Patsy’s own tastes, so decidedly domestic and sociable, made her eager to remarry. Still in her twenties, she could expect to bear more children. Two children were not nearly enough for her large heart. Mrs. Custis would not remain unmarried for lack of suitors. Control of such a large estate was temptation enough, but the prospect was further sweetened by her beauty and good humor. Baldly put, she was the colony’s ultimate marital prize, and she could expect single men to start calling soon after Daniel’s death.
Among the Virginia gentry, everyone knew everybody else’s business, and gossip was the universal spectator sport. All Williamsburg, and therefore all the important planters in the colony, knew to the last shilling how much money Patsy Custis controlled. They knew, too, that she had no bothersome trustees to interfere with her remarriage. No doubt several gentlemen thought about wooing her themselves or urged their kinsmen to make the attempt: a wealthy marriage was advantageous to an entire family.
As an intelligent woman, though, she had to be careful in her choice of a second husband. At this time, she was a feme sole in English common law, free to make her own decisions about her property. Wealthy widows were the most economically and personally independent of all American women. As soon as she married, however, she would become a feme covert, her legal status, wealth, children, and place and manner of life controlled by her husband. Colonial husbands enjoyed almost unlimited legal power over their wives, even in the event of a separation. Overbearing or spendthrift stepfathers were unfortunately commonplace, a danger to be avoided by a woman with beloved children and their wealth to protect. Her own mother’s unhappy girlhood experience with stepparents no doubt came to mind. In March 1758, eight months after her husband’s death, two suitors began actively pursuing Patsy—Charles Carter and George Washington.
Like Daniel Custis, Charles Carter was a member of the ruling plantation elite, a son of the immensely wealthy Robert “King” Carter. Charles had been educated in England before taking over several thousand acres of prime tobacco land, as well as pursuing successful mercantile ventures. He was one of the colony’s political leaders: he had represented King George County in the House of Burgesses since 1735 and routinely chaired important committees. Financially and socially secure, he would be a careful steward of the Custis family interests. At nearly fifty, he was still a fine figure of a man who dressed in the latest fashions and sported a modishly curled wig. His second wife had died just six months earlier, and he sorely missed the pleasures of marriage.
Charles Carter’s elegant house on the Rappahannock was just ten years old; it was large and imposing, two stories with a seven-bay front on the river. Built of dark brick boldly set off by the contrasting light stone used for quoins and door and window surrounds, Cleve was a tribute to the sophistication and success of the Carter family.
Best of all, Charles was truly in love with Patsy. In a gossipy letter, one of his friends wrote that “C. C. is very gay” since “he has attacked the widow Custis.” Carter himself wrote to his brother that “Mrs. C_s is now the object of my wish.” The enforced celibacy of a widower made him miserable, and he eagerly anticipated “taking a Belov’d Wife.” He was frank about his emotional and sexual desires: “I am trying to restore to myself all the happyness I once could boast in the Arms of my dear Belovd Partner.” He praised Patsy’s beauty, amiable mind, and “uncommon sweetness of Temper” and hoped to “raise a Flame in her breast.” Charles’s suit suffered from two drawbacks. He was twenty-three years older than she, old enough to be her father, and she had already been married to an older man. He also had a round dozen children, ten of them living at home, ranging in age from two to twenty. There were two older married daughters, the eldest nearly as old as Patsy, and a grandson. Although Patsy wanted more children, she found the size of his family daunting, warning Charles frankly that she doubted her ability to do them all justice as a stepmother.
Her other suitor appeared on the scene at about the same time. A bachelor eight months younger than Patsy, he was far less socially and financially eligible than Charles Carter, but he had youth and powerful physical magnetism on his side. As the son of a second-tier planter who had died when he was a boy, George Washington had received a somewhat sketchy education. At sixteen, he had begun to make his way in the world as a surveyor before becoming a colonial military officer. His original inheritance consisted principally of a 260-acre farm on the Rappahannock and ten slaves, but his masterful mother was ensconced there with no plans to vacate, claiming all the land’s profit for her own upkeep. During the five years he had served in the military, George gained increasing respect and social status in Virginia, as well as a measure of fame throughout British America, but his financial circumstances were far from secure.
In 1752, however, his older half-brother, Lawrence, died, leaving him secondary heir to Mount Vernon, a Washington family plantation of some 2,200 acres on the Potomac. With the death two years later of Lawrence’s daughter, the place would eventually come to George, but it remained in the possession of Lawrence’s widow throughout her lifetime. Remarried and living in Westmoreland County, she and her second husband agreed to lease Mount Vernon to him.
Since then, they had continued this arrangement as George tried to balance his military career and agriculture, leaving Mount Vernon in the care of his younger brother Jack during the growing season while he took the field with the Virginia Regiment across the Blue Ridge Mountains. The estate had not flourished, and he was growing increasingly frustrated with his divided interests. When the British government refused to grant his Virginia commission regular army rank, thus relegating him permanently to second-rate military status, the life of a full-time planter took on a new appeal.
Suffering from bouts of the bloody flux (dysentery), he had gone to Mount Vernon to recuperate. Lonely and depressed in his sparsely furnished house, George started to fear that he was dying. On March 5, 1758, he headed for Williamsburg to consult one of the capital’s leading doctors, stopping to visit his mother and the Speaker of the House on his way south. Often repeated family lore holds that on this journey George happened to encounter Patsy Custis at a neighbor’s house on the Pamunkey River, fell in love on the spot, and began his courtship on the spur of the moment. Neither the route he took, the details in his financial ledger, his health fears, nor his deliberate character support this fairy-tale version of events.
Their courtship probably began much more prosaically. George arrived at Williamsburg on March 14 or 15. The morning of the fifteenth he visited John Amson, the respected physician whose advice he sought. He seems to have recovered his health and good spirits almost immediately after the doctor’s reassurance that he stood miles from death’s door. The legislature was in session, and the town was crammed with the gentry enjoying the spring social season; George would have joined his friends for dinner or a convivial glass of wine, catching up on all the news of the capital. If gossip about Patsy Custis’s availability hadn’t already reached him at Mount Vernon, he would have heard that day about the very tempting widow who was the talk of the town.
The next day, he rode out to visit the widow Custis on what might be called a reconnaissance mission. For nearly a year, George appears to have been thinking about getting married. By eighteenth-century standards, it was high time for him to settle down. That past April, he had ordered goods from London for an extensive enlargement of his small farmhouse, including 250 windowpanes, a marble mantelpiece, fine wallpapers, and mahogany dining room furniture, followed by further orders for china, a card table, and two dozen packs of cards. All the evidence points to a man planning to give up the bachelor life. With an elegant home suitable for the entertainment of his peers, a genteel wife was needed to complete the picture.
George was always susceptible to women, falling in and out of love since his teens, enthusiastically describing his latest passion in letters to his friends. He had tried to woo sixteen-year-old Betsy Fauntleroy when he was twenty but had been dismisse
d by the young lady. In New York City, he had spent a few days on the way to and from Boston in the company of the heiress Polly Phillipse, but their romance was more in the minds of mutual friends than in George’s.
With his military reputation and the inheritance of Mount Vernon secure, George had just begun to be considered an eligible match two or three years earlier. Unfortunately for his own interests, he had tumbled into love again at about that time with a married woman, Sally Cary Fairfax, the wife of his close friend and neighbor George William Fairfax.
George had long hero-worshipped the Fairfax family of Belvoir, the estate downriver from Mount Vernon. Related to the English aristocracy, they were wealthy, sophisticated, and very influential in Virginia. Lawrence Washington’s marriage to one of the Fairfax daughters had given his brother social entrée, and the Fairfaxes remained George’s friends and patrons after Lawrence’s death. Childless and at loose ends, Sally was a charmer two years George’s senior who frustrated and enticed the naive young man with an on again, off again flirtation. There were many good reasons for George to get married, perhaps chief among them the wish to break the spell of a woman who kept him dangling helplessly.
What did George see when he was greeted by Patsy Custis in her parlor? Now twenty-six, she was still the same pretty woman who had fascinated Daniel Custis into defying his terrifying father nearly a decade earlier. Short, slim but buxom, her radiant smile her greatest beauty, she had matured through love and loss, experience and new responsibilities. But she still possessed the ineffable charm that made a man dream of comfort and home and the peace of his own fireside with her at his side.
Besides her children and servants, her seventeen-year-old sister, Nancy Bassett (married just a month before Daniel died), and her brother-in-law Colonel Burwell Bassett, the master of Eltham, a plantation downriver on the York, were probably with her when Colonel Washington came to call. George kept very detailed records of his expenditures; on the sixteenth, he noted munificent tips to the Custis servants, no doubt trying to make a good impression, and a far smaller amount to the Bassett servants. Had they been at Eltham, the ratio would have been reversed.
What did Patsy see when George Washington walked into her parlor? Towering over most men by half a foot, George was exceptionally tall for the time—about six feet two and a half inches, more than a foot taller than Patsy—and well proportioned at 190 pounds. Just turned twenty-six, he was also exceptionally athletic, powerful, and graceful, as much at home on the dance floor as on horseback and equally unafraid in either setting. In a society and time when everyone rode well, George stood out as a truly magnificent horse-man. His powerful physical appeal was not diminished by his appearance. Reddish brown hair, blue gray eyes, a strong nose, and slightly pockmarked fair skin were well within the bounds of contemporary English notions of acceptable but not handsome looks, bespeaking the leader rather than the fop.
The visit stretched out, the presence of the Bassetts making it possible for him to stay for dinner and perhaps the night. And whatever polite nothings were exchanged as they talked, possibilities became unspoken probabilities almost overnight. George was strongly encouraged by the lady to return a week later to continue their acquaintance. After completing most of his business in Williamsburg, he came back to White House on March 25, perhaps broaching the subject of marriage on that visit. Then he hurried back to the frontier to rejoin his regiment.
When did Patsy become aware of George’s infatuation with Sally? Chances are that he never confessed those feelings to her, but she probably guessed early in their courtship. He would have told her all about his beloved Mount Vernon, where he wished to live, and about his friends in the neighborhood. Things said and left unsaid, an averted glance, a constrained tone of voice, would have given away his secret to a sensitive woman.
George Washington had everything to gain from marrying Patsy Custis. Sally Fairfax was out of reach. After a youth spent under a stern mother’s rule, he yearned to share a home with a warm and nurturing woman. And essential to all his dreams, the Custis money would allow him to make the plantation a success. Patsy combined a near genius for creating a happy household with the necessary financial wherewithal.
Patsy’s choices were nearly limitless. Charles Carter was madly in love with her, with no lingering romantic dreams to cause problems. There may have been other suitors at this time as well; if none of these men seemed right for her, she could wait for others to come calling in the future. In fact, she didn’t need to marry at all unless she truly wanted to.
But it seems clear that Patsy fell passionately in love with George almost immediately and decided to please herself in her second marriage. She didn’t lose her head completely: she took the time to get to know him better before making her final decision. She discovered an honorable gentleman who would never embarrass her, a kind man who would love the children, hers and theirs, a man faithful to his word who would safeguard the Custis inheritance. His lack of fortune needn’t have concerned her since she had plenty of money for them both. She was also a woman confident of her own allure, unafraid of rivals for his affection. In George Washington, she saw a man with whom she believed she could live lovingly and happily. And she was right.
Pausing briefly at Mount Vernon in April, George started his workmen on the long delayed improvements to the house that he had begun planning a year before. His pride and sense of self-worth made it essential that he ensconce his wealthy bride in a respectable house, preventing gossips from whispering that she had made a great comedown in marrying him. Most of all, he wanted his wife to love Mount Vernon as much as he did.
Rather than starting anew, he decided to add a full second story atop the modest old house, raising the existing half story to the third floor. That decision was crucial for the appearance of the house through all subsequent enlargements and renovations. As it stood, the house had four rooms downstairs, separated by a hall, with small bedrooms and cramped storage space above. The renovations increased its size to eight full rooms, a respectable size for a planter family.
Returning to his troops, he left the rebuilding project under the supervision of his friend George William Fairfax. No doubt he informed both Fairfaxes of his marital hopes at the same time. He and Sally had exchanged letters from time to time while he was at war on the frontier, but now she forbade any further correspondence, perhaps suffering a twinge or two as her devoted admirer wooed another woman.
Of all the letters that Martha and George Washington wrote to each other over the years, the destruction of the correspondence of the spring of 1758 is most distressing. We have no idea of the tone, sentiments, or frequency of those courtship letters as the young couple moved closer to a decision to marry. At the end of April, there was still no formal engagement, but on May 5, George felt hopeful enough to order a ring from Philadelphia.
Conveniently, the governor called the colonel back to the capital soon afterward. On May 28, George was at the palace in Williamsburg, meeting with him. Then, having attended to business, he set out on the now familiar road to White House on June 5 to pursue his courtship in person. Patsy and George’s actual engagement probably dates from that visit.
As he returned for the last time over the mountains, George’s thoughts were still torn between the latest campaign against the French and the future at Mount Vernon. Patsy’s were taken up with wedding plans, a continuing care for the Custis property, and the preparation of her children for the changes to come. Her annual order to London included clothes (“to be grave but not Extravagant nor to be mourning”), shoes, gloves, a piece of fine lace, a silver chain, perfumed hair powder, and a bureau dressing table and mirror. She also sent a favorite evening gown to be dyed a more fashionable color. That summer, Daniel’s tombstone finally arrived from London, and she employed a mason to lay the brickwork for his monument—a farewell to a loving husband as she entered the next phase of her life.
That July, George was elected one of the burgesses from Freder
ick County, where he owned land, a step up the ladder of colonial leadership. The men of the Fairfax family and his fellow officers were out in force, campaigning for him among area voters. He had failed in a previous attempt to win the seat, but this time the frontiersmen knew him better and his more sophisticated friends treated them, paying for the barrels of booze that voters then expected from political candidates, and he prevailed.
After George William Fairfax returned to Belvoir, Washington continued to correspond with him about the endlessly fascinating details of Mount Vernon’s renovation, including a grand new staircase, the uneven wooden floor of the upstairs passageway, and smoky chimneys. With equal parts excitement and anxiety, he urged his friend to make the workmen hurry and finish. On September 11, 1758, he received a letter from Fairfax about construction progress and crops, noting that an enclosed letter from his wife would give further details. But Sally’s real purpose was to torment or reproach him about his coming marriage to the lovely widow Custis.
Poor George. His baffled, incoherent response the next day shows just how young and emotionally vulnerable he was. He rushed to assure her “how joyfully I catch at the happy occasion of renewing Corrispondance which I feard was disrelished on your part. . . . In silence I now express my Joy.—Silence which in some cases—I wish the present—speaks more Intelligably than the sweetest Eloquence.” Brushing aside her suggestion that his anxiety for an end to the conflict might be attributed “to the animating prospect of possessing Mrs. Custis,” he went on to a transparent declaration of his lingering love for Sally. “Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love—I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case—and further I confess, that this Lady is known to you.—Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I could wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them.—but experience alas! sadly reminds me how Impossible this is.”
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