Mary Ball Washington

by Craig Shirley

  There’s a romantic conception here of being alone in a quiet landscape, with just the animals and crops to look over. The decades before the Industrial Revolution offered a silent world free of the bustle of a mechanized future.

  Here George met his half brothers, Lawrence and Augustine Jr., who had been away at Appleby School in England, expanding the knowledge of the family to Augustine’s own family.54

  The Washingtons’ closest neighbors were the Fairfax family in Belvoir. This would prove somewhat beneficial for the children—Lawrence would marry Anne Fairfax, daughter of Colonel William Fairfax, who himself would see great promise in George in the following years.55 At the other end of the spectrum, George was deeply smitten with Sally Fairfax, who, by all accounts, was beautiful and charming.

  AUGUSTINE SPENT A GREAT DEAL OF TIME IN ENGLAND FOR BUSINESS. THIS was not a safe passage, either. Disease was rampant. The Virginia Gazette often advertised and posted bulletins of Augustine’s return, such as on July 22, 1737, which read, “We here from Potowmack, That a Ship is lately arriv’d there, from London, with Convicts. Capt. Augustine Washington, and Capt. Hugh French, took their Passage in her; the Former is arriv’d in Health; but the Latter dy’d at Sea, and ’tis said of the Goal Distemper, which he got on Board.”56 Whether through luck or good hygiene, Augustine survived numerous trips in cramped, dangerous conditions that could have easily led him to death, all before George would have a clear memory of his father. It was with luck that George did not become fatherless at such a young age, as Augustine and Mary themselves had.

  Little George became oriented with the customs of the Virginian plantation as he grew. He learned to walk, talk, and read with picture books and poems and hornbooks, like his mother before him. He learned social cues from those around him. He learned a mixture of parental obedience and self-reliance, a delicate balance. “Not only did young children experience considerable freedom of movement on the plantation, but they also lived under few parental restraints to their conduct. Parents and kin, at least in middle- and upper-class families, apparently made little effort to stifle childhood willfulness and self-assertion.” Diaries from parents congratulating their children for being so autonomous were seen throughout the eighteenth-century Virginia and Maryland.57

  But from the relative freedom of the plantation, George was about to move into the heart of a royalist city. Not only was the town itself named after the successor to the throne, but nearly every street was named after a royal person or place or association. Sophia Street was named after King George’s sister; Hanover Street after the House of Hanover; and so on.

  At the age of six, George was to move to a new location. This time, back south, about forty miles.

  To Fredericksburg, Virginia.

  Chapter 6

  Fredericksburg

  LIFE ON HOME FARM, FREDERICKSBURG

  1738‒1743

  “The homes of her childhood and her early womanhood lapsed away.”

  The move to Fredericksburg was only the first step into a broader world for young George Washington. It was also the site for many of the myths which have sprung up around his childhood. For Mary, it was to be home for the rest of her life. She took one more step into the world and stopped. She would raise her children here, be widowed here, and die here.

  A quarter-page ad in the reliable Virginia Gazette appeared on April 21, 1738. It may have caught Augustine Washington’s eye:

  To be Sold, for Cash, on the 25th of October next, by way of Auction, to the highest bidder, several Tracts of Land belonging to the Estate of William Strother, late of King George County, Gent. deceas’d, pursuant to his Will, wiz.

  One Tract, containing 100 Acres, lying about 2 miles below the Falls of Rappahannock, close on the River Side, with a very handsome Dwelling house, 3 store houses, several other convenient Out-houses, and a Ferry belonging to it, being the Place where Mr. Strother liv’d; is a beautiful Situation and very commodious for Trade.

  One other Tract, of 160 Acres of very good Land, adjoining thereto, the Plantation, Houses, Fences, &c., in good Order.

  About 1,600 acres were also for sale in Prince William, along with twenty slaves.1 William Strother, the previous owner, had died several years earlier, in late 1732 or early 1733; his will, made out in November of 1732, equally divided his main estate among his six children (all daughters) and his wife, Margaret—all other lands, which included the future Ferry Farm, were to be sold if Margaret so desired. As she had taken another husband, who had an estate of his own, she decided to sell the extra land.

  As with some ads of the era, there was a hint of exaggeration. The estate did not operate a ferry, though one disembarked on the land after crossing the Rappahannock. The “very handsome Dwelling house” may not have earned that description. One man, as recounted to author Moncure Conway some decades later, recalled that his father described it as simply “a plain wooden structure of moderate size, and painted a dark red color.”2 “Moderate” is in the eye of the beholder. The house by its very nature, though, had to be large enough to accommodate Augustine and Mary and their children. An inventory listing of all possessions in each room years later also noted that there was a hall, two back rooms, a parlor, a passage, a hall chamber, a parlor chamber, a dairy, a closet, a store house, and a kitchen, each with substantial furniture and possessions, indicating large sizes.3

  Augustine learned of the sale, and on November 2, 1738, bought about 280 acres of the land for 317 pounds. It was an all-around good move. It was closer to the Principio Iron Works than Little Hunting Creek, and closer to familiar land of Popes Creek.4 Mary’s half sister, Hannah, lived in Stafford County, perhaps providing a well-known anchor for moving back south. She “had to some extent come home.”5 She was only thirty miles from Westmoreland County, and Lancaster was also relatively nearby.

  Here, Mary would have a sense of “individuality.” Author Nancy Turner wrote, “The river farm became a part of the very fabric of this woman’s life. . . . The different features of the simple surroundings on take special associations. . . . The homes of her childhood and her early womanhood lapsed away into little more than pleasant dreams.”6 Mary lived on this farm until 1772, when she moved to nearby Fredericksburg, where she spent the rest of her days, and thus her “home” of Little Hunting Creek and Popes Creek and the childhood residences of Epping Forest, Sandy Point, and Bonum’s Creek faded into the mist, as Ferry Farm superseded all.

  The “Rose of Epping Forest” had moved on.

  ORIGINALLY KNOWN AS HOME FARM TO THE WASHINGTON FAMILY, THIS childhood home of George was settled closely to the southern Virginian hub of Fredericksburg, in then King George County. He inherited it upon the death of his father yet continued to call it “my mothers [sic]” farm many years into his adulthood.7 It became known as “Ferry Farm” a century later due to the massive ferries going back and forth across the Rappahannock River. It now bears the distinguished title of George Washington’s Boyhood Home.

  The view offered was unparalleled compared to anything the Washington family had possessed. An advertisement for the land for sale appeared in an issue of the Virginia Gazette on November 5, 1772, decades after the initial move, which described it as “a tract of six hundred acres . . . one of the most agreeable situations for a house that is to be found upon the whole river, having a clear and distinct view of almost every house in the said town, and every vessel that passes to and from it.”8

  William Byrd wrote a description of the town at the time, around the initial move, in 1732: “Sloops may come and lie close to the wharf, within thirty yards of the public warehouse which is built in the figure of a cross. Just by the wharf is a quarry of white stone that is very soft in the ground, and hardens in the air. . . . Though this be a commodious and beautiful situation for a town, with the advantages of a navigable river, and wholesome air, yet the inhabitants are very few.”9 The region was not flat; instead, it had hills and slopes in every direction as merchants went to and from
the Rappahannock. The Rappahannock itself, appropriate for its mighty-sounding name, moved forward past Fredericksburg for miles, one of the most important trade routes for the region. The headwaters originated nearly two hundred miles west.

  THE HOUSE ITSELF WAS MODEST FOR ITS ACREAGE AND PRESTIGE, YET EXUDED gentry at every turn. The twenty-plus slaves made sure of that; without the slaves, the Washingtons would have been stymied, stuck with an unmanageable plantation. The back hall room, on the south side, adjacent to the back porch, had a four-poster bed, the most expensive bed in the house. Mary and Augustine slept in this room. Here, too, tea for the well-heeled ladies was often served, and Augustine managed the house from here. Half a decade later, it was in this same small room that Augustine fell ill and died.

  The hall room itself, north from the back hall room, contained a small but fancy fireplace, and it was the largest and nicest room, where the family and guests ate. Through the windows, they could see the hill sloping down to the Rappahannock River, a stone’s throw away.

  The parlor was the social space. There was just one window, but a huge fireplace, over five feet tall. Here, daughter Betty would have been courted by Fielding Lewis; and the boys and Augustine, and guests as well, would have played typical card games like whist. The discovery of ceramic wig curlers—another status symbol—showed that the boys would’ve also been dressed and presented here. The oldest furniture was placed here, creating an illusion of status without depleting the finances.

  Some years later, around 1740, Augustine built an additional room, the back room. A small study, with an equally small fireplace, the room has left historians and archaeologists scratching their heads as to its purpose. It was possibly multipurpose, where the family hosted high-profile guests or even children who wished to stay the night.

  Upstairs were the parlor and hall room chambers, where the family slept and stored lumber and other materials.

  The Washingtons’ garden was in the lower hills to the south; Orinoco tobacco (instead of the more valuable and better sweet-scented tobacco) and crops were sustainable, though not great.

  All in all, size was important, but it was how the family used their home and grounds which counted most.

  And, after all the years of moving back and forth, this house would be called home.

  IN THE SHORT FIVE YEARS BETWEEN THE MOVE FROM PRINCE WILLIAM County and Augustine Washington’s death in 1743 were the legends of the famous cherry tree incident and other tales, small and large, little known and well known. What Popes Creek was to young George’s birth, the Home Farm was to his childhood. Home Farm itself shaped the young boy, leaving the rural northern Virginian region for a farm near an urban trade town.

  The actual move southward occurred in November of 1738; by December, they were settled in. By that time, Augustine had acquired an additional 380 acres adjoining the land from the original purchase.10 Their home at Ferry Farm was situated just southeast of modern downtown Fredericksburg.

  Located in newly established Spotsylvania County, and barely even a town at the point of the Washingtons’ move southward, Fredericksburg was established in 1728 as a settlement by an act of the Virginia General Assembly (as was the town of Falmouth in King George County).

  IN THE WORDS OF HISTORIAN PAUL WILSTACH, FREDERICKSBURG WAS “NOT a bad place to keep in touch with the world.” It was a growing trade route, with Williamsburg to the south and the Rappahannock and Potomac to the east. King’s Highway ran through into the northern colonies. It may have been sparse, but it had all the markings of a booming frontier.11 The discovery of iron ore on the Rappahannock shores sometime after certainly made a good impression on hopeful prospectors.

  Certainly, Mary and company would have been interested in the imports and trade and quickly acquainted themselves with the area; in 1746, Captain John Kerr in his ship Restoration arrived from London with everything from Dutch metals to sweet almonds, medicine, and barley, all for sale.12 Apple and cherry orchards in and around the city would spring up soon enough, horse races and fairs too, all making this trade route into something, something more permanent—something like home.

  Governor Alexander Spotswood moved the county seat in 1732 to this new tiny budding town with a population of six. By 1782, the county had grown to 5,500 people. This included immigrants from Scotland, and such names as Fielding Lewis, Henry Willis (the second husband of Mildred, Augustine’s sister), and William Byrd. Each of these in the nearby neighborhoods saw the “frontier” of Virginia as a viable and potentially profitable land.13

  And so did the Washingtons. The location of their new home was so opportune: the river, King’s Highway, a growing town, all within a very short distance. It meant the Washingtons’ lives were “quite literally at the crossroads of local life and commerce.”14

  GEORGE WASHINGTON GREW UP HERE. HERE, ALSO, STORIES OF HIS YOUTH developed. Parson Weems, the origin of many of these fanciful tales, recounts the most famous of all these stories, as told to him by an anonymous “aged lady, who was a distant relative” in 1833: “One day,” he wrote, “in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother’s pea-sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry-tree, which he barked so terribly, that I don’t believe the tree ever got the better of it.” Augustine Washington was flabbergasted, confused, and wanting to know who did it. “Presently, George and his hatchet made their appearance. ‘George,’ said his father, ‘do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?’ . . . He bravely cried out, ‘I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.’”15

  And so the legend was born.

  The morals of honesty, bravery in the face of punishment, and taking responsibility for mistakes presented a timeless lesson for children of all ages and all generations. Perhaps George learned this very lesson at some point. The little six-year-old boy would have needed to learn this from his father and mother, of course.

  There are, again, some grains of truths in legends. Perhaps George did not cut down a cherry tree with his hatchet. But the story possibly came from somewhere, and some influence and enjoyment of cherry trees for the Washingtons were evident. This came from a 1760s punch bowl, owned by Mary Washington. It depicted red bundles of cherries (a rare and therefore pricey design), with stems and leaves. But more important, it was cracked. As Dr. Philip Levy, whose archaeological team discovered this artifact, stated, a cracked bowl was “usually a death sentence for table ceramics.” This one, however, “was special enough to Mary that she paid a craftsman to repair the cracks with a special glue paste,” possibly made of cheese. “It was not as good a drinks vessel as when it was new, but it could still hold pride of place on a shelf or a mantle.”

  Levy believed that, artifact of cherries or not, this did not point to Weems’s legend as fact. Some historians may have very well said so, without missing a beat. Some may have even placed a whole mythology as to why Mary bought or received this cherry bowl—her son’s loyalty was so important to her, she must have a sort of relic in honor of it! Some may have made mythical paintings of the bowl’s use, perhaps even its purchase or placement in the Ferry Farm plantation. But the bowl “crystallized” the legend: “If George Washington did indeed chop down the Cherry Tree,” Levy said, “as generations of Americans have believed, this is where it happened.”16

  Another well-known tale told of a little mischief and white lies from Augustine. In order, according to Weems, “to startle George into a lively sense of his Maker,” the father went into the garden of Ferry Farm, dug out the soil to form big letters spelling George’s name, and filled them with cabbage seeds. Some weeks later, George, ecstatic when he saw the seeds fully grown, called over Augustine. “O Pa! come here! come here!” A little child, impatient to show some great wonder—for that is exactly what George must have been at that time—ferociously tugged at his arm and brought him to the garden, where, “in all the freshness of ne
wly sprung plants,” the name GEORGE WASHINGTON was embedded.

  Little George was awestruck. But he was smart, and deduced that surely it couldn’t have just sprung there. Someone—his father, George concluded—must have planted it there. At that point, Augustine admitted, “I indeed did it; but not to scare you, my son; but to learn you a great thing which I wish you to understand. I want, my son, to introduce you to your true Father.” For just as George did not see Augustine plant the seeds, George knew, he could not see God, but knew of His existence. It wasn’t “chance” that made the name appear, it was created. So too, Augustine said, were “all those millions and millions of things that are now so exactly fitted to his good!”17

  It was a religious lesson of the invisibility yet omnipresence of the Creator, who gave George everything he knows or knew or will know, everything he has, had, or will have. Augustine was an invisible creator of the garden, and so God was the invisible Creator of all, as the Washington family believed.

  ULTIMATELY, THE LEGEND OF THE CHERRY TREE AND THE GARDEN WERE tales of a father-son relationship. Parson Weems may have very well made these up as a lesson to teach fathers how to raise their sons. They added a level of authenticity to the relationship. Augustine was an honorable fellow, having been elected a trustee of Fredericksburg several times. He was a “friendly man,” according to one English physician.18 Families in the region were more or less hands-off with young children, but the father of the household increasingly gave lessons, and expanded the child’s experience of what was to be expected of him when he matured into adulthood. This included not only George’s dressing like an adult man, moving from the unisex dresses of his infancy, but also lessons in the everyday life of running a plantation. His father was his idol, a role model for the perfect man to the little boy. Six- to ten-year-old George may very well have attended business meetings with his father, learning the ins and outs of Virginian plantation life.19