The Mother of Washington and Her Times
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Title: The Mother of Washington and Her Times
Author: Sara Agnes Rice Pryor
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THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON AND HER TIMES
[Illustration: Publisher's mark]
[Illustration: SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF MARY WASHINGTON.]
THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON AND HER TIMES
by
MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR
"_That one who breaks the way with tears
Many shall follow with a song_"
New York
The Macmillan Company
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1903
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1903,
By the Macmillan Company.
Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1903
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TO THE HON. ROGER A. PRYOR, LL.D.
IN WHOM LIVES ALL THAT WAS BEST
IN OLD VIRGINIA
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Introductory 1
CHAPTER II
Mary Washington's English Ancestry 11
CHAPTER III
The Ball Family in Virginia 15
CHAPTER IV
Coat Armor and the Right to bear it 20
CHAPTER V
Traditions of Mary Ball's Early Life 25
CHAPTER VI
Revelations of an Old Will 32
CHAPTER VII
Mary Ball's Childhood 37
CHAPTER VIII
Good Times in Old Virginia 47
CHAPTER IX
Mary Ball's Guardian and her Girlhood 55
CHAPTER X
Young Men and Maidens of the Old Dominion 58
CHAPTER XI
The Toast of the Gallants of her Day 62
CHAPTER XII
Her Marriage and Early Life 69
CHAPTER XIII
Birthplace of George Washington 75
CHAPTER XIV
The Cherry Tree and Little Hatchet 85
CHAPTER XV
The Young Widow and her Family 90
CHAPTER XVI
Betty Washington, and Weddings in Old Virginia 102
CHAPTER XVII
Defeat in War: Success in Love 114
CHAPTER XVIII
In and Around Fredericksburg 127
CHAPTER XIX
Social Characteristics, Manners, and Customs 143
CHAPTER XX
A True Portrait of Mary Washington 167
CHAPTER XXI
Noon in the Golden Age 186
CHAPTER XXII
Dinners, Dress, Dances, Horse-races 197
PART II
CHAPTER I
The Little Cloud 231
CHAPTER II
The Storm 245
CHAPTER III
Mary Washington in the Hour of Peril 251
CHAPTER IV
Old Revolutionary Letters 262
CHAPTER V
The Battle-ground 279
CHAPTER VI
France in the Revolution 289
CHAPTER VII
"On with the Dance, let Joy be unconfined" 304
CHAPTER VIII
Lafayette and our French Allies 312
CHAPTER IX
In Camp and at Mount Vernon 317
CHAPTER X
Mrs. Adams at the Court of St. James 327
CHAPTER XI
The First Winter at Mount Vernon 332
CHAPTER XII
The President and his Last Visit to his Mother 340
CHAPTER XIII
Mary Washington's Will; her Illness and Death 347
CHAPTER XIV
Tributes of her Countrymen 353
ILLUSTRATIONS
Supposed Portrait of Mary Washington _Frontispiece_
PAGE
An Old Doll 39
Horn-book 41
Ducking-stool 44
The Old Stone House 45
William and Mary College _Facing_ 59
Old Yeocomico Church " 63
Monument at Wakefield marking the Birthplace
of George Washington 75
George Washington's Apron 82
Bewdley _Facing_ 83
Pohick Church, Mount Vernon, Virginia 86
Mrs. Washington persuades George not to go
to Sea 100
Kenmore House 103
The Hall at Kenmore, showing the Clock which
belonged to Mary Washington 111
Nellie Custis _Facing_ 112
George Washington as Major 115
General Braddock 118
Mount Vernon _Facing_ 120
St. Peter's Church, in which George Washington
was married 123
Martha Custis _Facing_ 124
Williamsburg 124
"Light-horse Harry" Lee 133
Governor Spotswood 134
Prince Murat 140
Colonel Byrd 147
Westover _Facing_ 150
The Kitchen of Mount Vernon 156
James Monroe 165
Mrs. Charles Carter 177
Mary Washington's House in Fredericksburg
_Facing_ 183
Monticello. The Home of Thomas Jefferson 188
The Garden at Mount Vernon _Facing_ 189
Elsing Green 192
Mount Airy _Facing_ 192
Bushrod Washington 206
Mary Ambler 210
Chief Justice John Marshall 211
Lord Dunmore 237
Robert Carter of Nomini Hall 241
Abigail Adams 248
Oratory Rock 260
Sir William Howe 265
Major André 270
Arthur Lee 274
Vergennes 289
Beaumarchais 290
Silas Deane 291
Benjamin Franklin 292
General Burgoyne 295
General Gates 296
Rochambeau 297
De Grasse 298
Lord Cornwallis 300
Greenway Court _Facing_ 302
George Washington Parke Custis 306
The Chair used by George Washington when Master
of Fredericksburg Lodge 307
General Lafayette _Facing_ 313
John Adams 328
Washington's Reception at Trenton 343
Mary Washington's Monument 357
The Avenue of Poplars at Nomini Hall 363
AUTHORITIES
Virginia Historical Magazine.
William and Mary Quarterly.
Virginia Historical Register.
Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virginia.
Campbell's History of Virginia.
Irving's Life of Washington.
Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington. By George
Washington Parke Custis.
Cooke's Virginia.
The Bland Papers. By Campbell.
Howe's Virginia.
Journal of Philip Vickars Fithian.
Towers's Lafayette.
Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles.
Morse's Franklin.
Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century.
Fiske's American Revolution.
Sparks's Diplomatic Correspondence.
Washington's Works.
Bancroft's History of the United States.
Life and Letters of George Mason. By Kate Mason Rowland.
Beaumarchais and his Times.
Edwardes's Translations of Lemonie.
Lives of the Chief Justices of England.
Twining's Travels in America.
Burnaby's Travels.
The Story of Mary Washington. By Marion Harland.
Randall's Life of Jefferson.
Worthies of England. By Thomas Fuller.
Foote's Sketches of Virginia.
Parton's Franklin.
A Study in the Warwickshire Dialect. By Appleton Morgan, A.M.,
LL.B.
Maternal Ancestry of Washington. By G. W. Ball.
PART I
The Mother of Washington and her Times
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The mothers of famous men survive only in their sons. This is a rule
almost as invariable as a law of nature. Whatever the aspirations
and energies of the mother, memorable achievement is not for her.
No memoir has been written in this country of the women who bore,
fostered, and trained our great men. What do we know of the mother
of Daniel Webster, or John Adams, or Patrick Henry, or Andrew
Jackson, or of the mothers of our Revolutionary generals?
When the American boy studies the history of his country, his
soul soars within him as he reads of his own forefathers: how
they rescued a wilderness from the savage and caused it to bloom
into fruitful fields and gardens, how they won its independence
through eight years of hardship and struggle, how they assured its
prosperity by a wise Constitution and firm laws. But he may look in
vain for some tribute to the mothers who trained his heroes. In his
Roman history he finds Cornelia, Virginia, Lucretia, and Veturia on
the same pages with Horatius, Regulus, Brutus, and Cincinnatus. If
he be a boy of some thought and perception, he will see that the
early seventeenth century women of his own land must have borne
a similar relation to their country as these women to the Roman
Republic. But our histories as utterly ignore them as if they never
existed. The heroes of our Revolution might have sprung armed from
the head of Jove for aught the American boy can find to the contrary.
Thus American history defrauds these noble mothers of their
crown--not self-won, but won by their sons.
Letitia Romolino was known to few, while the fame of "Madame Mère"
is as universal as the glory of Napoleon himself. But Madame Mère
had her historian. The pioneer woman of America, who "broke the
way with tears," retires into darkness and oblivion; while "many
follow with a song" the son to whom she gave her life and her keen
intelligence born of her strong faith and love.
Biographers have occasionally seemed to feel that something is due
the mothers of their heroes. Women have some rights after all! And
so we can usually find, tucked away somewhere, a short perfunctory
phrase of courtesy, "He is said to have inherited many of his
qualities from his mother," reminding us of "The Ladies--God bless
'em," after everybody else has been toasted at a banquet, and just
before the toasters are ripe for the song, "We won't go home till
morning!"
But--if we are willing to be appeased by such a _douceur_--there
is literature galore anent the women who have amused "great" men:
Helen of Troy, Madame de Pompadour, Madame du Barry, Lady Hamilton,
the Countess Guicciola, and such. We may comfort ourselves for this
humiliating fact only by reflecting that the world craves novelty,
and that these dames are interesting to the reading public, solely
because they are exceptional, while the noble, unselfish woman,
being the rule of motherhood, is familiar to every one of us and
needs no historian.
It is the noble, unselfish woman who must shine, if she shine at
all, by the light reflected from her son. _Her_ life, for the most
part, must be hidden by the obscurity of domestic duties. While
herself thus inactive and retired, her son is developed for glory,
and the world is his arena. It is only when he reaches renown that
she becomes an object of attention, but it is then too late to take
her measure in the plenitude of her powers. Emitting at best but a
feeble ray, her genius is soon lost in the splendor of his meridian.
Nay more, her reputation is often the sport of a love of contrast,
and her simplicity and his magnificence the paradox of a gossiping
public.
Mary Washington presents no exception to this picture. As the mother
of the man who has hitherto done most for the good and glory of
humanity, the details of her life are now of world-wide and enduring
interest. Those details were lost in the seclusion and obscurity
of her earlier years or else absorbed in the splendor of her later
career. It is not deniable, too, that in the absence of authentic
information, tradition has made free with her name, and has imputed
to her motives and habits altogether foreign to her real character.
The mother of Washington was in no sense a commonplace woman. Still
less was she hard, uncultured, undignified, unrefined.
The writer hopes to trace the disparaging traditions, and to refute
them by showing that all the known actions of her life were the
emanations of a noble heart, high courage, and sound understanding.
"Characters," said the great Englishman who lived in her time,
"should never be given by an historian unless he knew the people
whom he describes, or copies from those who knew them." "A hard
saying for picturesque writers of history," says Mr. Augustine
Birrell, who knows so well how to be picturesque and yet faithful to
the truth. Even he laments how little we can know of a dead man we
never saw. "His books, if he wrote books, will tell us something;
his letters, if he wrote any, and they are preserved, may perchance
fling a shadow on the sheet for a moment or two; a portrait if
painted in a lucky hour may lend a show of substance to our dim
surmisings; the things he did must carefully be taken into account,
but as a man is much more than the mere sum of his actions even
these cannot be relied upon with great confidence. For the purpose,
therefore, of getting at any one's character, the testimony of those
who knew the living man is of all the material likely to be within
our reach the most useful."
How truly the words of this brilliant writer apply to the ensuing
pages will be apparent to every intelligent reader. No temptation
has availed with the compiler to accept any, the most attractive,
theory or tradition. The testimony of those who knew Mary Washington
is the groundwork of the picture, and controls its every detail.
A few years ago an episode of interest was awakened in Mary
Washington's life. There was a decided Mary Washington Renaissance.
She passed this way--as Joan of Arc--as Napoleon Bonaparte, Burns,
Emerson, and others pass. A society of women banded themselves
together into a Mary Washington Memorial Association. Silver and
gold medals bearing her gentle, imagined face were struck off,
and when the demand for them was at its height, their number was
restricted to six hundred, to be bequeathed for all time from mother
to daughter, the pledge being a perpetual vigil over the tomb
of Mary Washington, thus forming a Guard of Honor of six hundred
American women. The Princess Eulalia of Spain, and Maria Pilar
Colon, a descendant of Christopher Columbus, were admitted into this
Guard of Honor, and wear its insignia.
This "Renaissance" grew out of an advertisement in the Washington
papers to the effect that the "Grave of Mary, the Mother of General
Washington," was to be "sold at Public Auction, the same to be
offered at Public Outcry," under the shadow of the monument erected
in her son's honor, and in the city planned by him and bearing his
name.
A number of the descendants of Mary Washington's old Fredericksburg
neighbors assembled the next summer at the White Sulphur Springs in
Virginia. It was decided that a ball be given at the watering-place
to aid the noble efforts of the widow of Chief Justice Waite to
avert the disaster, purchase the park, and erect a monument over the
ashes of the mother of Washington. One of the guests was selected to
personate her: General Fitzhugh Lee to represent her son George.
A thousand patrons assured the success of the ball. They wore Mary
Washington's colors--blue and white--and assumed the picturesque
garb of pre-Revolutionary days. The bachelor governor of New York,
learning what was toward with these fair ladies, sent his own state
flag to grace the occasion, and its snow-white folds mingled with
the blue of the state banner contributed by the governor of Virginia.
The gowns of the Virginia beauties were yellow with age, and
wrinkled from having been hastily exhumed from the lavender-scented
chests; for when lovely Juliet Carter chose the identical gown of
her great, great grandmother,--blue brocade, looped over a white
satin quilted petticoat,--the genuine example was followed by all
the rest. The Madam Washington of the hour was strictly taken in
hand by the Fredericksburg contingent. Her kerchief had been worn
at the Fredericksburg Peace Ball, her mob cap was cut by a pattern
preserved by Mary Washington's old neighbors. There were mittens,
a reticule, and a fan made of the bronze feathers of the wild
turkey of Virginia. Standing with her son George in the midst of
the old-time assembly, old-time music in the air, old-time pictures
on the walls, Madam Washington received her guests and presented
them to her son, whose miniature she wore on her bosom. "I am glad
to meet your son, Madam Washington!" said pretty Ellen Lee, as she
dropped her courtesy; "I always heard he was a truthful child!"
The lawn and cloister-like corridors of the large hotel were crowded
at an early hour with the country people, arriving on foot, on
horseback, and in every vehicle known to the mountain roads. These
rustic folk--weather-beaten, unkempt old trappers and huntsmen,
with their sons and daughters, wives and little children--gathered
in the verandas and filled the windows of the ball-room. When the
procession made the rounds of the room the comments of the holders
of the window-boxes were not altogether flattering. The quaint dress
of "the tea-cup time of hoop and hood" was disappointing. They had
expected a glimpse of the latest fashions of the metropolis.
"I don't think much of that Mrs. Washington," said one.
"Well," drawled another, a wiry old graybeard, "she looks quiet and
peaceable! The ole one was a turrible ole woman! My grandfather's
father used to live close to ole Mrs. Washington. The ole man used
to say she would mount a stool to rap her man on the head with the
smoke-'ouse key! She was that little, an' hot-tempered."
"That was _Martha_ Washington, grandfather," corrected a girl who
had been to school in Lewisburg. "_She_ was the short one."
"Well, Martha or Mary, it makes no differ," grimly answered the
graybeard. "They was much of a muchness to my thinkin'," and this
was the first of the irreverent traditions which caught the ear of
the writer, and led to investigation. They cropped up fast enough
from many a dark corner!
About this time many balls and costume entertainments were given to
aid the monument fund. There were charming garden parties to
"Bring back the hour
Of glory in the grass and splendor in the flower,"
when the Mother of Washington was beautiful, young, and happy. A
notable theatrical entertainment, the "Mary Washington matinée,"
was arranged by Mrs. Charles Avery Doremus, the clever New York
playwright. The theatre was hung with colors lent by the Secretary
of the Navy, the order therefor signed by "George Dewey." Everybody
wore the Mary Washington colors--as did Adelina Patti, who flashed
from her box the perennial smile we are yet to see again. Despite
the hydra-headed traditions the Mother of Washington had her
apotheosis.
Brought face to face with my reader, and devoutly praying I may hold
his interest to the end, I wish I could spare him every twice-told
tale--every dull word.
But "we are made of the shreds and patches of many ancestors." What
we are we owe to them. God forbid we should inherit and repeat all
their actions! The courage, the fortitude, the persistence, are
what we inherit--not the deeds through which they were expressed.
A successful housebreaker's courage may blossom in the valor of a
descendant on the field who has been trained in a better school
than his ancestor.
Dull as the public is prone to regard genealogical data, the
faithful biographer is bound to give them.
And therefore the reader must submit to an introduction to the Ball
family, otherwise he cannot understand the Mother of Washington or
Washington himself. One of them, perhaps the one most deserving
eminence through her own beneficence, we cannot place exactly in
our records. She was an English "Dinah Morris," and her name was
Hannah Ball. She was the originator of Sunday-schools, holding her
own school in 1772, twelve years before the reputed founder, Robert
Raikes, established Sunday-schools in England.
CHAPTER II
MARY WASHINGTON'S ENGLISH ANCESTRY
The family of Ball from which Mary, the mother of Washington,
descended, can be traced in direct line only as far back as the year
1480. They came originally from "Barkham, anciently 'Boercham';
noted as the spot at which William the Conqueror paused on his
devastating march from the bloody field of Hastings:[1] 'wasting ye
land, burning ye towns and sleaing (_sic_) ye people till he came to
Boerchum where he stayed his ruthless hand.'"
[1] _The Maternal Ancestry of Washington_, by George Washington
Ball.
In the "History of the Ball family of Barkham, Comitatis Berks,
taken from the Visitation Booke of London marked O. 24, in the
College of Arms," we find that "William Ball, Lord of the Manor of
Barkham, Com. Berks, died in the year 1480." From this William Ball,
George Washington was _eighth_ in direct descent.
The entry in the old visitation book sounds imposing, but Barkham
was probably a small town nestled amid the green hills of Berkshire,
whose beauty possibly so reminded the Conqueror of his Normandy
that "he stayed his ruthless hand." A century ago it was a village
of some fifty houses attached to the estate of the Levison Gowers.
There is no reason to suppose that the intervening Balls in the
line,--Robert, William, two Johns,--all of whom lived in Barkham, or
the William of Lincoln's Inn, who became "attorney in the Office of
Pleas in the Exchequer," were men of wealth or rank. The "getting of
gear was never," said one of their descendants, "a family trait, nor
even the ability to hold it when gotten"; but nowhere is it recorded
that they ever wronged man or woman in the getting. They won their
worldly goods honorably, used them beneficently, and laid them down
cheerfully when duty to king or country demanded the sacrifice, and
when it pleased God to call them out of the world. They were simply
men "doing their duty in their day and generation and deserving well
of their fellows."
They belonged to the Landed Gentry of England. This does not
presuppose their estates to have been extensive. A few starved
acres of land sufficed to class them among the Landed Gentry,
distinguishing them from laborers. As such they may have been
entitled to the distinction of "Gentleman," the title in England
next lowest to "Yeoman." No one of them had ever bowed his shoulders
to the royal accolade, nor held even the position of esquire to a
baronet. But the title "Gentleman" was a social distinction of
value. "Ordinarily the King," says Sir Thomas Smith, "doth only make
Knights and create Barons or higher degrees; as for _gentlemen_,
they be made good cheap in this Kingdom; for whosoever studieth the
laws of the realm, who studieth in the universities, who professeth
the liberal sciences, he shall be taken for a gentleman; for
gentlemen be those whom their blood and race doth make noble and
known." By "a gentleman born" was usually understood the son of a
gentleman by birth, and grandson of a gentleman by position. "It
takes three generations to make a gentleman," we say to-day, and
this seems to have been an ancient rule in England.
The Balls might well be proud to belong to old England's middle
classes--her landed, untitled Gentry. A few great minds--Lord
Francis Verulam, for instance--came from her nobility; and some
gifted writers--the inspired dreamer, for instance--from her tinkers
and tradesmen; but the mighty host of her scholars, poets, and
philosophers belonged to her middle classes. They sent from their
ranks Shakespeare and Milton, Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, Gibbon,
Dryden, "old Sam Johnson," Pope, Macaulay, Stuart Mill, Huxley,
Darwin, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Burke, Disraeli, Cowper, Sir William
Blackstone, and nearly all of the Chief Justices of England. These
are but a few of the great names that shine along the ranks of
England's middle classes.
Many of these men were called to the foot of the throne by a
grateful sovereign to receive some distinction,--so paltry by
comparison with glory of their own earning,--and among them came
one day an ancestor of the mother of George Washington. Who he was
we know not, nor yet what had been his service to his country; but
he was deemed worthy to bear upon his shield a lion rampant, the
most honorable emblem of heraldry, and the lion's paws held aloft a
ball! This much we know of him,--that in addition to his valor and
fidelity he possessed a poet's soul. He chose for the motto, the
_cri de guerre_ of his clan, a suggestive phrase from these lines of
Ovid:--
"He gave to man a noble countenance and commanded him to gaze upon
the heavens, and to carry his looks upward to the stars."
[Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE.]
CHAPTER III
THE BALL FAMILY IN VIRGINIA
The first of the family of Ball to come to Virginia was William
Ball, who settled in Lancaster County in 1650. He was the son of
the attorney of Lincoln's Inn. He emigrated, with other cavaliers
because of the overthrow of the royal house and the persecution of
its adherents.
Before this time one John Washington, an Englishman and a loyalist,
had settled in Westmoreland. He became a man of influence in
the colony, rising rapidly from major to colonel, justice of
Westmoreland, and member of the House of Burgesses; accepting
positions under the Commonwealth, as did others of King Charles's
adherents; doing their duty under the present conditions, and
consoling themselves by calling everything--towns, counties, rivers,
and their own sons--after the "Martyred Monarch"; and in rearing
mulberry trees and silkworms to spin the coronation robe of purple
for the surely coming time of the Restoration.
John Washington married three times,--two Annes and one
Frances,--and, innocently unconscious of the tremendous importance
to future historians of his every action, he neglected to place
on record the date of these events. In his day a woman appeared
before the public only three times,--at her baptism, marriage, and
death. But one of Colonel Washington's wives emerges bravely from
obscurity. A bold sinner and hard swearer, having been arraigned
before her husband, she was minded to improve her opportunity; and
the Westmoreland record hath it that "Madam Washington said to ye
prisoner, 'if you were advised by yr wife, you need not acome to
this passe,' and he answered, having the courage of his convictions,
'---- ---- my wife! If it were to doe, I would do it againe.'"
And so no more of Madam Washington! This trouble had grown out of
what was characterized as "ye horrid, traiterous, and rebellious
practices" of a young Englishman on the James River, whose only
fault lay in the unfortunate circumstance of his having been born
a hundred years too soon. Bacon's cause had been just, and he was
eloquent enough and young and handsome enough to draw all men's
hearts to himself, but his own was stilled in death before he could
right his neighbors' wrongs.
And now, the Fates that move the pieces on the chess-board of
life ordained that two prophetic names should appear together to
suppress the first rebellion against the English government. When
the Grand Assembly cast about for loyal men and true to lay "a Levy
in ye Northern Necke for ye charges in Raisinge ye forces thereof
for suppressing ye late Rebellion," the lot fell on "Coll. John
Washington and Coll: W^m. Ball," the latter journeying up from his
home in Lancaster to meet Colonel Washington at Mr. Beale's, in
Westmoreland.
Colonel Ball's Lancaster home was near the old White Chapel
church, around which are clustered a large number of strong, heavy
tombstones which betoken to-day "a deep regard of the living for the
dead."
Almost all of them are inscribed with the name of Ball. In their
old vestry books are stern records. A man was fined five thousand
pounds of tobacco for profane swearing; unlucky John Clinton, for
some unmentioned misdemeanor, was required four times to appear on
bended knees and four times to ask pardon. As late as 1727 men were
presented for drunkenness, for being absent one month from church,
for swearing, for selling crawfish and posting accounts on Sunday.
"And in addition to above," adds Bishop Meade, "the family of Ball
was very active in promoting good things," as well as zealous in the
punishment of evil. Overt acts--swearing, fishing on Sunday, absence
from church--could easily be detected and punished. But how about
drunkenness? There are degrees of intoxication. At what point was it
punishable?
An old Book of Instructions settled the matter. "Where ye same
legges which carry a Man into a house cannot bring him out againe,
it is Sufficient Sign of Drunkennesse."
The descendants of William Ball held good positions in the social
life of the colony. Their names appear in Bishop Meade's list of
vestrymen, as founders and patrons of the Indian schools, and
fourteen times in the House of Burgesses. They intermarried with
the leading families in Virginia; and the Balls, in great numbers,
settled the counties of Lancaster, Northumberland, Westmoreland,
and Stafford. They are not quoted as eminent in the councils of the
time, or as distinguished in letters. That they were good citizens
is more to their credit than that they should have filled prominent
official positions; for high offices have been held by men who were
not loyal to their trusts, and even genius--that beacon of light in
the hands of true men--has been a torch of destruction in those of
the unworthy.
They, like their English ancestors, bore for their arms a lion
rampant holding a ball, and for their motto _Cælumque tueri_, taken,
as we have said, from these lines of Ovid:--
"Os homini sublime dedit, cælumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus."
The rampant lion holding the ball appears on an armorial document
belonging to the first emigrant. On the back of this document are
the following words, written in the round, large script of those
days, which, whatever it left undone, permitted no possible doubt of
the meaning it meant to convey:--
"The Coat of Arms of Colonel William Ball, who came from England
about the year 1650, leaving two sons--William of Millenbeck [the
paternal seat] and Joseph of Epping Forest--and one daughter,
Hannah, who married Daniel Fox.... Joseph's male issue is
extinct."[2]
[2] Horace Edwin Hayden in _William and Mary Quarterly_, Vol. iii,
p. 74.
George Washington was the grandson of this Joseph Ball through his
youngest daughter Mary. She was born at Epping Forest, in Lancaster,
Virginia, in 1708, and "not as is persistently stated by careless
writers on Nov: 30th 1706--a year before her parents were married."
CHAPTER IV
COAT ARMOR AND THE RIGHT TO BEAR IT
Bishop Meade says of William Ball's coat of arms: "There is much
that is bold about it: as a lion rampant with a globe in his paw,
with helmet, shield and visor, and other things betokening strength
and courage, but none these things suit of my work! There is,
however, one thing that does. On a scroll are these words, _Cælum
tueri!_ May it be a memento to all his posterity to look upward and
seek the things which are above!"
The Bishop attached, probably, more importance to the heraldic
distinction than did the mother of Washington. Virginia families
used the arms to which they had a right with no thought of
ostentation--simply as something belonging to them, as a matter of
course. They sealed their deeds and contracts with their family
crest and motto, displayed their arms on the panels of their
coaches, carved them on their gate-posts and on the tombstones of
their people; for such had been the custom in the old country which
they fondly called "home."
The pedigrees and coats of arms of the families, from which Mary
Ball and her illustrious son descended, have been much discussed
by historians. "Truly has it been said that all the glories of
ancestral escutcheons are so overshadowed by the deeds of Washington
that they fade into insignificance; that a just democracy, scornful
of honors not self-won, pays its tribute solely to the man, the
woman, and the deed; that George Washington was great because he
stood for the freedom of his people, and Mary Washington was great
because she implanted in his youthful breast righteous indignation
against wrong, which must ever be the inspiration of the hero. And
yet the insignia of a noble name, handed down from generation to
generation, and held up as an incentive to integrity and valor,
may well be cherished." The significance of the shield granted as
reward, and the sentiment chosen as the family motto, are not to be
ignored. The shield witnesses a sovereign's appreciation; the motto
affords a key-note to the aspirations of the man who chose it. Not
of the women! for only under limitations could women use the shield;
the motto they were forbidden to use at all. Mottoes often expressed
lofty sentiments. Witness a few taken from Virginia families of
English descent: _Malo mori quam foedari_. _Sperate et Virite
Fortes_ (Bland), _Sine Deo Cares_ (Cary), _Ostendo non ostento_
(Isham), _Rêve et Révéle_ (Atkinson), etc.
At the present moment the distinction of a coat of arms is highly
esteemed in this country. Families of English descent can always
find a shield or crest on some branch, more or less remote, of the
Family Tree. The title to these arms may have long been extinct--but
who will take the trouble to investigate? The American cousin scorns
and defies rules of heraldry! To be sure, he would prefer assuming
a shield once borne by some ancestor, but if that be impossible,
he is quite capable of marshalling his arms to suit himself. Is
not "a shield of pretence" arms which a lord claims and which he
adds to his own? Thus it comes to pass that the crest, hard won in
deadly conflict, and the motto once the challenging battle-cry,
find themselves embalmed in the perfume of a fine lady's tinted
billet, or proudly displayed on the panels of her park equipage.
Thus is many a hard-won crest and proud escutcheon of old England
made to suffer the extreme penalty of the English law, "drawn and
quartered," and dragged captive in boastful triumph at the chariot
wheels of the Great Obscure! They can be made to order by any
engraver. They are used, unchallenged, by any and every body willing
to pay for them.
It may, therefore, be instructive to turn the pages of old Thomas
Fuller's "Worthies of England," and learn the rigid laws governing
the use of arms by these "Worthies."
The "fixing of hereditary arms in England was a hundred years
ancienter than Richard the Second"--in 1277, therefore. Before his
second invasion into France, Henry V issued a proclamation to the
sheriffs to this effect: "Because there are divers men who have
assumed to themselves arms and coat-armours where neither they nor
their ancestors in times past used such arms or coat-armours, all
such shall show cause on the day of muster why he useth arms and by
virtue of whose gift he enjoyeth the same: those only excepted who
carried arms with us at the battle of Agincourt;" and all detected
frauds were to be punished "with the loss of wages, as also the
rasing out and breaking off of said arms called coat-armours--and
this," adds his Majesty, with emphasis, "you shall in no case omit."
By a later order there was a more searching investigation into
the right to bear arms. A high heraldic officer, usually one of
the kings-at-arms, was sent into all the counties to examine the
pedigrees of the landed gentry, with a view of ascertaining whether
the arms borne by them were unwarrantably assumed. The king-at-arms
was accompanied on such occasions by secretaries or draftsmen. The
"Herald's Visitations," as they were termed, were regularly held as
early as 1433, and until between 1686 and 1700. Their object was by
no means to create coats of arms but to reject the unauthorized,
and confirm and verify those that were authentic. Thus the arms
of the Ball and Washington families had been subjected to strict
scrutiny before being registered in the Heralds' College. They could
not have been unlawfully assumed by the first immigrant, nor would
he, while living in England, have been allowed to mark his property
or seal his papers with those arms nor use them in any British
colony.
CHAPTER V
TRADITIONS OF MARY BALL'S EARLY LIFE
Of the ancestry of Mary Washington's mother nothing is known. She
was the "Widow Johnson," said to have descended from the Montagus
of England, and supposed to have been a housekeeper in Joseph
Ball's family, and married to him after the death of his first
wife. Members of the Ball family, after Mary Washington's death,
instituted diligent search to discover something of her mother's
birth and lineage. Their inquiries availed to show that she was an
Englishwoman. No connection of hers could be found in Virginia.
Since then, eminent historians and genealogists, notably Mr. Hayden
and Mr. Moncure Conway, have given time and research "to the most
important problem in Virginia genealogy,--Who and whence was Mary
Johnson, widow, mother of Mary Washington?" The Montagu family has
claimed her and discovered that the griffin of the house of Montagu
sometimes displaced the raven in General Washington's crest; and it
was asserted that the griffin had been discovered perched upon the
tomb of one Katharine Washington, at Piankatnk. To verify this, the
editor of the _William and Mary Quarterly_ journeyed to the tomb of
Katharine, and found the crest to be neither a raven or a griffin
but a wolf's head!
It matters little whether or no the mother of Washington came of
noble English blood; for while an honorable ancestry is a gift of
the gods, and should be regarded as such by those who possess it,
an honorable ancestry is not merely a titled ancestry. Descent from
nobles may be interesting, but it can only be honorable when the
strawberry leaves have crowned a wise head and the ermine warmed a
true heart. Three hundred years ago an English wit declared that
"Noblemen have seldom anything in print save their clothes."
Knowing that Mary Johnson was an Englishwoman, we might, had we
learned her maiden name, have rejoiced in tracing her to some family
of position, learning, or wealth; for position and learning are
desirable gifts, and wealth has been, and ever will be, a synonym
of power. It can buy the title and command genius. It can win
friendship, pour sunshine into dark places, cause the desert to
bloom. It can prolong and sweeten life, and alleviate the pangs of
death.
These brilliant settings, for the woman we would fain honor, are
denied us. That she was a jewel in herself, there can be no doubt.
We must judge of her as we judge of a tree by its fruits; as we
judge a fountain by the streams issuing therefrom. She was the
mother of a great woman "whose precepts and discipline in the
education of her illustrious son, himself acknowledged to have been
the foundation of his fortune and fame:--a woman who possessed not
the ambitions which are common to meaner minds." This was said of
her by one who knew Mary, the mother of Washington,--Mary, the
daughter of the obscure Widow Johnson.
Indeed, she was so obscure that the only clew we have to her
identity as Joseph Ball's wife is found in a clause of his will
written June 25, 1711, a few weeks before his death, where he
mentions "Eliza Johnson, daughter of my beloved wife."
Until a few months ago it was supposed that Mary Ball spent her
childhood and girlhood at Epping Forest, in Lancaster County; that
she had no schooling outside her home circle until her seventeenth
year; that she visited Williamsburg with her mother about that time;
that in 1728 her mother died, and she went to England to visit her
brother Joseph, a wealthy barrister in London. Her biographers
accepted these supposed facts and wove around them an enthusiastic
romance. They indulged in fancies of her social triumphs in
Williamsburg, the gay capital of the colony; of her beauty, her
lovers; how she was the "Rose of Epping Forest," the "Toast of the
Gallants of her Day." They followed her to England,--whence also
Augustine Washington was declared to have followed her,--sat with
her for her portrait, and brought her back either the bride, or soon
to become the bride, of Augustine Washington; brought back also
the portrait, and challenged the world to disprove the fact that
it must be genuine and a capital likeness, for had it not "George
Washington's cast of countenance"?
The search-light of investigation had been turned in vain upon the
county records of Lancaster. There she had not left even a fairy
footprint. What joy then to learn the truth from an accidental
discovery by a Union soldier of a bundle of old letters in an
abandoned house in Yorktown at the close of the Civil War! These
letters seemed to lift the veil of obscurity from the youthful
unmarried years of Mary, the mother of Washington. The first letter
is from Williamsburg, 1722:--
"Dear Sukey--Madam Ball of Lancaster and her sweet Molly have
gone Hom. Mama thinks Molly the Comliest Maiden She Knows. She
is about 16 yrs. old, is taller than Me, is verry Sensable,
Modest and Loving. Her Hair is like unto Flax. Her Eyes are the
colour of Yours, and her Chekes are like May blossoms. I wish
You could see Her."
A letter was also found purporting to have been written by Mary
herself to her brother in England; defective in orthography, to be
sure, but written in a plain, round hand:--
"We have not had a schoolmaster in our neighborhood until now in
five years. We have now a young minister living with us who was
educated at Oxford, took orders and came over as assistant to
Rev. Kemp at Gloucester. That parish is too poor to keep both,
and he teaches school for his board. He teaches Sister Susie
and me, and Madam Carter's boy and two girls. I am now learning
pretty fast. Mama and Susie and all send love to you and Mary.
This from your loving sister,
"Mary Ball."
The fragment of another letter was found by the Union soldier. This
letter is signed "Lizzie Burwell" and written to "Nelly Car----,"
but here, alas! the paper is torn. Only a part of a sentence can
be deciphered. "... understand Molly Ball is going Home with her
Brother, a lawyer who lives in England. Her Mother is dead three
months ago." The date is "May ye 15th, 1728," and Mary Ball is now
twenty years old.
Could any admiring biographer ask more? Flaxen hair, May
blossoms--delightful suggestion of Virginia peach-blooms, flowering
almond, hedge roses! "Sensible, Modest, and Loving!" What an
enchanting picture of the girlhood of the most eminent of American
women! The flying steeds of imagination were given free rein. Away
they went! They bore her to the gay life in Williamsburg, then the
provincial capital and centre of fashionable society in the Old
Dominion. There she rode in the heavy coaches drawn by four horses,
lumbering through the dusty streets: or she paid her morning visits
in the sedan-chairs, with tops hitherto flat but now beginning to
arch to admit the lofty head-dresses of the dames within. She met,
perhaps, the haughty soldier ex-Governor, who could show a ball
which had passed through his coat at Blenheim: and also her Serene
Highness, Lady Spotswood, immortalized by William Byrd as "gracious,
moderate, and good-humored." Who had not heard of her pier glasses
broken by the tame deer and how he fell back upon a table laden
with rare bric-a-brac to the great damage thereof! Along with the
records of the _habeas corpus_, tiffs with the burgesses, the
smelting of iron, the doughty deeds of the Knights of the Golden
Horseshoe, invariable mention had been made of this disaster, and of
the fact that the gracious Lady Spotswood "bore it with moderation
and good-humor." This sublime example might have had some influence
in moulding the manners of Mary Ball--one of whose crowning
characteristics was a calm self-control, never shaken by the most
startling events!
And then we took ship and sailed away with our heroine to
England--Augustine Washington, as became an ardent lover, following
ere long. Anon, we bore her, a happy bride, home again, bringing
with her a great treasure,--a portrait true to the life, every
feature bearing the stamp of genuineness. Through how many pages did
we gladly amplify this, chilled somewhat by fruitless searches for
"Sister Susie"! "Never," said an eminent genealogist, "never reject
or lose tradition. Keep it, value it, record it _as tradition_;"
but surely this was not tradition. It was documentary evidence,
but evidence rudely overthrown by another document,--a dry old
yellow will lately found by the Rev. G. W. Beale in the archives of
Northumberland County, in Virginia.
CHAPTER VI
REVELATIONS OF AN OLD WILL
The old will proves beyond all question that Mary Ball's girlhood
was not passed in Lancaster, that she had ample opportunity for
education, and was, therefore, not untaught until she was sixteen.
She, probably, never visited Williamsburg when seventeen,--certainly
never with her mother. There never was a Sister Susie! At the time
the Williamsburg letter announced the recent death of her mother,
that mother had for many years been sleeping quietly in her grave.
Moreover, the letter of Mary herself had done a great injustice to
Gloucester parish, which was not a "poor parish" at all--with an
impecunious curate working for his board--but a parish erecting at
that moment so fine a church that Bishop Meade's pious humility
suffered in describing it.
From Dr. Beale's researches we learn that the "Rose of Epping
Forest" was a tiny bud indeed when her father died; that before
her fifth birthday her mother had married Captain Richard Hewes, a
vestryman of St. Stephen's parish, Northumberland, and removed to
that parish with her three children, John and Elizabeth Johnson,
and our own little Mary Ball.
In 1713, Captain Hewes died, and his inventory was filed by
his "widow, Mary Hewes," who also died in the summer of 1721.
"It is seldom," says Dr. Beale,[3] commenting upon her last
will and testament, "that in a document of this kind, maternal
affection--having other and older children to share its bequests--so
concentrates itself upon a youngest daughter, and she a child of
thirteen summers. Perhaps of all the tributes laid at the feet of
Mary Washington, none has been more heart-felt or significant of her
worth than legacies of her mother's last will and testament, written
as they were, all unconsciously of her future distinction." The will
discovered by the Rev. G. W. Beale settles all controversies. For
the benefit of those who must see in order to believe, we copy it
verbatim.
[3] Rev. G. W. Beale in the _Virginia Historical Magazine_.
"In the name of God Amen, the seventeenth Day December in the
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twenty."
"I Mary Hewes of St. Stephen's Parish, Northumberland County,
widow, being sick and weak in body but of sound and perfect
memory, thanks be to Almighty God for the same, and calling to
mind the uncertain state of this transitory life, and that the
flesh must yield unto Death, when it shall please God to call,
do make and ordain this my last will and Testament.
"First, I give and bequeath my soul (to God) that gave it me,
and my body to the Earth to be buried in Decent Christian burial
at the discretion of my executors in these presents nominated.
And as touching such Worldly estate which it hath pleased God to
bestow upon me, I give, devise and dispose of in the following
manner and form. _Imprimis_, I give and devise unto my Daughter
Mary Ball one young likely negro woman to be purchased for her
out of my Estate by my Executors and to be delivered unto her
the said Mary Ball at the age of Eighteen years, but, my will
is that if the said Mary Ball should dye without Issue lawfully
begotten of her body that the said negro woman with her increase
shall return to my loving son John Johnson to him, his heirs and
assigns forever.
"_Item._ I give and bequeath unto my said Daughter Mary Ball two
gold rings, the one being a large hoop and the other a stoned
ring.
"_Item._ I give unto my said Daughter Mary Ball one young mare
and her increase which said mare I formerly gave her by word of
mouth.
"_Item._ I give and bequeath unto my said Daughter Mary Ball
sufficient furniture for the bed her father Joseph Ball left
her, vizt: One suit of good curtains and fallens, one Rugg, one
Quilt, one pair Blankets.
"_Item._ I give and bequeath unto my said Daughter Mary Ball two
Diaper Table clothes marked M. B. with inck, and one Dozen of
Diaper napkins, two towels, six plates, two pewter dishes, two
basins, one large iron pott, one Frying pan, one old trunk.
"_Item._ I give and bequeath unto my said Daughter Mary Ball,
one good young Paceing horse together with a good silk plush
side saddle to be purchased by my Executors out of my Estate.
"_Item._ I give and bequeath unto my Daughter Elizabeth Bonum
one suit of white and black callico, being part of my own
wearing apparel.
"_Item._ All the rest of my wearing apparel I give and bequeath
unto my said Daughter Mary Ball, and I do hereby appoint her
(to) be under Tutiledge and government of Capt. George Eskridge
during her minority.
"_Item._ My will is I do hereby oblige my Executors to pay to
the proprietor or his agent for the securing of my said Daughter
Mary Ball her land Twelve pounds if so much (be) due.
"_Item._ All the rest of my Estate real and personal whatsoever
and wheresoever I give and devise unto my son John Johnson,
and to his heirs lawfully to be begotten of his body, and for
default of such Issue I give and devise the said Estate unto my
Daughter Elizabeth Bonum, her heirs and assigns forever.
"_Item._ I do hereby appoint my son John Johnson and my trusty
and well beloved friend George Eskridge Executors of this my
last will and Testament and also revoke and Disannul all other
former wills or Testaments by me heretofore made or caused to be
made either by word or writing, ratifying and confirming this to
be my last Will and Testament and no other.
"In witness whereof I have hereunto sett my hand and seal the
Day and Date at first above written.
"The mark and seal of Mary III Hewes. Sig. (Seal) Signed, Sealed
and Published and Declared by Mary Hewes to be her last Will and
Testament in presence of us.
"The mark of Robert × Bradley.
"The mark of Ralph × Smithurst
"David Stranghan."
The chief witness to this will was a teacher of no mean repute who
lived near Mrs. Hewes, "And," says Dr. Beale, "others might be named
who followed the same calling in Mary Ball's girlhood and near her
home."
The son, John Johnson, named as joint executor in his mother's will,
died very soon after her. His will and hers were recorded on the
same day. The first bequest reveals his affection for his little
half-sister.
"_Imprimis._ I give and bequeath unto my sister Mary Ball all my
land in Stafford which my father-in-law Richard Hewes gave me,
to the said Mary Ball and her heirs lawfully to be begotten of
her body forever."
The will of Samuel Bonum, husband of the "Elizabeth" mentioned in
Mrs. Hewes's will, was probated in Westmoreland, Feb. 22, 1726, and
contains an item bequeathing "to my sister-in-law Mary Ball, my
young dapple gray riding horse." Mary Ball was then eighteen years
old.
So it appears that the mother of Washington, although not rich,
according to the standard of that day or this, was fairly well
endowed with Virginia real estate. Also that she owned three or more
riding-horses, her own maid, a few jewels, and house plenishing
sufficient for the station of a lady in her day and generation.
CHAPTER VII
MARY BALL'S CHILDHOOD
It is easy to imagine the childhood of Mary Ball. Children in
her day escaped from the nursery at an early age. They were not
hidden away in convents or sent to finishing schools. There were no
ostentatious débuts, no "coming-out teas." As soon as a girl was
fairly in her "teens" she was marriageable.
Little girls, from early babyhood, became the constant companions
of their mothers, and were treated with respect. Washington writes
gravely of "Miss Custis," six years old. They worked samplers,
learned to edge handkerchiefs with a wonderful imitation of
needle-point, plaited lace-strings for stays, twisted the fine
cords that drew into proper bounds the stiff bodices, knitted
garters and long hose, took lessons on the harpsichord, danced the
minuet, and lent their little hands to "clap muslins" on the great
clearstarching days, when the lace "steenkirk," and ruffled bosoms,
and ample kerchiefs, were "gotten up" and crimped into prescribed
shape. No lounging, idleness, or loss of time was permitted. The
social customs of the day enforced habits of self-control. For
long hours the little Mary was expected to sit upon high chairs,
with no relenting pillows or cushions, making her manners as became
a gentleman's daughter throughout the stated "dining days," when
guests arrived in the morning and remained until evening. Nor was
her upright figure, clad in silk coat and mittens, capuchin and
neckatees, ever absent from the front seat of the yellow chariot as
it swung heavily through the sands to return these stately visits,
or to take her mother and sister to old St. Stephen's church.
Arriving at the latter, she might possibly have had a glimpse now
and then of other little girls as she paced the gallery on her way
to the high-backed family pew, with its "railing of brass rods
with damask curtains to prevent the family from gazing around when
sitting or kneeling." Swallowed up in the great square pew she could
see nothing.
[Illustration: An Old Doll.]
From the viewpoint of a twentieth-century child, her small feet
were set in a hard, if not thorny, path. The limits of an early
colonial house allowed no space for the nursery devoted exclusively
to a child, and filled with every conceivable appliance for her
instruction and amusement. There were no wonderful mechanical
animals, lifelike in form and color, and capable of exercising many
of their functions. One stiff-jointed, staring, wooden effigy was
the only prophecy of the enchanting doll family,--the blue-eyed,
brown-eyed, flaxen-curled, sleeping, talking, walking, and dimpled
darlings of latter-day children,--and the wooden-handled board,
faced with horn and bound with brass, the sole representative of the
child's picture-book of to-day. No children's books were printed
in England until the middle of the eighteenth century; but one
Thomas Flint, a Boston printer, appreciating the rhymes that his
mother-in-law, Mrs. Goose, sang to his children, published them
in book form and gave them a name than which none is more sure of
immortality. This, however, was in 1719--too late for our little
Mary Ball. She had only the horn-book as resource in the long, dark
days when the fairest of all books lay hidden beneath the snows of
winter--the horn-book, immortalized by Thomas Tickell as far back as
1636:--
"Thee will I sing, in comely wainscot bound,
And golden verge enclosing thee around:
The faithful horn before, from age to age
Preserving thy invulnerable page;
Behind, thy patron saint in armor shines
With sword and lance to guard the sacred lines.
The instructed handles at the bottom fixed
Lest wrangling critics should pervert the text."
The "sword and lance" were in allusion to the one illustration of
the horn-book. When the blue eyes wearied over the alphabet, Lord's
prayer, and nine digits, they might be refreshed with a picture of
St. George and the Dragon, rudely carved on the wooden back. The
"instructed handle" clasped the whole and kept it together.
[Illustration: Horn-book.]
All orphans and poor children in colonial Virginia were provided
with public schools under the care of the vestries of the
parishes--"litle houses," says Hugh Jones in 1722, "built on purpose
where are taught English, writing, etc." Parents were compelled to
send their children to these schools, and masters to whom children
were bound were required to give them schooling until "ye years
of twelfe or thereabout" without distinction of race or sex. For
instance, in the vestry book of Petsworth Parish, in Gloucester
County, is an indenture dated Oct. 30, 1716, of Ralph Bevis to give
George Petsworth, "a molattoe boy of the age of 2 years, 3 years'
schooling; and carefully to instruct him afterwards that he may
read well any part of the Bible." Having mastered the Bible, all
literary possibilities were open to the said George. The gentry,
however, employed private tutors in their own families,--Scotchmen
or Englishmen fresh from the universities, or young curates from
Princeton or Fagg's Manor in Pennsylvania. Others secured teachers
by indenture. "In Virginia," says the _London Magazine_, "a clever
servant is often indentured to some master as a schoolmaster." John
Carter of Lancaster directed in his will that his son Robert should
have "a youth servant bought for him to teach him in his books in
English or Latin." Early advertisements in the _Virginia Gazette_
assured all "single men capable of teaching children to Read
English, write or Cypher or Greek Latin and Mathematicks--also all
Dancing Masters," that they "would meet with good encouragement" in
certain neighborhoods.
But this was after Mary Ball's childhood. Days of silent listening
to the talk of older people were probably her early school days. In
Virginia there were books, true, but the large libraries of thirty
years later had not yet been brought over. There was already a
fine library at Stratford in Westmoreland. Colonel Byrd's library
was considered vast when it attained to "3600 titles." Books were
unfashionable at court in England. No power in heaven or earth has
been yet found to keep the wise and witty from writing them, but in
the first years of the eighteenth century it was very bad form to
talk about them. Later, even, the first gentleman in England was
always furious at the sight of books. Old ladies used to declare
that "Books were not fit articles for drawing-rooms." "Books!" said
Sarah Marlborough; "prithee, don't talk to me about books! The only
books I know are men and cards."
But there were earnest talkers in Virginia, and the liveliest
interest in all kinds of affairs. It was a picturesque time in the
life of the colony. Things of interest were always happening. We
know this of the little Mary,--she was observant and wise, quiet
and reflective. She had early opinions, doubtless, upon the powers
of the vestries, the African slave-trade, the right of a Virginia
assembly to the privileges of parliament, and other grave questions
of her time. Nor was the time without its vivid romances. Although
no witch was ever burnt in Virginia, Grace Sherwood, who must have
been young and comely, was arrested "under suspetion of witchcraft,"
condemned by a jury of old women because of a birth-mark on her
body, and sentenced to a seat in the famous ducking-stool, which had
been, in the wisdom of the burgesses, provided to still the tongues
of "brabbling women,"--a sentence never inflicted, for a few glances
at her tearful eyes won from the relenting justice the order that
this ducking was to be "in no wise without her consent, _or if the
day should be rainy_, or in any way to endanger her health!"
[Illustration: Ducking-stool.]
Stories were told around the fireside on winter nights, when the
wooden shutters rattled--for rarely before 1720 were "windows
sasht with crystal glass." The express, bringing mails from the
north, had been scalped by Indians. Four times in one year had
homeward-bound ships been sunk by pirates. Men, returning to England
to receive an inheritance, were waylaid on the high seas, robbed,
and murdered. In Virginia waters the dreaded "Blackbeard" had it
all his own way for a while. Finally, his grim head is brought home
on the bowsprit of a Virginia ship, and a drinking-cup, rimmed with
silver, made of the skull that held his wicked brains. Of course,
it could not be expected that he could rest in his grave under
these circumstances, and so, until fifty years ago (when possibly
the drinking-cup was reclaimed by his restless spirit), his phantom
sloop might be seen spreading its ghostly sails in the moonlight on
the York River and putting into Ware Creek to hide ill-gotten gains
in the Old Stone House. Only a few years before had the dreadful
Tuscaroras risen with fire and tomahawk in the neighbor colony of
North Carolina.
[Illustration: The Old Stone House.]
Nearer home, in her own neighborhood, in fact, were many suggestive
localities which a child's fears might people with supernatural
spirits. Although there were no haunted castles with dungeon, moat,
and tower, there were deserted houses in lonely places, with open
windows like hollow eyes, graveyards half hidden by tangled creepers
and wept over by ancient willows. About these there sometimes hung a
mysterious, fitful light which little Mary, when a belated traveller
in the family coach, passed with bated breath, lest warlocks or
witches should issue therefrom, to say nothing of the interminable
stretches of dark forests, skirting ravines fringed with poisonous
vines, and haunted by the deadly rattlesnake. People talked of
strange, unreal lights peeping through the tiny port-holes of the
old Stone House on York River--that mysterious fortress believed to
have been built by John Smith--while, flitting across the doorway,
had been seen the dusky form of Pocahontas, clad in her buckskin
robe, with a white plume in her hair: keeping tryst, doubtless, with
Captain Smith, with none to hinder, now that the dull, puritanic
John Rolfe was dead and buried; and, as we have said, Blackbeard's
sloop would come glimmering down the river, and the bloody horror of
a headless body would land and wend its way to the little fortress
which held his stolen treasure. Moreover, Nathaniel Bacon had risen
from his grave in York River, and been seen in the Stone House with
his compatriots, Drummond, Bland, and Hansford.
Doubtless such stories inspired many of little Mary's early dreams,
and caused her to tremble as she lay in her trundle-bed,--kept all
day beneath the great four poster, and drawn out at night,--unless,
indeed, her loving mother allowed her to climb the four steps
leading to the feather sanctuary behind the heavy curtains, and held
her safe and warm in her own bosom.
CHAPTER VIII
GOOD TIMES IN OLD VIRGINIA
Despite the perils and perplexities of the time; the irreverence
and profanity of the clergy; the solemn warning of the missionary
Presbyterians; the death of good Queen Anne, the last of the
Stuarts, so dear to the hearts of loyal Virginians; the forebodings
on the accession to the throne of the untried Guelphs; the total
lack of many of the comforts and conveniences of life, Virginians
love to write of the early years of the century as "the golden age
of Virginia." These were the days known as the "good old times
in old Virginia," when men managed to live without telegraphs,
railways, and electric lights. "It was a happy era!" says Esten
Cooke. "Care seemed to keep away and stand out of its sunshine.
There was a great deal to enjoy. Social intercourse was on the most
friendly footing. The plantation house was the scene of a round
of enjoyments. The planter in his manor house, surrounded by his
family and retainers, was a feudal patriarch ruling everybody;
drank wholesome wine--sherry or canary--of his own importation;
entertained every one; held great festivities at Christmas, with
huge log fires in the great fireplaces, around which the family
clan gathered. It was the life of the family, not of the world,
and produced that intense attachment for the soil which has become
proverbial. Everybody was happy! Life was not rapid, but it was
satisfactory. The portraits of the time show us faces without those
lines which care furrows in the faces of the men of to-day. That old
society succeeded in working out the problem of living happily to an
extent which we find few examples of to-day."
"The Virginians of 1720," according to Henry Randall, "lived in
baronial splendor; their spacious grounds were bravely ornamented;
their tables were loaded with plate and with the luxuries of the old
and new world; they travelled in state, their coaches dragged by
six horses driven by three postilions. When the Virginia gentleman
went forth with his household his cavalcade consisted of the mounted
white males of the family, the coach and six lumbering through the
sands, and a retinue of mounted servants and led horses bringing
up the rear. In their general tone of character the aristocracy of
Virginia resembled the landed gentry of the mother country. Numbers
of them were highly educated and accomplished by foreign study and
travel. As a class they were intelligent, polished in manners,
high toned, and hospitable, sturdy in their loyalty and in their
adherence to the national church."
Another historian, writing from Virginia in 1720, says: "Several
gentlemen have built themselves large brick houses of many rooms
on a floor, but they don't covet to make them lofty, having extent
enough of ground to build upon, and now and then they are visited
by winds which incommode a towering fabric. Of late they have
sasht their windows with crystal glass; adorning their apartments
with rich furniture. They have their graziers, seedsmen, brewers,
gardeners, bakers, butchers and cooks within themselves, and have a
great plenty and variety of provisions for their table; and as for
spicery and things the country don't produce, they have constant
supplies of 'em from England. The gentry pretend to have their
victuals served up as nicely as the best tables in England."
A quaint old Englishman, Peter Collinson, writes in 1737 to his
friend Bartram when he was about taking Virginia in his field of
botanical explorations: "One thing I must desire of thee, and do
insist that thee oblige me therein: that thou make up that drugget
clothes to go to Virginia in, and not appear to disgrace thyself and
me; for these Virginians are a very gentle, well-dressed people, and
look, perhaps, more at a man's outside than his inside. For these
and other reasons pray go very clean, neat and handsomely dressed to
Virginia. Never mind thy clothes: I will send more another year."
Those were not troublous days of ever changing fashion. Garments
were, for many years, cut after the same patterns, varying mainly
in accordance with the purses of their wearers. "The petticoats of
sarcenet, with black, broad lace printed on the bottom and before;
the flowered satin and plain satin, laced with rich lace at the
bottom," descended from mother to daughter with no change in the
looping of the train or decoration of bodice and ruff. There were
no mails to bring troublesome letters to be answered when writing
was so difficult and spelling so uncertain. Not that there was
the smallest disgrace in bad spelling! Trouble on that head was
altogether unnecessary.
There is not the least doubt that life, notwithstanding its dangers
and limitations and political anxieties, passed happily to these
early planters of Virginia. The lady of the manor had occupation
enough and to spare in managing English servants and negroes, and
in purveying for a table of large proportions. Nor was she without
accomplishments. She could dance well, embroider, play upon the
harpsichord or spinet, and wear with grace her clocked stockings,
rosetted, high-heeled shoes and brave gown of "taffeta and moyre"
looped over her satin quilt.
There was no society column in newspapers to vex her simple soul
by awakening unwholesome ambitions. There was no newspaper until
1736. She had small knowledge of any world better than her own, of
bluer skies, kinder friends, or gayer society. She managed well her
large household, loved her husband, and reared kindly but firmly her
many sons and daughters. If homage could compensate for the cares
of premature marriage, the girl-wife had her reward. She lived in
the age and in the land of chivalry, and her "amiable qualities of
mind and heart" received generous praise. As a matron she was adored
by her husband and her friends. When she said, "Until death do us
part," she meant it. Divorce was unknown; its possibility undreamed
of. However and wherever her lot was cast she endured to the end;
fully assured that when she went to sleep behind the marble slab in
the garden an enumeration of her virtues would adorn her tombstone.
In the light of the ambitions of the present day, the scornful
indifference of the colonists to rank, even among those entitled to
it, is curious. Very rare were the instances in which young knights
and baronets elected to surrender the free life in Virginia and
return to England to enjoy their titles and possible preferment. One
such embryo nobleman is quoted as having answered to an invitation
from the court, "I prefer my land here with plentiful food for my
family to becoming a starvling at court."
Governor Page wrote of his father, Mason Page of Gloucester, born
1718, "He was urged to pay court to Sir Gregory Page whose heir he
was supposed to be but he despised title as much as I do; and would
have nothing to say to the rich, silly knight, who finally died,
leaving his estate to a sillier man than himself--_one Turner_, who,
by act of parliament, took the name and title of Gregory Page."
Everything was apparently settled upon a firm, permanent basis.
Social lines were sharply drawn, understood, and recognized. The
court "at home" across the seas influenced the mimic court at
Williamsburg. Games that had been fashionable in the days of the
cavaliers were popular in Virginia. Horse-racing, cock-fighting,
cards, and feasting, with much excess in eating and drinking, marked
the social life of the subjects of the Georges in Virginia as in the
mother country. It was an English colony,--wearing English garments,
with English manners, speech, customs, and fashions. They had
changed their skies only.
_Coelum, non animum, qui trans mare currunt._
It is difficult to understand that, while custom and outward
observance, friendship, lineage, and close commercial ties bound
the colony to England, forces, of which neither was conscious,
were silently at work to separate them forever. And this without
the stimulus of discontent arising from poverty or want. It was a
time of the most affluent abundance. The common people lived in the
greatest comfort, as far as food was concerned. Fish and flesh,
game, fruits, and flowers, were poured at their feet from a liberal
horn-of-plenty. Deer, coming down from the mountains to feed upon
the mosses that grew on the rocks in the rivers, were shot for the
sake of their skins only, until laws had to be enforced lest the
decaying flesh pollute the air. Painful and hazardous as were the
journeys, the traveller always encumbered himself with abundant
provision for the inner man.
When the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe accomplished the perilous
feat of reaching the summit of the Blue Ridge Mountains, they had
the honor of drinking King George's health in "Virginia red wine,
champagne, brandy, shrub, cider, canary, cherry punch, white wine,
Irish usquebaugh, and two kinds of rum,"--all of which they had
managed to carry along, keeping a sharp lookout all day for Indians,
and sleeping on their arms at night. A few years later we find Peter
Jefferson ordering from Henry Wetherburn, innkeeper, the biggest
bowl of arrack punch ever made, and trading the same with William
Randolph for two hundred acres of land.
We are not surprised to find that life was a brief enjoyment.
Little Mary Ball, demurely reading from the tombstones in the old
St. Stephen's church, had small occasion for arithmetic beyond the
numbers of thirty or forty years--at which age, having "Piously
lived and comfortably died, leaving the sweet perfume of a good
reputation," these light-hearted good livers went to sleep behind
their monuments.
Of course the guardians of the infant colony spent many an anxious
hour evolving schemes for the control of excessive feasting and
junketing. The clergy were forced to ignore excesses, not daring
to reprove them for fear of losing a good living. Their brethren
across the seas cast longing eyes upon Virginia. It was an age
of intemperance. The brightest wits of England, her poets and
statesmen, were "hard drinkers." "All my hopes terminate," said
Dean Swift in 1709, "in being made Bishop of Virginia." There the
Dean, had he been so inclined, could hope for the high living and
hard drinking which were in fashion. There, too, in the tolerant
atmosphere of a new country, he might--who knows?--have felt free to
avow his marriage with the unhappy Stella.
In Virginia the responsibility of curbing the fun-loving community
devolved upon the good burgesses, travelling down in their sloops to
hold session at Williamsburg. We find them making laws restraining
the jolly planters. A man could be presented for gaming, swearing,
drunkenness, selling crawfish on Sunday, becoming engaged to more
than one woman at a time, and, as we have said, there was always the
ducking-stool for "brabbling women who go about from house to house
slandering their neighbors:--a melancholy proof that even in those
Arcadian days the tongue required control."
CHAPTER IX
MARY BALL'S GUARDIAN AND HER GIRLHOOD
Except for the bequest in her brother-in-law's will, nothing
whatever is known of Mary Ball for nine years--indeed, until her
marriage with Augustine Washington in 1730. The traditions of
these years are all based upon the letters found by the Union
soldier,--genuine letters, no doubt, but relating to some other Mary
Ball who, in addition to the flaxen hair and May-blossom cheeks,
has had the honor of masquerading, for nearly forty years, as the
mother of Washington, and of having her story and her letters placed
reverently beneath the corner-stone of the Mary Washington monument.
Mary Ball, only thirteen years old when her mother died, would
naturally be taken to the Westmoreland home of her sister Elizabeth,
wife of Samuel Bonum and only survivor, besides herself, of her
mother's children. Elizabeth was married and living in her own
house seven years before Mrs. Hewes died. The Bonum residence was
but a few miles distant from that of Mrs. Hewes, and a mile and a
half from Sandy Point, where lived the "well-beloved and trusty
friend George Eskridge." Major Eskridge "seated" Sandy Point in
Westmoreland about 1720. The old house was standing until eight
years ago, when it was destroyed by fire. He had seven children; the
fifth child, Sarah, a year older than Mary Ball and doubtless her
friend and companion.
Under the "tutelage and government" of a man of wealth, eminent in
his profession of the law, the two little girls would naturally be
well and faithfully instructed. We can safely assume, considering
all these circumstances, that Mary Ball's girlhood was spent in the
"Northern Neck of Virginia," and at the homes of Major Eskridge and
her only sister; and that these faithful guardians provided her
with as liberal an education as her station demanded and the times
permitted there cannot be the least doubt. Her own affectionate
regard for them is emphatically proven by the fact that she gave
to her first-born son the name of George Eskridge, to another son
that of Samuel Bonum, and to her only daughter that of her sister
Elizabeth.
Tradition tells us that in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, George Eskridge, who was a young law student, while walking
along the shore on the north coast of Wales, studying a law-book,
was suddenly seized by the Press Gang, carried aboard ship and
brought to the colony of Virginia. As the custom was, he was sold
to a planter for a term of eight years. During that time, he was not
allowed to communicate with his friends at home. He was treated very
harshly, and made to lodge in the kitchen, where he slept, because
of the cold, upon the hearth.
On the day that his term of service expired he rose early, and with
his mattock dislodged the stones of the hearth. Upon his master's
remonstrance, he said, "The bed of a departing guest must always
be made over for his successor;" and throwing down his mattock he
strode out of the house, taking with him the law-book which had been
his constant companion during his years of slavery.
He returned to England, completed his law studies, was admitted to
the bar, and, returning to Virginia, was granted many thousand acres
of land, held several colonial positions, and became eminent among
the distinguished citizens of the "Northern Neck,"--the long, narrow
strip of land included between the Potomac and the Rappahannock
rivers. His daughter, Sarah, married Willoughby Newton, and lived
near Bonum Creek in Westmoreland. The family intermarried, also,
with the Lee, Washington, and other distinguished families in the
Northern Neck.
CHAPTER X
YOUNG MEN AND MAIDENS OF THE OLD DOMINION
The social setting for Mary Ball--now a young lady--is easily
defined. It matters little whether she did or did not visit her
brother in England. She certainly belonged to the society of
Westmoreland, "the finest," says Bishop Meade, "for culture and
sound patriotism in the Colony." Around her lived the families of
Mason, Taliaferro, Mountjoy, Travers, Moncure, Mercer, Tayloe,
Ludwell, Fitzhugh, Lee, Newton, Washington, and others well known
as society leaders in 1730. If she was, as her descendants claim
for her, "The Toast of the Gallants of Her Day," these were the
"Gallants,"--many of them the fathers of men who afterward shone
like stars in the galaxy of revolutionary heroes.
The gallants doubtless knew and visited their tide-water
friends,--the Randolphs, Blands, Harrisons, Byrds, Nelsons, and
Carters,--and, like them, followed the gay fashions of the day.
They wrote sonnets and acrostics and valentines to their Belindas,
Florellas, Fidelias, and Myrtyllas--the real names of Molly, Patsy,
Ann, and Mary being reckoned too homespun for the court of Cupid.
These gallants wore velvet and much silk; the long vests that
Charles the Second had invented as "a fashion for gentlemen of all
time"; curled, powdered wigs, silver and gold lace; silken hose and
brilliant buckles. Many of them had been educated abroad, or at
William and Mary College,--where they had been rather a refractory
set, whose enormities must be winked at,--even going so far as to
"keep race-horses at ye college, and bet at ye billiard and other
gaming tables." Whatever their sins or shortcomings, they were
warm-hearted and honorable, and most chivalrous to women. It was
fashionable to present locks of hair tied in true-lovers' knots,
to tame cardinal-birds and mocking-birds for the colonial damsels,
to serenade them with songs and stringed instruments under their
windows on moonlight nights, to manufacture valentines of thinnest
cut paper in intricate foldings, with tender sentiments tucked shyly
under a bird's wing or the petal of a flower.
With the youthful dames themselves, in hoop, and stiff bodice,
powder and "craped" tresses, who cut watch-papers and worked
book-marks for the gallants, we are on terms of intimacy. We know
all their "tricks and manners," through the laughing Englishman,
and their own letters. An unpublished manuscript still circulates
from hand to hand in Virginia, under oath of secrecy, for it
contains a tragic secret, which reveals the true character of the
mothers of Revolutionary patriots. These letters express high
sentiment in strong, vigorous English, burning with patriotism
and ardent devotion to the interests of the united colonies--not
alone to Virginia. The spelling, and absurdly plentiful capitals,
were those of the period, and should provoke no criticism. Ruskin
says, "no beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment
of thought." Beauty of execution and good spelling, according to
modern standards, do not appear in the letters of Mary Ball and her
friends, but they are seasoned with many a grain of good sense and
thought.
Of course we cannot know the names of her best friends. Her social
position entitled her to intimacy with the sisters of any or all of
the "gallants" we have named. She might have known Jane Randolph,
already giving her heart to plain Peter Jefferson, and destined
to press to her bosom the baby fingers that grew to frame the
Declaration of Independence; or Sarah Winston, whose brilliant
talents flashed in such splendor from the lips of Patrick Henry; or
ill-starred Evelyn Byrd, whose beauty had fired the sluggish veins
of George II and inspired a kingly pun upon her name, "Much have I
heard, lady, of thy fair country, but of the beauty of its birds I
know but now,"--all these and more; to say nothing of the mother
of Sally and Molly Cary, of Lucy Grymes, of Betsy Fauntleroy, and
of Mary Bland, each of whom has been claimed by Lossing and others
to be the Lowland beauty, to whom her illustrious son wrote such
wonderful sonnets, but quite impossible in the case of Mary Bland,
seeing she was born in 1704, and was some years older than his
mother.
They were a light-hearted band of maidens in these pre-Revolutionary
days in the "Old Dominion!" They had no dreams sadder than mystic
dreams on bride's cake, no duties except those imposed by affection,
no tasks too difficult, no burdens too heavy. They sang the old-time
songs, and danced the old-time dances, and played the old-time
English games around the Christmas fires, burning nuts, and naming
apple seeds, and loving their loves "with an A or a B," even
although my Lady Castlemaine, of whom no one could approve, had so
entertained her very doubtful friends a hundred years before. They
had the Pyrrhic dances, but they had the Pyrrhic phalanx as well!
The "nobler and manlier lessons" were not forgotten in all the
light-hearted manners of the age.
CHAPTER XI
THE TOAST OF THE GALLANTS OF HER DAY
Of the "Mistress Mary Ball's" personal appearance we know nothing,
unless we can guide our imaginations by the recollections of old
Fredericksburg neighbors who knew her after she had passed middle
age. Washington Irving says she was a beauty and a belle. He had
only one source of information, George Washington Parke Custis, the
sole eye-witness who wrote of her personal appearance in middle
life. Sparks, Lossing, and all the rest who have described her, had
no other. Parson Weems, of course, had something to say; but we do
not know that he ever saw her. Any pen-portrait made of her to-day
can boast only an outline of truth. Probability and imagination must
fill in the picture. It is _certain_ that she was "finely formed,
her features pleasing, yet strongly marked." That is all! Has not
some one said "her eyes were blue"? Well, then, fair hair and fair
complexion would match the blue eyes. She was purely English. Her
mother was probably born in England, her grandmother and grandfather
were certainly born and reared there. Her type was that of an
athletic, healthy Englishwoman, to whom an upright carriage and much
out-of-door life gave a certain style. I, for one, am assured that
she was handsome and distingué,--a superb woman in every particular.
She possessed a pure, high spirit, and
"Every spirit as it is most pure
And hath in it the more of heavenly light--
So it the fairer bodie doth procure
To habit in."
[Illustration: OLD YEOCOMICO CHURCH.]
Imagination and probability join hands in picturing her on
horseback. She was a fearless and expert horsewoman. At thirteen
years of age she had owned her own mount, her own plush saddle.
Now, at twenty, we find her in "habit, hat, and feather" at home
on her own dapple-gray, her brother-in-law's gift--she was too
good a horsewoman for mad gallops--"pacing" through the lanes in
Westmoreland to and fro from Bonum Creek to Sandy Point, or to
Yeocomico church, or to superintend her own fields. Her English
habit is of scarlet cloth, long and flowing as to the skirt and
tightly fitted as to the bodice. Her hat is of beaver, and hat and
floating plume alike are black.
This is a pleasing picture of the mother of our adored Washington,
and it is as true a picture as we have authority for drawing. It
would have helped much if we could have accepted any one of the
portraits claiming to be genuine, although no one of them expresses
the type which we may reasonably suppose to have been hers. Her
own descendants and the wisest historians declare she left no
portrait. A picture, claiming to be such, hangs to-day in Lancaster
court-house--one that was genuine was burned in the home of her
early married life. Handsome and stately she certainly was. Nor
can we suppose from the character developed in her early maternal
life, that she mingled to any extent in the gayeties of her time.
In no letter, no record of any kind, is her name mentioned until
her marriage. She was doubtless always grave, always thoughtful,
concerning herself much with her religious duties, industrious
in womanly occupations, reverently attentive to the services at
Yeocomico church, of which the Eskridge family were members.
We may be sure she was instructed in dancing--the universal
accomplishment of the time. The saintly blind preacher, James
Waddell, had his daughters, to the great scandal of his Presbyterian
followers, taught to dance; his defence being that "no parent has
a right to make his children unfit for polite society." Members of
the Lee, Corbyn, and other influential families of her neighborhood
urged the building of a "Banquetting House"--a rustic casino--in
Pickatown's Field in Westmoreland, according to contracts made
years before, "to make an Honourable treatment fit to entertain
the undertakers thereof, their wives, mistresses (sweethearts) and
friends, yearly and every year;" and the "yearly and every year"
was likely to be construed, as the merry colonists knew well how
to construe all opportunities for pleasure. For despite Francis
Makemie, James Waddell, and the truly evangelical priests of the
Established Church--of whom there were still some--the times went
merrily in old Virginia; and the waters of the York had cooled long
ago the fevered blood of the first martyr to freedom; and Benjamin
Franklin was composing ballads upon "Blackbeard, the pyrate," to
say nothing of rollicking rhymes fit no longer for ears polite; and
Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, and George Washington were yet
unborn.
The veil of obscurity which hangs over the unmarried life of Mary
Ball will never be lifted. The evidence is all in, the testimony
all taken. It is certain that she could hardly escape the social
round in the gay society of Westmoreland, and quite as certain that
she was not a prominent part of it. When the gardener desires the
perfecting of some flower, to bloom but once in a twelve-month, he
keeps it secluded in some cool, dark spot--only when well rooted
bringing it forth into the sunlight. Thus the mind and character
grow best in quiet and seclusion, becoming serene, strong, and
superior to petty passions. When Mary Ball's hour was come, when
her high vocation was pressed upon her, she was rooted and grounded
in all things requisite for her exalted but difficult lot.
The years of which we have no record included the formative period
of her life. They were dark years in the religious history of the
colony. She could have small help from the clerical guides of
the day. Even at the best, a church service was mainly a social
function,--prayers hurriedly read, perfunctory sermon of short
duration, followed by a social half-hour for the purpose of giving
and accepting invitations to dinner. The dinner ended with the
inevitable punch bowl, over which the clergyman was often the first
to become incapable of pursuing his journey home. It had not been
so very long since a rector of the Wicomoco church had reached the
limit of irreverence. While administering the Communion of the
Lord's Supper, upon tasting the bread, he had cried out to the
church warden, "George, this bread is not fit for a dog."[4]
[4] Foote's "Sketches of Virginia."
A more unwilling witness against the clergy than good Bishop Meade
can hardly be imagined. He tells of one who was for years the
president of a jockey club; of another who was an habitué of the
bar of a country tavern, often seen reeling to and fro with a bowl
of "toddy" in his hands, challenging the passers-by to "come in
and have a drink"; of still another who indulged in a fisticuff
with some of his vestrymen, floored them, and next Sunday preached
a sermon from Nehemiah, "And I contended with them and cursed them
and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair!" (Let us
hope they were "Gentlemen" and therefore wore the wigs fashionable
in their day. "Plucked off" seems to imply as much.) One of these
recreant rectors fought a duel within the grounds of his own church;
all of them, according to a report made to the Bishop of London,
were either "slothful and negligent" or "debauched and bent on all
manner of vices."
No one of the Established Church ever _gave_ his services. They were
paid for by the piece or dozen like any other merchantable article.
In St. Stephen's parish the vestry book, in 1712, records the price
of sermons, for instance, to "Rev. John Bell for eight sermons 450
pounds of tobacco apiece." The Rev. Mr. Lechardy rated his eloquence
at a lower figure, "for two sermons 600 pounds of tobacco," etc.
Notwithstanding the velvet and lace, the powder, perfume, and
high-flown compliments of "the gallants of the early eighteenth
century" license of speech was universal. Colonel Byrd, the courtly
master of Westover, wrote letters too gross for the pages of a
reputable magazine. Swearing among women was as common as in the
"spacious times of great Elizabeth." From all this, no tutelage and
government, however careful, could insure escape. In spite of all
this and more, Mary Ball acquired the refinement and moderation of
speech by which she was characterized.
CHAPTER XII
HER MARRIAGE AND EARLY LIFE
"The 'Rose of Epping Forest,'" says one of her descendants, "and
'reigning Belle of the Northern Neck,' as she was universally
styled, would, in common parlance, be called 'hard to please,' in
that, in times when marriages were early she did not resign her
sceptre until she had attained the then ripe age of twenty-two--not
'love-inspiring sixteen,' as Parson Weems would have us believe. In
this she exhibited that consummate wisdom, calm equipoise of soul,
and perfect self-control so strikingly displayed throughout her
subsequent career."
She was blessed then with the priceless gift of a long and happy
girlhood--that sweet fountain of pure waters, the memory of which
has cheered so many women throughout a long and difficult life. In
her day so late a marriage was not only eccentric but something to
be condemned as unwise. The reluctant Virginia belle was warned that
those who "walked through the woods with a haughty spirit would have
to stoop at last and pick up a crooked stick." That women could
stand alone was unthinkable in those days. A staff was essential,
and she who scorned the stately saplings of the forest would surely
be forced at last to accept some inferior windfall.
But Mary Ball chose wisely and well; of this we may be sure.
Augustine Washington died before he could earn the honor of
impressing her life or that of his illustrious son.
He belonged to an old English family which had sent two of its
members to Virginia early in the seventeenth century, and, as we
have seen, his grandfather held positions of honor and trust in the
colony.
With the origin of his crest,--the closed visor, the soaring
raven,--with the motto _Excitus acta probat_, we need not concern
ourselves. The shield itself is more to our purpose, for it
furnished the pattern for the Stars and Stripes of this country;
and is surely of all insignia the most distinguished, since in all
lands, on all waters, amid all the emblems of the pride of the
world, it stands preëminent as the emblem of freedom won by valor.
It should be quite enough for us to know, "He was a gentleman of
high standing, noble character, large property and considerable
personal attractions, being of fair complexion, tall stature,
commanding presence and an age not disproportioned to her own."
He was a neighbor of Major George Eskridge, although their homes
were fifteen or twenty miles distant from each other. We have all
supposed that he followed Mary Ball to England and was married
there. Possibly, not probably. He was a plain Virginia planter,
immersed in business and domestic cares, and it is not probable that
he went to England in quest of Mary Ball. Why should he cross the
ocean to gather the flower that grew at his threshold?
It is much more likely that he rode over to attend service in the
handsome, recently erected Yeocomico church, and to visit George
Eskridge at Sandy Point, coming with his first wife and their little
boys, Lawrence and Augustine. Elizabeth Bonum lived a mile and a
half from Sandy Point. It is quite certain that all the families
in this hospitable region knew and visited each other. Mary Ball
probably knew Augustine Washington well, long before he was a
widower.
All this seems prosaic by contrast with the legend that "the
fair American" met her future husband while she was visiting
her half-brother in a Berkshire town in England; that one day a
gentleman was thrown from his travelling chariot in front of her
brother's gate, was seriously injured, brought in and nursed by the
fair hands of Mary herself; that love and marriage followed in short
order; that the pair lived several years in a villa at Cookham. All
this is so much more attractive than a plain story of propinquity
and old-fashioned neighborhood friendship, blossoming into a
temperate, middle-aged, old-fashioned widower-love and marriage! But
we are constrained to accept the latter, having no proof of anything
better. Besides, where were Lawrence and Augustine during all those
halcyon years? Who was looking after those lambs while the Shepherd
was disporting himself at villas in Cookham?
The snows had melted from the violet beds, and the "snow-birds"
were nesting in the cedars when our Mary left her girlhood's home
to become the wife of Augustine Washington. Her new home was a
large, old-fashioned house on the banks of the Potomac--one of those
dwellings with great low-stretching roof, which always reminds me of
a gigantic fowl brooding with expanded wings over its young. It was
not one of the imposing colonial houses just then (March 6, 1730) in
process of erection. Marion Harland says, in her reverent "Story of
Mary Washington": "Augustine Washington's plantation of Wakefield
rested upon the Potomac, and was a mile in width. Wakefield
comprised a thousand acres of as fine wood and bottom land as were
to be found in a county that by reason of the worth, talents and
patriotism that adorned it was called the Athens of Virginia. The
house faced the Potomac, the lawn sloping to the bank between three
and four hundred yards distant from the 'porch,' running from corner
to corner of the old dwelling. There were four rooms of fair size
upon the first floor, the largest in a one-story extension in the
back being the chamber. The high roof above the main building was
pierced by dormer windows that lighted a large attic. At each end of
the house was a chimney built upon the outside of the frame dwelling
and of dimensions that made the latter seem disproportionately
small. Each cavernous fireplace would hold half a cord of wood.
About the fireplace in the parlor were the blue Dutch tiles much
affected in the decorative architecture of the time." Here we can
fancy the bride, covertly exploring her new home and scanning
the footprints of her predecessor; keeping her own counsel, but
instructing herself as to what manner of woman had first enthroned
herself in the bosom of her lord.
It appears she was arrested in this voyage of discovery by a small
but rare treasure of books. Standing before the diamond-paned
"secretary," she examined one volume after another. Finally, turning
over the leaves of one, she read: "On Moderation and Anger," "On
Self-Denial," "On ye Vanity and Vexation which ariseth from Worldly
Hope and Expectation." These seemed to her words of wisdom by which
one might be guided. The title-page announced "Sir Matthew Hale's
Contemplations," the fly-leaf revealed the name of the owner, the
first wife, "Jane Washington." Finding the ink-horn, she wrote
firmly beneath, "And Mary Washington"--probably the first time
she had written the new name. We all know the rest: how this book
of England's learned Judge never left her side; how she read it
to her stepsons and her own sons; how it was reverenced by George
Washington; how it is treasured to-day at our National Mecca, Mount
Vernon.
CHAPTER XIII
BIRTHPLACE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
At the Wakefield house was born, Feb. 22, 1732, the eldest son of
this superb specimen of young American womanhood. There is not the
least doubt that he was in every respect "a fine boy" and worthy of
the best name his mother could give him.
[Illustration: Monument at Wakefield marking the Birthplace of
George Washington.]
She did not follow the invariable custom of colonial Virginians. He
was not called "John" or "Augustine" or "Joseph" after his father
or grandfathers. He was given the first name of the "Trusty and
well-beloved George Eskridge,"--a fact which has hitherto escaped
the notice of biographers,--and no more significant tribute could
have been paid to faithful guardianship. According to Virginia
customs, her only daughter would naturally have been named for her
mother and grandmother, but here, again, affectionate gratitude for
an elder sister's love to a motherless girl decided the name.
The old house with the brooding wings burned down soon after--the
thrifty young housewife setting fire to it, not by "warming her
posset," but in her zealous burning up of the leaves and débris of
her garden. Her husband was absent at the time, but she saved some
furniture and Sir Matthew Hale--and we read that the family "dined
that day" in apparent content "in the kitchen." It is certain there
was no great loss of pictures, hangings, bric-a-brac, bibelots, and
the ten thousand trifles with which the housewife of a later day
would have been encumbered. In the old wills, after disposition had
been made of the bed, furniture, and "Rugg," there seems to have
been little worth the dignity of a bequest. The rug--always included
with the bed and its belongings--was the only carpet in general use
in 1730. Besides these, a chamber could boast of little except a
tall table surmounted by a small mirror, before which one must stand
in arranging the head-dress only (for no part of the person lower
than the head could be reflected), and a grandfather chair drawn
near the ample fireplace. Both table and chair were covered in white
linen or Virginia cotton cloth,--the toilet cover embroidered by
the ladies of the family. Similar embroidery or a bit of brocade
adorned the pin-cushion, which was an important article, conserving
as it did the scarce, imported English pins--clumsy, blunt affairs,
with a bit of twisted wire for the head which was always coming off.
Furniture was hard, stiff, and unyielding, not one whit more
luxurious in shape and cushioning than the furniture of the Greeks,
and without the charm of grace or beauty.
Moreover, it was, unhappily, built to last forever. Backs might
break on the hard chairs, but the chairs never! Beds, however, were
piled high with feathers, bolster, and pillows, and bed-curtains
were _de rigueur_. Dickens complained, among the horrors of his
early days in America, that he actually had no bed-curtains. Poor
indeed must be the house that could not afford "fallens," _i.e._
_valence_, around the "tester" and the bottom of the bedstead. This
ancient appanage of a man of quality, as early as in Chaucer's time,
was sometimes richly embroidered with pearls.
"Now is Albano's marriage-bed new hung
With fresh rich curtaines! Now are my Valence up
Imbost with orient pearles."
Losing her bed and valence, Mary Washington would have lost
everything! Her dining-table and chairs were of the plainest. There
were no sideboards in her day anywhere--no mahogany until 1747.
As to her best room, her parlor, she probably was content with a
harpsichord, a table, and chairs. Great fires glorified every room
in winter, and in summer the gaping, black fireplace was filled with
cedar boughs and plumy asparagus.
The colonial Virginian lived much out of doors. Driven in by a storm
he would find shelter in his "porch" and remain there until the
storm was over. His house was a good enough place to eat and sleep
in, but beauty in house-furnishing never inspired ambition. _That_
was fully gratified if he could welcome a guest to a good dinner,
and interest him afterwards in a fine horse or two and a pack of
foxhounds.
That Augustine Washington's house should burn down was perfectly
consistent and natural. Everything in colonial Virginia was burned
sooner or later,--dwelling-houses, court-houses with their records,
tobacco-houses with their treasures of Orinoko or Sweet-scented.
Nearer than the spring at the foot of the hill was no water, and,
except the pail borne on the head of the negro, no extinguishing
appliance whatever. Churches did not burn down for the very good
reason that they were never lighted or heated; thus insuring that
mortification of the body so good for the health of the soul. In
winter little stoves of perforated tin, containing coals or heated
bricks, were borne up the aisles by footmen and placed beneath the
feet of the colonial dames. Otherwise the slippered feet would
surely have frozen!
It has been a favorite fashion with historians to picture the
Wakefield house as an humble four-roomed dwelling. Americans love to
think that their great men were cradled in poverty, but excavations
have been recently made which develop the foundations of a large
residence. One is inclined to wonder when and by whom the pictures
were made of the birthplace of Washington, which was destroyed
by fire before there was a newspaper to print a description or
picture in Virginia. That the sketch of any visitor or member of
the family should have been preserved nearly two hundred years is
impossible. Why should it have been made at all? Nobody living in
the unpretending house had then interested the world. Every such
picture is from the imagination, pure and simple, of Mr. Prudhomme,
who made the first for a New York publishing house. He was probably
as accurate as he could be, but the house faced the road, not the
river, and the latter flowed at the bottom of a hill in the rear of
the mansion.
In the town of Quincy, in Massachusetts, the old home of John and
Abigail Adams still stands, built in 1716, according to "a truthful
brick found in the quaint old chimney." Pious hands have preserved
this house, restored it, filled it with just such furniture and
draperies and garments as were preserved by those who lived in the
year 1750. There the house stands--an object lesson to all who care
for truth about the old colonial farm-houses. Beauty, genius, and
patriotism dwelt in this house. From it the master went forth to
the courts of France and England and to become the President of the
United States; and on the little table in the front room Abigail,
the accomplished lady of beauty and talent, wrote, "This little
Cottage has more comfort and satisfaction for you than the courts of
Royalty."
The colonial houses of Virginia were larger, but yet were modest
dwellings. They became more ambitious in 1730, but Augustine
Washington's home had made a history of happiness and sorrow, birth
and death, before our Mary entered it.
The universal plan of the Virginia house of 1740 included four
rooms, divided by a central "passage" (never called a "hall")
running from front to rear and used as the summer sitting room of
the family. From this a short staircase ascended to dormer-windowed
rooms above. As the family increased in numbers one-story rooms and
"sheds" were tacked on wherever they were needed, without regard
to architectural effect, growing around a good chimney and even
enclosing a tree valued for its shade. The old house rambled about,
as the land lay, so rooms were often ascended by one or more steps.
I fancy this was the case with the Wakefield house--Mary Washington,
her fast-coming babies, and her very large family connection
demanding more room than did Jane with her two little boys.
The iron bar across the front folding-door of a colonial Virginian
house was never put up in summer except in a thunder-storm. The door
stood open, and proud and happy were master, mistress, children, and
servants when it was thronged with friendly neighbors or wandering
tourists from abroad. They were welcome to come, and to stay! One
instance of a visit lasted three years; another thirteen years! Not
once was the contented guest ever reminded that he had worn out his
welcome! One marvels that time was found for all this hospitality.
It was simply the prime occupation and duty of life; and then
fashions in garments were not always changing, and the housewife had
no bric-a-brac to dust and keep in order.
The Wakefield house, be it large or small, well or poorly appointed,
had the honor of being the birthplace of our adored Washington, and
there, or at the nearest church, he was baptized. Mildred Gregory,
Augustine Washington's sister, held him in her arms and renounced
for him "the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the
world" and all the "sinful desires of the flesh," promising that he
would "obediently keep God's holy will and commandments and walk in
the same all the days of his life."
[Illustration: George Washington's Apron.]
His baptismal robe is still in existence--or was, on the 22d of
February, 1850, when Virginia's monument in his honor was unveiled
in Richmond.
[Illustration: BEWDLEY.]
The Masonic orator of the day, Mr. R. G. Scott, exhibited, with
Washington's sash, apron, and gloves, the small silk mantle in which
he was baptized,--a sacred relic still preserved, no doubt, by the
Masonic Lodge of Richmond or Fredericksburg.
Mildred Gregory was then a widow. Her three beautiful daughters
(destined to take and keep the hearts of a family of Thorntons) were
present at the christening and full of interest in their Aunt Mary
and her first boy. Uncle Augustine did not signify! He had two boys
already. Were they not ordinary, commonplace fellows--their own
everyday playmates?
The proud young mother hastened to present her fine boy to her own
kindred, and when he was a month old she took him to visit her
cousin, Major James Ball at "Bewdley," in Lancaster County. The
house still stands that sheltered George Washington in infancy.
If any one wishes to know the probable appearance and extent of
the house in which he was born, the two-hundred-year-old house at
Bewdley will perhaps furnish the most accurate example. The steep,
double-storied roof, the heavy, outside chimneys, the old kitchen in
the yard, are all characteristics.
Probably the Wakefield house was never rebuilt. Fifty years ago a
solitary chimney, and a small, engraved stone marked the birthplace
of George Washington; the stone, the first monument ever dedicated
to his memory, having been placed there by the pious hands of George
Washington Parke Custis. A better stone, protected by an iron
railing, now marks the spot.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CHERRY TREE AND LITTLE HATCHET
Whether the immortal cherry tree grew at this home on the Potomac,
or on the farm on the Rappahannock to which the family moved, we
are not instructed by the imaginings of "Parson Weems," Washington
Irving, and others; but the hatchet, if the cherry tree grew in
Westmoreland, must have been a very "little hatchet," indeed, for
Augustine Washington removed to a seat opposite Fredericksburg when
George was a small boy.
And just here the writer begs leave to enter a plea for the life of
this cherry tree! Irreverent biographers sneer at it as "a myth."
We have sacrificed much to truth. We have wiped from our canvas all
the "gay gallants" of Williamsburg, the love-lorn wandering curate,
"Sister Susie," the life in England, the charming portrait! Really,
we cannot give up our cherry tree! It is deeply rooted. It has
flourished more than one hundred and fifty years. Its lessons and
its fruits are the crowning glory of the board on the twenty-second
day of February. We positively decline to bury the little hatchet or
uproot the cherry tree!
[Illustration: Pohick Church, Mount Vernon, Virginia.]
"Parson Weems," who first told the story of the little hatchet,
was an Episcopal clergyman well known to General Washington. His
"Life of Washington" appeared several years before the great
man's death. "It was read by him and mildly commended," says one
writer. Certainly it was never contradicted. Parson Weems was an
eccentric character, but so kind and charitable that his "oriental
imagination" was indulgently condoned by his neighbors. He claimed
to have been rector of Pohick church which was attended by General
Washington. Not even this was contradicted at the time, and is
given the benefit of a doubt by the accurate old Bishop Meade
himself. He loved to make people happy. He would preach to the poor
negroes and then fiddle for them to dance. He probably believed with
George Herbert that:--
"A verse may find him who a sermon flies
And turn delight into a sacrifice."
He was a charming historian. If there were no interesting facts to
mitigate the dryness of a narrative, why then, of course, something
must be invented! So "his books have been read," says Bishop Meade,
"by more persons than those of Marshall, Ramsey, Bancroft and Irving
put together." Evidently the good bishop at heart liked him. He
thought him probably "too good for banning, too bad for blessing,"
but he admired, nevertheless, "the pathos and elegance of his
writings." Now, if General Washington did not stamp the cherry-tree
story as a falsehood, and if Bishop Meade does not contradict it, we
may leave it, as they did, to flower and fruit for the teaching of
American children.
The title of the clergyman's book was, "The Life of George
Washington; With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself
and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen. By M. L. Weems, Formerly
Rector of Mount Vernon Parish." It may be interesting to relate the
original cherry-tree story as it appeared in this quaint little
book. The author says it was communicated to him by "an aged lady
who was a distant relative, and who, when a girl, spent much of
her time in the family." How convenient the aged lady, the distant
relative, has always been in tradition!
"When George was about six years old he was made the wealthy master
of a hatchet; of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately
fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came
in his way. One day in the garden, where he often amused himself
hacking his mother's pea sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of
his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry tree,
which he barked so terribly that I don't believe the tree ever
got the better of it. The next morning the old gentleman, finding
out what had befallen this tree, which, by the way, was a great
favorite, came into the house, and with much warmth asked for the
mischievous author, declaring at the same time that he would not
have taken five guineas for the tree. Nobody could tell him anything
about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance.
'George,' said his father, 'do you know who killed that beautiful
little cherry tree yonder in the garden?' This was a tough question
and George staggered under it for a moment, but quickly recovered
himself, and looking at his father with the sweet face of youth,
brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he
bravely cried out, 'I can't tell a lie, Pa, you know I can't tell
a lie. I did cut it with my little hatchet.' 'Run to my arms, you
dearest boy,' cried his father in transports; 'run to my arms; glad
am I, George, that you killed my tree, for you have paid me for it a
thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is worth more than
a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver and their fruits of
purest gold.'
"It was in this way," adds Parson Weems, tagging on his moral, "by
interesting at once both his head and heart, that Mr. Washington
conducted George with great ease and pleasure along the happy paths
of pleasure."
CHAPTER XV
THE YOUNG WIDOW AND HER FAMILY
Augustine Washington selected a fine site on the banks of the
Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg, and near "Sting Ray Island,"
where the very fishes of the stream had resented the coming of
Captain John Smith. The name of this home was Pine Grove. "The
situation was commanding[5] and the garden and orchard in better
cultivation than those they had left. The house was like that at
Wakefield, broad and low with the same number of rooms upon the
ground floor, one of them in the shed-like extension at the back;
and the spacious attic was over the main building. It had its name
from a noble body of trees near it, but was also known by the old
neighbors as 'Ferry Farm.' There was no bridge over the Rappahannock
and communication was had with the town by the neighboring ferry."
"Those who wish to associate Washington," says another writer, "with
the grandeurs of stately living in his youth, would find all their
theories dispelled by a glimpse of the modest dwelling where he
spent his boyhood years. But nature was bountiful in its beauties
in the lovely landscape that stretched before it. In Overwharton
parish, where it was situated, the family had many excellent
neighbors, and there came forth from this little home a race of men
whose fame could gather no splendor had the roofs which sheltered
their childhood been fretted with gold and blazoned with diamonds.
The heroic principle in our people does not depend for perpetuity
on family trees and ancestral dignities, still less on baronial
mansions."
[5] "Story of Mary Washington," Marion Harland.
Augustine Washington died in 1743, at the age of forty-nine, at
Pine Grove, leaving two sons of his first wife, and four sons and
one daughter our Mary had borne to him, little Mildred having died
in infancy. We know then the history of those thirteen years, the
birth of six children, the death of one, finally the widowhood and
desolation of the mother.
At the time of his father's death, George Washington was only ten
years of age. He had been heard to say that he knew little of his
father except the remembrance of his person and of his parental
fondness. To his mother's forming care he himself ascribed the
origin of his fortune and his fame.
Mary Washington was not yet thirty-six, the age at which American
women are supposed to attain their highest physical perfection.
Her husband had left a large estate under her management to be
surrendered in portions as each child reached majority. Their lands
lay in different parts of the country,--Fairfax, Stafford, King
George, and Westmoreland. She found herself a member of a large and
influential society, which had grown rapidly in wealth, importance,
and elegance of living since her girlhood and early married life
in Westmoreland. Her stepson, Lawrence, married a few months after
his father's death, and she was thus allied to the Fairfaxes of
Belvoir--allied the more closely because of the devotion of Lawrence
to her own son George. Lawrence, with his pretty Anne Fairfax, had
gone to live on his inherited estate of "Hunting Creek," which he
made haste to rechristen in honor of an English admiral, famous for
having recently reduced the town and fortifications at Porto Bello;
famous also for having reduced the English sailors' rum by mixing
it with water. He was wont to pace his decks wrapped in a grogram
cloak. The irate sailors called him, and the liquor he had spoiled,
"Old Grog." The irreverent, fun-loving Virginians at once caught up
the word, and henceforth all unsweetened drinks of brandy or rum and
water were "grog," and all unstable partakers thereof "groggy."
Mary Washington, young, handsome, and the mistress of a fine
estate, was closely connected by ties of kindred with nearly all of
the families we shall describe hereafter. She could have elected
for herself a gay life of social pleasure, and could have been
a prominent figure in that life. The pictures we have of her
were nearly all drawn by George Washington Parke Custis, whose
authorities were the old neighbors who knew and remembered her well
at a later day, and in their turn had gathered impressions from the
companions of her early womanhood.
"She is the most excellent woman," says Goethe, "who when the
husband dies, becomes as a father to the children."
This was the part which Mary Washington, in her thirty-sixth year,
elected to perform for her five fatherless children,--George,
Elizabeth, Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles. Pleasing stories
are told of how the young widow would gather her brood around her,
reading them lessons from some good book, and then repairing to
her domestic tasks. She exacted the strictest obedience from her
children. She directed alike their amusements and their education,
manifesting in her administration of family affairs great good
sense, resolution, and business capacity.
Mr. Custis often visited her in his childhood, and although too
young to appreciate her, has gathered material for a noble tribute
to the youthful matron, which is best given in his own words:--
"Bred in those domestic and independent habits which graced the
Virginia matrons in the old days of Virginia," says Mr. Custis,
"this lady, by the death of her husband, became involved in the
cares of a young family, at a period when those cares seem more
especially to claim the aid and control of the stronger sex.
It was left for this eminent woman, by a method the most rare,
by an education and discipline the most peculiar and imposing,
to form in the youth-time of her son those great and essential
qualities which gave lustre to the glories of his after-life.
If the school savored the more of the Spartan than the Persian
character, it was a fitter school to form a hero, destined to be
the ornament of the age in which he flourished, and a standard
of excellence for ages yet to come.
"The home of Mrs. Washington, of which she was always mistress,
was a pattern of order. There the levity and indulgence common
to youth were tempered by a deference and well-regulated
restraint, which, while it neither suppressed nor condemned any
rational enjoyment used in the springtime of life, prescribed
those enjoyments within the bounds of moderation and propriety.
Thus the chief was taught the duty of obedience, which prepared
him to command. Still the mother held in reserve an authority
which never departed from her, even when her son had become the
most illustrious of men. It seemed to say, 'I am your mother,
the being who gave you life, the guide who directed your steps
when they needed a guardian: my maternal affection drew forth
your love; my authority constrained your spirit; whatever may be
your success or your renown, next to your God, your reverence is
due to me.' Nor did the chief dissent from the truths; but to
the last moments of his venerable parent, yielded to her will
the most dutiful and implicit obedience, and felt for her person
and character the highest respect, and the most enthusiastic
attachment.
"Such were the domestic influences under which the mind of
Washington was formed; and that he not only profited by, but
fully appreciated, their excellence and the character of his
mother, his behavior toward her at all times testified."
It was of the first importance that she should take care of the
inheritance of her children. She must keep the land together and
glean from it maintenance and education for her four boys and her
daughter.
Virginians were taught to hold their land at any sacrifice. "Never
part from your land, boys!" said Frances Bland Randolph to John
Randolph and his brother. "Keep your land and your land will keep
you!" And yet this plan did not insure competence. Land would keep
the family, it is true, but afford small margin for education. Mary
Washington realized this and wisely prepared her sons to earn their
own living.
She sent George to an old-field school of Master Hobby, the sexton
of the parish church, and then under his brother Lawrence's guidance
to Master Williams. During one winter he rode on horseback ten
miles to school every morning, returning home at night to prepare
his tasks for the next day. At another time he ferried himself
across the Rappahannock to his "day-school,"--the old academy at
Fredericksburg, afterwards attended by Madison and Monroe. He was
never sent, like other gentlemen's sons, to a college or university
at home or abroad. Conscious of this, he was probably the more
diligent to overcome by his own industry all deficiencies of
opportunity.
He proved an apt scholar, and soon possessed the rudiments of a
practical education, which was expanded in later life by reading
into scholarly accomplishments. But it was she, the mother, who
first cast his mind and heart in the right mould.
This schooling, supplemented by his own study and experience, was
his only foundation for that "thorough knowledge of the technical
part of his profession, that skill in military combinations, and
extraordinary gifts of military administration," which has won
the unstinted praise of England's brilliant historian. But it was
from the training of early habits by his watchful mother that he
became, as Lecky adds, "punctual, methodical, and exact in the
highest degree, managing the minute details so essential to the
efficiency of an army." From his mother he inherited qualities
which she herself possessed in an eminent degree,--"a rare form of
courage which can endure long-continued suspense, bear the weight
of great responsibility, and encounter, without shrinking, risks of
misrepresentation and unpopularity."
She early proved herself to be a strong, self-reliant woman, with
executive ability and a supreme power of awing and governing others.
Her life was given to her children and to the care of a thriving
plantation; to sowing, and planting, and reaping; to the rearing
of fine, blooded cattle. Her children had a plain, abundant,
comfortable home, and led healthy out-of-door lives. She made Truth
and Honor her handmaidens, and in their defence ruled her house
with austerity, that "austerity in woman so often the accompaniment
of a rare power of loving, causing love to be piety, tenderness,
religion, devotion strong as death."
Surrounding her children with all the comforts of a well-governed
household, she loved them, taught them, persuaded them. If all
failed, if Sir Matthew Hale was in vain, and headlong youth yielded
not when the right was at issue, she did not disdain to command
another influence, pliant, pungent, prompt, and most convincing,--a
bundle of keen rods gathered daily from the friendly peach tree!
This lay always upon her historic table, or found place in her
capacious pockets when she went abroad. It was the presence of this
ally, offensive and defensive, which made harder the telling of the
truth and enhanced the sublimity of virtue.
Tradition insists that she possessed a high spirit, passionate,
lofty, intense, and yet under the most magnificent control; that her
feelings were so deep and strong she durst not show them, durst not
even recognize them, lest they should master her. "A lady," says
Andrew Lang, "is a woman of high breeding, high passion and high
courage." Mary Washington was a lady! She was tender, gracious,
and courteous to her neighbors in humble station, but to them as to
others she made hard the way of the transgressor. Yet she knew how
to excuse and forgive.
Tradition relates that when George was a fine, big boy of twelve,
he was fired with ambition to conquer the spirit of an exceedingly
valuable colt which had never permitted the near approach of man
or boy. One morning early this feat was achieved. George with his
brothers having chased the rebel into a corner of the pasture, he
vaulted upon the back of the dangerous animal, which plunged forward
so madly that a blood-vessel was ruptured, dying, like the Indian,
with a broken heart sooner than submit.
There were five anxious faces around the breakfast table that
morning! Presently the mother forced matters to an issue by asking:
"Boys, have you seen my fine sorrel colt lately? Is he as big as his
sire?"
Four pairs of eyes were turned to George, who unhesitatingly
answered: "Madam, that horse possessed an ungovernable spirit which
had to be conquered. I mounted him this morning, and he plunged
violently and killed himself." The mother's face flushed for a
moment, and then she said quietly: "That seems to be a pity! But I
am proud and grateful for my brave, truthful son!"
This son was always a prince among boys, as he was afterwards a
king among men. Strong, brave, athletic, with a grand air, he became
the prime favorite of his aristocratic brother Lawrence, whom he
often visited at Mount Vernon, and who desired to place him in the
service of the crown. In 1747, when George was in his fourteenth
year, a midshipman's warrant was obtained for him by his brother
Lawrence, and he embraced with boyish ardor the idea of going to sea.
While the matter was in doubt, however, his English uncle, Joseph
Ball, wrote to his sister: "I understand that you have been advised
to put your son George to sea. I think he had better be apprentice
to a tinker; for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the
liberty of a subject; for they will cut and slash him and use him
like a negro, or rather like a dog. He must not be too hasty to be
rich, but go on gently with patience as things will naturally go,
without aiming to be a fine gentleman before his time," etc. The
ship that was to carry him into the service of his most Gracious
Majesty, George the Second, was riding at anchor in the Potomac with
the young midshipman's luggage on board, but when the hour came for
him to sail his mother braved the chance of Lawrence's displeasure,
and forbade him to go!
The great trials of her life were henceforth to come through her
crowning glory and pride. Her splendid boy, only fifteen years
old, entered, as surveyor to Lord Fairfax, a life of hardship and
peril, exposed to hourly danger from the Indians, and to the rigors
of inclement winters. The eaglet had flown from the nest, never to
return. Henceforth her straining eyes might strive to follow--they
could never recall him.
[Illustration: Mrs. Washington persuades George not to go to Sea.]
The lands to be surveyed lay in the wilderness beyond the Blue
Ridge. There the boy of sixteen matched himself against fatigue,
danger, and privations of every kind, and found himself equal to
them all. He became familiar with the frontier people--the Indians
and settlers. There he unconsciously trained himself for his future
career.
Just at this time, when Fate sent him into the wilderness as
preparation for the stern life ordained for him, the gentle god
of Love was experimenting with his virgin heart. Among the yellow
papers, which were tied in bundles and preserved in the deep drawers
of the old secretary at "Pine Grove," behold the following acrostic,
dated 1747, when the lad was fifteen:--
"From your bright sparkling eyes I was undone.
Rays you have--more transparent than ye Sun
Amidst its Glory in ye Rising Day.
None can you equal in y^r bright array.
Constant in y^r Calm, Unspotted Mind--
Equal toe all, will toe none Prove kind.
Soe knowing, seldom One soe young you'll find."
Who was Frances? Was she responsible for the "hurt of the heart
uncurable," of which he wrote a few months later? Alas, we shall
never know! Her Rays were all dimmed before Parson Weems appeared to
take notes and print them.
At least we have this fragment of boyhood love, and can enrol her
name as the _first_ of his five sweethearts.
There is also a relic of his work for Lord Fairfax. Underneath the
veranda at Capon Springs in West Virginia lies the trunk of one of
the trees that the young surveyor marked with his hatchet. At least,
it was there ten years ago!
CHAPTER XVI
BETTY WASHINGTON, AND WEDDINGS IN OLD VIRGINIA
In 1746 young Fielding Lewis came up from his family seat at
Marmion, bringing General Washington's aunt, Catharine Washington,
as his wife, and made his home at Kenmore in Fredericksburg. They
were married just one year before the birth of little John Lewis,
and Mrs. Henry Lee (the mother of "Light-horse Harry") and Mrs.
Mary Washington were godmothers. (Five times was this little fellow
destined to be married, and if a problem of involved relationship
be in order, he could furnish it. His first two wives were the
granddaughters of his great-aunt, Mildred Gregory, and his _last_
wife great-granddaughter of _her_ last husband!) But to return
to Fielding Lewis and Catharine (Washington) Lewis: the next
year (1748) Frances was born, George Washington (aged sixteen),
godfather--the next year (1749) the third child was born, and then
the poor young mother, having borne a child every year, was gathered
to her fathers and her children (January, 1750). All these events
were of keen interest to the family at "Pine Grove." In all these
functions nobody was more sympathetic than Betty Washington, now a
handsome maiden of seventeen. She took her little orphan cousins to
her heart, and in two months she comforted also the forlorn widower,
and became his wife.
[Illustration: Kenmore House.]
There is not the least doubt that she was given away by her
brother George, now eighteen years of age, and that Samuel, John
Augustine, and Charles, handsome, well-grown lads, were present
at her wedding. Charles was twelve years old; Samuel, sixteen.
Elizabeth was "a fine young woman." Describing her, Mr. Custis
used a favorite word of the day. Majesty being the highest of all
places, "Majestic" was the highest of all praise. Colonial beauties
were rarely described as "graceful," "winsome," "exquisite,"
"lovely"; they were "stately," "majestic," "queenly." They wore
stately garments,--paduasoy, from _soie de Padua_, where the strong,
lustrous silk so much worn by men and women was manufactured,
or "tabby" velvet and silk, the rich watered oriental fabric
manufactured in Attabya, a quarter in Bagdad. These were the
grandest, the most sumptuous fabrics known. The wife of Goldsmith's
Vicar was proud of her crimson paduasoy (the silk had given its name
to a garment). Samuel Pepys could not afford the genuine article,
but he boasted a "wastecoat of false tabby." Of course, a majestic
woman wore these rich materials, "silk gowns wad stand on end"
like the gowns of Dumbiedike's grandmother. Who could be majestic
in clinging, willowy chiffon? Elizabeth Washington, known by the
diminutive "Betty," undoubtedly enhanced her majesty by one or more
of these gowns made in the fashion invented by the artist Watteau.
As to the rest, we know she was "mannerly." Stately gowns befitted
stately manners. People "Sirred and Madamed" each other in true
Johnsonian style, with many a low courtesy, veiling the bosom with
outspread fan, and many a profound bow with hand on heart. There was
leisure for all this before the day of the trolley car and steam
car, or even the stage and omnibus; when in towns visits were made
at ten in the morning, and the visitors sent hither and thither in
sedan-chairs. Young ladies of her day were expert horsewomen. Those
of us who saw the portrait of Betty Washington at the Centennial in
New York can imagine her handsome figure on horseback. "She was a
most majestic woman," said Mr. Custis, adding that he perfectly well
remembered her, "and was so strikingly like the Chief her brother,
that it was a matter of frolic to throw a cloak around her, and
then place a military cap on her head: and such was the perfect
resemblance that had she appeared on her brother's steed, battalions
would have presented arms, and senates risen to do homage to the
chief." She adored her brother, and was proud to be so like him.
"Be good," she would say to her young friends in after life, "and I
will be General Washington for you!" Tying her hair in a cue, and
crowning it with a cocked hat, she would take a sword and masquerade
to their infinite amusement. She and her brother closely resembled
their mother in form, carriage, and the contour of their faces. They
inherited her splendid health, her mental strength, and her sterling
virtues--but _not_ her seriousness which grew to be a settled
sadness. Betty Washington was as merry-hearted a maiden as might be
found in that merry time.
If somebody had only thought of us at the great wedding at "Pine
Grove," when stately Elizabeth Washington was given in marriage to
the dignified, handsome Colonel Fielding Lewis, if somebody had only
described it for our sakes, we should not be obliged to imagine it!
The three great social occasions of domestic life were weddings,
christenings, and funerals. These were solemnized, if not too
distant, in churches. The bride on the large isolated estates made
her vows in her own home, in her own home consecrated her offspring,
from her own home was borne at last to her final resting-place. A
wedding lasted many days, during which the house was filled with
feasting kindred, coming from far and near. Social usage varied so
little in colonial Virginia that we are quite safe in noting some
features of Betty Washington's wedding. Of some things we may be
sure,--first, there is not the least doubt that she chose her own
husband.
One of the first fruits of the spirit of freedom was the American
girl's determination henceforth to choose her husband. She made
mistakes sometimes, poor child, but was probably silenced by the
reflection that she had no one to blame but herself. She was much
under the influence of French fashions, but had a prejudice against
the French manner of conducting matrimonial alliances, while the
French at once conceived a horror of the American departure. "We
must marry our daughters as soon as possible," said a Frenchwoman to
an easy-going American husband. "If we do not take care, she will be
like your terrible Americans, and end by joining in the '_hount for
housband_'!" dropping her French to quote the enormity in its own
appropriate tongue.
Something of the old-time English customs in contracting parties
remained in the formal correspondence of the prospective
bridegroom's father with the father of the bride-elect, presumably
before the young lady had been consulted. The former stated that his
son proposed "paying his addresses," and he therefore announced the
number of acres and slaves, and the kind of house he could give his
son, and, without any expression of romance or sentiment, politely
requested a similar statement from the "party of the second part."
This party informs the other that his son has applied for "leave to
make his addresses," and states what _he_ can do.
Of course, it sometimes happened that the matter rested just
here--the ideas on one side or the other being unsatisfactory. Then
it was that Cupid had his opportunity! More than one lover has
hidden in the close-screened, cedar summer-house, and more than one
maiden has stolen in the gray dawn from her back door, disguised
as her own maid, to join him in an early horseback ride to Gretna
Green. Moreover, more than one such maiden was "cut off with a
shilling" by an injured father, and went through her life stoutly
declaring herself the happiest woman in the world, albeit not as
rich in worldly goods as her dutiful sisters!
Betty Washington's wedding-dress we must imagine. It was probably
not unlike Martha Custis's wedding-gown a few years later. This
was thus described by one of her guests: a white satin quilt, over
which a heavy white silk, interwoven with threads of silver, was
looped back with white satin ribbons, richly brocaded in a leaf
pattern. Her bodice was of plain satin, and the brocade was fastened
on the bust with a stiff butterfly bow of the ribbon. Delicate
lace finished the low, square neck. There were close elbow-sleeves
revealing a puff and frill of lace. Strings of pearls were woven in
and out of her powdered hair. Her high-heeled slippers were of white
satin, with brilliant buckles. Just this dress, in style if not
material, was certainly worn by Betty.
Her mother being a devout churchwoman, she was probably married at
church. And if Colonel Lewis chose to follow the fashion of the day,
he was brave indeed in a white satin vest, a suit of fine cloth
lined with crimson satin, fine lace at wrist and throat, and diamond
(or was it paste?) buckles at knee and shoe top.
Our forefathers and foremothers wore good clothes in 1750!
We may be sure that none of the orthodox wedding customs and
ceremonies were omitted by Mary Washington at her daughter's
marriage. There were certainly bride's favors, wedding-cake, ring,
and thimble, and, alas! the slipper and rice. The bride was duly
provided, for her bridal costume, with
"Something old, and something new,
Something borrowed and something blue."
The "old" was oftenest an heirloom of lace; the "borrowed," an
orange blossom or two which had been worn by other brides; the
"blue," a tiny knot of ribbon on the garter.
These ceremonies were full of significance, and in observing them,
the bride linked herself in the long chain which stretches back to
the early stages of the world. The wedding-ring, and the choice of
the third finger as being connected with the heart, are mentioned in
old Egyptian literature. The blue ribbon, whether worn as a badge,
or order, or at bridals, comes down from the ancient Israelites,
who were bidden to put upon the borders of their fringed garments a
"ribband of blue"--blue, the color of purity, loyalty, and fidelity.
Bridesmaids were a relic of the ten witnesses of old Roman weddings.
Bride's cake and rice, of the aristocratic Roman _confarreatio_.
The Spanish custom of wearing fragments cut from the bride's
ribbons, first introduced into England when Charles II brought
home his Katharine of Portugal to be England's queen, survived in
the enormous white satin rosettes (bride's favors) worn by the
groomsmen, and survives to-day in the boutonnières of the bride's
flowers. The old and the new symbolize her past and future--not
divided, but united. The "something borrowed" signifies a pledge to
be redeemed. Nothing is without significance, which accounts for
the fact that all these old-time customs continue from century to
century, and are so jealously observed to-day.
One of the eighteenth-century customs, has, however, been lost
in the hurry and rush of our own time. The "infair," the faring
into the house of the bridegroom's parents, was quite as lengthy
and important a function as the wedding. This great housewarming
entertainment to celebrate the reception into the bridegroom's
family was an ancient English custom, religiously observed in
Virginia until the middle of the nineteenth century.
The quantity of wedding-cake made in the Virginia kitchens was
simply astounding! It was packed in baskets and sent all over the
country to be eaten by the elders and "dreamed on" by the maidens.
What would Betty Washington and Colonel Lewis have thought of a
wedding reception of an hour, and then a flitting to parts unknown,
leaving the world to comfort itself with a small square of cake in
a pasteboard box? Such behavior would have been little less than
"flat burglary," defrauding people of their just dues.
[Illustration: The Hall at Kenmore, showing the Clock which belonged
to Mary Washington.]
Colonel Fielding Lewis, although young, was already a merchant of
high standing and wealth, a vestryman, magistrate, and burgess.
Kenmore, near Fredericksburg, was built for him, that his wife might
be near her mother. The mansion, still kept in excellent repair, was
reckoned a fine one at the time. It was built of brick and skilfully
decorated by Italian artists. Betty wrote to her brother George that
their "invention had given out," and invited him to contribute
something. It is said that he designed the decoration illustrating
Æsop's fable of the Crow and the Fox, which adorns the drawing-room
mantel to-day. It is in stucco, and besides illustrating the fable
of the wheedling fox who seeks to gain booty by a smooth tongue,
another fable--the wolf accusing the lamb of fouling the water--is
represented. The story told at Kenmore is of Italians captured in
the French army as prisoners of war, who were led by choice or
necessity to remain in America, where they plied their trade of
decorators.
[Illustration: NELLIE CUSTIS.]
Nine months after Betty Washington's wedding, on St. Valentine's
day, 1751, another Fielding Lewis was born, and George Washington,
just nineteen, was godfather, his mother, godmother. Having done
her duty to her husband, Betty in 1752 named her next son John
Augustine, and her brother Charles, fourteen years old, was
godfather. A third boy was born, 1755, and Charles was again
godfather. In 1757 she named a fourth son George Washington, and,
in 1759, Mary Washington was sponsor for a little Mary Lewis, and
Samuel Washington, godfather. Then, in 1760, a year after his own
marriage, we find George Washington and his mother sponsors for
a Charles Lewis. Samuel and Betty were born respectively in 1763
and 1765, and in April, Lawrence, the lucky,--destined to win "the
nation's pride," lovely Nellie Custis, the adopted daughter of
General Washington. Then Robert and Howell were born. Again, and
yet again, was the traditional gown of black brocade brought forth
by the proud grandmother, as Betty claimed her mother and brothers
for the important and solemn office of sponsors for her splendid
boys--boys that followed their illustrious uncle all through the
war of the Revolution, and to whom he was ever the most faithful of
friends and guardians.
CHAPTER XVII
DEFEAT IN WAR: SUCCESS IN LOVE
Washington was only nineteen when Virginia appointed him one of her
adjutants-general. He was "Major Washington" now when he visited his
mother at "Ferry Farm," _visiting_ her only, because the failing
health of his brother Lawrence demanded his care. His mother gladly
surrendered him for the comfort of this, her devoted stepson, to
whom she had always deferred as the head of the family. He went with
this brother to try the warmer climate of Barbados, bringing him
back ere long to die at Mount Vernon.
[Illustration: George Washington as Major.]
In 1752 Governor Dinwiddie had information about the French. They
had commenced establishing forts in the territory on the banks
of the Ohio claimed by Virginia. The governor needed some trusty
messenger to send to the Chevalier Le Gardeur de St. Pierre,
the French commander, to claim that country as belonging to his
Britannic Majesty, "and," says Burnaby in his "Travels in Virginia,"
1759, "Mr. Washington, a young gentleman of fortune just arrived at
age, offered his service on this important occasion. The distance
was more than four hundred miles; two hundred of which lay
through a trackless wilderness, inhabited by cruel and merciless
savages, and the season was uncommonly severe. Notwithstanding
these discouraging circumstances, Mr. Washington, attended by one
servant only, set out upon this dangerous enterprise; travelled
from Winchester on foot, carrying his provisions on his back,
executed his commission; and after incredible hardships, and many
providential escapes, returned safe to Williamsburg."
He was in love with action and adventure! He had said to Governor
Dinwiddie, "For my own part I can answer that I have a constitution
hardy enough to encounter and undergo the most severe trials, and I
flatter myself resolution to face what any man dares,--as I shall
prove when it comes to the test."
France refused to surrender her claim. The courtly old chevalier
abated nothing of his punctilious courtesy when he received the
youthful ambassador--doubtless bronzed and travel-soiled. He said,
very politely, "I am here by the orders of my General, and I entreat
you, Sir, not to doubt one moment but that I am determined to
conform myself to them with all exactness and resolution that can
be expected from the best officer." So, in 1754, Dinwiddie sent the
young major back again--this time at the head of some soldiers. In
writing to the other governors for men, he says, "I sent a Gent: to
the Place by whom I know the Truth." A large force of the French
appearing, "The Gent" (Major Washington) was compelled to surrender
and, politely bowed out by the old chevalier, permitted to return to
Virginia.
This bitter experience had not the effect of discouraging
Washington. It only made him long for another chance, with another
result. He had written lightly to Governor Dinwiddie, as if he were
arranging a tournament, "We have prepared a charming field for an
encounter." It is even said that he added, "I know no music so
pleasing as the whistling of Bullets." This was repeated to George
the Second. "He would not say so," said the soldier-king, "had he
been used to many!" Years afterward Washington was reminded of this
incident, and he thoughtfully replied, "If I said so, it was when I
was young!"
His mother, foreseeing the tendency of all these events, had
bitterly opposed his last disastrous expedition. He was a man of
independent fortune, and had declined remuneration for his services
as he afterwards declined all pay during the years he served in the
war of the Revolution. She wished him to live on his own estate as
became a country gentleman. Her opposition to his fighting against
the English crown was not one whit greater than her opposition to
his fighting for the crown. The word "loyal" was a shifting quantity
in her time, meaning one thing to-day and another to-morrow! The
peril and the hardship were the same in either case.
The first time that he set forth for the frontier his mother almost
succumbed. "Oh, this fighting and killing!" she exclaimed, as she
entreated him not to go. When convinced that she must sacrifice
herself to his duty to his country she became calm. Laying her hand
upon his shoulder, she said, solemnly: "God is our sure trust.
To Him I commend you." She thus unconsciously provided him with
an unanswerable argument for another time. When General Braddock
offered him a place on his staff she drove to Mount Vernon to
entreat him not to accept the honor. "The God to whom you commended
me, Madam, when I set out on a more perilous errand, defended me
from all harm, and I trust he will do so now," was the reply.
[Illustration: General Braddock.]
When the news of Braddock's defeat and the dreadful slaughter of
his army reached Fredericksburg the anxious mother was forced to
wait twelve days before she could be assured of her son's safety.
In a long, calm letter he tells her of all his dangers and his own
wonderful escape, with four bullets through his coat and two horses
shot under him. He tells her, too, of an illness which confined him
in a wagon for more than ten days; how he was not half recovered at
the time of the fight; how he must halt and rest often upon his way
home to Mount Vernon, which he could scarce hope to leave before
September; how he was, "Honored Madam," her most dutiful son.
She drove to Mount Vernon to meet him, and warmly entreated him to
leave the service forever, urging the loss of health and fortune
should he remain in it. He had no answer then, but after she was at
home she received his final word.
"HONORED MADAM: If it is in my power to avoid going to Ohio
again, I shall; but if the command is pressed upon me by the
general voice of the country, and offered upon such terms as
cannot be objected against, it would reflect dishonor upon me
to refuse it, and that, I am sure must, or ought, to give you
greater uneasiness than my going in an honorable command. Upon
no other terms will I accept it."
The code of manners which ruled Virginia in the eighteenth century
forbade familiarity or the discussion of personalities. Washington's
letters to "Honored Madam," as he always addressed his mother,
relate mainly to important public events. Nothing is told of his
ups and downs, which he seems to have had in common with ordinary
mortals; of the envious slanderers who strove to undermine him in
the estimation of the governor; still less of his repulse by the
father of Miss Mary Cary who curtly refused him his daughter's
hand for the reason that she was "accustomed to riding in her own
carriage" and therefore above Virginia's young major. Bishop Meade
says that this lady, afterwards the wife of Edward Ambler, was in
the throng of applauding citizens when Washington passed through
Williamsburg at the head of the American army. He recognized her,
and gallantly waved his sword to her, whereupon she fainted. Nobody
knows that she ever wished to accept Major Washington. Had he waited
until 1753, her prudent father could have urged no objection to the
handsome young lover. In 1752 Lawrence Washington died, directing
in his will, in case of the demise of his wife without issue, the
estate at Mount Vernon should become the property of his brother
George. Within the year the young major received this legacy.
He seems to have been--for him--very faithful to an early dream. If
he cherished, as he doubtless did, hopes of winning his "Lowland
Beauty," she now put an end to his dream by marrying, in 1753,
Henry Lee of Stafford; and it may be remembered that it was in
this year, and only one month before her marriage, that he sought
the governor's permission to bear a message of remonstrance to the
Chevalier de St. Pierre. Like a wise soldier he knew when he was
defeated and retreated accordingly.
[Illustration: MOUNT VERNON.]
He did not marry until 1759; but it is not to be supposed that
his heart was breaking all these six years for Miss Mary Cary or
for the lovely Lucy Grymes, the "Lowland Beauty." Do we not know of
Miss Mary Philipse, whose father's manor-house may still be seen on
the Hudson? Washington Irving thinks she could not have refused him,
that he "rode away" before he had "made sufficient approaches in his
siege of the lady's heart to warrant a summons of surrender."
However this may be, all went well with the parties to the drama in
Virginia. The "Lowland Beauty" was the wife of one of Virginia's
honored sons, and the mother of "Light-horse Harry" Lee. Perfect
happiness was only waiting a few necessary preliminary events to
crown the young soldier's life with joy, in the person of the
fascinating widow, Martha Custis, who, according to old Bishop
Meade (who relished an innocent bit of gossip), resembled Miss
Cary as one twin-sister does another. He resigned his position as
commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, and reasonably looked
forward to a life of calm content in his home on the right bank of
the Potomac.
Washington had always, his rebuffs to the contrary nevertheless,
flattered himself that he could "get along" with the ladies.
There was never a moment that some "Faire Mayde" was not well to
the fore, and it is known that he offered his heart and sword to
three,--Mary Cary, Lucy Grymes, and Mary Philipse. With the latter
he acknowledged that he had been too hasty. He thought things might
have resulted differently if he had "waited until ye ladye was in ye
mood."
Two years later he repeated his imprudence. Mr. Tony Weller had not
then been born, and there was nobody to bid him beware. He paid
an afternoon call, fell in love in an hour, and stayed on and on
until he was accepted. In a few days we find this entry in his cash
account, "One Engagement Ring, £2, 16s., 0d."
Mrs. Custis felt a little shy in announcing so hasty an engagement
to her friends, "My dear, the truth is my estate is getting in a bad
way, and I need a man to look after it."
The estate was large. She owned fifteen thousand acres of land, many
city lots, two hundred negroes, and money besides,--a great fortune
in colonial days. He had just returned from a brilliant campaign;
was gallant, young, and handsome; was just elected member of the
House of Burgesses; and was master of a fair domain on the right
bank of the Potomac, and so "ye ladye" found herself "in ye mood."
When he married the beautiful, rich widow, his mother was exultant.
Now he was safe! All the killing and fighting were over and done
with. He was to live near her at Mount Vernon. She was now fifty-two
years old, and was going to enjoy a serene and happy old age at
last. She wrote her brother, "I have had a great deal of trouble
about George, but it is all over now."
[Illustration: St. Peter's Church, in which George Washington was
married.]
She had a long season of busy home life, happy when she might be
in the happiness of her children. Her warrior son was behaving at
last as became a dignified country gentleman. But Fate was only
preparing him for future greatness. In the administration of his
large estate, and in the county and provincial business, he was
acquiring the rare skill in reading and managing men, for which he
became so remarkable. But of this he was totally unconscious. He
had small ambitions. He was proposing himself to the electors of
Frederick County, having "an easy and creditable Poll," cheerfully
paying his self-imposed assessment of thirty-nine pounds and ten
shillings besides "cyder and dinner" for his constituency. He was
attending the Annapolis races; going down to Williamsburg for the
assembly with Mrs. Washington and Miss Custis; loading his wagons
to provision his family and Colonel Bassett's on a visit "to try
the waters of the warm springs," much exercised lest Jack Custis
were premature in winning the affections of Miss Calvert (for Jack
was only eighteen, had been "fickle, and might wound the young
lady"); nay, he was beating his sword into a ploughshare, his spear
into a pruning-hook, planting May-Duke cherries and guelder-roses,
and lamenting "Rust in the wheat and Drought in the Corn crop."
Moreover, he was writing letters to England, giving orders for
all sorts of foreign elegancies, for his own wear and that of Madam
Washington and her children. Let us copy a summer order sent to
London in 1761.
[Illustration: Williamsburg.]
[Illustration: MARTHA CUSTIS.]
For his use the great man wants "a superfine velvet suit with
garters for the breeches; pumps, riding-gloves, worked ruffles
at twenty shillings a pair; housings of fine cloth edged with
embroidery, plain clothes with gold or silver buttons!" For
Mrs. Washington he orders "a salmon-colored tabby velvet with
satin flowers; ruffles of Brussels lace or point, to cost twenty
pounds; fine silk hose, white and black satin shoes; six pairs of
mitts; six pairs of best kid gloves; one dozen most fashionable
pocket-handkerchiefs; one dozen knots and breast-knots; real miniken
(very small) pins and hairpins; a puckered petticoat; six pounds of
perfumed powder; handsome breast flowers (_bouquets de corsage_) and
some sugar candy."
I have not room for Master Custis's outfit at eight years old, nor
that of Master Custis's liveried servant of fourteen years old, but
I cannot omit the delightful order for little "Miss Custis, six
years old," namely, "A coat of fashionable silk, with bib apron,
ruffles and lace tucker; four fashionable dresses of long lawn; fine
cambric frocks; a satin capuchin hat and neckatees; satin shoes and
white kid gloves; silver shoe-buckles; sleeve-buttons, aigrettes;
six thousand pins, large and short and minikin; a fashionable
dressed doll to cost a guinea; gingerbread, toys, sugar images and
comfits; a Bible and prayer-book; and one very good spinet, to be
made by Mr. Plinius, harpsichord maker, in South Audley street,
Grosvenor square, with a good assortment of spare strings." Not too
much, assuredly, for the little beauty, but not Spartan simplicity
nevertheless.
Six years later, it is recorded that "the Fair Sex, laying aside the
fashionable ornaments of England, exulted, with patriotic pride, in
appearing dressed with the produce of their own looms."
CHAPTER XVIII
IN AND AROUND FREDERICKSBURG
The origin of the names of the estates in the Northern Neck can
easily be traced. A few were Indian: "Quantico," "Occoquan,"
"Monacan," "Chappawamsic," "Chotank." Many were English:
"Stratford," "Wakefield," "Marlboro," "Chatham," "Gunston Hall,"
"Mount Vernon," "Ravensworth," "Blenheim," "Marmion,"--the latter,
of course, not named for Scott's fictitious hero (seeing that Sir
Walter had not yet been born), but, doubtless, by some emigrant of
Lincolnshire descent, in honor of Sir Robert de Marmion, who "came
over with the Conqueror," and was granted a manor in Lincolnshire.
"Chantilly" was thus named by Richard Henry Lee, after the beautiful
chateau and grounds of the Prince Condé, near Paris.
Mount Vernon was not too distant to be in Mary Washington's
neighborhood. She had but to cross the neck of land to the Potomac,
and a pleasant sail would bring her to the little wharf at Mount
Vernon--just where we, patriotic pilgrims, so often now land to
render our pious homage to the sacred homestead.
Within visiting distance of Mount Vernon was the "Chippawamsic"
plantation, at which lived another widow, rich, young, and
beautiful,--Ann Mason, the mother of George Mason, the patriot and
statesman, author of the Virginia Bill of Rights (the first complete
formula of the civil and political rights of man ever promulgated)
and author of the Virginia constitution of 1776, the first written
constitution of government ever adopted by a free people.
No one who studies the peculiar characteristics of Virginians of
this period can doubt that both these young widows were sought by
many suitors. The zeal with which men made haste to fill the places
of departed wives was something marvellous! Samuel Washington was
married five times, and one instance is recorded of a colonial
dame in the best society who had six husbands! The early marriage
of widows was the more desirable because of the outlying estates
which required management. Martha Custis gave this as excuse for
her prompt acceptance of Colonel Washington. But Ann Mason and Mary
Washington never married again. Each possessed great executive
ability, as well as unusual personal and intellectual gifts. Each
elected to devote those gifts to her children. Each was the mother
of a great patriot. And it is altogether probable that each one was
the devoted friend of the other, and that the close friendship
between the two Georges was inherited from their parents. Another
Ann Mason left letters and records which give us a hint of the
belongings of a Virginia housewife of her day. She enumerates
among her daughter's expenses prices paid for shoes with wooden
heels, hoop petticoats, and linen. George Mason of "Gunston Hall,"
the greatest, perhaps, of all the statesmen in an age of great
statesmen, remembered the furniture of his mother's bedroom. In it
was a large chest of drawers--a veritable high-boy![6] Three long
drawers at the bottom contained children's garments, in which the
children might rummage. Above these and the whole length of the
case were the gown-drawer, the cap-drawer, the shirt-drawer, the
jacket-drawer; above these a series of drawers always kept locked,
containing gauzes, laces, and jewels of value--ten or twelve
drawers in all! Then there were two large, deep closets, one on
each side of the recess afforded by a spacious stack of chimneys,
one for household linen, the other "the mistress's closet," which
last contained a well-remembered article, a small green horsewhip,
so often successfully applied to unruly children that they dubbed
it "the green Doctor." George Mason remembered other things in
connection with this splendid woman. She gathered her children
around her knees morning and evening to "say their prayers." She
was a lovely woman, true to her friends, pious to her Maker, humane,
prudent, tender, charming:--
"Free from her sex's smallest faults,
And fair as womankind can be."
[6] "Life of George Mason," by Kate Mason Rowland.
Both these Ann Masons--the wife of the statesman and her
mother-in-law--lived and died near Mary Washington's home before
1773. Both were brilliant women, with personal charm and amiable
dispositions.
Near the Masons, at "Marlboro," lived John Mercer, a lawyer of
fine talents and attainments, and owner of one of the best private
libraries in the colony. Virginia bibliophiles still boast in their
collections some of his books containing his heraldic book-plate.
There was a George in his family, one year younger than George
Washington. Their homes were just sixteen miles apart--a mere
nothing of distance, as neighborhoods were reckoned in those
days--and both in Overwharton parish. The Mercers were lifelong
friends of Mary Washington. General Mercer died in her grandson's
arms. Judge James Mercer wrote her will.
Then, not far from John Mercer's, lived one of the largest landed
proprietors in Stafford, a prominent burgess and planter of his day,
Raleigh Travers--of Sir Walter Raleigh's family--and married to
Mary Washington's half-sister, Hannah Ball. They were founders of
one of Virginia's great families, "distinguished in later years for
breeding, learning, and eloquence." Two miles from "Marlboro" lived
one of their daughters, Sarah, married to Colonel Peter Daniel, of
the "Crow's Nest."
Then came "Boscobel," the residence of Thomas Fitzhugh, the
father of a family of interesting young people. Susannah Fitzhugh
still smiles to us from these pages in her rich robe over a pearl
embroidered skirt and bodice of white satin, with a necklace of
pearls festooned over her fair bodice.
She was just three years younger than her beautiful cousin
Elizabeth, who lived at "Belle-Air" (her mother was Alice Thornton),
and whose portrait, painted by Hesselius, presents the fashionable
dress of her day. The gown is of fawn color, square corsage, elbow
sleeves with lace ruffles (like Susannah's), the hair carried
smoothly back from her brows, piled high over a cushion, and dressed
with strings of pearls.
The Fitzhughs did not quite "own the earth" in their region,--Lord
Fairfax did that,--but they owned a goodly portion of it: "Eagle's
Nest" in Stafford County, "Somerset" in King George, "Boscobel,"
"Belle-Air," and "Chatham" in Stafford, "Ravensworth" in Fairfax.
At the latter General Custis Lee, an honored descendant of this
honored race, sits to-day under the trees his fathers planted. In
the Fitzhugh pedigree the Thorntons crop up again and again. One
may sink a mine in any Virginia genealogy and he will encounter the
names of all these neighbors of Mary Washington.
At "Salvington" lived the Seldens, to whom Mary Washington was bound
by ties of close kindred. Mary Ball, daughter of Major James Ball
of "Bewdley," in whose arms Mary Washington had hastened to place
her son George when one month old, had married John Selden. For his
second wife he chose her first cousin, Sarah Ball, whose tombstone
may be seen to-day in the woods a mile from Lancaster court-house.
Later, a Samuel Selden married Mary Thompson Mason (she of the
wooden-heeled shoes and hoop petticoat), famous for her beauty, as
was her mother before her. The second wife of Samuel Selden was
Ann Mercer. Many of the descendants of these women inherited great
beauty. Even a little drop of their blood suffices to endow many a
Virginia woman of to-day.
At "Cleve," on the Rappahannock, lived Charles Carter, and thither
"Light-horse Harry" Lee went for his sweet wife Anne. Charles
Carter's father, Robert, the mighty man of Lancaster,--"King"
Carter,--died in the year George Washington was born. He had built
Christ Church, where Mary Washington was possibly baptized, for her
father lived near the church. King Carter owned 300,000 acres of
land, 1000 slaves, £10,000 in money. The cattle on a thousand hills
were his. He left many children, all of whom he was able to enrich,
and many of whom distinguished themselves in things better than
riches.
[Illustration: "Light-horse Harry" Lee.]
"Cleve," with its octagon front, is still in good preservation, and
is a fine example of the early Georgian manor-house, having been
built early in the eighteenth century. An excellent portrait of its
builder, Charles Carter, looks down to-day upon his descendants who
still own and live in the mansion.
[Illustration: Governor Spotswood.]
Four miles below Mary Washington's home was "Newpost," the ancestral
home of John Spotswood, a son of Governor Spotswood. His two sons,
Alexander and John, were destined to serve in the Revolutionary War,
one as a general, the other a captain, and to mingle the Spotswood
with the Washington blood by marriage with one of Mary Washington's
granddaughters. They came honestly by their dash and spirit through
the Spotswoods.
It appears that the _Virginia Gazette_ of 1737 lent its columns to
an article against Governor Spotswood, written by a Colonel Edwin
Conway, upbraiding the governor for delaying to turn over the arms
intended for Brunswick County. The article was entitled, "A Hint to
discover a few of Colonel Spotswood's Proceedings." A few days after
its appearance the _Gazette_ printed the following:--
"AN HINT FOR A HINT
"MR. PARKS,
"I have learnt in my Book, so far as to be able to read plain
English, when printed in your Papers, and finding in one of them
my Papa's name often mentioned by a scolding man called Edwin
Conway, I asked my Papa whether he did not design to answer him.
But he replied: 'No child, this is a better Contest for you that
are a school Boy, for it will not become me to answer every
Fool in his Folly, as the lesson you learned the other day of
the Lion and the Ass may teach you.' This Hint being given me,
I copied out the said Lesson and now send you the same for my
answer to Mr. Conway's Hint from
"Sir, your Humble Servant
"John Spotswood."
* * * * *
"FEB. 10.
A LION AND AN ASS
"An Ass was so hardy once as to fall a mopping and Braying at a
Lion. The Lion began at first to show his Teeth, and to stomach
the Affront. But upon second Thoughts, Well, says he, Jeer on
and be an Ass still, take notice only by the way that it is the
Baseness of your Character that has saved your Carcass."
There was a famous beauty in the family of Spotswood who shared, as
we shall see hereafter, in the spirit of her race. This was Kate!
She wore, on her high days and holidays, fawn-colored satin, looped
over a blue satin petticoat, square bodice and elbow sleeves and
ruffles; and her feet, which were extremely small and beautifully
formed, were shod in blue satin shoes, with silver buckles. Age did
not wither this haughty beauty. Her granddaughter remembered her
as she combed a wealth of silver hair, a servant the while holding
before her a mirror.
Not far from "Pine Grove" was "Traveller's Rest," the most beautiful
and significant of all the ambitious names of stately mansions on
the Rappahannock. "It should be called," said Byrd Willis, "Saint's
Rest--for only _they_ ever go there!" "Traveller's Rest" was part
of the "200 acres of land on ye freshes of Rappahannock River"
bequeathed to Mary Ball by her father, Joseph Ball. The family
of Gray long lived at "Traveller's Rest," and thither in after
years, Atcheson Gray brought his child-wife Catherine Willis, the
great-granddaughter of Mary Washington.
These are only a few of the country gentry among whom Mary
Washington lived, and to whom she was related. Time would fail to
describe them all--Colonel Thomas Ludwell Lee of "Berry Hill";
"Bellevue" and its occupants; the Brent family at Richland, in
Stafford County; "Belle Plaine," the residence of the Waugh family.
All these places were in a space of eight or ten square miles, and
from generation to generation the sons looked upon the daughters of
their neighbor cousins, and found them fair, until the families were
knit together in every conceivable degree of kinship.
In the town of Fredericksburg Mary Washington had near relatives
and friends. Roger Gregory, the merry-hearted, had married a
woman as merry-hearted as himself,--Mildred Washington, George
Washington's aunt and godmother. Foremost at the races, and first
on all occasions of mirth, was Roger Gregory. It has been said that
Augustine Washington was optimistic in his temperament, and, like
his sister Mildred, conspicuous for cheerfulness--also that from
him Betty Washington and her brothers inherited their love for gay,
social life--that Mary Washington was always serious, and in her
later years almost tragic. She surely had enough, poor lady, to make
her so.
Roger Gregory had died just before George Washington was
born, and his widow married Henry Willis of "Willis's Hill,"
Fredericksburg, afterwards "Marye's Heights," where the fierce
battle of the Civil War was fought. Mildred's three charming Gregory
girls were prominent figures as they trod the streets of old
Fredericksburg--the streets named after the Royal Princes--clad in
their long cloaks and gypsy bonnets tied under their chins. They
were soon absorbed by a trio of Thorntons, and their mother Mildred
left alone with her one son, Lewis Willis. "Old Henry Willis," his
father, had married three times, boasting that he "had courted
his wives as maids and married them as widows." He was a rich old
fellow with a long pedigree and gorgeous coat of arms on his coach
panels. Mildred Gregory had wept so bitterly when the death of his
first wife was announced to her, that a friend expressed surprise.
"Mildred Willis," she explained, "was my namesake and cousin,
and I grieve to lose her. But that is not the worst of it! I am
perfectly sure old Henry Willis will soon be coming down to see
me--and I don't know what in the world I can do with him!" Would it
be sinister to suggest that the lady was already won? It appears
she knew her man. Had he not been her suitor in her girlhood? His
grandson says, "In one little month he sat himself at her door and
commenced a regular siege: and in less than two months after his
wife's death he married her."
If the shade of this wife was permitted to be a troubled witness of
her recent husband's marriage, she could not complain. She had been
herself the widow, Brown, only for one month before she had married
Henry Willis.
This Colonel Henry Willis was known as "The Founder of
Fredericksburg." Colonel William Byrd visited him immediately after
his marriage with Mildred Gregory, and spoke of him as "the top man
of the place." Mildred Washington (Widow Gregory) had one son by her
marriage with Henry Willis. She named him for her first husband--her
first love--Lewis. He was two years younger than his cousin, George
Washington. The boys attended the same school, and were companions
and playmates. Lewis Willis often spoke of George Washington's
industry and assiduity at school as very remarkable. While his
brother Samuel, Lewis Willis, and "the other boys at playtime were
at bandy or other games, George was behind a door cyphering. But
one day he astonished the school by romping with one of the large
girls--a thing so unusual that it excited no little comment among
the other lads."
Through the Willis family Mary Washington's descendants became
allied to the Bonapartes. The second child of Byrd C. Willis (son of
Lewis Willis) was Catherine. Her mother was the daughter of George
Lewis, Betty Washington's son. Thus Mary Washington was ancestress
of Catherine Willis, who at thirteen years of age married, and at
fourteen was a widow, having lost also her child. She accompanied
her parents to Pensacola, where she married Achille Murat,
ex-prince of Naples and nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was very
beautiful--this child--twice married and a mother before she was
fifteen.
The Murat and Bonaparte families at first opposed the marriage,
but all opposition vanished when they learned that she was nearly
related to General Washington.
[Illustration: Prince Murat.]
It is said that she was well received abroad: "In London she stood
up for her country and fought its battles in all companies." She was
once accompanied by John Randolph of Roanoke and other distinguished
personages on a visit to the London art galleries. In one of these
the portraits of Washington and Napoleon hung side by side, and
Randolph (who was always dramatic), pointing to the pictures,
said, "Before us we have Napoleon and Washington, one the founder
of a mighty Empire, the other of a great Republic." Then turning
to Catherine with extended hand, "Behold!" he exclaimed, "in the
Princess Murat the niece of both--a distinction which she alone can
claim."
As the century neared its highest noon Fredericksburg became the
home of one and another of the men destined to earn immortal fame
in the Revolution. James Monroe lived there, whose hand, long since
mingled with the dust, has yet the power to stay the advance of
nations. Men of wealth secured the pleasant society all around by a
residence in the town. As many as ten coaches were wont to drive out
in company when the summer exodus to the springs set in.
There was a famous tailor in Fredericksburg who made the
lace-trimmed garments for these gentry,--William Paul, a Scotchman.
Hanging in his shop, was a handsome portrait of "my sailor
brother John" as he explained to his customers. Anon the tailor
died, and John came over to administer upon his estate. He found
friends--Colonel Willy Jones and Doctor Brooke--who aided him
materially in the first years of his life in Fredericksburg. In
gratitude to the former he assumed the name of "Jones," and the
latter he made surgeon of the _Bon Homme Richard_--for this was
John Paul Jones the great, the brilliant naval officer of our
Revolution. Congress gave him a commission and a ship, _The
Alfred_, and on board that ship he hoisted before uelphia, with his
own hands, the flag of freedom--the first time it was displayed.
He claimed and received the first salute the flag of the infant
Republic received from a foreign power. He served through the war,
and at his death was the senior officer of the United States navy.
CHAPTER XIX
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS
The essential principles in the drama of human life are ever
the same although its outward aspect changes with changing
circumstances. But in some ages events develop more rapidly than in
others under the urgency of peculiar conditions.
In colonial Virginia the story was told over and over again before
the final fall of the curtain. Scenes shifted with wonderful
rapidity. The curtain, in mimic drama, is usually rung down at the
church door after the early or late wooing and marriage; but in
Virginia in the eighteenth century this was only the first in a
drama of five or more acts. The early death of the first bride left
a vacancy speedily filled by new and successive unions with new
associations and combinations. Five times was not an unusual number
for men to remarry.
This meant five wooings, five weddings, five "infairs," many births
(varying in number from one to twenty-six), five funerals,--all to
be included in thirty adult years more or less. Then, too, there
were five tombstones to be erected and as many epitaphs to be
composed--no two of which to be alike. One wife (usually the first)
almost exhausts the vocabulary of adoring affection, another's piety
is emphasized, another "lived peacably with her neighbors"; each one
was "as a wife dutiful." "Obedient" was a word dear to the colonial
husband.
We have no authority for supposing that the officiating clergyman
at a funeral was ever actually retained for the ensuing nuptials of
the bereaved. Initial steps in that direction were never taken in
Virginia until a husband or wife was well under the sod. Divorce
being unknown, unthinkable indeed, husbands and wives were united
in bonds indissoluble, until death did them part. But when it
did--why, then there was no reasonable cause for delay. It was not
at all unusual for the new husband to offer for probate the will
of his predecessor. Man in those days did not believe he was made
to mourn, at least not for maid or matron, nor that charming women
were created to weep in widow's weeds beyond the decent period of
two months. The little hands were firmly drawn from their pressure
upon the tearful eyes, tucked comfortably under a new, strong arm,
and the widow's little baronry stitched to a new sleeve. There were
exceptions, of course, but not many. When one of the husbands of
Mary Washington's charming nieces (the Gregory girls) lay mortally
ill, he looked up with anguish at the lovely young wife bending
over him, and implored her to keep herself for him. She readily
promised never again to marry, and kept her promise. Another, left a
widow, essayed to follow the sublime example of her sister. One of
the masterful Thorntons sued for twenty years, but won at last. The
statute of limitations in Cupid's court held for twenty years only
in colonial Virginia.
Writers of the period explain these multiplied marriages by
the necessity of a protector for every woman owning land to be
cultivated by negro slaves and indented servants, and on the other
hand the woful state of a large family of young children left
motherless at the mercy of those servants. The new master and the
new mother became a necessity.
It sometimes happened that the newly contracting parties had already
many children from the three or four previous marriages. These must
now be brought under one sheltering roof. The little army must
be restrained by strict government; hence the necessity for the
stern parental discipline of colonial times. "It is gratifying, my
dear," said an amiable patriarch, "to find that _your_ children,
_my_ children, and _our_ children can live so peacefully together,"
nobody knowing so well as the patriarch and the children at what
price the peace had been purchased.
Thus it can be easily seen how maddening an enterprise is the
attempt to trace Virginia relationships, and how we so often lose a
woman and give her over as dead to find her resurrected under a new
name. We once lost Mary Washington's sister Hannah (Ball) Travers.
She turned up at last as Mrs. Pearson! To sort and label and
classify Virginia cousins means nervous prostration. In the families
of Thornton, Carter, and their kin, it means more! Madness lies that
way!
The spinster of uncertain age, known irreverently as an "old maid,"
was a rare individual in colonial Virginia. We all know Colonel
Byrd's "Miss Thekky, mourning her virginity." We really cannot name
another.
When a good man, addressing himself to the compilation of family
records for his children, was constrained to admit that one was
unmarried, he made haste to declare that she "lived single by her
own choice." Colonel Byrd Willis says of his daughter Mary, "She is
unmarried--but by her own choice. It will be a fine fellow who can
tempt her to leave her home. She has not seen him yet!" He goes on
to enumerate her social triumphs. There had been a "Bouquet Ball,"
of which a certain commodore was made king. He chose Miss Mary
Willis, and bestowed upon her the bouquet. A foot-note informs us
that she isn't single any more! She has married the commodore!
[Illustration: Colonel Byrd.]
Stern as was the parental discipline of the time, the spirit of the
young men, who were accounted grown and marriageable at nineteen,
was in no wise broken or quenched. Many of them ran away from their
masters at the schools in England and Scotland, and their fathers'
agents had much ado to find and capture them again. The sons of John
Spotswood were lost in England for many months, but were back home
again in time to be gallant officers in the Revolution. And even
the conservative blood of the Washingtons was not strong enough
to temper that of the Willises, for Mildred Washington's grandson
"Jack" Willis ran away from school and joined a party to explore
the wilderness of Kentucky. They were attacked by Indians, and were
scattered; Jack escaped in a canoe, and was the _first white man_ to
descend the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. His father had sewed some
doubloons in his jacket, but he gave them to a man in New Orleans to
purchase clothing and food, and never again beheld his agent or the
doubloons or their equivalent. He worked his way in a sailing vessel
to New York, and _walked_ from New York to his home in Virginia,
arriving, like the Spotswood boys, just in time to enter the army
with his father and serve to its close. He was a son of Lewis
Willis, Washington's schoolmate.
About 1740 the importation of horses of the English racing stock
commenced, also the breeding of horses for racing. Between 1740 and
1775 are recorded the names of fifty imported horses and thirty
mares of note: Aristotle, Babraham, Bolton, Childers, Dabster,
Dottrell, Dimple, Fearnaught, Jolly Roger, Juniper, Justice, Merry
Tom, Sober John, Vampire, Whittington, Janus, Sterling, Valiant,
etc. Owners of these horses among Mary Washington's neighbors were
Roger Gregory, Colonel John Mercer of "Marlboro," Mr. Spotswood,
William Fitzhugh of "Chatham," all the Thorntons, and _later_
Colonel George Washington of Mount Vernon, who was a steward of
the Alexandria Jockey Club and ran his own horses there and at
Annapolis! There was a fine race-course at Fredericksburg, and
purses were won from ten to a hundred pounds. This, the prime
amusement in spring, summer, and autumn, was varied (alas!) by
cock-fights, wrestling-matches, and rough games, in which the common
people, as in England, participated, while the gentry looked on and
awarded prizes. But in the long winter evenings, neighbors gathered
for Christmas and other house-parties, indulged in the gentle art of
story-telling. Later, old Fredericksburg boasted a notable, peerless
raconteur, John Minor, but his stories were built upon Virginia's
legends; his home, "Hazel Hill," was the rendezvous of all the
neighbors, young and old, in quest of sympathy or counsel, or advice
in the honorable settlement of quarrels, or for a season of genial
companionship. Around the fireside at "Hazel Hill" the children
would gather for their own story-telling hour "between daylight and
dark," and there the immortal "B'rer Rabbit" appears, but not for
the first time, in the annals of colonial history, and her Serene
Highness, the "Tar Baby," held her nightly court.
Around the winter fireside in the old colonial houses, the children,
and their seniors as well, learned the folk-lore of their native
colony, for, young as was the new country, Virginia had already her
legends: the mystic light on the lake in the Dismal Swamp, where the
lost lovers paddled their ghostly canoe; the footprints of the Great
Spirit on the rocks near Richmond; the story of Maiden's Adventure
on the James River; the story of the Haunted House--the untenanted
mansion at Church Hill--untenanted for eight decades because the
unhappy spirit of a maiden tapped with her fan on the doors where
wedded couples slept, invoking curses upon love that had failed her;
of sweet Evelyn Byrd, who rested not under her monument at Westover,
but glided among the roses, wringing her hands in hopeless grief
for the loss of a mortal's love; and of the legend of the wonderful
curative spring just discovered in Greenbrier County (learned from
an old Indian of the tribe of the Shawnees)--how one of the great
braves had once been missed from the council-fires and been found in
a valley, weak and supine, binding the brows of an Indian maid with
ferns and flowers; how two arrows had sped by order of the Great
Spirit, one destined for the man, one for the maid; how the recreant
warrior had been slain by the one, but the other arrow had buried
itself in the earth and when withdrawn a great, white sulphur spring
had gushed forth; how the maiden was doomed to wander as long as the
stream flowed, and not until it ceased could her spirit be reunited
to that of her lover in the happy hunting-grounds; also how the body
of the slain warrior was laid towards the setting sun, and the form
of the sleeping giant might be clearly discerned despite the trees
that grew over it.
[Illustration: WESTOVER.]
And one more Indian legend is so charming that we may be forgiven
for perpetuating it on these pages, remembering that these are
genuine Indian legends which have never before been printed. This
last was the story of the Mocking-bird. How once long ago there were
no wars or fightings, or tomahawks or scalpings among the Indians.
They were at perfect peace under the smile of the Great Spirit.
And in this beautiful time those who watched at night could hear a
strange, sweet song sweeping over the hills and filling the valleys,
now swelling, now dying away to come again. This was the music of
all things; moon, stars, tides, and winds, moving in harmony. But at
last Okee, the Evil One, stirred the heart of the red man against
his brother, and the nations arrayed themselves in battle. From that
moment the song was heard no more. The Great Spirit, Kiwassa, knew
that his children bemoaned their loss, and he promised them the song
should not be lost forever. It would be found some day by some
brave--loftier, better, stronger, than all others.
It fell at last that a chieftain loved the daughter of a hostile
chief. Both were captured and burned at the stake. Both died
bravely, each comforting the other. After death the chief, because
he had been so brave, was given the body of a bird, and sent in
quest of the Lost Song. When he found it, and only then, could
all be forgiven and the spirits of the lovers be reunited in the
happy hunting-grounds. Since then the bird has travelled north,
south, east, west, and wherever it goes it learns the songs of
all creatures, learns and repeats them. But the hatchet is not
yet buried; the Lost Song not yet found. Imagination can supply
few pictures fairer than this: firelight playing on the attentive
faces of old cavaliers and matrons, young men and lovely maidens,
the centre their accomplished host, "the pink of a chivalric
gentleman," gallant, cultured, refined, and at his knees, in his
arms, and seated on his shoulders, happy children, not only those
of his house-party, but others among his neighbors who dropped in
especially for the children's hour.
It is evident that Mary Washington's social life must have been an
active one. At the weddings and the christenings of her large circle
of neighbors and kindred she was certainly present. But I doubt
whether she ever attended the races, "Fish Frys, and Barbecues," of
which her neighbors were so fond. Not that she ventured to express
disapproval of things with which the clergy found no fault, but she
was a strict economist of time, never wasting it on trifles. She
kept her own accounts, managed her own plantation, and kept a stern
watch on the overseers of her son's estates.
To do this, and at the same time fill her place in her large circle
of friends, whose relations with her warranted their coming at will
for long visits, required all the method and management of which she
was capable.
Besides the householders, with their sons and daughters, who
regularly exchanged visits with each other at least once or twice
annually, Virginia had also her class of impecunious bachelors,
whose practice was to visit from house to house, taking in all
the well-to-do families. Until the Revolution--when they had
something else to do--they represented the class of hangers-on to
wealth, known to-day as "the little brothers of the rich,"--very
nice, adaptable, agreeable gentlemen, whom everybody likes, and to
whom society is willing to give much, exacting little in return.
In pre-Revolutionary Virginia, however, they could and did give
something. They gathered the news from house to house, brought
letters and the northern papers; were intelligent couriers, in
short, who kept the planter well-advised of all political rumors.
They possessed certain social accomplishments, could carve fairy
baskets out of cherry stones, cut profile portraits to be laid on
a black background, and make and mend pens to perfection. "When
I was in Stafford County a month ago," says the tutor at "Nomini
Hall," "I met[7] Captain John Lee, a Gentleman who seems to copy the
character of Addison's Will Wimble. He was then just sallying out on
his Winter's Visits, and has got now so far as here; he stays, as
I am told, about eight or ten weeks in the yeare at his own House,
the remaining part he lives with his Waiting Man on his Friends."
Captain Lee, by the way, is further recorded as "a _distant_ cousin
of the Lees of Westmoreland."
[7] Fithian's Diary.
In making these visits to the large country houses, young people
would naturally confer together and manage to meet those they knew
best and liked best. Thus it would sometimes happen (and who so
willing as the hosts?) that a large house-party would assemble
unheralded, and the house be filled with a merry company. "The usual
retinue," says General Maury, "at my wife's home was fifteen or more
well-trained servants when the house was full of company; and as
many as thirty or more of the family and friends daily dined there
together for weeks and months at a time." This was at Cleveland,
near Fredericksburg; and hospitality quite as generous ruled all the
homes in Mary Washington's neighborhood.
It sometimes happened that the capacity of the elastic house reached
its limit. On one such rare occasion a belated Presbyterian minister
alighted at the front gate and walked in with his baggage,--a pair
of well-worn saddle-bags. He was warmly welcomed, of course, but
the lady of the manor was in despair. Where could he sleep? Every
corner was full. One couldn't ask a clergyman to spend the night on
a settee in the passageway, nor lie upon a "pallet" of quilts on
the parlor floor. The children heard the troubled consultation as
to ways and means with their "Mammy," and were full of sympathy for
the homeless, unsheltered guest. The situation was still serious
when the household was summoned to family prayers. The clergyman--a
gaunt specimen with a beaklike nose and mournful voice--launched
into the one hundred and second Psalm, pouring out, as the pitying
children thought, his own soul in its homeless desolation. When he
reached the words, "I am like a pelican in the wilderness: I am like
an owl in the desert: I am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop,"
the exultant voice of the youngest little girl rang out, "_Mamma, he
can roost on the tester!_" One cannot wonder at this advice from a
hospitable man who had been literally "eaten out of house and home,"
"I advise my son to keep out of other people's houses, and keep
other people out of his own."
One can hardly imagine the care and labor involved in so much
entertaining. Nobody ever passed a house without calling; nobody
ever left it without refreshment for man and beast. Horses and
servants attended every visitor.
[Illustration: The Kitchen of Mount Vernon.]
Think of the quantity of food to be provided! And yet, a housewife's
_batterie de cuisine_ was of the simplest. The kitchen fireplace
held the iron pot for boiling the indispensable and much-respected
gammon of bacon (Virginia ham), and there were lidded ovens,
large and small, standing high on four feet, that coals might
burn brightly beneath them. There was a "skillet," with its ever
ascending incense from frying chickens and batter-cakes,--a
long-handled utensil with no feet at all, but resting upon the
portable, triangular "trevet,"--which, being light, could be thrust
into the very heart of the fire or drawn out on the fire-proof
dirt floor. There was a "hoe," known as a cooking utensil only in
Virginia, slanting before the coals for the thin hoe-cake of Indian
meal. In front stood the glory and pride of the kitchen,--the
spit, like two tall andirons with deeply serrated sides, on which
iron rods holding flesh and fowl could rest and be turned to roast
equally. An ample pan beneath caught the basting-butter and juices
of the meat. This spit held an exposed position, and has been known
to be robbed now and then by some unmannerly hound, or wandering
Caleb Balderstone, unable to resist such temptations. What would
the modern queen of the kitchen think of "a situation" involving
such trials,--her own wood often to be brought by herself, her
breakfast, including four or five kinds of bread (waffles, biscuit
thick and thin, batter-cakes, loaf bread), her poultry to be killed
and plucked by herself, her coffee to be roasted, fish scaled and
cleaned, meats cut from a carcass and trimmed, to say nothing of
cakes, puddings, and pies? And all this to be done for a perennial
house-party, with its footmen and maids!
True, the negro cook of colonial times had many
"kitchen-maids,"--her own children. But even with these her
achievements were almost supernatural. With her half-dozen utensils
she served a dinner that deserved--and _has_--immortality! "Old
Phyllis," the cook at "Blenheim," "Mammy Lucy" at Cleveland,
and many others have a high place in an old Virginian's Hall of
Fame,--his heart!
There was no lack of service in Mary Washington's day. The negro was
docile, affectionate, and quick to learn, at least these were the
characteristics of those employed in households. But even as late
as in Mary Ball's girlhood the negroes had no language intelligible
to their employers. One of the Lancaster clergymen, Mr. Bell,
writes that his congregation includes many "negroes, who cannot
understand my language nor I theirs." There is something infinitely
pathetic in this picture of the homeless savage in a strange land.
The African, finding himself not understood, made haste to acquire
the language spoken to him. His intimate association was with the
indented white men who labored with him, and he then and there
created a language distinctively known as his own, to which he still
clings and which contains, I believe, no word that can be traced
to African origin--at least this is true of the Virginia negro's
dialect. "It appears that the indented servants from whom he learned
must have come from Warwickshire. The negro dialect can be found in
Shakespeare;[8] for instance, 'trash,' afterwards accentuated by
'po' white trash.' 'What trash is Rome, what rubbish, what offal,'
says Cassius. 'They are trash,' says Iago, etc. 'Terrify,' for
'aggravate' or 'destroy,' is Warwickshire; also 'his'n,' 'her'n,'
for 'his' and 'hers'; 'howsomdever,' for 'however' (_Venus and
Adonis_); 'gawm,' for 'soiling hands or face'; 'yarbs,' for 'herbs';
'make,' for 'kindle' (make the fire); 'like,' for 'likely' (I was
like to fall); 'peart,' for 'lively'; 'traipsing,' for 'walking
idly about'; 'ooman,' for 'woman'; 'sallit,' for 'green stuff';
'yourn,' for 'yours.' These and many more negro words are taken from
Warwickshire dialect, and are to be found in Shakespeare." Upon
this root the negro grafted, without regard to its meaning, any and
every high-sounding word which he happened to hear, and which seemed
to him magnificent. The meaning signified so little that he never
deemed it necessary to ask it. The result was, to say the least,
picturesque.
[8] "Warwickshire Dialect," by Mr. Appleton Morgan.
The church being his earliest school, he was soon impressed by the
names of certain of the Hebrew Patriarchs, and the first names
with which he endowed his children were Aaron, Moses, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and Isaiah. Why he scorned Jeremiah, Nahum, Ezekiel,
and others, is best known to himself. Later, he caught from
the companionship of the schoolboys the names of the heroes of
antiquity, giving decided preferen
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