ton
was born

The English had lately agreed to use the calendar of Pope Gregory, which
added eleven days to the reckoning, but people still used the old style
as well as the new. By the new style, the birthday was February 22, and
that is the day which is now observed. The family into which the child
was born consisted of the father and mother, Augustine and Mary
Washington, and two boys, Lawrence and Augustine. These were sons of
Augustine Washington by a former wife who had died four years before.
George Washington was the eldest of the children of Augustine and Mary
Washington; he had afterward three brothers and two sisters, but one of
the sisters died in infancy.

It was not long after George Washington's birth that the house in which
he was born was burned, and as his father was at the time especially
interested in some iron-works at a distance, it was determined not to
rebuild upon the lonely place. Accordingly Augustine Washington removed
his family to a place which he owned in Stafford County, on the banks of
the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg. The house is not now
standing, but a picture was made of it before it was destroyed. It was,
like many Virginia houses of the day, divided into four rooms on a
floor, and had great outside chimneys at either end.

Here George Washington spent his childhood. He learned to read, write,
and cipher at a small school kept by Hobby, the sexton of the parish
church. Among his playmates was Richard Henry Lee, who was afterward a
famous Virginian. When the boys grew up, they wrote to each other of
grave matters of war and state, but here is the beginning of their
correspondence, written when they were nine years old:--

"Richard Henry Lee to George Washington:

"Pa brought me two pretty books full of
pictures he got them in Alexandria they have
pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and
elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin
bids me send you one of them it has a picture
of an elefant and a little Indian boy on his
back like uncle jo's sam pa says if I learn my
tasks good he will let uncle jo bring me to see
you will you ask your ma to let you come to see
me.

"Richard henry Lee."

"George Washington to Richard Henry Lee:

"Dear Dickey I thank you very much for the
pretty pictureboo