MARTHA WASHINGTON
1732-1802
On a great Virginia plantation in the year 1732 Martha Dandridge was
born. Her father was a prominent landowner and his daughter had the
usual education of the time--not much schooling in comparison with
to-day, but she learned to play the spinet, to dance gracefully, and
to sew with all the mysteries of elaborate stitches. A well-behaved,
pretty child she was who at fifteen made her début in Williamsburg,
the capital of Virginia, which then afforded the gayest social life in
America. Dressed in a stiff bodice and flowered petticoat, Martha was
the belle of the ball, and of many succeeding ones as well, for at once
she became a great favorite.
When she was barely eighteen she married Daniel Parke Custis, a
wealthy landowner, who was more than twenty years her senior. They
lived near Williamsburg at his country home, the “White House.” Seven
years later he died, leaving her with two young children and a great
fortune--thousands of pounds and thousands of acres of Virginia land.
In May, 1758, Mrs. Custis was visiting at Major Chamberlayne’s, when
her host brought an unexpected guest--none other than young Colonel
George Washington, already a military hero and commander of the
Virginia troops. He was en route to Williamsburg to report to the
governor on the needs of his regiments, and when Major Chamberlayne
pressed him to stop, he had at first refused, but yielded when told
that the prettiest and richest widow in all Virginia was there.
He would stay for dinner then, but must go on at once, and gave orders
accordingly to his servant, Bishop, bequeathed to him by General
Braddock. But when dinner was over and the horses were brought round
no Washington appeared, though Bishop had never known his master to be
late before. In the drawing-room the young colonel and the young widow
were talking, oblivious to everything else, while the impatient steeds
pawed the drive restlessly. Till the day was done and twilight at hand
Washington loitered.
“No guest can leave my house after sunset,” said the major, and
insisted that he must stay the night. Late the next morning Bishop
and his master rode away to Williamsburg. The little widow in the
white dimity frock, with the cluster of May-blossoms at her belt, and
the little white cap half covering her soft, wavy brown hair, had
completely captivated the soldier. His business in the town completed,
he rode on to the “White House.”
“Is your mistress at home?” he asked the negro who met him at the ferry.
“Yes, sah,” was the reply, and the man added, his white teeth flashing
in a broad smile, “I reckon you’s the man what’s ’spected!”
Evidently he was, for when, on the following day, Washington left for
camp and the western campaign against Fort Duquesne, the two were
engaged.
In January, 1759, when they had met just four times, Mrs. Custis and
George Washington were married. A brilliant scene the wedding was.
The guests included wealthy planters and their wives and daughters,
all very grand in their satins and brocades, English officers in army
and navy uniforms, the governor of Virginia, in scarlet embroidered
with gold, with a bag wig. The groom wore a blue suit, the coat lined
with scarlet silk and trimmed with silver, an embroidered white satin
waistcoat, with knee and shoe buckles of gold; while in contrast to
his six feet two was the little bride in a petticoat of white quilted
satin, with an overdress of white corded silk interwoven with silver
threads, high-heeled satin shoes with diamond buckles, point lace
ruffles and pearls. At the door, attracting almost as much attention as
the wedding party, stood Bishop in his red coat, holding his master’s
chestnut horse.
With her three bridesmaids Mrs. Washington drove to her home in a coach
and six, while her husband and a group of his friends rode beside them.
Thus began their forty years of married life.
After a few months in Williamsburg, to settle the business of the
Custis estate and to attend the meetings of the House of Burgesses, of
which Washington had been elected a member during his campaign against
the French, he took his bride to Mount Vernon, his eight-thousand acre
plantation on the Potomac River. Here they planned to live quietly, he
busy with his fields and flocks, she with the large household, and both
enjoying the growth of the Custis children. In a white apron and cap,
with a bunch of keys jingling at her side, Mrs. Washington supervised
the busy kitchen and slave quarters, looked after the strict training
and the lessons of the children, and was a charming hostess to their
guests.
But public affairs changed and with them this quiet happy life. The
stamp act and oppressive taxes stirred the colonies. Like many patriot
women, Martha Washington ceased using tea at her table, ceased to buy
English cloth and other goods of English manufacture. No less than
sixteen spinning-wheels were kept busy at Mount Vernon, and on the
looms homespun was woven for the family’s clothing and for the large
number of slaves.
Rapidly events moved to a crisis. The first Continental Congress was
called, and Washington elected as one of Virginia’s three delegates.
When the party started north Mrs. Washington saw them off with these
words of wifely appreciation, “I hope you will all stand firm. I know
George will. God be with you, gentlemen.”
And this was not idle talk on her part, for she foresaw plainly the
consequences. At the many discussions and debates which had occurred at
their home, for and against English policy, she had said little, but
had listened intelligently. She summed it up in writing to a friend:
“Dark days and darker nights, domestic happiness suspended, social
enjoyments abandoned, property put in jeopardy--but what are all these
evils when compared with the fate of which the Port Bill may be only a
threat? My mind is made up, my heart is in the cause.”
The second Congress met the following May and Washington was
unanimously chosen commander-in-chief of the army. He wrote this news
to his wife at Mount Vernon, adding that he hoped to return in the
autumn. Instead he then invited her to come to him in Cambridge, but
carefully pointed out the difficulties of the journey. Unhesitating,
undismayed, a true soldier’s wife, she set out for the long trip to
the North, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to
leave the ease and security of her southern home and spend the winter
in a New England camp on the outskirts of a city held by the enemy.
The coach with its four horses, and postillions in white and scarlet
livery, attracted great attention. In the country people rushed to
doors and windows to get a sight of her. In the towns she was met by
escorts of Continental soldiers, the ringing of bells, and enthusiastic
cheering. With a mingled feeling of pride and wonder this little woman,
who had never been out of Virginia, realized what it was to be the wife
of General Washington.
This was a real farewell to the quiet plantation and the beginning
of her public life. Except for the year when Trenton and Princeton
and active winter campaigning made it too dangerous for women to be
present, it was Martha Washington’s custom to join her husband when
the army went into winter quarters, and to march back home when work
opened with the spring. Thus she heard the first and last gun of every
campaign, and described herself as a perambulator for those eight years.
Because she was the wife of the general, it did not follow that she
could live in luxury. In Cambridge to be sure headquarters were in
the Craigie House, later the home of the poet Longfellow; and here
Mrs. Washington had some social life, with the wives of the Harvard
professors. But in other places lodgings were often very, very
uncomfortable, “a squeezed-up room or two.” At Valley Forge a log
cabin was built--near a Quaker farmhouse where the Washingtons had
two rooms--to serve as a kitchen and dining-room; but when this same
plan was proposed for the headquarters at Morristown, no lumber was
available! At Newburgh their inconvenient dining-room had one window
and seven doors, and the sitting-room was so small that when Washington
entertained a French officer, the guest had to sit on a camp bed.
Martha Washington’s presence lessened the general’s cares and broke
the monotony of the long anxious winters. She was always a delightful
hostess and even with camp limitations her hospitality and genial
manner reminded her guests of Virginia. Nearly every day some of the
young officers and their wives were invited to dinner, the General and
Mrs. Washington sitting side by side, while Alexander Hamilton carved.
Martha Washington was always a simple, dignified woman, as a group of
Morristown ladies who went to call upon her testified. Having heard
that the general’s wife was a very grand lady, they wore their best
bibs and bands, and most elegant silks and ruffles. Mrs. Washington, in
a plain homespun dress and a “specked” (checked) apron, received them
very graciously, a half knit stocking in her left hand, the ball of
yarn in her pocket. After the usual compliments were over, she resumed
her knitting.
“And there we were,” described one of the women afterward, “without a
stitch of work, and sitting in state, but General Washington’s lady was
knitting socks!”
She showed them two dresses of cotton and silk, woven at Mount Vernon,
the stripes made from ravelings of brown silk stockings and old
crimson damask chair covers. She took pains to tell them that the
livery of her coachmen was all homespun, save for the scarlet cuffs,
made of English material imported long before the war.
After that visit, work for the soldiers, rather than fine feminine
clothes, became the fashion in Morristown.
At another New Jersey headquarters Washington was staying at a private
house, whose mistress one day saw a coach drive up to the door, with
ten dragoons as the escort. Out stepped a plain little woman dressed
in brown homespun, wearing a hood; over her bosom was folded a large
white kerchief. She must be a maid, thought the hostess, until she saw
General Washington greeting her, and inquiring about the children, and
his favorite horses at Mount Vernon. The general’s wife, dressed like
that!
Everywhere the soldiers loved Lady Washington, as they called her.
During the sad winter at Valley Forge, when the army was in desperate
straits, suffering greatly from lack of food and blankets and clothing,
and the consequent constant sickness, she went to share the soldiers’
privations and make a spot of cheer in their dreary lives. She arrived
in a rough farm sleigh, hired from the innkeeper at the forks of the
Brandywine, where the deep snow had forced her to abandon her coach.
Stanch patriot that she was, she made light of inconveniences and
discomforts and hardships; and never was a woman busier than Martha
Washington, all that dismal winter. In a cloak and hood, with her
basket on her arm, she went in the deep snow from hut to hut, carrying
delicacies for the sick and consolation for the dying, and by her
sympathy and generosity stimulating the loyalty and courage of the
men. “God bless Lady Washington!” was frequently heard, when her kind,
motherly face appeared.
Day after day she assembled in her two rooms the wives of the
officers, to knit and patch, and make new garments whenever materials
could be secured. No more embroidering and spinet playing, and other
light accomplishments! The work these women did at Valley Forge was
far-reaching in its effects. News of it spread to Philadelphia, where
the British were having a gay winter, and the patriotic ladies there
commenced making shirts for the soldiers, and ultimately contributed
nearly three thousand garments. Small in amount, perhaps, in comparison
with such service to-day; but Martha Washington was a pioneer,
anticipating the work of the Sanitary Commission and the American Red
Cross.
Officers, soldiers and women, all were steadied by her serenity and
unwavering faith. And when the middle of March brought better times,
she led in the camp gaiety. The news of the French alliance was
celebrated with a grand review. The soldiers cheered for the king of
France, for the thirteen states, for their general; then there came
shouts of “Long live Lady Washington!” and a thousand hats were tossed
into the air in the excitement.
Yorktown and victory, and the end of the war in sight, but Washington
must remain on duty until peace was actually signed. Martha Washington
was present, sitting in the gallery of the old capitol at Annapolis,
when he resigned his commission; and together they drove to Mount
Vernon, arriving on Christmas Eve. Standing at the door of his cottage
to welcome them was old Bishop, dressed in the scarlet regimentals he
had worn at Braddock’s defeat. All the servants and slaves assembled,
and such a Christmas celebration as Mount Vernon had!
More than all else the Washingtons longed for quiet days on their
plantation, to enjoy the rest they so much needed. But there
were guests innumerable, so that Mount Vernon was described as
a well-resorted tavern. When he had been home almost two years,
Washington wrote in his diary,
“Dined with only Mrs. Washington, which I believe is the first
instance of it since my retirement from public life.”
This furlough, as the general used to speak of it, was not destined
to continue overlong. The federation of the states proved too weak a
government, and Washington must go to Philadelphia for months, to sit
as president of the Constitutional Convention. Then after the people
had ratified the Constitution, there came one day riding up the broad
drive at Mount Vernon the aged secretary of Congress, with a letter
notifying George Washington that he had been elected president of the
United States.
“I little thought when the war was finished,” wrote Martha Washington,
“that any circumstances could possibly have happened which would call
the General into public life again. I had anticipated that we should
have been left to grow old in solitude and tranquillity together. That
was the first and dearest wish of my heart.... Yet I can not blame him
for having acted according to his ideas of duty in obeying the voice
of his country.”
Alone to New York for the inauguration went George Washington, wearing
a homespun suit woven at Mount Vernon. When his wife, likewise dressed
in homespun, followed a few weeks later, her welcome all along the
journey was second only to his. She entered many a town between two
long columns of Revolutionary soldiers; and at New York City she was
rowed across the bay by thirteen oarsmen dressed in white, while the
guns fired thirteen rounds and crowds cheered her.
As the president’s wife, Martha Washington was hostess for the nation,
entertaining distinguished citizens and foreigners, cabinet officers
and congressmen, presiding at the state dinners and giving public
receptions every Friday, where plum cake, tea and coffee were served.
The guests were always dismissed before nine, with her grave, frank
little formula, “For the general always retires at nine, and I usually
precede him.” The need over, she laid aside her homespun and dressed in
silk, satin, velvet and lace, as became the wife of the president.
People criticized Mrs. Washington for the ceremony in force at her
levees, saying they were too much like those of royalty. Guests were
shocked because they had to stand, while the truth was, the rooms
would not have contained a third enough chairs. Presided over by the
Washingtons, the executive mansion combined with the most ardent
patriotism a dignity and elegant moderation that would have honored
any European court. They saved the social life of a new country from
both the crudeness and bald simplicity of extreme republicanism, and
from the luxury and excesses often marking sudden elevation to power
and place. And in all these social functions Mrs. Washington never
joined in any political discussion. Though the letters between her and
her husband were filled with talk of public affairs, she was never
once heard to utter any opinion on important questions of state; and
in this, as in many details of her life, she is a worthy model for any
American woman whose husband is in public service.
The year in New York was followed by similar years in Philadelphia,
after the capital was moved there. The second term of the presidency
over and a third term refused, the Washingtons gladly returned to
Virginia; their joy being evidenced in this letter:
“I can not tell you how much I enjoy home, after having been deprived
of one so long, for our dwelling in New York and Philadelphia was
not home, only sojourning. The General and I feel like children just
released from school or from a hard taskmaster, and we believe that
nothing can tempt us to leave the sacred roof tree again, except on
private business or pleasure. I am fairly settled down to the pleasant
duties of an old-fashioned Virginia housekeeper, steady as a clock,
busy as a bee, and cheerful as a cricket.”
Happily they lived at Mount Vernon two years, until the general’s
death. During his brief illness Mrs. Washington never left his room.
“’Tis well,” were his last words.
“Is he dead?” she asked, so gentle had been the change. “’Tis well. All
is over now. I shall soon follow him. I have no more trials to pass
through.”
She moved up to a little attic room whose windows looked out toward his
grave, and beyond to the waters of the Potomac which he had so loved.
Surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, cheerful in
her sorrow and loneliness, she survived him two years, and when she
died, was buried beside him in the simple brick tomb at Mount Vernon.
A woman not wise nor great perhaps in any worldly sense, Martha
Washington had those qualities of heart that make a noble rounded
character. A devoted and loyal wife, a tender mother, an earnest
Christian, she was fitted to be the chosen companion of “the greatest
of our soldiers and the purest of our patriots.” Serene and kindly, in
the familiar white cap and kerchief, she has become the nation’s ideal
of the president’s wife, our country’s first hostess.