WASHINGTON, GEORGE

   one of the founders and first President of the United States, born at Bidges Creek, Westmoreland Co., Virginia, of a family from the North of England, who emigrated in the middle of the 17th century; commenced his public life in defending the colony against the encroachments of the French, and served as a captain in a campaign against them under General Braddock; In the contest between the colony and the mother-country he warmly espoused that of the colony, and was in 1775 appointed commander-in-chief; his first important operation in that capacity was to drive the English out of Boston, but the British rallying he was defeated at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777; next year, in alliance with the French, he drove the British out of Philadelphia, and in 1781 compelled Cornwallis to capitulate in an attack he made on Yorktown, and on the evacuation of New York by the British the independence of America was achieved, upon which he resigned the command; in 1789 he was elected to the Presidency of the Republic, and in 1793 was re-elected, at the end of which he retired into private life after paying a dignified farewell (1732-1799).