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.