The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  IV

  This episode tells us a lot about Martha Dandridge Custis Washington. She may have lacked Sally Fairfax’s education and interest in art and literature, but she was no plain Jane who was happy to be a humble echo of her outsized second husband. George had not been the only candidate for Mrs. Custis’s affections. Before Colonel Washington made his first visit, Martha had been pursued by one of the richest men in Virginia, Charles Carter, son of fabulously wealthy Robert “King” Carter. Charles’s wife had died about six months before Daniel Custis, and he frankly confessed that a widower’s life made him miserable.

  “Mrs. C___s is now the object of my wish,” Charles Carter told his brother. He praised Martha’s beauty and—especially significant—her “uncommon sweetness of temper.” Although he was twenty-three years older than Martha, Carter hoped “to raise a flame in her breast.” He was still a vigorous man who dressed well and was the ultimate social insider. But Carter had fathered no less than a dozen children, and ten of them were still living at home. Martha, again exercising her gifts of common sense as well as frankness, told him she hoped to have more children. She wondered whether she—or any other woman—was capable of managing such a huge family, with its inevitable jealousies between half brothers and /or sisters. It is not hard to see how Colonel George Washington, single, childless, and almost exactly her own age, had a far greater appeal to this practical young woman.6

  V

  The newlyweds spent the first few months of their married life at Martha’s White House plantation and the Custis house in Williamsburg while George attended the House of Burgesses. Martha undoubtedly glowed with pride when he received the unanimous thanks of the legislature for his five years of service on the frontier. They joined in the parties and balls that enlivened the little colonial capital. Both loved to dance and performed all the popular steps of the day, from stately minuets to more intimate allemandes to energetic American jigs and reels that often sent European visitors fleeing to the sidelines, claiming that the “irregular and fantastical” style threatened their “sinews.” The Washingtons were young, rich, and with every reason in the world to enjoy themselves.

  Not until April 2, 1759, did they take the road to Mount Vernon. Martha and the children traveled in the Custis family coach; Washington rode his horse beside them. Behind them came wagons that carried twelve slave servants from the White House, including a cook, a waiter, a seamstress, and a laundress. In other wagons were no fewer than six beds, several chests of drawers, linens, silverware, two sets of china, and dozens of pieces of kitchenware. In still more wagons rattled 120 bottles of wine, casks of rum and brandy, and numerous hams, plus a large supply of cheeses and sugar. Martha was obviously operating on the assumption that setting up a household in a bachelor establishment such as Mount Vernon was equivalent to a venture into the wilderness. Colonel Washington may have added to this impression with an anxious letter he rushed ahead to his overseer, urging him to “get out the chairs and tables,” clean the rooms, start fires in the fireplaces, and make a point of polishing the stairs “to make it look well.”7

  At Mount Vernon, Martha soon began making lists of furniture and other expensive items for Robert Cary, the London merchant who handled such purchases for the Custises and many other wealthy Virginians. One of her most interesting orders was a bedroom set featuring a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall canopied bed with blue (Martha’s favorite color) curtains and matching coverlet, wallpaper and window curtains, plus four chair bottoms of the same color “to make the whole furniture of this room uniformly handsome and genteel.” Mr. Cary was soon being inundated with similar orders to convert the rest of Mount Vernon from its bachelor bareness to a comfortable, attractive home. Also on the purchase list were amenities such as “a pipe of the best old wine from the best house in Madeira.” A pipe, if it survived the high seas without being tapped by thirsty sailors, would deliver 126 gallons of Colonel Washington’s favorite wine.8

  The colonel wrote these orders in his firm, legible hand. He also showed no hesitation in buying Martha virtually unlimited quantities of the best and finest lace, wool, and satin to be made into attractive dresses, riding suits, and cloaks. Satin slippers, black gloves for the winter, and white gloves for the summer arrived in multiple numbers. Although Washington could not carry a tune, he loved to hear Martha and others sing. Not long after their arrival at Mount Vernon, he inscribed Martha Washington, 1759 in a songbook—perhaps the first time he wrote her married name. Was he thinking with considerable satisfaction that she was no longer Martha Dandridge or Martha Custis?

  Toward the end of their yearlong buying spree, Washington wrote a letter to Richard Washington, the English merchant with whom he had previously done business. His conscience was a bit troubled by the way he had deserted him for Mr. Cary, and he included a modest number of purchases to reassure him that he had not been forgotten. “I am now I believe fix’d at this seat [Mount Vernon] with an agreeable consort for life,” he wrote, “and hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced in a wide and bustling world.” These are the words of a contented man. To Washington, who had grown up in a household where Mary Ball Washington specialized in being disagreeable, Martha’s sunny disposition was something to treasure. He began to realize that marrying her was one of the best decisions of his life. Soon in private conversation he was calling her “Patsy”—the intimate nickname of her girlhood.9

  VI

  It did not take Washington long to see that four-year-old Jack and two-year-old Patsy were central to Martha’s happiness, and he did everything in his power to show her that he cared for them. Expensive clothes for the two children, as well as numerous toys, flowed off the ships that docked in nearby Alexandria and were trundled up the road to Mount Vernon. Later he bought one of the finest spinets made in England for Patsy and a good violin for Jack. Fashion dolls dressed in the latest mode also arrived regularly for Patsy as she matured into a pretty brunette. George was pleased when Martha began calling him “Poppa” and encouraged the children to do likewise.

  Only one of Martha’s letters to George has survived. Fortunately, it tells us a good deal about the progress of their marriage from convenience to deepening love. She wrote it in 1767, while George was in Williamsburg attending a session of the House of Burgesses.

  March 30, 1767

  My Dearest

  It was with very great pleasure that I see in your letter that you got safely down. We are all very well at this time but it still is rainey and wett. I am sorry you will not be at home as soon as I expected you. I had rather my sister did not come up so soon as May would be much plasenter time than April. We wrote you last post as I have nothing new to tell you I must conclude myself

  Your most affectionate

  Martha Washington10

  The only shadow on their happiness was Martha’s anxiety about Jack and Patsy. She had lost two children to early deaths, and the thought of losing either of them terrified her. As she slowly realized that she and George were unlikely to have any children, Martha’s anxiety intensified. They had expected to have a brood. No one knows why they remained childless, but reasonable speculation suggests two possibilities. Martha may have had difficult deliveries with one or more of her four children that left her unable to conceive again, or Washington’s bout with smallpox in the West Indies may have left him sterile.

  Gently, with great forbearance and understanding, Washington tried to help Martha deal with her almost uncontrollable maternal anxiety. He wanted her to accompany him to Williamsburg and to visit other planters in Virginia and Maryland who were anxious to entertain the famous colonel and his wife. At one point he suggested they leave Jack home and take Patsy with them on a two-week visit to his brother Jack Washington and his wife. Martha told her sister it was “a trial to see how well I could stay without him.”

  The experiment was not a success. She was constantly listening for the thud of a horse’s hoofs, which she was sure would be a mes
senger reporting Jack was ill or worse. Even the bark of a dog made her start violently. Her imagination kept conjuring images of Jack lying sick in his bed or writhing in the road after falling from his horse.

  VII

  As Jack Custis grew older, Washington began worrying about his education. A private tutor had taught him how to read and write and do arithmetic. But Jack was going to be a very wealthy man, and Washington thought he should have a far more extensive intellectual background to play a leading role in Virginia society. All his life, Washington suffered pangs of inferiority over his limited schooling. He wanted to make sure Jack did not became a man with similar regrets. After consulting various friends, Washington enrolled Jack in a boarding school run by the Reverend Jonathan Boucher, a well-regarded Anglican clergyman.

  Washington had scarcely persuaded Martha to part with the fourteen-year-old boy when calamity struck. Twelve-year-old Patsy, who seemed to be maturing into a very pretty young girl, suddenly collapsed in what George and Martha at first thought was a fainting spell. But her twitches and gasps and groans soon made them realize it was a convulsion. A few days later, she collapsed again in another “fitt.” Washington sent to Alexandria for a doctor, who glumly informed them that Patsy was an epileptic. Over the next several years, the Washingtons consulted eight different doctors. But there was no cure, and the drastic medicines the medical men forced down the poor girl’s throat only made her nauseous and morose.

  For Martha it was a dismaying blow. It meant Patsy would probably never marry. Several of the doctors warned them that the seizures might grow worse in years to come. This proved to be the case. Soon Patsy was having two seizures in a single day. A mournful Washington knew what this meant for Martha. He told a friend, “The unhappy situation of her daughter has to some degree fixed her eyes upon [Jack] as her only hope.”

  Meanwhile, Colonel Washington was receiving letters from the Reverend Boucher informing him that Jack, now seventeen, was close to being expelled from his school. “I never did in my life know a youth so exceedingly indolent, or so surprisingly voluptuous; one wd suppose nature had intended him for some Asian prince,” the clergyman ranted at one point. Jack was rich and knew it. So did many of his friends and acquaintances. He had far too many invitations to “visits, balls and other scenes of pleasure.” Worse, Jack had “a propensity to the sex.” It was hardly surprising after these revelations to learn that Jack “does not much like books.” More and more, Dr. Boucher had begun to think that only his “fervent prayers” would make Jack “if not very clever, what is much better, a good man.”11

  The clergyman opined that forcing Jack to leave his horses at Mount Vernon might keep him at least in proximity to his books. Martha flew to her son’s defense, saying she thought he had done nothing that merited such punishment. She resented the idea of confining him like a criminal. In early 1771, at the close of the Christmas holidays, Washington assured Boucher that Jack was returning to school “with a determination of applying close attention to his studies.” But he was forced to add that Jack would be a few days late because he wanted a little more time for “his favorite amusement of hunting.”12

  VIII

  In 1773, shortly after Martha and George and Patsy returned from Williamsburg following the spring legislative session, Jack confided to Martha stunning news about his future plans. He had gotten engaged to a Maryland belle, Nelly Calvert, without asking his mother’s or his stepfather’s permission. Jack could, of course, have committed far worse indiscretions. In his family background lurked the example of his maternal grandfather, Daniel Parke, who was a womanizer of epic proportions, especially after he became governor of the West Indies island of Antigua. He was murdered by a group of outraged citizens, in part because of his pursuit of virtually every female on the island.

  Jack was hardly imitating his grandfather in his pursuit of Nelly Calvert. But for a young man worth tens of thousands of pounds—an undoubted millionaire in today’s currency—to marry without consulting his parents was serious enough to justify Martha’s surprise. As for George, he could scarcely control his anger. Not only did he believe marriage was central to a man’s happiness, but there was a great deal of money involved. That large fact stirred worries about sincerity and honesty, especially if there was a disparity in the bride and bridegroom’s wealth. Moreover, Jack was still a minor; he could not marry without their permission. Before the distressed parents could do or say anything, Jack arrived at Mount Vernon with his fianceé’s father, Benedict Calvert, and the latter’s good friend, Sir Robert Eden, the governor of Maryland.

  Ostensibly, Governor Eden was there to discuss with Washington ways to make the Potomac River a link to the West by dredging it and building canals. But there was little doubt Eden knew he added some social stature to his friend Calvert by inviting him along. Calvert was an illegitimate son of the colony’s proprietor, the fifth Lord Baltimore. Nobody held that against him. He had married the daughter of a former Maryland governor and prospered well enough to preside at Mount Airy, a comfortable plantation near Annapolis, and sit in the colony’s legislature.

  After the two men departed, Washington wrote Calvert a letter that leaves no doubt that he was still very angry with Jack. The subject was “of no small embarrassment to me,” he began. He was aware that Jack had “paid his addresses” to “Miss Nelly” and that her “amiable qualifications stand confess’d by all hands.” He would be “wanting in candor” if he did not admit that an “alliance with your family would be pleasing” to Jack’s “family.” He might as well have written the literal truth behind that statement: Martha and young Patsy were delighted.

  Washington then spent a paragraph making it clear that an immediate alliance would not be pleasing to him. Jack’s “youth, inexperience and unripened education is & will be insuperable obstacles in my eye.” As his guardian, he felt he had an “indispensable duty” to insist on Jack completing his education. He had enrolled him in King’s College in New York. At the same time, Washington admitted he had no desire to break up the match; he wanted only to postpone it. He was going to recommend to Jack “with the warmth that becomes a man of honor (notwithstanding he did not vouchsafe to consult either his mother or me) that he consider himself as much engaged to your daughter as if the indissoluble knot was tied.”

  Washington followed this blend of smoldering rage and soothing assurances with a brief summary of Jack’s impressive net worth in land, slaves, and cash. He hoped this information would inspire Calvert to “do something genteel by your daughter” in the matter of a dowry. Then came words of virtual capitulation. He hoped that Calvert and his wife and daughters would “favor us” with a visit to Mount Vernon.13

  Jack galloped off with this letter to Mount Airy and returned with a warm reply assuring Washington that Calvert agreed “it was too early for Mr. Custis to enter upon the matrimonial state.” But he hoped the coming separation would “only delay, not break off the intended match.” Unfortunately, he had ten children and feared Nelly’s dowry would be “inconsiderable.” That bad news delivered, he smoothly assured Washington that the Calverts would be glad to visit Mount Vernon while Jack was studying hard and otherwise maturing in distant New York.14

  Washington personally escorted Jack to New York, a journey that grew into a two-week series of dinners and receptions with the elite of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. It is hard to decide whether Washington was hoping to impress Jack with the importance that can come from achieving some distinction in life or whether he simply found the attention paid to him impossible to refuse. Fame was already swirling around the edges of his life. The trip ended with the stepfather and son being feted at a dinner given by Washington’s friend from frontier warfare days, General Thomas Gage, now commander in chief of the British Army in America.

  At King’s College, the president, Myles Cooper, greeted them as if they were visiting royalty. Jack was soon telling his “Dear Momma” that he liked the way he was being treated. He
was the only student who had dinner with the faculty and joined them in “all their recreations.” He had a comfortable three-room suite, with a separate room for his slave body servant, Joe.

  IX

  Back in Mount Vernon, if Washington had hopes of terminating the match with Nelly Calvert, they vanished before his eyes as Nelly totally charmed Martha. They were similar types of women, warm and cordial by instinct; Nelly added to this pleasing temperament a lustrous brunette beauty. She not only mesmerized Martha, she became Patsy’s best friend. The two young women, roughly the same age, became inseparable. Martha buoyed their spirits by inviting numerous other belles from nearby plantations to join them in the evenings for music and dancing. George’s younger brother Jack and his wife, Hannah, and two of their children mingled with these visitors. It was a happy family gathering, marred only by the scorchingly hot weather.

  On Saturday, June 19, they enjoyed a festive family dinner that kept everyone at the table until about five o’clock. Patsy and Nelly went upstairs, talking about Jack. Patsy ran into her bedroom to get a letter he had written to her. A thud and a strangled cry brought Nelly to the door. Patsy was lying on the floor, writhing in another epileptic seizure. Nelly called downstairs for help. Several people, including her stepfather, helped lift Patsy onto her bed. Almost instantly it became apparent that this was not a mild attack. Patsy’s breathing grew labored and suddenly dwindled. In less than two minutes, “without uttering a word, a groan or scarce a sigh,” Washington later wrote, she was dead.

  Martha wept uncontrollably for hours. Washington’s sorrow—and possibly his tears—matched hers. It was visible in a letter he wrote to Martha’s brother-in-law, Burwell Bassett, the following day, after Patsy’s funeral: