George Washington

by David O. Stewart

  During the day, merchants and lawyers and planters traded goods, land, and slaves in an open space across from the courthouse called the Exchange. William Hunter’s print shop produced the colony’s newspaper. The racetrack east of Waller Street drew spectators to wager on horses that ran as many as three heats, each heat looping four times around the mile-long track. A new theater stood on the main street.7

  Most visitors, coming from isolated plantations, brought holiday attitudes. Decades later, Washington recalled “a successive round of visiting and dinners” in Williamsburg, which made it “not possible for a man to retire sober.” Indeed, he added, anyone remaining sober was subject to an “imputation which even a person of philosophic cast did not choose to merit.” A Frenchman described the scene as “at night, carousing and drinking in one chamber and box and dice in another, which continues till morning commonly.” The colony’s leading citizens, he reported, were all gamesters. For a man with Washington’s taste for cards, Williamsburg offered ample opportunities.8

  Two figures dominated the colony’s politics. The lieutenant governor, Francis Fauquier, held executive powers and presided when the General Court heard cases. Formerly a director of the South Sea Company, the wealthy Fauquier had written learned articles on public finance. His smooth manners and talent for conciliation compared favorably with the prickly Dinwiddie. Washington would be sure to make Fauquier’s acquaintance.

  Washington already knew the other powerful man: John Robinson, the House Speaker who also was the colony’s treasurer. The assembly session of February 1759 marked Robinson’s twenty-first year in office, and his power rivaled the governor’s. To his masters in London, Fauquier called Robinson “the darling of the country, as well he deserves to be for his great integrity, assiduity, and ability in business.” An early history of Virginia sang Robinson’s praises:

  He stated to the house the contents of every bill, and showed himself to be a perfect master of the subject. When he pronounced the rules of order, he convinced the reluctant. When on the floor of a committee of the whole house, he opened the debate, he submitted resolutions and enforced them with simplicity and might.

  Yet great power can corrode integrity. That same account acknowledged that Robinson “was for a long time elevated above the criticism of his faults,” having built a network of alliances with “the thousand little flattering attentions which can be scattered from the chair.”9

  Some resented Robinson’s power, which included naming committee chairs, setting the legislative agenda, and leading debate. Calling Robinson the “big man,” one critic lamented, “What he can’t do himself he prompts others to do by his nods, . . . as the division must run to whichsoever side he sits.” The London Board of Trade directed Fauquier to replace Robinson in the Treasurer’s Office, yet Fauquier never felt strong enough to do it.10

  As an eager speculator in western lands, Robinson had formed the Loyal Company, a competitor with the Ohio Company led by the Washington and Lee families. That competition never undermined relations between Washington and Robinson. While commanding the Virginia Regiment, Washington leaned on the Speaker for support. During Washington’s 1756 journey to Boston, he stayed for a week with Robinson’s brother in New York.

  The Speaker placed the new delegate from Frederick County on the pivotal Committee on Propositions and Grievances. Though a novice legislator, Washington commanded respect for his knowledge of war, Indians, and the militia. Expertise on those subjects was sparse in a body filled with tobacco planters and their lawyers.11

  On the morning of February 23, the day after his birthday, Washington entered the Capitol’s west wing through its twelve-foot-high door. The chamber bore royal trappings, from the Speaker’s mace of authority to the king’s coat of arms hanging next to Virginia’s. The burgesses sat on benches that faced each other on either side of the chamber, in the style of the House of Commons in London. Washington swore an oath of allegiance to King George II and subscribed to the Test Act, which blocked Catholics from holding office. He was the fifth Washington to join the House, though none of his forebears had risen to prominence in it.12

  The legislative day began with prayers at eight, followed by committee meetings. The full house convened in late morning and usually continued until midafternoon. Washington’s first priority was mastering legislative procedures and jargon. Bills were proposed, shunted to committees, reported back, debated, given first and second readings, amended, sent back to committees, amended again, debated again, and perhaps passed, only to be reviewed thereafter by the council, the governor, and the king’s ministers. Many bills involved issues that were new to Washington, like tobacco inspection and issuing currency.

  Though all burgesses had one vote, not all were equal. Committee chairmen, those with sharp reasoning skills, and those with a gift for speaking counted for more. Oratory mattered. Every day, more than half the burgesses listened to debate. Great landowners like John Robinson also counted for more. The early days of a session were slow, often devoted to individual claims for runaway slaves or deserting soldiers. Significant legislation came up in hectic final days.13

  Washington’s first session addressed no momentous issues. Anxious about finances, the assembly declined to provide more soldiers for the war, adopting a tone of regret. “How sorry then must we be,” read its response to Governor Fauquier, “when the incapacity of the country obliges us to inform your honor that we cannot support a greater number of forces.”14

  Washington, never comfortable with public speaking, held his tongue. The legislative journal records no speech or action by him after the resolution honoring his military service. Reticence in debate became a hallmark. Though Washington voiced opinions in conversation, he rarely spoke on the floor, and then only briefly. In a letter to a nephew almost three decades later, Washington’s advice reflected his own conduct:

  Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and in the former case make yourself perfectly master of the subject. Never exceed a decent warmth, and submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial style, though it may carry conviction, is always accompanied with disgust.15

  Washington focused on bills with an impact on Frederick County. Winchester merchants sought to force Pennsylvania fur traders to pay Virginia fees when they did business in Virginia, and Lord Fairfax petitioned to extend Winchester’s municipal limits to include 173 building lots he hoped to sell. Both bills passed, though more experienced legislators sponsored them. Indeed, Washington did not stay to the end of his first session, securing permission to leave nearly two weeks early. He likely was not missed.16

  Though he left the faintest of footprints on that first session, Washington had begun his education as a legislator, watching and listening to nearly two hundred hours of the maneuvering, posturing, and horse-trading that produces legislation in a deliberative body. He was part of decisions to defy the British request for soldiers, to issue paper money, and raise taxes on liquor.17 He saw at close hand how political interests clash, how alliances are formed and opinions shaped, and how legislators can be persuaded. He worked at reading men’s intentions, a talent he would master. His conduct matched the advice he would give years later when his stepson, Jacky Custis, entered the Virginia legislature. Junior members, Washington observed, are not usually influential, “But it is in your power to be punctual in your attendance . . . —to hear dispassionately—and determine coolly all great questions.”18

  Few House members in 1759 would have foreseen Washington’s emergence as a force in Virginia politics. It would take years for that to happen.

  Chapter 18

  To Mount Vernon

  While traveling to Mount Vernon from his first legislative session, Washington worried that his home on the Potomac might not impress his new family, so he sent instructions to his senior servant to clean and air out the rooms. The servants, he
continued, should assemble “two of the best bedsteads” for the Custis children, polish the staircase, and put out chairs and tables “very well rubbed and cleaned.” He also ordered the acquisition of eggs and chickens for meals.1

  Mount Vernon was central to Washington’s deepest aspirations. A worthy home confirmed a gentleman’s wealth, status, and taste. Washington had lived there as a small boy, and in stretches when it was Lawrence’s home. Mount Vernon had brought him the Fairfax connection. Now he meant to be a country gentleman there, far from Ferry Farm. Lawrence had expanded the residence, widening its foundation and adding decorative elements. While still serving on the frontier, Washington planned more improvements.2

  He started with a new entrance so guests would approach from the northwest on a path that framed a view of the mansion. Washington created a new parlor and dining room, also on the landward side. For the exterior he ordered beveled boards to be covered with paint sprinkled with sand, which created the illusion that the house was built of stone. Washington designed a shingle roof, an added cornice at the tip, and enlarged chimneys that required 16,000 bricks. Inside the house, he raised most ceilings and installed new flooring. Workmen, many of them enslaved, built baseboards, window and door trims, and moldings. He planned outbuildings for cooking and laundry, with brick walks connecting to the main house.3

  A few months later, a visitor celebrated Mount Vernon as “beautifully situated upon a high hill on the banks of the Potomac,” with “a noble prospect of water, of cliffs, of woods, and plantations.”4 For the next forty years, Washington would ever long to be there with Martha. For a person with burning ambition, a place that brings calm and a mate who reinforces it are gifts. After a few months at home with his new family, Washington wrote, “I am now, I believe, fixed at this seat with an agreeable consort for life and hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced amidst a wide and bustling world.”5

  George and Martha showed every sign of suiting each other. Martha’s upbringing as the eldest of eight had been comfortable, but not grand. Even after marrying the very rich Daniel Parke Custis, she remained a direct, considerate countrywoman. Abigail Adams, who did not trim her judgments, later praised Martha’s sociability and grace. “Mrs. Washington,” Adams wrote to her sister, “is one of those unassuming characters which create love and esteem.” Martha’s soft manners concealed a talent for management honed as the mistress of the Custis plantation house. After that experience, she was a match for Mount Vernon.

  Through the years, George and Martha appeared to cherish each other’s company. “His worthy lady,” a friend wrote, “seems to be in perfect felicity while she is by the side of her Old Man as she calls him.” Another thought Martha “excessive fond of the general and he of her. . . . They are happy in each other.” The youthful Marquis de Lafayette concluded that Martha loved Washington “madly.” In Martha’s lone surviving note to Washington, she greeted him tenderly as “My dearest,” and signed herself “most affectionate.”6

  Washington intended Mount Vernon to frame a life of gentility and distinction. Because Virginians mostly lived far from towns, social life happened in homes. A visit could last a day, or five, with multiple guests overlapping their stays. Visiting gentlemen slept in shared rooms separate from visiting ladies. Large-scale entertaining showed that the host had both means and style. The grandest homes staged dances featuring minuets, country dances, and reels, often ending with a round of improvised jigs.7

  * * *

  At Mount Vernon, the Washingtons’ life focused on family and neighbors, the men Washington did business with, and a few soldier friends. Washington remained close to his brother Jack and to his lone sister, Betty, who lived in Fredericksburg near their mother. Washington often stopped with her family and his mother on the way to Williamsburg and back. Brothers Sam and Charles, less frequent visitors, lived in the area until moving west to the upper Shenandoah valley.8

  Martha’s relatives came often, especially the Bassetts. Upon the birth of a Bassett child, Washington cheerfully chided the new father for missing Sunday services necessary for “every good Christian man who has as much to answer for as you have.” Without sufficient prayer, Washington warned, Bassett’s tobacco crop would be “assailed by every villainous worm that has had an existence since the days of Noah (how unkind it was of Noah . . . to suffer such a brood of vermin to get a berth in the ark).”9

  The most vexing family connection was his mother. Though Mary visited Mount Vernon before the marriage, she seems never to have returned afterward. As Washington moved into more rarefied circles, with his rich and sweet-natured wife on his arm, there may have seemed no place for the blunt-spoken mother. Or perhaps Martha and Mary struck sparks: Mary was never accused of spoiling her children, nor of holding her tongue. Nonetheless, the untraveled path from Fredericksburg to Mount Vernon creates a poignant image of Washington leaving behind the mother who had shaped him.10

  When it came to socializing with neighbors, George William and Sally Fairfax were at the top of the list. Martha and Sally traded notes; the men shared tools and supplies.11 In 1767, the two couples vacationed together in the Shenandoah valley. Reciprocal visits were constant. Through the first five months of 1760, they swapped nearly a dozen visits. Over a five-year period, they totaled from twenty-five to forty-nine visits each year. Some included Bryan Fairfax, George William’s younger brother, who acquired his own estate and became Washington’s frequent hunting companion.12

  Friendship with another neighbor, George Mason of nearby Gunston Hall, was more restrained on Washington’s side. Seven years older than Washington, Mason periodically took to his bed in ill health. He sometimes sent grafts from his fruit trees, but Washington offered fewer courtesies in return. The two men occasionally sparred over boundary lines and other financial matters. Nonetheless, they would form a notable political partnership in the 1770s.13

  “I keep not copies of epistles to my friends,” Washington declared, which makes it difficult to chart his friendships. Some ties are plain. In the regiment, he grew close to Captain Robert Stewart, whose frequent letters to Washington could be effusive. Stewart took “extreme pleasure” at hearing from Washington in one, found that pleasure “inexpressible” in another, and wrote in a third “with a heart that overflows with gratitude.” Washington did not preserve his replies to Stewart, but when his friend needed money to buy a British Army commission, Washington borrowed the funds, then loaned them to Stewart without charging interest.14

  The two men fell out of touch when Stewart pursued positions in England, though Washington repeatedly tried to track down his old friend. When the Revolutionary War ended, Stewart surfaced, his lush rhetorical style intact. Referring to his undiminished feeling toward Washington, Stewart trilled that “The poets and historians of after ages shall vie with each other in endeavoring to represent it in its true brilliancy.” Then he asked for a job in the new American government. Courteously, and perhaps with sadness for a friendship gone cold, Washington explained that those who had fought for independence would fill the available jobs.15

  For Washington, the sturdiest ties came from military service, with its shared sacrifices and fellowship. He wrote with affection to two British officers he knew from the frontier war. Dr. James Craik, an Alexandria surgeon with the Virginia Regiment, became a friend for life. Twice, Craik would join Washington on weeks-long rambles to examine western lands. He attended Washington at his death.16

  Craik also was one of many physicians consulted about young Patsy’s epilepsy, an illness whose inexorable advance shadowed the family. Her fits, with convulsions that dropped her to the floor, were terrifying. Superstition attributed the disturbing symptoms to satanic possession or other supernatural cause. Medicine offered no treatment for it.

  Symptoms of Patsy’s affliction surfaced as early as 1760, when she was four. The Washingtons went well beyond the routine therapies of the era—purgin
g the digestive system and bleeding. At an early stage, Patsy took mercury pills. Other treatments included Peruvian bark, a brew from valerian, hartshorn, “spirit of ether,” “fit drops,” and the consumption of “light cooling food” such as barley porridge. A blacksmith forged an iron ring around the girl’s finger, an ancient remedy that proved no more effective than the others. Though a local physician watched over her, the family sought other opinions whenever they could, including from a renowned Jewish doctor visiting Virginia from London. Nothing helped. In a three-month period in 1770, Patsy had twenty-six epileptic episodes.17

  Few experiences are as desolate as the slow decline of a child. The Washingtons attempted to give Patsy a normal childhood. She joined outings to Belvoir and trips to Williamsburg, to balls and to the theater, though a fit might strike at any time. She was tutored with her brother and took dancing and music lessons. Martha indulged her with fine clothes, a parrot, and a music box.18 Yet there was no cure for her fits, nor for the helplessness of those who loved her. For Washington, who had cared for his brother Lawrence through his decline, the feelings of impotence must have felt achingly familiar.

  His other stepchild, Jacky Custis, tried Washington’s patience. Martha doted on the boy, who early understood the advantages of his family position. Jacky’s indifference to learning combined with a profound lack of ambition. As a boy, he was enthusiastic only about horses and hunting. He seemed destined to become a wastrel Virginia aristocrat, a stock figure satirized at the time in words that might have been applied to young Custis: “There is no matter whether he can read or not. . . . He has money, land and negroes, that’s enough. These things procure him every honor, every favor, every title of respect.”19