Surveying career of George Washington

Early 1740s: Beginnings and preparation

As a young man, Washington worked as a land surveyor, where he learned to survey land, measure boundaries, and create maps, which directly helped his military career later down the line; it also gave him an in-depth understanding of Virginia's terrain.^[2][3]

Before becoming a land surveyor, Washington studied mathematics and trigonometry in school to prepare for his land surveying career; he also became a draftsman.^[4][5] Washington's brother, Lawrence Washington, helped him with practical land surveying by allowing Washington to measure Mount Vernon.^[6][3][7] At the time, surveying was one of the highest-paying jobs for Washington, which is one of the major reasons why he wanted the job.^[8] Washington kept sample surveys in his "School Boy Copy Books"; he also used the books to document his time as a surveyor between the ages of seventeen and twenty.^{[9][10][11][12]} By the time Washington was in his twenties, he had already made more than 190 surveys.^[8] 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 a circumferentor from David Rittenhouse in 1782 during the American Revolutionary War.^[13][14][15]

Mid-1740s–1748: Hell Hole, Lawrence Washington's Turnip Field, Fairfax Estate, and Shenandoah Valley

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.^[16] Washington also drew a plan for his brother Lawrence Washington's Turnip Field.^[16] Though a new surveyor, in early 1748 Washington was invited to a survey party hosted by his friend and neighbor George William Fairfax of Belvoir.^[17] This was a huge opportunity for Washington at the time, as it meant he had a chance to practise and become more experienced in land surveying.^[17]

In 1748, he surveyed the Fairfax Estate owned by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron.^[18][19][20] Also in 1748, Washington spent a month in the Shenandoah Valley surveying the Fairfax's properties with a team of people.^[9]

1749–1750: commission from the College of William & Mary, oath of office, and resignation

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.^[8][16][21] 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.^[8] Washington resigned in November 1750. Washington was earning around £400 between 1749 and 1752.^[18] To Washington this was more than enough money.^[18]

1750–1752: Lord Fairfax's invitation and the death of his brother

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.^[13][8] He was connected to the Fairfax family through his brother Lawrence Washington and Ann Fairfax's marriage.^[11] 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.^[13]

1752: Transformation to military and political career

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, and by the end of his land surveying career, Washington owned around 2,315 acres of land.^[22][23][24] Washington later mapped his own plantation, Mount Vernon, completing the final map of his estate five weeks before his death.^[25] 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.^[1] He also used the knowledge to invest in 70,000 acres of land in between the Potomac and Ohio rivers.^[26]