sought to challenge French control of the Ohio River Valley, but met defeat at Fort Necessity, PA. In April 1754, on his way to set up a post at the Forks of the Ohio (which is now Pittsburgh). Washington learned that the French had already set up a fort there.
