One possibility was close at hand. Depending on the course the French Revolution took, George Washington Lafayette might once again be very eligible indeed. Nelly was furious when she heard that Philadelphia gossip had linked their names. As she wrote a friend, “The opinion of the wise (that friendship alone cannot exist between two young persons of different sexes) is very erroneous & ridiculous. . . . I shall ever feel an interest & sincere regard for my young adopted Brother [he was seventeen to her eighteen]—but as to being in love with him it is entirely out of the question.” Martha would never have encouraged a romance that would take her darling adopted daughter across the sea. To a woman who dreaded ferry rides, an ocean voyage would have been impossible.
The care and feeding of nieces was still one of her amusements. With the loss of Fanny Bassett Washington Lear, she invited another Fanny for a long visit. Fanny Henley, her sister Betsy’s daughter, was about Nelly’s age; she came to stay for several months one year and came back the next year to spend time with Eliza Law and Patty Peter.
As it had been following the Revolution, Mount Vernon was again flooded with guests. When the Washingtons were at home, visitors couldn’t be far behind. All of them wrote about their gracious reception by Martha and Nelly. In the winter, the ladies would be found in one of the small parlors. In summer, they were more likely to be sitting in the wide hall, cool and breezy with both outside doors open.
Guests always commented favorably on Martha’s looks, even though she was in her mid-sixties. One observed that “she retains strong remains of considerable beauty.” As always, though, it was her character and conversation that they found especially attractive. Her account of the family was given “in a good-humored free manner that was extremely pleasant and flattering.” She was praised for lacking any “affectation of superiority in the slightest degree” To sum it all up: “Mrs. Washington is a very agreeable, lively, sensible person.”
Having lived through the most stirring days of American history, Martha thought of herself almost as a historical resource and was always glad to guide visitors about Mount Vernon. An impressed guest said, “Mrs. Washington is one of the most estimable persons that one could know, good, sweet, and extremely polite. She loves to talk and talks very well about times past.” To another guest, she inquired for news, remarking that although she was no politician, she liked to read the newspapers. As she sat knitting, doing needlepoint, and netting, she freed George to go about his business. But no one felt slighted. A lady remarked: “The extensive knowledge she has gained in this general intercourse with persons from all parts of the world has made her a most interesting companion, and having a vastly retentive memory, she presents an entire history of half a century.”
With Washington’s encouragement, Gouverneur Morris managed to negotiate the release of Lafayette, his wife, and the girls from the prison at Olmutz. The most filial son imaginable, young George demanded to leave for France to be reunited with his family. He and the tutor left for New York in October 1797, where he boarded a ship and safely joined them in exile. Only later were they able to go back to France and recover a portion of their family estates.
Meanwhile, the latest French government, the Directory, waged undeclared war on American ships at sea and treated American representatives disgracefully, demanding bribes from them to see the foreign minister. Despite Republican excuses for this behavior, war was looming. Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists in opposition to John Adams tried to draw Washington into the fray, and he became ever more convinced that France and her American supporters could destroy the constitutional government.
The hostile talk that went on at Mount Vernon about the French is obvious from a letter Nelly wrote at the time: “Were I drowning & a straw only in sight, I would as soon think of trusting to that slender support . . . as place the smallest dependence upon the stability of the French republican government. Neither would I trust the life of a Cat in the hands of a sett of people who hardly know religion, humanity or Justice, even by name.”
In July 1798, President Adams named Washington commander of the American army to counter French aggression. His acceptance was reassuring to most of the nation, even though he would take the field only in case of an invasion. Against the president’s wishes, he appointed Hamilton as his second in command. Washington made only one six-week trip to Philadelphia (no doubt to Martha’s relief) to organize the new army. The threat of war slowly dissipated as Adams sent representatives to treat with France the following year, and it ended completely when a treaty was signed.
To everyone’s happiness, Tobias Lear returned as a neighbor and personal secretary. His business had failed, and he now lived at River Farm, the 360 acres of Mount Vernon that Washington had promised to his nephew. It was Lear’s rent-free for life, after which it would pass to George Augustine and Fanny’s children.
Despite Martha’s assistance, George still found that the constant stream of guests interfered with his reading and correspondence. He invited one of his sister Betty’s sons, Lawrence Lewis, to live at Mount Vernon and serve as an unpaid deputy host, which allowed him to withdraw into his study in the evenings.
The arrival of Lawrence, a childless widower twelve years Nelly’s senior, solved the problem of her marriage. They became engaged in late 1798 and married on Washington’s birthday the following year. In a candlelit ceremony, he gave away his adopted daughter, dressed at her request in his Revolutionary uniform. Customs had changed in Virginia, and a sort of honeymoon had become fashionable. A few days after their marriage, the Lewises set off on a round of family visits, stopping by to look at White House while they were in New Kent County.
When they returned to Mount Vernon five months later, Nelly was pregnant, and she and Martha put their heads together. They had missed each other during the separation. Although Lawrence owned land in Frederick County, the Lewises wanted to continue living at Mount Vernon. When George was finally made aware by his wife of this desire, he agreed—ostensibly to please Martha, but he had also missed Nelly. He offered them two thousand acres of the estate, which Lawrence could begin farming at once. Three miles away, there was a lofty hill with a view of Mount Vernon where they could build their own home. No one expected that move to be anytime soon.
Aside from the general infirmities of age, Martha and George were both in good health, now the last survivors of their own large families. His last brother, Charles Washington, died that fall; his sister, Betty Lewis, had died in 1797. Martha’s much younger sister Betsy Henley also died in 1799. Yet both of them were full of plans for the future. He was reorganizing Mount Vernon to make it more easily manageable, and the great-grandchildren were very much on her mind, not to speak of Betsy’s daughter Fanny Henley.
In late November, Nelly gave birth to Frances Parke Lewis after an extended and painful labor. Like all the women of her time, she had gathered her women: her grandmother, mother, sisters, house servants, and a midwife were with her for the birth. Because her labor had been so difficult, Nelly was ordered to stay in bed for some weeks until she fully recovered. Early in December, her brother and husband rode off to New Kent County to look over Wash’s extensive property there. Tobias Lear remained behind to keep the ladies company and assist Washington.
The winter of 1799 was as cold and miserable as 1759, the year Martha and George married. On December 12, George returned from his daily ride around the plantation wet and shivering but refused to change his damp clothes before dinner. The next day, he went out into the snow and sleet to mark trees for cutting despite the very evident beginnings of a cold—he was never deterred by bad weather. That evening, he read the newspapers aloud to Martha and Lear, his throat congested and voice muffled. In the middle of the night, he experienced great trouble breathing. When the terrified Martha wanted to go for help, he refused to let her get up until morning, lest she too should become sick. With the blazing fires of evening down to ashes, the house was freezing cold.
At dawn, she fi
nally got up and sent for a doctor, who was later joined by two more physicians. Lear and Christopher Sheels, George’s personal servant, joined her in their bedroom. Other members of the household came and went throughout the day as George lay struggling for every breath. Only Nelly stayed away, still too weak to get out of bed. The doctors tried all the painful weapons in their limited arsenal—bleeding, purging, blistering, vomiting—but to no avail. George had apparently contracted quinsy or epiglottitis, both throat infections that progressively close the wind-pipe until the patient suffocates.
George’s dying was prolonged by his strength. Throughout that long, horrible day, Martha sat in a chair in the room, leaving only to check on Nelly or to fetch two wills, one of which she burned at his request after he had selected the one he wanted. That evening, December 14, 1799, he finally stopped breathing. Lear was holding his hand when he died.
Martha asked quietly, “Is he gone?” When Lear assented, she murmured, “ ’Tis well. All is now over. I shall soon follow him. . . . I have no more trials to pass through.” Rendered tearless by the depths of her grief, she couldn’t yet break down. In the meantime, she sent messengers to the far-flung family, summoning them home. She insisted that Nelly stay tucked in with her newborn daughter, following doctor’s orders. She didn’t want to take the chance of losing another of her loved ones.
As the family gathered, George Washington’s body lay in state in its lead-lined mahogany coffin for three days, according to his deathbed wish. The night he died, Martha moved into a small third-floor bedroom. She closed his study and their bedroom for good, never again to sleep in the large bed they had shared so happily.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Widow Washington
Bone-chilling cold still embraced Mount Vernon that Wednesday morning, December 18. Shocked and grief-stricken when a messenger brought them the news of George Washington’s sudden death, family members had gathered over the past three days, met by Tobias Lear when their coaches rattled up the graveled drive to the front door, their voices filling the silent mansion: Nelly and David Stuart with their brood of six from near Fairfax Courthouse; from the new Federal City, Eliza and Thomas Law with two-year-old Eliza, Patty and Thomas Peter with two little girls, Martha and Columbia, and the baby, John Parke. Nelly was still abed with newborn Frances; Lawrence Lewis and Washington Custis were too far away in New Kent County to be recalled in time. Of the Washington family, only nephew Bushrod Washington in Alexandria lived near enough to be summoned.
Everyone was clad in mourning black, including the slave attendants. It was up to the women of the family and the household servants to prepare the light refreshments that would follow the ceremony; lay out serving pieces, glasses, plates, silver, cups, and saucers; buff up whatever needed it; set up and cover tables with cloths; fold napkins; and tend fires throughout the house against the fierce cold. People arrived throughout the late morning and early afternoon—two hundred soldiers in the uniform of the Virginia militia marched down the road from Alexandria, accompanied by a military band. Friends and officials from the neighborhood rode horseback or drove in their carriages. Hostlers would have been kept on the run by the hallooing of each new arrival, hustling to lead all the horses and vehicles down the dirt road to the stables.
And through all the bustle and preparation, Martha sat frozen-faced with misery, too grief-stricken to take part in the funeral procession or talk or even cry. Sorrow had turned this woman, all movement and smiles and lighthearted talk, to stone. She stayed in the house, perhaps even up on the third floor, as they moved the heavy coffin holding her beloved onto the portico overlooking the icy Potomac. She could not force herself to take part. Appearances simply didn’t matter to her at this moment.
The procession formed there on the portico, the coffin carried by members of the militia and six honorary pallbearers. The cavalry led, followed by soldiers with arms reversed, the band with its muffled drums beating, beating, clergymen, Washington’s riderless horse led by black-clad servants. Nelly Stuart, Martha’s once and forever daughter-in-law, took her place in the funeral procession, followed by other family members and mourners. The cortege moved slowly, with dignity, to the old brick family vault a hundred yards away on the riverbank, newly cleaned, its wooden door repaired. After the Episcopal minister read the order of burial, Masonic rites followed. Arrayed in ceremonial aprons and other regalia, the Alexandria Lodge conducted burial rites in a solemn and moving ceremony. On that cold, still day, sounds rang out sharply, and inside the mansion, Martha Washington would have heard it all—the funeral dirge, the marching and shuffling feet, the masons’ words, the minister’s prayers, the crackling volleys from the soldiers’ muskets after the door of the tomb was closed and sealed.
Following the ceremony, the mourners walked back to the warm house. In the large dining room, they partook of cake, cheese, tea, whiskey, and wine as they shared memories of the hero. Still, Martha stayed apart, mourning dry-eyed.
The nation also mourned. To the tolling of muffled church bells and repeated volleys of the federal salute, a memorial service was held in Philadelphia, still the capital, attended by the government’s leaders. Processions, ceremonies, orations, and sermons continued throughout the nation for the next two months. More than four thousand attended the service in Philadelphia, where Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, a loyal Revolutionary comrade, had been chosen by Congress to deliver the eulogy. The first phrase of that tribute is famous in American history: “First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” but the rest of the line is generally forgotten: “he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life.” Like all his contemporaries, Lee understood that George Washington’s partnership with Martha and his home life with her were essential to his public achievements.
Over the next few days, the guests left Mount Vernon and Martha resumed some semblance of her former life. After nearly forty-one years of devoted partnership, she never truly recovered from the pain of Washington’s death—and didn’t really want to. Her bedroom on the third floor was comfortably warmed by a Franklin stove, where she sometimes gathered the members of the household around her. Wash slept in the room across the hall, and younger slave girls sat with her in her own room, or in the landing hall with its leather sofa and armchair, as she taught them to sew.
As it had been throughout their lives together, George Washington’s first concern in his will was for his “dearly beloved wife.” Martha was to control and receive the income from the entire estate. After her death, Nelly and Lawrence Lewis would receive two thousand acres of the estate as well as the distillery and grist mill, which they were currently renting, Washington Custis another twelve hundred undeveloped acres north of Alexandria, and George Augustine Washington’s sons two thousand acres along the river, including the farm under their stepfather’s control. The house and the remainder of the estate would return to the Washington family when Martha died. Since George Augustine’s untimely death, George’s chosen heir was another nephew, Bushrod Washington, the son of his brother Jack. A graduate of William and Mary, Bushrod was an attorney who was sensitive to the chagrin of the Custises at this disposition of Mount Vernon, but he turned down Wash Custis’s urgent offer to buy him out. Throughout the next months, Bushrod consulted frequently with his “beloved Aunt” about the proper means to deal with their intermingled financial interests. Since she had no heart for running the plantation, Martha followed his sensible advice about selling a good deal of the stock and scaling down operations.
Her widowhood was enlivened by the permanent inhabitants of the house over the next two and a half years: Nelly and Lawrence Lewis and their two daughters, Frances Parke, a plain, shy little girl, and Martha Betty, born in 1801, claimed by her mother to be “the most lovely and engaging little Girl I ever saw”; Wash Custis; and Tobias Lear, Fanny Bassett Washington’s widower, who remained in his role as a combination relative, friend, secretary, and wise counselor.
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Nelly and Lawrence began building a grand red-brick Georgian mansion on their inherited land three miles away from the Mount Vernon mansion, but they planned to remain with Martha as long as she lived. More beautiful than ever now that she was in her twenties, Nelly spent her days as her grandmother’s companion, ran the household, and helped charm and entertain their many visitors. Lawrence cooperated with Bushrod in running the plantation, helped desultorily by Wash, whose approaching Custis legacy made it unnecessary for him to work very hard at anything. As he turned twenty, this slight, fair young grandson delighted Martha’s heart, although she fretted constantly over his health and well-being.
The Stuarts, Laws, and Peters came regularly for extended visits, and the house was gay with the sound of children’s laughter. Besides the little Lewis girls, there were four other great-grandchildren under the age of four, as well as Nelly Stuart’s six children from her second marriage, ranging from adolescents down to a toddler the age of her own grandchildren.
In the months following her husband’s death, Martha was deluged with letters of condolence and requests for mementos. President and Mrs. Adams sent letters by William Shaw Smith, his secretary and her nephew. At their request, he was to see the widow and deliver their sympathy personally. Although the young man waited two days, Martha was simply unable to bring herself to see a stranger. Her letter of reply was filled with anguished grief. Lear reported to Smith that after she read the Adamses’ letters, she finally found release in a flood of tears.
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