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By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
Map by John C. Fitzpatrick, author of “George
Washington, Colonial Traveler,” courtesy the
Bobbs-Merrill company, publishers.
HEN you saw the title of this
article d you find yourself say-
ing : “George Washington a West.
Why, I thought he was
born in Virginia, lived most of his
life there and died there. And
Virginia certainly is an Eastern
state.”
You're quite right, for he was
and it is!
ut the point Is—and it's one
which few Americans, perhaps,
realize—that some of the most
important events in Washington's career took
place in the West, that he was one of the most
“Western-minded” men of his day and that he
retained his Interest In the West to the end of
his life.
Washington's first experience in “the West”
came when he was sixteen years old, In 1748
Lord Fairfax engaged the young Virginian to
aid George W. Fairfax, his agent, in making sur.
veys in the Shenandoah Valley beyond the Blue
Ridge mountains. This trip lasted a month and
brought him for the first time into contact with
the red men who were to resist so savagely the
westward push of the white men.
Five years later Washington set out upon an-
other journey farther west which was more
fraught with danger and much more important
historically. The Ohlo company, formed In 1748
by a London merchant and several prominent
men in Virginia, had obtained a grant of 200,000
acres on the Ohlo river. But when the company
attempted to make good its claim to these lands,
the French, who were determined to dominate
the interior of North America, broke up their
trading posts and carried their traders away to
Canada as prisoners. Moreover, Marquis Du-
quesne, the new governor-general of Canada, or.
dered forts built in the Ohio country to hold it
for the French. By 1753 they had established
posts at Presque Isle (the present Erie, Pa.) and
Le Boeuf (near Waterford, Pa.) and an outpost
at Venango (at the junction of French creek
and the Allegheny).
Late in the year Governor Dinwiddie of Vir.
ginia sent Washington to warn the French off
of the lands claimed by the English, Washing-
ton engaged Christopher Gist, who had surveyed
the Ohlo company's lands in 1750, as his guide
and four others as “servitors.” Later they were
joined by a party of friendly Indians who ac
companied them to Venango,
The expedition, made in the dead of winter,
was a perilous as well as a futile one. Both the
French commanders at Venango and Le Boeuf
were firm In their refusal to quit their posts
until ordered to do so by the governor of Can-
ada, So Washington started back to report to
Dinwiddie.
During this trip Washington visited for the
first time “the Forks of the Ohlo” and record.
ed In his Journal: “I spent some time In view-
ing the Rivers, and the Land In the Fork; which
1 think extremely well situated for a Fort"
Washington could not have realized at the
time how important to his future career this
spot wns to be, For within a year Captain
Trent with a party of backwoodsmen was build.
ing a fort st this “extremely well situated”
place and Washington, as a lleutenant-colonel of
Virginia militia, was marching with a small
force of raw troops, under orders from Governor
Dinwiddie, to garrison it. When he reached
Wills Creek (now Cumberland, Md.) he learned
that the French had swooped down, driven
Trent's men away and were themselves building
Fort Duquesne there.
Washington pushed on and a party of French
under Jumonville came out from Duquesne “to
repel force with force.” On May 28, 1704, in
erner?
~ PENNSYLVAN
a
snie (1758) From a Pascron BY LR. Cara
what Is now Fayet!
two tiny forces mu
opened the war that
the battle field
the wom
i TOIT oe
us George
a crude breastwork
sity, There h
liers, Ju
troops *
by the constant
ketry fire from
them, fought o
Washing
A year later Wasi
time as an alde to Gen, Edward Braddock™s fine
British army which was certain to capture Fort
Duquesne from the French. Then
fatal July 9 on the Monongahela and a few days
later Washington was writing to his brother,
Augustine: “By the
rr
ion was
ston again rode Weal, this
came the
all powerful dispensations
of Providence, I have beyond
human probability and expectation: for I had
four bullets through my coat, and two horses
shot under me, yet although
death was leveling my companions on every
glide of me”
The next two years found Washington, now a
colonel and commander-in.chief of all the mill
tias In Virginia, guarding her frontier against
the Indians who, encouraged by Praddock’s de-
feat, repeatedly attacked the outlying settle
been protected
escaned unhurt,
Washington's Mission to the Ohio
From TRE Prwrong BY A. CRAPPEL
ments, Most of this time was spent at Fort
Cumberland and Fort Loudoun (Winchester)
with occasional trips to Williamsburg, to Alex-
andria and to Mount Vernon and longer jour:
neys to Philadelphia, New York and Boston,
But at last in the fall of 1758 he set out for
the West again. This time he was in command
of Virginia troops accompanying the expedition
of Gen. John Forbes against Fort Duquesne
and on November 28 he wrote to Governor
Fauquler:
“Fort Duquesne, or the ground rather on
which it stood, was possessed by his majesty’'s
troops on the 26th instant.”
Victory, at last! So the career of George
Washington as a frontier fighter ended. In Jan-
uary, 1700, he married the Widow Custis and
prepared to settle down at Mount Vernon as a
Virginia gentleman farmer, But his experience
during the French and Indian war had given
him an intimate knowledge of the land across
the monntaing and he realized fully ite future
importance and the opportunities which it would
afford for a land speculator,
\\\ al
(Frow The Plinr uns By Peace)
¥
141
In 1754, when Governor Dinwiddie
proclamation giving 00000 acres of
jJand to men who had served In the war,
ington. as a major, received 15,000 acres on t
Ohio although he did not = ieeeed in having It
surveved and patented until seven years Ia
By the Royal Proc of 1763, at the close
of the French and Indian war, he received 5,000
*
. 3
nd from other of
acres more in hig «
ficers and men whe
purchased 2.500 a
In 1750, acting as
the western lands
Inlimg liohily Le
sims Lghiy lis
Virginia rg le
Washington, himself,
(the former Fort Dug
ferences with George
with the chiefs of the 3
companied by Doctor
y is seen
an advertisement, [1 wy ashington, wi
Maryland Journal and Balti
7:8, and which
offered for sale 20000 acres of land on the
Kanawha and the Ohlo rivers In this
advertisement Washi states that "if the
appeared in the
Gre
mare
Advertiser for
Great
gion
scheme for establishing a new government on
the Oblo, in the manner talked of should ever
be effected, these must be among the most val
uable lands”
Eventually a new government was
jished there—but not the one, perhaps, which
Washington had in mind. Soon after the struggle
for liberty began, Washington's mind was oc
upled with a greater problem than that of his
western lands and It kept his mind occupied for
the next seven or eight years,
At the close of the Revolution Washington
owned land in what is now New York, Pennsyl-
vania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio
and Kentucky, even as far west as Louisville
tesides owning all this land, Washington was
aiso interested in developing routes of communi.
cation and travel between the East and the
West because he knew that the West could not
be developed rapidly without them.
in 1784 he set out on another journey to the
West “to obtain Information of the nearest and
best communication between the Eastern and
Western waters.” This information he secured
by traveling on horseback across ten mountain
ranges and covering a distance of 084 miles In
34 days. Upon his return he wrote: “I am well
pleased with my journey, as it has been the
means of my obtaining a knowledge of facts
coming at the temper and disposition of the
Western inhabitants, and making reflections
thereon which otherwise must have been as wild,
incoherent, or perhaps as foreign from the truth
as the Inconsistency of the reports which I had
received even from those to whom most credit
seemed due, generally were,”
One result of his journey was the founding of
the Potomac company, incorporated in 1785 by
the legislatures of both Maryland and Virginia
estab
and Potomac rivers with the Ohio, A part of
the canal was dug but it was never carried to
completion, Washington was given 50 shares In
the Potomac company and he left these In his
will to the founding of a university to be estab
lished in the District of Columbia.
When Washington died he owned more than
50.000 acres of land, valued at nearly half a
in the West, or, at least, what was regarded as
“the West" at that time. They Included 27.480
acres in Virginia, 23.341 on the Great Kanawha
river, 9.74 on the Ohio river, 5,000 on Rongh
ereek In Kentucky, 3.051 on the Little Miami
river in Ohio, 1,110 in Maryland, 1,000 on the Mo
hawk river in New York, and last, but not least,
234 In Pennsylvania. Not least, because these
254 acres Included the Great Meadows, where a
young frontier fighter had built Fort Necessity
and embarked upon the military career (even
though It was with a defeat) that made the
pame of George Washington forever famous!
© Western Newspaper Union,
Building the
Washington
HE Washington monument was
long a subject of discusgion in
and out of after the
death of the Father of His Country in
1700 until its capstone was set in place
December 6, 1884, a total of 85 years,
says a National society
bulletin,
On December 25, 1799, John Mar
shall,
George Washington,
CONZTess
Geographic
famous fellow-Virginlan of
introduced a res
olution In the United States house of
viding that “a mar
rected by the Unit
representatives pro
ble mor
ed
1 to permit his body
t." Martha
gions
under |
body becan
Monumer
John
SOCIetY, 9
’
the shaft
Ameri
The Washington National Monument
in the Capital City.
filled with historical documents, was
laid, Slowly for six years the obelisk
rose skyward. Then dissension in the
society and lack of funds caused con
struction to cease,
President Grant, In 1870, signed a
bill which provided that the govern-
ment take over and complete the erec-
tion of the shaft. Engineers discov-
ered, after careful examination, that
the foundations were not sufficient for
so lofty an obelisk, the world's tallest,
so they began what was called at that
time “one of the outstanding engineer.
ing feats of the world"—rebuilding the
monument's foundatons without dam-
age to the structure. Then, stone by
stone, the shaft rose until the pyra
midal capstone was placed on Decem-
ber 6, 1884.
The memorial was opened to the
public October 9, 1888, Lining its in. |
ner walls were placed stones presented
by states, cities, fraternities, fire com
panies, lodges and other organizations
from all parts of the country. Stones |
from many foreign nations also have
places in its walls
The monument cost slightly more |
than $1000,000, It is 555 feet 0% |
inches high and stands on a base 55 |
feet square. The lower walls are of
granite faced on the outside with mar |
ble. They are 15 feet thick up tc |
about 000 feet; the upper walls, of
were used In the shaft's construction.
There are eight windows at the 504
foot level from which thousands of vis
itors annually view the Capital eity
and nearby Virginia and Maryland.
MARTHA WASHINGTON
ARTHA WASHINGTON, before
farmer of New Kent county,
{
Scrupulously Taken: Advice
Advice 1s almost the only recom
modity which the world Is lavish In
take {1
Great tact and delicacy are re
quired either in conferring or seeking
this perilous boon for where people
do not take your counsel they gen
erally take offense; ang even where
they do, you can never, be quite sure
that you have not given pain In gly-
ing advice —Chatfleld,
FOUND!"
Myldeal Remedy for
PAIN
“Though I have tried all good
iss Capudine pulls me
best. It is quick and gentle”
Quickest because it is Jigy
its ingredients are siresdy dis.
solved. For headache, neural.
wie, or muscle aches, 7%
FIT T
BEFORE BABY COMES
:. a .
Elimination of Body Waste
Is Doubly Important
In the crucial months before baby arrives
it is vitally important that the body be rid
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Why Physicians Recommend
Milnesia Wafers
These mint-favored, candy-like wafers are
pure milk of magnesia in solid form
much pleasanter to take than lig
wafer is approximately equal tc
dose of liquid milk of
thoroughly, then sw
acidity in the r h and throughout the
digestive system, sure regular, com
plete elimination without pain or effort
Milnesia Wafers come in |
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ing 1
one s
good a
Start using these deliciow
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a he
st Each wafer:
jult dose of milk «
: .
1g stores sell andre
Professional samples sent free to registered
physicians or dentists if request is made
on professional letterhead. Select Products,
inc, 4402 23rd St, Long lslond City, N. Y,
bottles
®
a ~~ 20c¢ tins
TLE oy
A MILNESIA
{ Lvren :
The Original Milk of Magnesia Wators
Indicated as an Alterative in
the Treatment of
RHEUMATIC FEVER, GOUT,
Simple Neuralgia, Muscular
Aches and Pains
At All Druggists
Jos. Bally & Sen, Wholesale Distribution
Baltimore, Md.
for FIRSTAID jn
Relieving
Common SkinAilment
or injuries
Resinol.
BACKACHES
caused by MOTHERHOOD
Maternity puts a terrible strain on a woman's
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a ee EEE
FALLING HAIR
DANDRUFF—BALD SPOTS?
fre yout Bait
ons Manne
Medicine, fol
-
a
withGlover's
edicated Soap.
i you of Dan
i ine, Cob
PP GLOVERS
’,
a V
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DLV TR