Martha Washington

by Patricia Brady

  Unable to resist once more pulling the emotional strings that bound George to her, Sally wrote a long response, apparently pretending to be in doubt about the meaning of his letter. George replied, “Do we still misunderstand the true meaning of each others Letters? I think it must appear so, tho I would feign hope the contrary as I cannot speak plainer without—but I’ll say no more, and leave you to guess the rest.” Loyalty to his friend, her husband, kept him from a potentially disastrous step. Later in the same letter, he commented on the Fairfaxes’ amateur theatricals, a presentation of Joseph Addison’s popular tragedy Cato. The star-crossed lovers in that play, Juba and Marcia, were popular symbols for unattainable love. Assuring her how happy he would have been to play a part, he declared that he would have found himself “doubly happy in being the Juba to such a Marcia as you must make.”

  This exchange, for all its seeming disloyalty to George’s fiancée, may have been good for the eventual success of his marriage. It called attention to Sally’s willingness to trip frivolously on the edge of infidelity—unwilling to commit herself, equally unwilling to set her infatuated lover free. The two women couldn’t have been more different. Patsy was too kind ever to enjoy teasing someone who loved her.

  Tempted as he was by Sally, George was committed to a life with Patsy. When he returned to Williamsburg in December 1758, he resigned his commission to become a full-time planter. Patsy Custis and George Washington married at White House on January 6, 1759, and stayed there with her children and a large party of wedding guests. The bride was opulently attired in a deep yellow brocade overdress enhanced by silver lace at the neck and sleeves; the skirt opened in front to show a petticoat of white silk interwoven with silver. Her dark hair was probably entwined with her favorite pearls, and her tiny shoes were purple satin with silver trimmings. Now that he was a civilian, the groom wore a suit rather than a uniform.

  His peers thought George exceptionally fortunate in his marriage. Virginia’s governor noted that “Colonel Washington . . . is married to his agreeable Widow.” His former second in command in the Virginia Regiment wrote: “I . . . beg leave to present my hearty Congratulations on your happy union with the Lady that all agree has long been the just object of your affections—may you long enjoy all the felicity you propos’d by it, or that Matrimony can possibly afford—Be so good as to offer my Compliments in the most respectful and obliging Terms to Your Lady (a new Stile indeed) and tho’ she has rob’d me and many others of the greatest satisfaction we ever had or can enjoy in this Service yet none can be more sollicitous for her happiness.”

  After the wedding festivities ended and the last guests left White House, the Washingtons settled into married life, tucked away cozily in the country for nearly two months of a cold, unusually snowy winter—the bitter weather providing them the opportunity to deepen their growing intimacy. Alike in their views of the future, Patsy and George began a partnership that they expected to carry them happily throughout their lifetimes as colonial Virginia planters.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Gentry Life at Mount Vernon

  When George Washington went to the capital to take his seat in the House of Burgesses on his twenty-seventh birthday, Patsy and the children probably moved into the Custis house in Williamsburg to be with him. For about a month of that frosty winter, they enjoyed the pleasures of the social season at the capital before moving to northern Virginia in time for spring planting.

  As the Washingtons entered the more public period of their lives, Patsy became Martha Washington. Although her husband and family still called her Patsy, she was starting to assume a more formal role, and her little girl was the latest Patsy.

  Moving to Mount Vernon was not inevitable: they could have remained in New Kent County after their marriage. The growing season was longer there, the soil richer and better suited to tobacco, trade with Great Britain far more convenient. The major Custis holdings were concentrated in neighboring New Kent and York counties, and Martha’s family and friends were near at hand. But George had always planned to live at Mount Vernon, the home of his father and elder brother. Living there was his dream, and neither then nor later could Martha deny him his heart’s desires.

  For all George’s efforts, Mount Vernon was still very much under construction, partially furnished, and sadly lacking all the imported luxuries indispensable for a genteel lifestyle. The furniture and household goods at White House and the Williamsburg house were all available, and Martha selected the items to include in her share of the estate, deciding what to take with them and what to send for later. Among the things she chose, delicacies to eat and drink would surely have been carried to Mount Vernon right away—stone pots of raisins, two Cheshire cheeses, a barrel and twenty-two loaves of sugar, ten dozen bottles of wine, one tierce (a giant cask holding about forty-two gallons) of rum, brandy, cider, nutmegs both plain and candied, a half pound each of cloves and mace, three pounds of comfits, six pounds of white sugar candy, eight pounds of almonds, two bags of salt.

  From the Custis houses, she took a mahogany desk, a table and cabinet, two chests, three looking glasses, and six beds with their “furniture,” that is, counterpanes and bed curtains. The amount of linen Martha considered necessary for her new home included twenty-four pairs of sheets, fifty-four tablecloths, ninety-nine napkins and towels, twenty-five pillowcases. For the dining room, she took two cases of knives and forks, a tea chest, at least sixty glasses, and uncountable numbers of dishes—two sets of china, a tea set, a crate of earthenware, and much more.

  When they set off for Mount Vernon on April 2, 1759, Martha Washington had never been farther north than King William County on the opposite shore of the Pamunkey or more than twenty miles from the house she was born in. Despite her disinclination for travel, she made this first move as willingly as she would cover thousands of miles in the years to come. She married George Washington because she loved him, and she went with him wherever he wanted to go.

  Martha and the children rumbled along in the Custis coach while George rode on horseback. Household goods, trunks, and her household slaves would have jolted slowly behind in heavy wagons. But in his haste to get the family on the road to their new home, George had neglected to make arrangements for their arrival. The house had been locked up, its furniture covered or stored, the pantry bare. On the road, he suddenly realized this omission—or, perhaps, Martha reminded him by a tactful inquiry. Because he loved the place so much, even (or especially) in the middle of a construction project, he hadn’t thought about the impression that the scant comfort of a bachelor household would make on his bride.

  He hurriedly sent a messenger ahead to John Alton, his plantation manager, to get the house key from the Fairfaxes at Belvoir. Cleaning, airing, building fires, putting up beds in the hall and dining room (the upstairs bedrooms weren’t complete), setting out and polishing tables and chairs, buying some eggs and chickens for the travelers’ dinner to be prepared “in the best manner you can”—all had to be accomplished before their arrival the next day. Alluding to his special pride, George directed that “the Stair case ought also to be polished in order to make it look well.”

  On April 6, the heavy coach lumbered up the long, straight western approach to Mount Vernon, the drive bracketed by formal parterre gardens. Probably the children—perhaps even Martha—peered out the open carriage windows to catch a first glimpse of their new home. They would have arrived well before dark; only fools traveled those primitive roads at night. When they drew up in front of the door, they found a simple welcome. Construction wasn’t complete, but Martha could see the comfortable and gracious house that was emerging.

  Mount Vernon didn’t pretend to the Georgian high style of Charles Carter’s Cleve or William Byrd’s Westover. George’s decision to enlarge his brother’s frame farmhouse, rather than pull it down and start over with an entirely new design, meant that his house would always be asymmetrical—rambling and comfortable rather than elegant. It reflected a man in touch
with his roots, proud of himself and his family, proud of his attachment to the land.

  Two and a half stories high, Mount Vernon was painted white, the paint mixed with sand to give the impression of rusticated stone; the afternoon sun would have been kind to the house’s western front, giving it a golden glow. As Martha entered the downstairs passageway for the first time, she went from bright springtime sunlight into the shadows of the thirteen-foot-wide hall. George had transformed the passageway with wooden paneling and dramatic cornices painted a rich, deep yellow ocher. To the right of the front door was the ample walnut staircase, presumably polished to the desired high gloss.

  George probably led her straight through and out the matching door at the east end of the hall. The beauty of the wide vista the house commanded—the sloping lawn bordered by tall trees, the Potomac (more than a mile and a half wide at Mount Vernon) rushing along in its spring flood, the dense forest on the Maryland shore—was breathtaking to everyone on first sight and all the more to the woman who would be mistress of this estate.

  During those early days and weeks, she and the household servants brought from White House set Mount Vernon to rights—sparkling clean, furniture arranged and polished, appetizing meals appearing at the appointed times. For them all, especially Jacky and little Patsy, the shock of the move would have been lessened by the presence of the familiar black, brown, and tan faces of the household slaves—Old Doll ruling over the kitchen with the scullion Beck at her side; Breechy serving in the dining room, newly togged out in Washington’s crimson-and-white livery; Betty bent over her mending; Sally sprinkling scented powder in Martha’s hair and fastening her corset. The children had their own servants—ten-year-old Julius, twelve-year-old Rose, and Moll to oversee and care for the lot of them. Southern planter families were emotionally dependent on the slaves they owned for their very sense that all was right with their world.

  Martha apparently never doubted that she could bind George to her in a loving relationship that would deepen throughout the years of their marriage. Whatever she may have guessed about his feelings for Sally Fairfax, it took a woman of rare self-confidence not to cross-examine him or create jealous scenes. There has never been the slightest suggestion of such ill-advised tactics. Martha greeted Sally’s overtures with sunny good nature, accepting the Fairfaxes as lifelong friends. George’s anguished fascination cooled into friendship as he became accustomed to the joys of his own lovely wife, who was devoted to him alone and had no interest in capturing the affections of other men.

  Martha fully enjoyed the social life of her new neighborhood, filled as she saw it with “mirth and gaiety.” Besides the Fairfaxes, there were other friends in the nearby countryside—George’s cousin Sarah and Abram Barnes, Martha and John Posey of neighboring Rover’s Delight, Margaret and the Reverend Charles Green of Truro Parish, Ann and William Digges of Warburton Manor across the river in Maryland. Just ten miles up the Potomac was the new little port city of Alexandria. Wharves and warehouses ringed the shallow river bay that was the center of commerce. Unpaved streets led up the steep hill to the growing town strung along Fairfax Street. Shops, an Anglican chapel, taverns with their assembly rooms, and workshops attracted merchants, ship captains, doctors, lawyers, milliners, dancing teachers, and more who built brightly painted frame cottages. Scottish merchants grew rich and built handsome residences; among the Washingtons’ friends in Alexandria were Ann and William Ramsay and Sarah and John Carlyle, who had built the grandest mansion in town. Fish feasts, barbecues, tea parties, horse races, balls, informal neighborhood dances, and visiting were the entertainments that punctuated Martha’s daily routine.

  During her early years at Mount Vernon, the trip north seemed a bit daunting to the Dandridge family. Only her sister Nancy Bassett and her husband came to stay every year or two with their growing family. But Martha often accompanied George on his trips to Williamsburg for politics and pleasure, visiting her mother and other family members. Since the first meeting that brought Martha and George together, he and Burwell Bassett had become firm friends. Whether alone or with his wife, George nearly always stayed with the Bassetts at Eltham when he visited the capital and also called on his mother-in-law, of whom he was quite fond.

  The relationship with his own mother was laden with difficulty for both of them. Self-centered and acquisitive, Mary Ball Washington was preoccupied with her eldest son to the virtual exclusion of her other children. That preoccupation expressed itself in fears for George’s safety, pleas not to put himself at risk in military action, and demands for assistance, usually monetary, even though she continued to occupy and enjoy the profits of his property on the Rappahannock. For example, while he served with Braddock on the frontier, on the verge of battle with the French, she requested that he find a German serving man and a barrel of butter for her. His refusal is a model of tact, but the man who sent loving greetings to his brothers usually addressed his mother as “Honored Madam” and closed as “your Dutiful son.” The warmest he ever reached was “affectionate and dutiful.”

  Apparently, Martha didn’t meet her mother-in-law until the year after she had married George, and Mary Washington never took much notice of her. George dutifully visited her by himself three or four times a year, but as far as we know, she never came to Mount Vernon after his marriage. When the entire family accompanied him to Williamsburg, they were punctilious about visiting his mother en route, but Martha never developed much of a relationship with her. When visiting in Fredericksburg, they generally spent the night at the large house of George’s sister, Betty, and her husband, Fielding Lewis. George’s brothers and their wives sometimes exchanged visits with the Washingtons, especially Jack and Hannah Washington.

  George dove into what would be his lifelong preoccupation and passion—agriculture in all its aspects, both experimental and practical. The Custis fortune made it possible for him to add acreage, stock, slaves, and buildings to Mount Vernon during the next fifteen years. Eighty-four slaves were Martha’s dower share of the estate. About half of them, all fieldworkers, were left to work her dower lands in southern Virginia under the supervision of overseers. Most of the house slaves and tradesmen—that is, skilled workers—and some field slaves, amounting to about forty-two people in all, were brought north to work at Mount Vernon over the course of the first year of their marriage.

  Although George now wrote the orders to the British factors, the furnishing and embellishment of Mount Vernon was very much a joint affair, talked over and decided in their evenings together. The first item on the Washingtons’ first order to Robert Cary of May 1, 1759, was a tester bedstead of seven-and-a-half-foot pitch. The color scheme chosen for their bedroom was Martha’s favorite blue. That fall, they received the beech bedstead with plain mahogany foot posts and cut cornice, along with seventy yards of copperplate printed chintz (blue on white) for the bed hangings and chair covers. Lawn for linings, curtain hooks and brass cloak pins to fasten back the bed curtains, a matching chintz quilt lined with lawn, cloth-covered window cornices, fashionable festooned window curtains, and two Wilton ingrain bedside carpets (fine wool woven in two different patterns, one pattern bordering the other) completed the Washingtons’ desire for their room to be “uniformly handsome and genteel.” Their orders continued to flow to London throughout the years.

  Dolls, toys, books, and musical instruments delighted Jacky and Patsy, four and a half and three when they came to Mount Vernon. Summertime or early fall, when the tobacco boats came upriver, must have seemed like Christmas, Easter, and several birthdays combined. When one of Cary’s ships anchored out in the Potomac, countless barrels, boxes, and trunks packed tightly with English goods were rowed in by longboat to their wharf. Unpacking their treasures was an annual celebration interspersed with disappointment at broken china, unfashionable or ill-fitting clothing, or liquor barrels whose contents had unaccountably evaporated during the voyage.

  In the first year of their marriage, George upgraded the Custis veh
icles. Unpaved, rough roads quickly took their toll on coaches, almost literally shaking them to pieces. In April, he purchased a small chariot, perhaps to replace Martha’s older chair. In the fall, while he was in Williamsburg, he had the Custis family coach repainted. A few years later, he ordered a new coach from London, painted a fashionable green. Besides the team that pulled the coach, they eventually brought up a dozen Custis horses—sorrels, bays, and roans.

  Martha and George soon settled into a pleasant routine. Both of them got up before dawn for a light breakfast. He then set off on an inspection ride around the estate or perhaps a foxhunt with the neighbors while she read the Bible and prayed before beginning the day’s housekeeping chores and sewing. Her children were both an entertainment and a responsibility as she played and sang with them and taught them their first letters.

  Dinner was served at about three in the afternoon in the small dining room with its elegant crimson wallpaper, marble mantel, inset landscape painting, and mahogany furniture—all brand-new. George rode in from the fields, changed clothes, and powdered his hair (he never wore a wig, even for the most formal event) before coming in to dinner. Guests were common, invited or not, and there was always room and welcome for unexpected arrivals. Neighbors who rode or drove open carriages were sent home in the Washingtons’ coach if they were surprised by inclement weather. One admiring guest noted that they kept “an excellent table and a stranger, let him be of what Country or nation, he will always meet with a most hospitable reception at it.”

  Everyone visited in the afternoon, walking about the grounds or going for a horseback or carriage ride. In her scarlet riding habit, Martha rode sidesaddle. A simple tea was served in the late afternoon, in fine weather on the broad lawn overlooking the Potomac. After the lamps and candles were lit in the evening, they adjourned to the parlor, where they talked, read, wrote letters, played cards or backgammon, danced, or sang. Martha liked to sing the tunes of the day, and George inscribed her copy of The Bull-Finch, a large collection of popular English songs, “Martha Washington. 1759,” the first time he wrote her new name. Sometimes he read aloud from one of the newspapers to which he subscribed, and they discussed the news—what little there was in early 1760s Virginia. After a light supper, they retired to their room on the first floor at about nine o’clock, to begin the same routine the next day.