01 George Washington

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This is 2! I have placed a cache for each of the past {and current} Presidents of the United States.In each of these caches is a CODE.You will need to write down the CODE from each cache.You will find a convenient "cheat sheet" in PDF format for you to print out located here Getting them all will allow you the opportunity to find the Constitution cache. The first five finders of the Constitution cache will be treated to a special prize. This is not a contest to be the first finder. The first FIVE finders will win prizes.

Stealth may be necessary in season.  This is a small island that gets a lot of use for parties in the summer months.

Information gleaned from : http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/index2.html,
http://www.americanpresidents.org/
, & American Heritage Michael Beschloss, general editor © 2000

Washington, George 1789-97

Life Facts Personal: • First Lady:Martha Washington, Wife • Wife's Maiden Name:Martha Dandridge Custis • Number of Children:2 • Education Level:No College • Religion:Episcopalian • Ancestry: English • Profession:Military, Surveyor, Planter • Military Service:General Public Service: • Dates of Presidency: 4/30/1789 - 3/3/1797 • Presidency Number:1 • Number of Terms:2 • Why Presidency Ended: End of 2nd Term • Party: • His Vice President(s): John Adams • Colonial Government: House of Burgesses (1758-1774), Continental Congress (1774-1775) • Other Offices: President of Constitutional Convention

Did You Know? • George Washington was the only president to be elected unanimously. • He was the only president inaugurated in two cities: New York and Philadelphia. • He never lived in DC, although he was interested in the construction of the city and bought property in DC. • He was an active and able mediator between his cabinet members Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

Born in 1732 into a Virginia planter family, he learned the morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century Virginia gentleman.

He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax.  In 1751 George accompanied Lawrence Washington to Barbodas, where his half brother, ill with tuberculosis, hoped to regain his health.  There, George contracted the smallpox that pock-marked his face permanently but left him immune to the disease that later ravage his Continental Army.  In the following year Lawrence died and George began his military career.  Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were shot from under him.

From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Married to a widow, Martha Dandridge Custis (one year older than he), he devoted himself to a busy and happy life. A part of the Burgess, he even drafted a lwa to prevent hogs running at large in Winchester.  But like his fellow planters, shington felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the restrictions.

When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years.

He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British. He reported to Congress, "we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn." Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies--he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Washington longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. But he soon realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. When the new Constitution was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President.

To his disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances.

Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, before he died of a tracheal infection December 14, 1799. For months the Nation mourned him.