You will remember that two years after the coming of John Smith to Jamestown, Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence and settled Quebec for the French. You will also recall that the French explorers, priests, and traders had been gradually making their way into the heart of the continent, by way of the Great Lakes, until at last La Salle glided down to the mouth of the Mississippi, and took possession of the land in the name of the French King. This was in 1681, the year the Quakers were settling Pennsylvania and fifty-two years before the settlement of Georgia, the youngest of the thirteen original colonies. Just one year before this last settlement there was born in Westmoreland County, Va., a boy who was to play a large part in the history not only of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, but of the whole country. This boy was George Washington. He was born on February 22, 1732, in an old-fashioned Virginia farm-house, near the Potomac River, on what was known as Bridge's Creek Plantation. The house had four rooms on the ground floor, with an attic of long sloping roofs and an enormous brick chimney at each end. [Illustration: Washington's Birthplace.] George's father was a wealthy planter, owning land in four counties, more than 5,000 acres in all. Some of his lands were on the banks of the Rappahannock River, near which he had money invested in iron-mines. To this plantation the family removed when George was seven years old, the new home being nearly opposite Fredericksburg, then a small village. Here he was sent to a small school and taught by a man named Hobby, a sexton of the church and tenant of George's father. It was a simple sort of training the boy received from such a school-master. He learned a little reading, a little writing, and a little ciphering, but that was about all. Later in life he became a fairly good penman, writing a neat round hand; but he never became a good speller. When George was eleven years old his father died, leaving to him the home where they lived on the Rappahannock, and to his brother Lawrence the great plantation on the Potomac afterward called Mount Vernon. Lawrence went to live at Mount Vernon, while George remained with his mother at the house opposite Fredericksburg. Now left without a father, George received his home training from his mother. Fortunate, indeed, was he to have such a mother to teach him; for she was kind, firm, and had a strong practical sense. She loved her son, and he deeply appreciated her fond care of him. Some of George's youthful letters to his mother are full of interest. After the manner of the time he addressed her formally as "Honored Madam," and signed himself "Your dutiful son." [Illustration: WASHINGTON CROSSING THE ALLEGHANY RIVER]