How tall was George Washington?

Answer 1

He was six feet, two inches tall by some reports, but there is some question about his true height, as follows:

George Washington was measured for his clothing at 74 inches in height, or 6'2". Though, in his correspondences with merchants he often complained that his clothes were too small . After his death, he was measured at 6'3" and 1/2 inches tall in his stocking feet.

Ron Chernow, in his book Washington-A life, claims Washington is 6' even. He bases this assumption on orders Washington placed for clothing in which Washington asks for clothing," for a man of 6 feet high." However, further reading of Washington's papers will reveal that he never seems satisfied with his clothing and constantly complains that the legs are too short.

Perhaps the best way to accuratly attain Washington's true hight is if one looks at the statue made of George Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdan. One can use the statue's dimensions to attain a measurement of Washington's height at over 6' 3". Washington requested that Houdan make his statue life-sized, rather than larger than life. Houdan spent two weeks with Washington and made a series of very exact measurements which were all subsequently lost in a fire. However, the Statue remains, and was used by Mount Vernon in 2006 as one element to forensically reconstruct Washington's likeness in wax.

In addition, we know Thomas Jefferson to be 6' 2" and 1/2" tall, and George Washington was known to be (a little) taller than Jefferson.

Benjamin Franklin said, (who himself was 6 feet tall) of Washington, "We always choose him to lead us because he was always the tallest man in the room"