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!