By the middle of the 18th century, the American colonies were producing vast quantities of lumber, tobacco, hemp, fish and agricultural products for export back to Great Britain. These raw materials fueled a major expansion of the British economy and life in the colonies became more prosperous. Merchants in major port cities and large landowners in the south made fortunes through land speculation and trade. But many of the same class structures that stratified English society for centuries were still part of everyday life in America. There was a clear line between yeoman farmers, mechanics (tradesmen who worked with the hands), and wealthy landowners along the coasts.
An ad from a Philadelphia newspaper during the 1760s. As the ad indicates, indentured servants were bought and sold like slaves, and in some regards, were treated worse. Slaves were considered valuable and indicated wealth. Indentured servants were temporary and disposable. Once their contracts ended, their employers had little use for them.
Even within these societal limits, it was still possible for a simple laborer on either side of the Atlantic to work hard and become wealthy, but it was more probable in America than England. That was enough for people who believed in the promise of American opportunity enough to take huge risks to immigrate, including selling themselves into temporary servitude.
Between 1630 and 1776, one-half to two-thirds of all British immigrants to America came as indentured servants. Most were from Ireland and Scotland, and just like early settlers, they endured because life as an indentured servant in America still had better long-term prospects than life as a poor laborer in England. What they all most wanted was land.
By the 1750s, the prime Atlantic coastal land grants were gone. From the beginning of American history, if poor laborers wanted a new life, they always looked to the western frontier where millions of acres were still considered available. When settlers from Jamestown and Massachusetts Bay wanted more agricultural land, they moved west off the coast. Over the next 300-years, subsequent waves moved into the piedmont, across the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi, Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and eventually California. Exploration and new beginnings in America have always been realized to the “west.” The search for land has been a constant in American history from the very beginning, especially during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to a report issued in 1772 to Lord Hillsborough, President of the Board of Trade in London, “It is the passion of every man to be a landholder, and the people have a natural disposition to rove in search of good lands, no matter how distant.” To royal authorities and the thousands of immigrants, there was always land available to the west.1
Of course, the Indians who lived there defined “available” much differently. To them, all of the lands European settlers coveted were Indian hunting grounds or tribal homes. This made life on the frontier extremely dangerous. Attacks, abductions, reprisals, massacres, and full-blown wars were regular occurrences. The violence often wiped-out families, villages, and crops. Most Indians and settlers lived on subsistence farming which made protecting their food supply from raids a life-or-death issue. The loss of an entire harvest meant starvation when winter came.2
In this environment where small groups or individual families lived dozens, if not hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement, finding practical solutions for everyday requirements became essential. Prior to coming to the New World, many colonists lived in small villages where the specialization of labor was common. Back in England, blacksmiths knew how to be blacksmiths. Carpenters knew how to be carpenters but knew nothing about blacksmithing. Farmers could farm but had to rely on others to mill their grain into flour. For colonial frontier settlers, finding specialists, much less having the resources to pay or barter for goods and services, was not an option. They had to learn skills and solve problems on their own. Over time, this created a culture of self-reliance that was uniquely American.
If the essence of entrepreneurship is found by solving everyday problems, by necessity, America became a land of innovative entrepreneurs capable of performing a variety of skilled jobs. Before this period in human history, in Europe at least, staying alive did in fact take a village. On the colonial frontier, it took a determined, isolated, and inventive American family.
This was the environment in which many of the founders were raised. Before the Revolution in 1775, nearly all were focused on family businesses, farming, or engaged in some sort of entrepreneurial endeavor. As we shall see, Washington was a surveyor and invested in land. Franklin owned and operated a very successful printing business he started from scratch. Others like Henry Knox owned a bookstore in Boston. Nathanael Greene ran his family’s shipping business and iron foundry. Benedict Arnold was an apothecary and started a highly profitable shipping company. Alexander Hamilton was born the illegitimate son of a women of low standing in the British West Indies. He eventually became a lawyer, financier, and married well. None of the Founders had any experience in forming a government – prior to America there was no such thing as a constitutional republic where sovereignty rested with the people.3 Within the colonial militias and the Continental Army, forty-seven of the general officers who comprised the leadership had wartime military experience. They weren’t military amateurs, but they did spend a majority of their lives as businessmen or tradesmen rather than soldiers.4
It can be argued that the Founder’s entrepreneurial spirit played a significant role in both the origination and outcome of the American Revolution. They were raised solving problems through innovative thinking while constantly searching for new opportunities to earn a living. This translated to thoughts about freedom, natural rights, commerce, taxation, government, and even the role of standing armies. The Founders’ thoughts, aspirations, and ideologies are reflected in the documents that continue to frame opportunity in America today. There are no two better examples than George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
George Washington
George Washington as a young colonial officer.
The leader of the Continental Army and first president of the United States is probably the most written about man in U.S. History. The typical biography starts on the Virginia-Pennsylvania frontier in 1754. A group of French soldiers just surrendered after a fifteen-minute battle with a unit from the Virginia militia. As the chaotic situation settled, a twenty-two-year-old officer named George Washington, frozen by the uncertainty that can overcome young military leaders as they try to control soldiers with more experience in battle, looked on as an Indian ally, the “Half-King” Tanacharisson, tomahawked the French captain in charge of the detachment and washed his hands with the young Frenchman’s brains. The chief’s warriors then proceeded to murder the remaining wounded prisoners, taking their scalps as trophies.Washington pulled himself and his unit together and retreated to a hastily prepared fort that ultimately fell to a French attack in July 1754. The entire debacle became known as the Battles of Jumonville Glenn and Fort Necessity.5
The Jumonville ambush and subsequent murders changed the world. Some historians believe that Tanacharisson had an agenda of his own and wanted to prompt a larger war between Britain and France.6 If so, he got what he wanted. The events of that day cascaded well beyond the colonial frontier and produced what some consider the first “world war”. The Seven Years’ War, referred to as the French and Indian War in America, spanned the globe from India to the far reaches of the Canadian wilderness, and ultimately set the stage for the American Revolution twenty-one years later.
But while Washington’s life during that war, the American Revolution, Constitutional Convention, and presidency are well-known, few average Americans know the details about his life before, between, and after his public service. Unlike many Revolutionary leaders, Washington was a sharp businessman, and at the time of his death was one of the nation’s wealthiest men. But how did he achieve such success?
First, he did not marry into all his money. Contrary to several poorly researched books that have no connection to the actual historical record, Washington’s wealth was not mostly derived from his marriage to the widow Martha Custis. In fact, the estate she brought into the marriage was divided between her and her two children, and because her first husband, Daniel Park Custis, died without a will, Martha was the sole executor. The absence of coverture gave her the enviable luxury that few widows at the time enjoyed: she was in complete control of her finances and could remarry for love rather than financial necessity. Her money was her’s alone and she did not have to give it up.
Martha Washington in her mid-twenties.
Some writers have insinuated that George, disappointed that he could not scandalously court his best friend’s wife, Sally Fairfax, dropped his standards and married an “older” widow for money. These assertions are absurdly false narratives that are more relevant to selling books in the 21st century than writing history. Both George and Martha were young, and at twenty-seven, she was only a year older than him. By all reliable accounts, they genuinely loved and trusted each other. Unlike many wealthy widows from the time who asked their new husbands to sign what amounted to pre-nuptial agreements, Martha gave George full responsibility for managing her land and assets. Even so, he was always cognizant of the differences between her wealth and his own, and when writing his final will made sure that none of Martha’s holdings, money, or assets were touched until after her death. But, far from establishing permanent financial stability through marriage, there was a bizarre legal issue surrounding the Custis estate that had the potential of wiping-out the young couple’s wealth entirely.
Under 18th century English law, the descendants of a person involved in civil litigation could be held liable for any unpaid judgments against their ancestors. Martha’s deceased husband, Daniel Custis, had a distant relative named Daniel Parke. Born to a wealthy Virginia family in 1669, Parke grew-up to be a notorious, abusive, adulterous, philanderer who abandoned his wife and fathered multiple children in Virginia, England, and Antigua. After being murdered by an angry mob led by the husband of one particularly amorous woman in 1711, Parke’s legitimate and illegitimate heirs began fighting over what amounted to a sizable estate.
The legal battle spanned decades and was fought with delaying tactics and legal maneuvers at the highest levels of Great Britain’s legal system. In June 1757, the Privy Council in London ruled that a trial to settle Daniel Parke’s estate could move forward in Virginia court. By that time, all of Parke’s children were dead, and because the Custises were descendants by marriage, they became the primary defendants in the case; first Martha’s father-in-law, and then her husband Daniel. After his early death, Martha became financially responsible for the notorious actions of a man she was only related to by marriage and who died twenty years before she was even born. When Martha married George in 1758, the plaintiffs in the case were seeking more than £150,000 in principal and interest. This would translate to roughly $34.4 million in today’s dollars. If they lost the case, George would be responsible for all of it.7
Using the same delaying tactics previous generations had used, George fought the case in Virginia for years. Because of the severity of any potential ruling, he was forced to hire some of the colony’s best lawyers which, over time, cost a small fortune. After the Revolution, however, the Privy Council’s decision became moot, and the Parke case simply faded away.
There is no doubt that George Washington’s marriage to Martha Custis made them one of Virginia’s richest couples, but her money and name had the potential to ruin them both. Washington knew about the possible financial disaster and chose to marry Martha anyway. Their marriage wasn’t a cold, calculated financial transaction. They married because they genuinely had feelings for each other, both in heart and mind. Martha’s money added to Washington’s fortune, but it wasn’t what made him wealthy.8
At first, Washington made money through land speculation and by transforming Mount Vernon from a failing estate into a thriving plantation and entrepreneurial hub. But this success was not a foregone conclusion. George was born in 1732, the youngest son of a well-off, though not rich, Virginia planter named Augustine Washington. Under the English laws of primogeniture and entail, upon his father’s death in 1743, George’s older half-brother Lawrence inherited nearly all of Augustine’s properties including the main plantation house which was called Little Hunting Creek. Lawrence renamed it Mount Vernon. George inherited a much smaller house called Ferry Farm that didn’t have much potential for sustainable income.
Knowing there was no future trying to scratch an existence out of a small farm, Washington considered a career in the Royal Navy but ultimately decided on surveying. Due to British trade laws and the absence of capital markets in the colonies, land was one of colonial America’s few investment opportunities where smart speculative investments would produce large returns.9 Successful surveyors earned exceptional money, developed important political connections, and often found investment opportunities for themselves as they surveyed clients’ land.10 According to Philander Chase, editor of the Washington Papers at the University of Virginia, colonial surveyors often earned income that was exceeded only by the colony’s finest lawyers.11
Washington started his career as a surveyor before he was twenty years-old.
After learning the basics of the craft and receiving his certificate from the College William & Mary in early 1748, Washington accompanied two other experienced surveyors on a month-long expedition across the Blue Ridge Mountains to partition land for one of the largest landholders in the colonies, Lord Thomas Fairfax, 6th Baron Cameron. Through an original royal grant, death, and marriage, Lord Fairfax had accumulated over five million acres in Virginia that extended from the coast to the Allegheny Mountains. He needed detailed surveys completed before any of the interior portions could be sold or leased. In a fortunate development that paid huge dividends later, George William Fairfax, Lord Fairfax’s son, led the survey expedition.
After that first expedition, Washington formed a close relationship with both George William and Lord Fairfax, and through the same royal patronage system that benefited Benjamin Franklin and other Founders, secured a county surveyor appointment in Culpeper County in 1749 at the age of seventeen. Over the next three years, he earned a reputation for fairness, honesty, and dependability and conducted multiple surveys for the Fairfax family on the Virginia frontier. His skill as a backcountry woodsman and mapmaker brought him multiple opportunities to do surveys for Fairfax’s friends and associates and by 1752, George made enough money to begin investing on his own.
An artist’s depiction of George Washington crossing the Ohio River during his first mission for Lt. Governor Dinwiddie.
The Fairfax patronage and Washington’s frontier skills also gained the attention of Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, Robert Dinwiddie, which led to Washington’s first military appointment in February 1753. During that year, the French had been moving into disputed areas of the “Ohio Country” that were claimed by both Virginia and Pennsylvania. Dinwiddie ordered the now twenty-one-year-old major, who knew the backcountry but had no military experience, to deliver a letter to French officials at Fort Le Boeuf at Presque Isle, informing them that the lands upon the Ohio River belonged to the British Crown and all French forces should immediately withdraw from “his Majesty’s Dominions.”12 After an arduous journey through the cold, rugged wilderness, Washington confronted the French with Dinwiddie’s letter. The French commander at Le Boeuf, Jacques Le Gardner, Sieur de Saint Pierre, thanked the young major, provided a fine dinner and comfortable accommodations for two nights, and then told Washington that France had no plans to leave and intended to take full possession of everything north of the Ohio River. Washington set out to deliver the response to Dinwiddie in Williamsburg, and almost froze to death in the process but made it back alive. He later published an account of the entire expedition in a book entitled, The Journal of Major George Washington, that won him fame and the adoration of people throughout the colonies and officials back in London.13 The Presque Isle mission set the stage for the battle at Jumonville Glenn the following year when Dinwiddie sent Washington back to expel the French from the disputed territory. It also launched a military career that would span close to thirty-years.
After serving as an aide to General Edward Braddock during Braddock’s disastrous attempt to attack the French at Fort Duquesne in 1755, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to full colonel, gave him command of all Virginia’s military forces and assigned him the unenviable task of defending the colony’s entire frontier during the French and Indian War. In 1758, Washington participated in another joint attack with regular British forces against Fort Duquesne that was ultimately successful. After that, he decided he had seen enough of war, resigned his commission, and went home. Lawrence Washington had died from tuberculosis in 1753, and Mount Vernon had passed to his widow, Ann Washington. Lawrence stipulated in his will that the estate would eventually go to George after Ann’s death. George and Martha married in 1759, and Ann agreed to lease Mount Vernon to him on favorable terms, but she died a year later in 1761. It was then that George took full possession of the plantation that would be his passion until the day he died.
Over the next fourteen years, Washington transformed Mount Vernon into a major entrepreneurial hub. After realizing his tobacco crop was failing to produce enough income, he diversified Mount Vernon’s agricultural activities and eventually produced fruit, dairy products, grains, and vegetables. He also started and operated more than a dozen successful businesses, most of them located on or around Mount Vernon. At the time of his death in 1799, Washington had an active milling operation and a weaving business. He owned a tannery that also manufactured shoes. Another business produced barrels and bricks. He launched a thriving commercial fisheries business and another firm that manufactured ropes, saddles, and harnesses. All these businesses generated returns that only added to Washington’s investments in land, canals, and other transportation activities.
Washington understood that the only way to make Mount Vernon financially stable was by diversifying his income streams. To that end, he eventually started twelve different businesses based on the estate.
Based on the assets that Washington recorded in his handwritten will, most historians estimate that his net worth, in today’s dollars, was roughly $12 million. However, international financier and Washington scholar Cyrus Ansary, along with historical economists from the University of Illinois, have come to a different conclusion. Ansary notes that the biggest error historians make is that not including the commercial value and income of Washington’s many businesses when coming up with the $12 million valuation. They only look at the physical assets he lists in his will, including slaves. Using a modern method that includes all a person’s assets, intellectual property rights, and business revenue, he notes that Washington’s personal papers alone are almost priceless. Washington was a prolific writer and kept detailed records on every aspect of his life – as an aside, no historian ever needs to guess where George Washington stood on any subject because he literally recorded every thought, decision, and action on paper. The Library of Congress and University of Virginia have been collecting and preserving these papers for decades and have published them in a series that now includes dozens of volumes. Just one small notebook from this collection, where Washington made handwritten notes in the margins while presiding over the Constitutional Convention, was recently auctioned off for $10 million.14 If Washington had followed modern presidents’ practice of publishing memoirs, he would have made a fortune.
Ansary estimates that Washington’s papers are conservatively worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Added to the patents Washington held on different farming and industrial processes, the current value of his land holdings in Virginia, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, and his profitable businesses, George Washington’s estate is likely worth over $34.4 billion in today’s dollars.15 Almost all of that is due to the first president’s willingness to see opportunities, assume risks, and make smart decisions. Three skills that provided him, and the nation, a tremendous service.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin is one of the most iconic figures from the colonial period. His multiple roles in drafting the Declaration of Independence, leader in the early Continental Congress, and as America’s chief diplomat during the Revolution, left indelible marks on the America. But before he became an icon of American ingenuity, Benjamin Franklin seemed destined for obscurity. Born into the family of a lowly candle maker in 1706, he was, the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back.
Because most children died before reaching adulthood in the 18th century, large families were essential, particularly on the frontier where work was spread among every member of the household. Many women spent their entire lives pregnant, and death during childbirth was all too common. When a woman died, it was necessary for widowers to quickly remarry, especially if they had children who needed a mother’s care. This often created large, blended families, and Franklin’s was no exception. He was the fifteenth of seventeen children.
Because of his father’s trade and the family’s size, money was always an issue for the young Franklin. College for the children of a humble candle maker in Boston wasn’t possible. Because of this, for all his brilliance that made him famous later in life, Benjamin Franklin only received two years of formal education. As he grew older and apprenticed in the family candle shop, his father recognized that it did not appeal to Franklin’s “bookish inclination,” and agreed that the printing trade might be a better path. At twelve-years-old, he began a nine-year apprentice contract with his older brother James, who owned a print shop nearby. 16
Throughout history, men and women from poor backgrounds became great by reading books. Great readers become great writers and Benjamin Franklin proved this point perfectly. As he apprenticed and learned the printing trade, he read everything he could get his hands on. Because books were rare and expensive, Franklin had to find unique ways to feed his appetite. He became friends with apprentices of booksellers and borrowed books from their shops. Reading all night, he would return them the next morning before the owner knew anything was missing. As he expanded his understanding of the literary world, he also mastered writing prose and even published several satirical articles in his brother’s newspaper – without his brother’s knowledge – under the assumed name of Silence Dogood. Reading prolifically and mastering the art of the written word put Franklin in an exclusive club. As Joseph Ellis points out, writing competently was such a rare skill during the colonial period that, once developed, it opened doors and opportunities that were closed to even educated men who struggled creating good prose. In some ways, we owe our existence as a nation to a skill that’s taken for granted by many in the modern world. All the Founders, including Washington, first gained their reputations by something they wrote.17
By the time he was seventeen, Benjamin was clashing with his older brother on a regular basis. Family ties brought unrealistic expectations to the subordinate relationship between apprentice and master. After one particularly fierce fight, Franklin decided it was time to break his apprenticeship contract and leave Boston behind; an illegal act that could have landed him in jail. Ignoring the potential consequences, in 1723, he put everything he owned in his pockets and boarded a ship bound for Philadelphia. Once there he was able to find a position at an established print shop owned by Samuel Keimer. In a relatively short period, the skills he learned under his brother, along with his affable nature and writing ability won him recognition in high places.18
Franklin was on his way, but he needed help. In a stratified society like Philadelphia in the 18th century, it was possible for a craftsman to advance and become wealthy, but to do it he needed a sponsor; someone from the upper-class who recognized talent and could use their patronage to find opportunities for their proteges. This was more than simply knowing the right gracious person. In an aristocratic society patronizing inferiors was an important mark of a gentlemen. Patronage was the basic means of social mobility and Franklin himself later wrote in his autobiography that he would have never achieved such great success had he not been helped by men of influence.19
One of Benjamin Franklin’s earliest patrons, Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor William Keith, whose unfulfilled promise stranded Franklin in London.
It all started when a random letter that Franklin had written to his brother-in-law found its way to Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor William Keith. Impressed with nothing more than the quality of writing, he called on Franklin at Keimer’s shop and invited him for a drink a local tavern. Before they parted, Keith offered to help Franklin set-up his own printing business. Franklin jumped at the chance and was soon on a ship bound for London to purchase the equipment he would need. Arriving there in November 1724, he quickly learned a hard lesson in business; Keith had reneged on his offer and failed to extend the credit on which Franklin was counting. Without the means to even pay his way home, the young tradesman found a position at a London print shop and adapted to the rhythm of life in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities. He stayed for almost two years.
In 1724, London was a living contradiction of royal opulence and crushing poverty. In one neighborhood, nobles who owned homes in the city but lived on huge country estates, held lavish dinner parties that cost more than some Englishman would earn in a lifetime. In other sections, disease, hunger, and squalor created an existence where two persons died for every child born (the only reason London’s population wasn’t declining at the time was due to thousands of people moving into the city looking for work). Even though Franklin lived and worked in the lesser sections of town, as in Philadelphia, his skill as a printer, affability, and ability to impress the right people allowed him to make friends in the British aristocracy. By 1726, he had new patrons and was on his way back to Philadelphia. Shortly after arriving back home, he was working at Samuel Keiner’s print shop once again, managing the entire business. His popularity among the elites of the colonial city had never waned, and by the age of twenty-three, through patronage and help from powerful people, Franklin finally owned his own printing business.
Between 1726 and 1743, through an uncommon business sense and the ability to see opportunity where others could not, Franklin built America’s first printing empire. He operated three different printing firms in three different colonies. He published newspapers, pamphlets, and books, the most famous being his own original work, Poor Richard’s Almanac. After becoming the official printer of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, Franklin’s firms were printing official documents and even the colonies’ paper currency. He was literally printing money.
The wealth this created was staggering for an American businessman at the time. Though it is difficult to determine with great accuracy, reliable historians such as Joseph Ellis and Gordon Wood estimate that by the time he retired 1748, Franklin’s income was roughly £2000 annually. To place this in perspective, the average successful lawyer during the same period made £200 a year. During the 1770s, prior to the Revolution, George Washington’s Mount Vernon was generating £300 annually, and he was considered one of Virginia’s wealthiest planters.20
Benjamin Franklin officially retired at the age of forty-three and became a gentleman. After dedicating himself to the pursuit of leisure and knowledge, the contribution he made to American independence is well known. Given all the impediments that 18th century colonial society placed in his path, it is hard to imagine the youngest son of a candle-maker from Boston ever leaving such an indelible mark on world history in any place except America.
Opportunity Not Results
When it comes to the Founder’s success in business, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were exceptions to the rule. Late in life, Thomas Jefferson, for years worried that he would end-up in debtor’s prison, died completely broke. His grandchildren watched as the iconic home he’d spent a lifetime building, Monticello, was auctioned off. James Madison faced the similar fate. Alexander Hamilton was forced to leave public service in order to make a living worthy of a gentleman. Both Nathanael Greene and Henry Knox were plagued by debt until their deaths. Sadly, just when things were looking up for Knox, he choked to death on a chicken bone.
The list of unpleasant outcomes for the Revolutionary leaders can go on. But no matter how others lived and died, Washington and Franklin are prefect examples of what can happen if the right person seizes American opportunity at the right time.
Endnotes
1 Lord Hillsborough, President of the Board of Trade, “Report of the Lords and Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, on the Petition of the Honorable Thomas Walpole and His Associates for a Grant of Lands on the Ohio Riover in North America,” April 15, 1772 in Smyth, Albert Henry. The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. The Macmillan Company, 1906, p.474
2 Withers, Alexander Scott. Chronicles of Border Warfare: The Colonial & Indian Wars of the Early American Frontier 1742-1795. Leonaur Books (reprint), 2010 (original published in 1831).
3 Bailyn, Benard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Belknap, 1967, 1992, 2017, p. 200.
4 Dacus, Jeff. Continental Generals: Background and Fates. www.althingsliberty.com. Journal of the American Revolution, October 17, 2016, https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/10/continental-generals-backgrounds-fates/.
5 Anderson, Fred, The Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America 1754-1766. Vintage Books, 2000, p. 6.
6 Ibid, p. 58
7 Ansary, Cyrus. George Washington: Dealmaker-in-Chief. Lambert Publications, 2019. p. 96.
8 Ibid, p. 101.
9 Ibid, p. 58
10 According to Edward Redmond from the Library of Congress, “Because they were responsible for laying out the land claims, surveyors had a unique role in Virginia society. Their appointments guaranteed a certain social prominence, since nearly all parties interested in gaining title to an area of land were required to deal with the surveyor. Surveyors were also among the best-educated Virginians and were often in the best position to purchase land for themselves. It was not unusual for surveyors to acquire large estates from the many opportunities they had to patent land in their own names. Additionally, their intimate knowledge of the land and official capacity as representatives of large land holders such as the Fairfaxes made their participation politically and practically essential to large land companies such as the Loyal Land Company of Virginia, the Ohio Company, and the Mississippi Land Company.”
11 Chase, Philander. “A Stake in the West: George Washington as a Backcountry Surveyor and Landholder,” in George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry, ed. Warren Hofstra. Madison House Publishers, 1998. p.161. Also see U.S. Library of Congress article, Washington as a PUblic Land Surveyor, at https://www.loc.gov/collections/george-washington-papers/articles-and-essays/george-washington-survey-and-mapmaker/washington-as-public-land-surveyor/
12 Ellis, Joseph, His Excellency, Vintage Books, 2004, pg. 3; Redmond, Edward, Washington as a Public Land Surveyor, www.loc.gov. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, https://www.loc.gov/collections/george-washington-papers/articles-and-essays/george-washington-survey-and-mapmaker/washington-as-public-land-surveyor/
13 Ellis, His Excellency, pg. 5.
14 Ansary, p.101.
15 Ansary, p. 102. Also see Gardner, Andrew, How Did George Washington Make His Millions?, CW Journal: Winter 2013, https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/winter13/washington.cfm“The work of a team of monetary and economic historians led by Professors Laurence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson of the University of Illinois at Chicago, there is a trove of data that goes a long way to helping convert old dollars to new…. The third measure suggested by economic historians assesses what they call the economic power of Washington’s holdings, or roughly translated, “What was the president’s financial position relative to the size of the economy?” At the time of his death, Washington’s $780,000 estate was equivalent in value to almost one-fifth of 1 percent—0.19 percent—of the $411 million GDP. If Washington had lived two centuries later, and boasted a fortune worth 0.19 per cent of the nation’s approximately $15 trillion 2011 GDP, he would have been worth $25.9 billion, taking fourth place in the Forbes list of seriously wealthy Americans. Bill Gates is in first place at $59 billion, Warren Buffett in second at $39 billion, and Larry Ellison of Oracle fame gets the bronze medal with a $36 billion stash. Washington’s $25.9 billion sneaks him in just ahead of Christy Walton of the Wal-Mart chain. The first president is in rich company.”
16 Ellis, Joseph. The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. Penguin Books, 2004, p.18
17 Ibid, p. 20.
18 Ibid.,p. 24
19 Ibid, p. 26
20 Ibid, p. 54
