9 facts
Discover 10 surprising facts about George Washington — the founding father who became America's first president, a military genius whose life was far stranger and more fascinating than any textbook lets on.
Far from just a soldier and politician, George Washington was a passionate and scientifically minded farmer. He experimented with over 60 different crops at Mount Vernon, pioneered crop rotation practices in America, and designed a 16-sided threshing barn that was revolutionary for its time. He also developed a successful whiskey distillery on his estate, which became one of the largest in America by the late 1790s.
During the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, George Washington had two horses shot out from under him and four bullet holes through his coat — yet emerged completely unharmed. His survival was so remarkable that Native American leader Shingas later said his warriors deliberately aimed at Washington but couldn't hit him. Washington himself wrote that he felt 'the protecting hand of Providence' had saved him.
Unlike most of his fellow Founding Fathers — including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, who all attended college — George Washington received no formal higher education. He stopped formal schooling around age 15 and was largely self-taught. His military and leadership education came primarily from experience in the field, voracious reading, and mentorship from older Virginia planters.
George Washington voluntarily stepped down after two terms as president in 1797, even though he could have served for life. This set a powerful unwritten precedent that every subsequent president followed for 150 years — until Franklin D. Roosevelt broke it by winning a third term in 1940. Congress formally codified Washington's tradition in 1951 with the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms.
At the time of his death in 1799, George Washington enslaved 317 people at Mount Vernon. He had moral reservations about slavery — as shown in his will, which provided for the emancipation of his enslaved workers after Martha's death — but he never publicly advocated for abolition and profited enormously from enslaved labor throughout his life. Martha Washington freed the enslaved people in 1801, a year after George's death.
When George Washington fell ill with a severe throat infection in December 1799, his physicians applied the standard treatment of the era: bloodletting. Over the course of just two days, they drained an estimated 5–7 pints of blood — nearly half the body's total blood supply. Modern medical historians believe Washington was almost certainly killed by this treatment rather than the original illness, which would be easily treatable today with antibiotics.
After the Revolutionary War, some American officers and civilians genuinely wanted to make George Washington the king of the new nation. In 1782, Colonel Lewis Nicola wrote Washington a letter suggesting a monarchy with Washington as king. Washington firmly rejected the idea, writing back that no letter had 'given me more painful sensations' and that the proposal was 'big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country.'
Adjusted for today's dollars, George Washington's net worth at his peak is estimated to have been around $525 million — making him the wealthiest U.S. president ever. His wealth came primarily from his 8,000-acre Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia, land speculation across the frontier, and his marriage to Martha Custis, who was one of the richest widows in colonial America.
By the time George Washington was inaugurated as president in 1789, he had only one natural tooth remaining. He suffered from severe dental disease throughout his life, likely worsened by treatments involving mercury compounds. His famous dentures were not made of wood, as legend claims — they were crafted from a combination of human teeth, animal teeth, and ivory from hippos and elephants, held together by metal springs.
