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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.