Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1899-12-18
FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY.


! to his cOuntrymen than II he possessed
no such in6rmities and was fashioned
in perfection even from his birth.
We first get fairly good look at
Washington when he is youth of 16
employed as surveyor and earning "a
doubloon a day and sometimes six pis-
toles." His education had not been
very much and he was a bad speller.
but good cipherer. To the end of
his days he misspelled some words
and he never was very good gram
marian. But from his surveying days
his constant effort was to improve
himself, and before he came to the
presidency he had overcome many of
his deficiencies. 1t was not until he
had been commander in chief of the
volunteer army for some time that he
improved much in grammar and
spelling and during the war he de-
pended greatly on his aids, Hamilton
and Harrison, to conduct his cor
respondence. But his association with
educated men and his study for good
models finally made him an excellent
letter writer as we can now perceive
in his published writings.
He followed the business of survey
ing for four years, enjoying the out
door life, going fox hunting on Sun
days and romping with the girls when
ever he had a chance for he was very
fond of female society. From the age
of 16 until he married he was always
in love, sometimes with one beauty
and sometimes with another While
residing at Lord Fairfax's he wrote as
follows to one of his youthful cor
respondents copy of the letter. with
others being preserved in his journal:
! Il pass the time off much more
agreeabler than what I imagine |
should as there's very agrewable
Young Lady lives in the same house
where I reside (Colo George Fairfax's
Wife's Sister, that in a great measure
cheats my thoughts altogether from
your Parts I could wish to be with you
down there with all my heart but as it
| is a thing almost impractakable shall
rest myself where I am with hopes of
shortly having some Minutes of your
transactions in your Parts which will
be very welcomely received"
/ There was a certain ''lowland
beauty" who has been the subject of
much discussion with whom the young
surveyor was madly in love but who
she was has never been clearly ascer-
tanned. She apparently did not re-
turn his affections as seems clear from
the following lines in his journal:
Oh, We gods, why should my poor re-
sistless heart
Stand to oppose thy might and
power?
/ At last surrender to cupid's feathered
dart
And now lays bleeding every hour
For her that's pityless of my grief
and woes
And will not on me pity take.
He frequently lapsed into poetry
acrostic that he wrote to one Frances
Alexander, but his muse gave out
| when it had gotten as far as Frances
Alexa.
When he was 10 he was appointed
adjutant of one of the military dis
tricts, and three years later he applied
| to the governor for the position of
lieutenant colonel in the Virginia mill
! tia and received it,
Love Affairs.
| When he returned from his first
campaign, resting at Mount Vernon, he
received the following letter from one
of his brother officers that sheds a lit
| tie light on his love affairs:
II imagine you by this Time" writes
his friend, plunged in the midst of
delight heaven can afford and en-
chanted by charmes even stranger to
/ the Ciprian DAME" and a footnote by
the writer contains the name of Mrs
! Neil" Who this lady was history
does not record.
Washington became quite a hero
after his return from the campaign
under Braddock as we'll he might be,
and in postscript to a letter he re-
| ceived he is informed that Mrs. Cary
and Miss Randolph joyn in wishing
you that sort of glory which will most
indear you to the fair SEX
The next year, 1856, he made
journey to Boston on military business
and stopped in New York both going
and returning. 1t was there he met
the beautiful Mary PHILIPPE, the daugh-
ter Of a large landholder in New York,
and, brief as the period was, Wash
ington once more lost his heart and
proffered his hand with it. The
young lady's affections, however,
were otherwise engaged and she de-
clined the young Virginian's proposals,
and later she married Lieutenant
Colonel Morris. In the war of the
revolution, when Washington's army
was encamped near New York city, he
used the Morris mansion for his head
quarters, the Morrises being loyalists
and having gone to England.
In 1853 Washington at last met his
fate in the person of the rich widow,
Mrs. Martha cambridge Custis, and
pressed his suit with such ardor that
! 1oH1 io1d II \