PAGE Wheatland, the Residence of James Buchanan Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. Harriet Lane Johnston Lincoln's Residence in Springfield, Ill. . Statue of Lincoln, by St. Gaudens, in Chicago Death Mask of Lincoln, taken by Leonard W. Volk Tomb of General Garfield, Cleveland, Ohio. Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. Lucretia R. Garfield Tomb of President Arthur, in Rural Cemetery, Albany, N. Y. Portrait and Autograph of Mrs. Caroline S. Harrison . 506 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS. GEORGE WASHINGTON. GEORGE WASHINGTON, first president of the United States, born at Pope's Creek, near Bridge's Creek, Westmoreland co., Va., 22 Feb., 1732; died at Mount Vernon, 14 Dec., 1799. Of his English ancestry various details are given in more than one formal biography of him, and very recently several questions of his genealogy have been satisfactorily solved by Mr. Henry F. Waters, Mr. Moncure D. Conway, and Mr. W. C. Ford, which had eluded even the labors of the late Col. J. L. Chester. It is perhaps too early to regard his English ancestry as beyond all further question. At all events, this memoir may well be allowed to begin with his American history. His earliest ancestor in this country was John Washington, who had resided for some years at South Cave, near the Humber, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, and who came over to Virginia, with his brother Andrew, in 1657. Purchasing lands in Westmoreland county and establishing his residence at Pope's Creek, not far from the Potomac, he became, in due course, an extensive planter, a county magistrate, and a member of the house of burgesses. He distinguished himself, also, as colonel of the Virginia forces in driving off a band of Seneca. Indians who were ravaging the neighboring settlements. In honor of his public and private character, the parish in which he resided was called Washington. In this parish his grandson, Augustine, the second son of Lawrence Washington, was born in 1694. By his first wife Augustine had four children. Two of them died young, but two sons, Lawrence and Augustine, survived their mother, who died in 1728. On 6 March, 1730, the father was again married. His second wife was Mary Ball, and George was her first child. If tradition is to be trusted, few sons ever had a more lovely and devoted mother, and no mother a more dutiful and affectionate son. Bereaved of her husband, who died after a short illness in 1743, when George was but eleven years of age, and with four younger children to be cared for, she discharged the responsibilities thus sadly devolved upon her with scrupulous fidelity and firmness. To her we owe the precepts and example that governed George's life. The excellent maxims, moral and religious, which she found in her favorite manual-" Sir Matthew Hale's Contemplations"were impressed on his memory and on his heart, as she read them aloud to her children; and that little volume, with the autograph inscription of Mary Washington, was among the cherished treasures of his library as long as he lived. To her, too, under God, we owe especially the restraining influence and authority, that held him back, at the last moment, as we shall see, from embarking on a line of life that would have cut him off from the great career that has rendered his name immortal. Mary Washington Well did Dr. Sparks, in his careful and excellent biography, speak of "the debt owed by mankind to the mother of Washington." A pleasing conjectural picture, not without some weight of testimony, has been adopted by Mr. Lossing in his "Mary and Martha," representing her at the age of twenty-three. She delighted in saying simply that "George had always been a good son"; and her own life was fortunately prolonged until she had seen him more than fulfil every hope of her heart. On his way to his first inauguration as president of the United States Washington came to bid his mother a last farewell, just before her death. That parting scene, however, was not at his birthplace. The primitive Virginia farm-house in which he was born had long ceased to be the family residence, and had gradually fallen into * See vignette, from the original in the possession of Mrs. S. F. B. Morse. ruin. The remains of a large kitchen-chimney were all that could be identified of it in 1878, by a party of which Secretary Evarts, General Sherman, and the late Mr. Charles C. Perkins, of Boston, were three, who visited the spot with a view to the erection of a memorial under the authority of congress. Not long after the birth that has rendered this spot forever memorable, Augustine Washington removed to an estate in Stafford county, on the east side of the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, and resided there with his family during the remaining years of his life. That was the scene of George's early childhood. There he first went to school, in an "old-field" schoolhouse, with Hobby, the sexton of the parish, for his first master. After his father's death, however, he was sent back to the old homestead at Pope's Creek, to live for a while with his elder half-brother, Augustine, to whom the Westmoreland estate had been left, and who, on his marriage, had taken it for his residence. There George had the advantage of at least a better school than Hobby's, kept by a Mr. Williams. But it taught him nothing except reading, writing, and arithmetic, with a little geometry and surveying. For this last study he evinced a marked preference. Many of his copy-books of that period have been preserved, and they show no inconsiderable proficiency in the surveyor's art, even before he finally left school, toward the close of his sixteenth year. One of those manuscript books, however, is of a miscellaneous and peculiarly interesting character, containing carefully prepared forms for business papers; a few selections or, it may be, original compositions in rhyme; and a series of "Rules of Behavior in Company and Conversation," most of them translated from a French Book of "Maximes," discovered by Mr. Conway, of which the last and most noteworthy one, not in the French series, and which he may have added himself, must never be omitted from the story of Washington's boyhood: "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, Conscience." All these schoolboy manuscripts bear witness alike to his extreme care in cultivating a neat, clear, and elegant handwriting, and his name is sometimes written. almost as if in contemplation of the great instruments and state papers to which it was destined to be the attesting signature. Meantime he was training himself for vigorous manhood by all sorts of robust exercises and athletic sports. He played soldier, sometimes, with his school-mates, always asserting the authority of captain, and subjecting the little company to a rigid discipline. Running, leaping, and wrestling were among his favorite pastimes. He became a fearless rider, too, and no horse is said to have been too fiery for him. "Above all," as Irving well says, "his inherent probity, and the principles of justice on which he regulated his conduct, even at this early period of his life, were soon appreciated by his school-mates; W he was referred to as an umpire in their disputes, and his decisions were never reversed." A crisis in Washington's life occurred before he left school. His eldest half-brother, Lawrence, had already been an officer in the English service, and was at the siege of Carthagena under Admiral Vernon, for whom he formed a great regard, and whose name he afterward gave to his estate on the Potomac. Observing George's military propensities, and thinking that the English navy would afford him the most promising field for future distinction, Lawrence obtained a midshipman's warrant for him in 1746, when he was just fourteen years old, and George is said to have been on the point of embarking on this English naval service. The earnest remonstrance of his mother was interposed, and the project reluctantly abandoned. He thereupon resumed his studies, and did not leave school till the autumn before his sixteenth year. Soon afterward he went to reside with his brother Lawrence, who had married a Fairfax of Belvoir, and had established himself at Mount Vernon. Washington's education was now finished, so far as schools and schoolmasters were concerned, and he never enjoyed or sought the advantages of a college. Indeed, only a month |