Mary Ball Washington

by Craig Shirley

  The length between birth and baptism was unusual, at least for what the Church of England proclaimed. “The Curates of every parish,” said the Book of Common Prayer, “shall often admonish the People, that they defer not the Baptism of their Children longer than the first or second Sunday next after their Birth, or other Holy-day falling between.” It also warned them that a baptism must be done in a church, unless under special circumstances.

  Theologically in all Christian denominations, birth and baptism were to take place as close as possible. To be cleansed of original sin was a precursor to entering Paradise. (If George had died in those two months, he would not have, according to the Church of England, been one with God.) Practically, the Anglican Church functioned as an unofficial arm of the British government. It was the state church, a gatekeeper with the power to give or withhold salvific rituals. Anglican ministers were sworn to obey the king, who, since the English Reformation, had been head of the church. Mary was raised and shaped by Anglicanism. Her son would lead a revolution that would turn many priests into soldiers and split the church along partisan lines into Anglicanism and Episcopalianism. After the Revolution, George would resign from the vestry at Truro Parish, breaking with the former for the latter.

  But for now, George was entirely dependent on the benevolence of the Empire.

  ON APRIL 5, 1732, THE WASHINGTON FAMILY BIBLE NOTED PLAINLY THAT George, seven weeks old, “was baptized the 5th of April following.”

  The baptism of George Washington positioned Mary in a life for which she had been prepared since childhood. Ever since she was a young girl, she had been interested in faith. This was no more evident than in her copy of The Christian Life by John Scott, published in 1700 in London and sold at the St. Paul’s Churchyard. On the front sheet was signed “Mary Ball, 1728,” indicating her interest as a young woman.

  The Christian Life was a five-volume work by Scott, a High Church Anglican rector of the newly renovated Saint Peter le Poer Church in London and whose life’s work, in many ways, was devoted to this tract. The work was a devotional on how to obtain heaven, how to practice the virtues in life, how to practice the faith—all with the ultimate goal of being with God. Mary’s interest in this book reveals much about her faith, and her belief in the afterlife. To reach heaven was the ultimate reason for living and minding how one acts on earth. Indeed, when she died in August 1789, the Gazette of the United States ran a notice of her passing, stating that “she conducted herself through this transitory life with virtue, prudence and Christianity.”29 She was a woman of faith unto her death, shown not just in her deeds but in her possessions as well. George Washington Parke Custis, her adopted great-grandson, wrote that she was “always pious, in her latter days her devotions were performed in private. She was in the habit of repairing every day to a secluded spot, formed by rocks and trees near to her dwelling, where, abstracted from the world and worldly things, she communed with her Creator in humiliation and prayer.”30 Mary was known to be extremely devout in theory, if not in practice. Of course, her duty as a mother would be to pass the faith on to her children.

  Her oldest would be the first of many children to receive that lesson: all things are done with heaven in mind, they learned. George learned the lesson well. Later in life, he wrote to the Hebrew congregations of Newport, Rhode Island, “May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.”31 He wrote to Reverend John Rodgers in June of 1783, after the Revolutionary War: “Glorious indeed has been our Contest: glorious, if we consider the Prize for which have contended, and glorious in its Issue.”32 Clearly, this religious upbringing, he and many believed, shaped their call for independence in the very event that defined him and the entire generation.

  He may have learned this worldview from Mary. Other books in her collection and interests included lawyer Matthew Hale’s Contemplations, Moral and Divine, first published in 1676, and James Hervey’s Meditations and Contemplations from 1750. (Hervey’s two volumes are currently at Mount Vernon, signed by Mary Washington and her grandson, Lawrence Lewis.) Hale’s own Contemplations, also at Mount Vernon, was said to have been read by Mary to her young children.33 This tradition started with Reverend Edward Charles McGuire, the son-in-law of George’s nephew, Robert Lewis, and longtime pastor of Fredericksburg’s Saint George’s Church. He noted that the book itself “bears the marks of frequent use, and, it appears, in certain parts, to have engaged particular attention.” Among the parts in use was a treatise on humility, a necessary component for both child and woman.34 Washington Irving wrote that Hale’s work, and Mary’s teaching of Hale, imposed a sense of “outward action as well as self-government, [which] sank deep into the mind of George.” Perhaps, Irving believed, this very work helped form the self-governance not just in character but in philosophy that was so important to the forming of the United States of America decades later. If so, then perhaps Mary’s teachings gave a new sense of building the nation beyond what anyone possibly imagined—now and certainly back in the 1730s. “Let those who wish to know the moral foundation of his character consult its pages,” Irving said.35 It may have been as much a founding document of this nation as any other.

  These works were all designed to spiritually enlighten one’s life on earth in preparation for the next, for deeply devoted men and women of faith, by means, as Mary Thompson wrote, of using “examples from nature to teach about the nature of God.” Many of these authors were open to using the “reasonableness of Christianity” to defend the faith in an Enlightenment setting, rejecting the mystical for the empirical.36

  GEORGE WAS WRAPPED IN A SPECIAL CEREMONIAL ROBE DURING THE SACRAMENT, befitting of such a solemn event. (And it exists to this day. For a short period in 2017 and 2018, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, for its exhibit Religion in Early America, publicly displayed what is thought to be George Washington’s baptismal robe and blanket.)

  In 1923, the famed explorer Robert Shackleton wrote that “there is a child’s christening robe, of white silk brocade, a robe so delicate and attractive it would draw attention even if it were not associated with any known individual.”37 The 1.5-by-1.5-square-foot silk cloth had that “attractive” look, with a pinkish red silk interior and white exterior, embroidered with decoration. It, along with a plethora of other “relics,” was transferred to the Smithsonian from the United States Patent Office. They were purchased in 1878 from George Washington Lewis’s family for $12,000.38

  The colors passed into history, some say, as an inspiration for the Stars and Stripes, designed decades later, signifying a further Christian origin of the nation. It’s a preposterous legend that is a mere coincidence, at best, but Helen Richardson’s article in The Churchman in February 1904 purported an addition to the myth of the Father of His Country. His inspiration, she said, was so great, that his baptismal robes were the colors of the nation.39

  ALL OF THIS, FROM THE DOCUMENTATION TO THE ACTUAL MATERIAL, CONTRADICTS one particular legend of George’s baptism. The grandchildren of the Reverend John Gano, a Revolutionary Army chaplain and minister of First Baptist Church in New York, first reported at the end of the nineteenth century that their grandfather honored George Washington’s request to be baptized by immersion during the winter at Valley Forge at the end of 1777. “I have been investigating the Scripture,” George purportedly said, according to a Time magazine article in 1932, “and I believe immersion to be baptism taught in the Word of God, and I demand it at your hands. I do not wish any parade made or the army called out, but simply a quiet demonstration of the ordinance.”40

  Of course, Gano himself did not mention this event in his autobiography, nor did any witnesses come forward. Facts changed as decades went on. One painting depicted the immersion in the Potomac—nowhere near Valley Forge. It did not happen. George was a lifelong Episcopalian and would have seen his infant baptism—a
n event that is one and done, never repeated—as valid.

  A SCANT THREE YEARS AFTER GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN, HIS NAMESAKE, the guardian of his mother in her youth and in many ways a second father to her, George Eskridge of Westmoreland County, died at Sandy Point. He was seventy-five years old by the time of his death on November 25, 1735.

  We can only imagine Mary’s grief upon hearing of the death of her guardian, a man who influenced her so. He died at an old age, breaking the chain of young deaths in Mary’s life.

  Today, in Fredericksburg, stands a mighty oak tree near the intersection of Washington Avenue and Pitt Street. It was moved there from Sandy Point on April 29, 1937. Near the towering memorial to Mary Washington herself and the cemetery of the Grove family of Kenmore, a plaque reads:

  COL. GEORGE ESKRIDGE MEMORIAL TREE

  APRIL 29, 1937

  MAY THIS OAK TREE FROM “SANDY POINT” WESTMORELAND CO. VIRGINIA, HOME OF COL. GEORGE ESKRIDGE, WHO WAS GUARDIAN FOR MARY BALL, SHELTER HER LAST RESTING PLACE, AS SHE IN HER EARLY CHILDHOOD WAS SHELTERED AND PROTECTED BY HER BELOVED GUARDIAN. AS DESCENDANTS OF OUR ILLUSTRIOUS ANCESTOR, WE DEDICATE THIS TREE TO THE MEMORY OF OUR COUNTRIES NOBLEST MOTHER AND HER GUARDIAN, COL. GEORGE ESKRIDGE.

  MRS. ELISE TOWSON COELE

  SPONSOR

  THESE FIRST YEARS OF INFANT GEORGE’S LIFE AT POPES CREEK SAW THE growth of the Washington family. Augustine and Mary Washington gave birth to Elizabeth—“Betty,” as her family, friends, and history have known her—on June 20, 1733, only a year after George’s own birth. She was born about six in the morning. Then, at three a.m. in November of 1734, Mary gave birth to her second son, Samuel. At two in the morning in January of 1736 came John Augustine Washington, and in May of 1738 came Charles.41

  NO LATER THAN JANUARY OF 1735, THE WASHINGTON FAMILY—AUGUSTINE, Mary, George, Betty, and Samuel, but without the three children from Augustine’s first marriage—moved north over seventy miles. That was about a day’s walk on the west side of the Potomac River to Augustine’s 2,500-acre tract of land of Little Hunting Creek—the future plantation of Mount Vernon. (Augustine inherited this land in 1726, after his sister agreed to sell him the estate.) A letter and enclosed memorandum from Hannah Fairfax Washington to her cousin George indicated that they moved in 1734,42 but either way, George was less than three years old, barely aware of his surroundings in Westmoreland County, when they packed up. From that time and for the next 123 years, this patch of land was owned, occupied, and operated by a Washington and Washington descendants before it was sold to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in 1858.

  Why the Washingtons moved north to the isolated region is up for debate. Dr. Philip Levy, a professor of history at the University of South Florida, called the move “curious,” as Popes Creek was the “epicenter of the Washington empire for three generations.”43 A variety of valid and invalid reasons exist. Many biographies falsely claimed that Popes Creek Plantation, also known as Wakefield, the birthplace of George Washington, burned to the ground in 1735. In reality, it burned to the ground on Christmas Day, 1779.

  Most likely, the move placed Augustine closer to his work at the Principio Company’s Iron Works. It also placed them closer to Mary’s 600-acre inheritance nearby, which cemented his landholdings in Prince William County. Luke Pecoraro, then director of archaeology at Mount Vernon, believes this was the driving force behind the move. “In the end, follow where the money goes,” he said.

  Popes Creek was primarily a tobacco plantation. With the iron furnace nearby, “was Little Hunting Creek a chance to expand on that?” Pecoraro continued, “Prince William County is attractive to Augustine. It is the frontier. If you have 2,500 acres up here already, what can you do with it? It’s attractive for development.”44 Indeed, during these years, Augustine was seen in business ventures like no other period in his life. He traveled to and from England in the best interest of the Washington family. He became a one-twelfth owner of the entire company. This was signed in a contract dated April 15, 1737, between Augustine Washington of Prince William County and William Chetwynd of Beddington in the County of Surrey, England, among other owners.45

  There at Little Hunting Creek Plantation the Washingtons lived until late 1738 when they moved back south, to a plantation in Fredericksburg.

  THESE FOUR YEARS OF THE WASHINGTON FAMILY’S LIFE, THOUGH FEW AND far between in facts, have been relatively glossed over.

  The first historian to give us insight into this lost period was eighteenth-century Virginian Reverend Philip Slaughter of Emmanuel Church in Culpeper County, whose father was a captain in the 11th Virginia Regiment during the American Revolution. Slaughter was the preeminent historian of the Truro Parish region, which made him an invaluable resource for information about the Washingtons. He discovered the records of vestrymen of the newly installed Truro Parish. Author Moncure Conway spoke and wrote to Reverend Slaughter before the reverend’s passing in 1890.

  In a letter to Conway dated July 24, 1889, Slaughter detailed his findings, giving a time line of events from October 1737 to October 1739, when Augustine’s “name does not appear again.”46

  On November 18 (or 28), 1735, Augustine Washington was elected and sworn in as a vestryman of the parish. His and Mary’s male ancestors were vestrymen of various parishes in Virginia, and their ancestors continued to be vestrymen, so it isn’t exactly a radical characteristic of George’s father. Yet it does show that they became acquainted with others near Little Hunting Creek, enough to be elected to the body of the parish. In August of the following year, 1736, Augustine recommended Charles Green to become minister of the parish. It was approved, pending word from the bishop of London. Reverend Green held the position of rector of Pohick Church for the next twenty-seven years, until 1764.47 Augustine’s influence was strong enough—and presumably his demeanor was familiar enough—for the other vestrymen of this brand-new church to have him select its rector.

  ACROSS THE OCEAN, IN ENGLAND, THREE THOUSAND MILES AWAY, A BABY boy was born on June 4, 1738, at Norfolk House in St. James’s Square, Westminster. He was named George William Frederick: George after his grandfather, and Frederick after his father. A little over a decade earlier, his grandfather was crowned as king of Great Britain, becoming George II.48

  The little boy grew up under this reign and would succeed his grandfather after the death of his father, the Prince of Wales. He would become King George III of Great Britain.

  While that little boy named George, born in England, would grow up to become king, the little boy named George, born in Virginia, would grow up to become president.

  OTHER EVENTS OCCUPIED AUGUSTINE’S LIFE DURING THESE YEARS. HE had runaway slaves and indentured servants. There was no better place to advertise and offer a reward for a runaway than, of course, the Virginia Gazette. So said the bulletin, from page 4 on June 9, 1738:

  Ran away from Capt. McCarty’s Plantation, on Popes Creek, in Westmoreland County, a Servant Man belonging to me the Subscriber, in Prince William County; his Christian Name is John, but Sirname [sic] forgot, is pretty tall, a Bricklayer by Trade, and is a Kentishman; he came into Patowmack, in the Forward, Capt. Major, last Year; is suppos’d to have the Figure of our Savoir mark’d with Gunpowder on one his Arms. He went away about the 20th of April last, in Company with three other Servants, viz. Richard Martin, is a middle siz’d Man, fresh colour’d, about 22 years of Age, and is a Sailor; had on a blew [sic] Jacket. Richard Kibble, is a middle siz’d young Fellow, has several Marks made with Gunpowder on his Arms, but particularly one on his Breast, being the Figures of a Woman and a Cherry-Tree, and is a Carpenter by Trade; he wore a blew grey Coat with a large Cape, a Snuff-colour’d Cloth Wastecoat [sic], and Buckskin Breeches. Edward Ormsby, is a small thin Fellow, of swarthy Complexion, and is a Taylor by Trade; has a Hesitation or Stammering in his Speech, and being an Irishman, has a good deal of the Brogue. They went away from Capt. Aylett’s Landing, on Patowmack, in a small Boat, and are suppos’d to be gone toward the E
astern-shore, or North-Carolina. Whoever will secure this said Bricklayer, so that he may be had again, shall have Five Pounds Reward, besides what the Law allows, paid by

  Augustine Washington

  N.B. It is not doubted but the Owners of the other Servants will give the same Reward for each of theirs.49

  The advertisement appeared three times; it is unknown if John the Kentishman was ever captured, but the omission of the nota bene at the end in the latter two letters indicated that he was not, while the others were.50

  IF A LACK OF CONCRETE INFORMATION ABOUT THESE EARLY YEARS OF George’s life, and how he was raised, went unnoticed, then historians could take solace at every little piece or hint of information of how he may have been raised, even indirectly. Buckner Stith, a childhood friend who was ten years older, described his relationship with Lawrence Washington, George’s older half brother, in a letter decades later. He assisted the Washington family in 1738, when he was sixteen years old. “I am the same Man who marched with him [George] and old Laurence from Chotanck to Fredericksburg, how Laurence and him laughed at me for holding the wine glass in the full hand, but as I was five Years older than either of them, I thought I might hold the wine glass as I pleased; that we lost a Horse or two in the Trip, and were obliged to walk honestly in turn clear to Chotank again.” He described George at that time as “a sound looking, modest, large boned young Man.”51 A six-year-old George laughing with his older brother at a bumbling friend.

  The first six years of George’s life are lacking in detailed facts beyond a date here or there. Accounts of Mary’s early motherhood are nonexistent. It is not known in detail how she definitely raised or treated her children, whether she went with or against colonial norms. But George’s early life, Ron Chernow wrote, “was a roving and unsettled one,” moving to and from plantations in Virginia.52 Certainly, from Popes Creek to Little Hunting Creek, there was a major shift, upending a little boy’s life for something unfamiliar. What friends George made in Westmoreland County had no reason to visit Prince William County. He had his immediate family and slaves’ families to play with here. “City boys and girls,” wrote Kate Wiggin and Nora Smith in their children’s book in 1891, “might think, perhaps, that little George Washington was very lonely on the great plantation, with no neighbor-boys to play with; but you must remember that the horses and cattle and sheep and dogs on a farm make the dearest of playmates, and that there are all kinds of pleasant things to do in the country that city boys know nothing about.”53