After a time the lowlands of the coast region began to fill up and the people were pushing westward, just as they did in Pennsylvania and New York. No man had so great a part in this westward movement as the young surveyor, George Washington. In 1748 he was sixteen years old, a tall, strong lad, full of courage and energy. Lord William Fairfax, a rich English gentleman who had settled in Virginia, had bought great tracts of forest land up the Potomac behind the Blue Ridge mountains, and he was eager to have them surveyed. Knowing that Washington had studied surveying, Fairfax asked him to undertake the task. The boy consented; he went beyond the Blue Ridge into the country along the Shenandoah, camped in the woods, swam the rivers, toughened his muscles, learned the ways of the red men, and three years later came back, a grown man, ready for great things. While Washington was getting his practice as a surveyor the Ohio Company was formed to take up lands along the Ohio river, and to keep the French from settling there. Lawrence, Washington’s elder brother, was one of the chief men of this company. In 1753 Washington himself went west to the Ohio river. Day by day the French were taking a firmer hold of that country, and Dinwiddie, the old Scottish governor of Virginia, looked about for some one to carry a warning letter to the commander of one of their new forts. The messenger was also to keep his eyes open and report what the French were doing on the upper waters of the Ohio. He chose Washington, saying, “Faith, you’re a brave lad, and, if you play your cards well, you shall have no cause to repent your bargain.” Washington did not wait, but left on the day he received his commission, late in October, 1753. Christopher Gist, a famous frontiersman, was secured as guide, and we can have no doubt that he and Washington formed a team, ready to meet Frenchmen, red men, and the dangers of river and forest. They made up their little party where the city of Cumberland, Maryland, now stands. It is far up the Potomac, in the heart of the mountains,--a long way beyond the Blue Ridge and the lands where Washington had been surveying. At this place a large stream called Wills creek cuts through one of the mountain ridges by a deep gorge and enters the Potomac. On a hill, where these streams come together, was Fort Cumberland, the great outpost of Virginia and Maryland. A fine church now stands on the ground of the old fort, in the heart of the busy city of Cumberland. This was the starting point for Washington’s expedition and for many later ones into the western wilderness. Washington made his dangerous journey with success. He brought back a letter from the French commander, but of much greater value was the story of all that he had seen. The colonists now knew just what they would have to do to keep possession of the Ohio lands.