You’ve probably heard it since kindergarten. George Washington was the first president of the United States. He's the guy on the dollar bill, the general who crossed the Delaware, and the man who supposedly couldn't tell a lie about a cherry tree. But if you’re looking for the technical, historical "gotcha" answer to the question of who was president before George Washington, things get a little weird.
Actually, they get very weird.
Depending on how you define "President," there were technically over a dozen men who held a title with that word in it before Washington ever took the oath of office in 1789. History isn't a straight line. It's a messy series of pivots. Before we had the Constitution, we had the Articles of Confederation. And before that, we had a ragtag group of rebels trying to keep a Continental Congress from imploding.
The Men Who Ran the Show Before the Constitution
So, if Washington wasn't the first person called "President," who was?
The short answer is Peyton Randolph. In 1774, he was elected the President of the First Continental Congress. But don't go rewriting your history papers just yet. Being the "President" back then was nothing like being the President now. Randolph was basically a moderator. He was the guy who made sure people didn't scream over each other during debates about how much they hated King George III. He had zero executive power. He couldn't command an army, he couldn't veto a law, and he certainly didn't live in a White House.
Think of it like the President of a Gardening Club versus the President of the United States. Same word, totally different universe of power.
After Randolph, you had a revolving door of names you might recognize from a very difficult trivia night: Henry Middleton, John Hancock (yes, the big signature guy), Henry Laurens, and John Jay. These men presided over the Continental Congress during the heaviest lifting of the American Revolution. When people ask who was president before George Washington, they’re often thinking of these guys, specifically the ones who served under the Articles of Confederation.
The Articles of Confederation: America’s First (Failed) Draft
By 1781, the colonies finally stopped bickering long enough to ratify the Articles of Confederation. This was our first real "frame of government." Under this system, the title became "President of the United States in Congress Assembled."
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John Hanson is the name that usually pops up in those "History Facts You Didn't Know" Facebook posts. In 1781, Hanson became the first man to serve a full one-year term as President under the Articles of Confederation. Because of this, some folks—and even some descendants—argue that Hanson was the real first president.
He wasn't.
Hanson was essentially a glorified clerk. He handled a lot of paperwork. He signed official documents. But the Articles of Confederation were intentionally designed to be weak. The Founders were terrified of another King George, so they made sure the "President" had no real teeth. He couldn't tax anyone. He couldn't enforce treaties. He was just a presiding officer over a legislature that barely functioned.
Historian Richard B. Morris once noted that the office was "a position of great dignity but no power."
After Hanson, we saw Elias Boudinot, Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee, Nathan Gorman, Arthur St. Clair, and Cyrus Griffin. Griffin was the last one, wrapping up his term just as the new Constitution—the one we actually use today—kicked in. If you want to be extremely pedantic at a dinner party, Cyrus Griffin is the most literal answer to who was president before George Washington.
Why Washington is Still "Number One"
It’s tempting to feel like we’ve been lied to. If there were ten or fourteen "Presidents" before 1789, why does Washington get all the credit?
It's about the office, not just the title.
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The Constitution of 1787 created an entirely new branch of government: the Executive Branch. Washington wasn't just a moderator for a committee; he was the head of a co-equal branch of government with the power to command the military and enforce the law. The guys before him were leaders of a legislature. Washington was the leader of a nation.
When Washington took office, he had to figure out everything from scratch. Should people call him "Your Highness"? (He chose "Mr. President.") Should he meet with his department heads? (He created the Cabinet.) The men before him were placeholders in a system that was fundamentally broken. Washington was the architect of a system that actually worked.
There’s also the matter of the "United" part of United States. Under the Articles of Confederation, the states acted more like thirteen separate countries that happened to share a backyard. They had their own currencies. They had their own trade laws. The "Presidents" before Washington were presiding over a loose confederation, not a unified federal republic.
The Forgotten Leaders
It’s honestly a bit of a shame we don't talk about these earlier guys more. Take John Hancock, for instance. He served as President of the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1777. He was the one sitting in the chair when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. That’s a massive deal! He risked his life and his fortune to lead a body of men who were technically committing treason against the British Crown.
Then there’s Henry Laurens. He was captured by the British and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He’s the only American to ever be officially held as a prisoner in the Tower. These weren't "nobodies." They were giants of the era who simply held a title that eventually evolved into something much bigger.
If you’re looking for a specific list of the "forgotten" presidents of the Congress, here they are in the order they served under the Articles of Confederation:
- John Hanson
- Elias Boudinot
- Thomas Mifflin
- Richard Henry Lee
- John Hancock (he was elected again but was too sick to actually serve)
- Nathaniel Gorham
- Arthur St. Clair
- Cyrus Griffin
Before that, during the Second Continental Congress (the war years), you had Peyton Randolph, Henry Middleton, John Hancock, Henry Laurens, John Jay, Samuel Huntington, and Thomas McKean.
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It’s a long list. It’s a confusing list. But it’s the list that paved the way for the presidency we recognize today.
Misconceptions and the "Hidden History" Trap
You might run into articles claiming that John Hanson was a Black man and that the "true" history has been erased. This is a common internet myth that stems from a confusion between the white John Hanson of Maryland and a different John Hanson who was a prominent figure in the American Colonization Society in Liberia decades later.
Fact-checking matters. The John Hanson who served as President of the Continental Congress was a white merchant from Maryland. While his contributions were important, they weren't the "lost presidency" that conspiracy theorists sometimes suggest.
Another misconception is that the pre-Washington presidents were somehow "illegal" or "illegitimate." They weren't. They were perfectly legal leaders under the legal framework of their time. It’s just that their framework—the Articles of Confederation—was a total disaster that nearly led the young country to bankruptcy and civil collapse.
How to Think About This Next Time
The next time someone asks who was president before George Washington, you can give them the nuanced answer.
Technically, no one was the President of the United States in the way we understand it today. But if we're talking about the title, Cyrus Griffin was the guy who held the seat right before Washington. If we're talking about the first person to lead the country under a ratified "national" document, it was John Hanson.
History isn't just a list of names to memorize for a test. It's a series of experiments. The men who served before Washington were part of a grand, messy experiment that failed, which allowed the Constitutional Convention to succeed. They were the "beta testers" of American democracy.
Actionable Steps for History Buffs
If you want to dive deeper into this specific era of American history, don't just stick to the standard biographies of the "Big Six" founders. There’s a lot more to find.
- Visit the National Archives online: You can read the original Journals of the Continental Congress. It’s fascinating to see what these men actually debated—it was often about things as mundane as postage and as high-stakes as where to get gunpowder.
- Research the Articles of Confederation: To understand why Washington was so important, you have to understand why the system before him was so bad. Read up on Shays' Rebellion; it’s the event that scared the Founders into realizing they needed a stronger central government and a real President.
- Check out local history in the Mid-Atlantic: Many of these "forgotten" presidents have homes you can still visit. The John Hanson house site in Maryland or the places where the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Princeton, and Annapolis offer a much more tactile sense of how small and fragile the government used to be.
- Look for "The First American" by H.W. Brands: While it focuses on Benjamin Franklin, it gives an incredible look at the chaos of the Continental Congress and the men who tried to lead it.
Understanding the gap between the Declaration of Independence and the inauguration of Washington is the key to understanding how America actually became a country. It didn't happen overnight, and it definitely didn't happen with just one man. It took a string of "presidents" who were willing to hold things together with nothing but a gavel and a hope that the British wouldn't hang them all before breakfast.