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.