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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010

Happy Presidents’ Day! It’s hard to imagine U.S. presidents ever being kids, but they all were once, just like you! They had to deal with their brothers and sisters. They had to do what their parents told them. They had big dreams, even though they were small. Take first president George Washington. He was born February 22, 1732, and grew up around Fredericksburg, Virginia, at a place called Ferry Farm. One famous story about the future president states that 6-year-old George had a new hatchet, or ax. He wanted to try it out and so chopped a cherry tree on his dad’s

farm. His dad was very angry when he saw his favorite tree dead. He asked George who killed it.

“I can’t tell a lie, Pa,” George said. “You know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” It’s a great story about the importance of honesty, but it’s probably not true and was made up by a writer after Washington died. What is true is that George was a middle child. He had three older half-siblings and five younger siblings. His dad died when he was 11 years old, and his mother never remarried. He was close to his older half-brother Lawrence. George didn’t go to England for school like his older half-brothers. He never studied Greek or Latin as many boys did in his time, and his schooling ended when he was about 15. Many historians believe that may have

Ever Wondered… What Washington was like as a kid?

Above is a painting of George Washington in front of his horse.

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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010

made George feel a little self-conscious. Maybe that’s why he copied a book on manners as a boy and was always a proper young man. George liked to ride horses, fence, play cards and dance. His favorite subject was math; he was a writer, too, and started keeping a journal when he was 16. An active boy with red hair, George grew up on the Rappahannock River and liked to see how far he could throw stones into the water. A cousin claimed that George could throw a stone all the way across the river. (One myth says that George could throw a silver dollar across the Potomac, but that’s impossible. The Potomac is more than a mile wide where he lived, so George would have had a hard time throwing anything so far! Plus there were no silver dollars when he was a kid.)

One thing is for certain: Young George Washington never dreamed of growing up to be president of the United States the way some kids do today. That’s because there was no president — no United States even — when George was a boy!

— Moira E. McLaughlin

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