History has immortalized George Washington as the noble and infallible first president of the United States—but it was a long journey of self-discovery before he ever got to such a point. Peter Stark sheds light on this journey in the aptly-named Young Washington, in which he explores the founding father’s past as an ambitious young surveyor of the American wilderness. Stark will be giving detailed insight into his book at Mount Vernon’s Ford Evening Book Talk on Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. // Mount Vernon: 3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Highway; free
Why the specific focus on Washington in the outdoors?
I was always focused on travel, adventure and wilderness. I am most interested in how humans respond to extreme wilderness conditions. So I come at the young George Washington story from a wilderness angle, not a presidential biographer angle. I love history and I’ve written quite a lot about it, especially the history of exploration. I know what it feels like firsthand to paddle canoes down an icy river, breaking ice with your paddles and what it feels like to camp in a frozen forest. These are things George Washington endured as a young man. And I try to bring this experience, the difficulty of this travel in the wilderness, to his story. He seemed like a fascinating character to pursue through the wilderness.
In writing Young Washington, was there anything new you learned about Washington that you hadn’t known before?
I think we all have the image of George Washington as this leader of unquestionably flawless judgment, this immaculately conceived man-god who led us through the birth of the nation. Whereas Washington had a long career before he showed up on the national stage—a difficult and checkered career. That’s what I learned: the struggles he went through. He was striving hard from his late teens onward to make a name for himself and rise in the Virginia aristocracy. This relentless ambition also accounts for some of the poor decisions he made as a young man. This was a young man in his early 20s who was flailing and thrashing around, very thin-skinned, impulsive and whiny. He got into all sorts of trouble, including helping to trigger the events that led to the French and Indian War. As a result, Washington seems to be a much more flawed human being, which also makes him a more accessible one. He’s much more inspirational than this distant, sculpted leader we’re more familiar with. This flawed, struggling man made a lot of mistakes, and yet he kept coming back.
Was there a struggle you faced in writing about a prominent historical figure, especially one who lived so long ago?
It took me a long time to really sink into his writing and his letters. He wasn’t well-educated, so his letters are very stiff and awkward. He tried to write in a formal fashion, and the grammar ended up being so convoluted it’s hard to follow sometimes. But after reading hundreds of these letters, I began to understand where he was coming from in any given moment. I knew of his wilderness adventures, but when I sat down to put them to paper, most of the histories and biographies didn’t bring me into the situation that he faced. I tried to bring a visceral, vivid sense of what it must’ve been like to be in the wilderness in those moments: and at the same time, remain historically accurate.
