A Year With George Washington
On April 9, 1748, Sixteen-year-old George Washington, nearing the end of his survey expedition with his neighbor, George William Fairfax, penned an entry in his journal. Though his writing skills reflect a lack of formal education, his job as a surveyor required advanced geometry and complex math, which he was quite capable of handling.
Because land was much sought after in colonial days, surveying was a highly respectable occupation, equal in stature to medicine, the law, and even the clergy. Like those occupations, surveyors were more often than not part of Virginia’s upper class.
Below is young George Washington’s journal entry from Saturday, 9 April 1748:
Saterday, 9th. Set ye Surveyors to work, whilst Mr. Fairfax & myself stayed at ye Tent. Our Provision being all exhausted & ye Person that was to bring us a Recruit disappointing us, we were obliged to go without untill we could get some from ye neighbors, which was not untill 4 or 5 o’clock in ye Evening. We then took leaves of ye Rest of our Company, road down to John Colins in order to set of [f] ye next Day homewards.
