Surveying career of George Washington

George Washington, surveyor by Henry Hintermeister.

Before George Washington entered his military and political career, Washington gained interest in land surveying when he was still a youth, and he later worked as a professional land surveyor for around four to five years, making it his first official job.

Skills from the job later helped in his other careers, such as his military career, where during battles he was able to map certain areas he traveled through. This also gave Washington a deep understanding of Virginia's terrain and wildlife.

An ink sketch of a young George Washington surveying the Popes Creek plantation

When Washington's father died, he left instruments to him that ended up being useful to his career in surveying. After moving on to other careers, Washington held onto his knowledge of land surveying, and he surveyed his own land up until his death in 1799. Washington borrowed a book from his neighbor titled The Compleat Surveyor, which he used extensively throughout his land surveying career. In 2018, Mount Vernon acquired the book.

Career

As a young man, Washington worked as a land surveyor, where he learned to map territories without a charter, which directly helped his military career later down the line; it also gave him an in-depth understanding of Virginia's terrain and wildlife.

At fifteen, Washington was studying land surveying, and by seventeen he was working professionally as a surveyor. Before becoming a land surveyor, Washington studied mathematics and trigonometry in school to prepare for his land surveying career; he also became a draftsman. At the time, surveying was one of the highest-paying jobs for Washington.

Washington kept sample surveys in his "School Boy Copy Books"; he also used the books to document his time as a surveyor between ages seventeen and twenty. By the time Washington was in his twenties, he had already made more than 190 surveys. When his father Augustine died in 1743, he left behind basic instruments and a Gunter's scale that was useful to Washington for surveying; he later received "The Rittenhouse Compass" from David Rittenhouse in 1782 during the American Revolutionary War.

Washington's first attempt at surveying was at Mount Vernon during his childhood, where, in the mid-1740s, Washington surveyed five acres of land for a meadow called "Hell Hole" on the Potomac River near Little Hunting Creek. Washington also drew a plan for his brother Lawrence Washington's Turnip Field. In 1748 he surveyed the Fairfax Estate owned by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron. Also in 1748, Washington spent a month at the Shenandoah Valley surveying the Fairfax's properties with a team of people

In 1749, with the backing of Joshua Fry and the Fairfax family, at seventeen, Washington received a commission from the College of William & Mary as the county surveyor for the newly established Culpeper County, Virginia, in which he traveled to the county to take the oath of office on July 20, 1749, and then he started to map tracts of the frontier; he completed his first 400-acre assessment in two days. This was quite exceptional for Washington, as he didn't have an apprenticeship, and it was difficult to get a full commission at seventeen without one. Washington resigned in November 1750. Washington was earning around £400 between 1749 and 1752. To Washington this was more than enough money.

In 1750 Lord Fairfax invited Washington to Winchester, Virginia, to assist in the surveying of land in the Northern Neck Proprietary, which is where most of Washington's time was spent throughout his career because there was a significant amount of more work there than in the Shenandoah Valley. He was connected to the Fairfax family through his brother Lawrence Washington and Ann Fairfax's marriage. In 1752 Washington made his first purchase of around 450 acres of land along Bullskin Creek in Shenandoah Valley; he bought the land from Lord Fairfax in 1750. In July 1752, Washington's brother Lawrence died of tuberculosis, which put Mount Vernon's plantations in Washington's hands until the death of his brother's wife Anna in 1761. By the end of his land surveying career, Washington owned around 2,315 acres of land.

His career as a land surveyor ended in 1752 when he entered his full-time military and political career; however, he continued to personally survey his own land throughout the rest of his life. Washington later mapped his own plantation, Mount Vernon, completing the final map of his estate five weeks before his death. Washington used the knowledge he had from the job during his military career, reading the land around him in battles such as hills, valleys, rivers, and forests. He also used the knowledge to invest in 70,000 acres of land in between the Potomac and Ohio rivers.

Surveying book

Washington had a 1679 edition of the book The Compleat Surveyor by William Leybourn in his personal library. When Washington was thirteen, he borrowed the book from his neighbor William Fairfax, and kept it for 54 years. According to researchers, Washington heavily used the book throughout his surveying career. He wrote mathematical equations opposite the title page, although the reasons for the equations are unknown. In September 2018, Mount Vernon acquired the book.

Maps and surveys

List of major lands George Washington surveyed

Image	Land	Arces	Year	Ref
	Hell Hole Meadow, Mount Vernon	5	1746–1747
	Lawrence Washington's Turnip Field	Unknown	1746–1747
	Fairfax lands (Northern Neck Proprietary)	1,500	1748
	Shenandoah Valley	Unknown	1748
	Culpeper County, Virginia	400	1749
	Bullskin Creek Site	453	1750
	Mount Vernon estate	8,000	Post 1752-1799

See also

• George Washington's political evolution – Overview of the political evolution of George Washington
• Outline of George Washington – First President of the United States