THE FARMER'S WIFE
Martha Dandridge's first husband was a man much older than herself and
her second was almost a year younger. Before she embarked upon her
second matrimonial venture she had been the mother of four children, and
having lost two of these, her husband, her father and mother, she had
known, though only twenty-seven, most of the vital experiences that life
can give. Perhaps it was well, for thereby she was better fitted to be
the mate of a man sober and sedate in disposition and created by Nature
to bear heavy burdens of responsibility.
In view of the important places her husband filled, it is astonishing
how little we really know of her. Washington occasionally refers to her
in his letters and diaries, but usually in an impersonal way that gives
us little insight into her character or activities. She purposely
destroyed almost all the correspondence that passed between her and her
husband and very little else remains that she wrote. From the few
letters that do survive it is apparent that her education was slender,
though no more so than that of most women of her day even in the upper
class. She had a fondness for phonetic spelling, and her verbs and
subjects often indulged in family wrangles. She seems to have been
conscious of her deficiencies in this direction or at least to have
disliked writing, for not infrequently the General acted as her
amanuensis. But she was well trained in social and domestic
accomplishments, could dance and play on the spinet--in short, was
brought up a "gentlewoman." That she must in youth have possessed charm
of person and manners is indicated by her subjugation of Daniel Parke
Custis, a man of the world and of much greater fortune than herself, and
by her later conquest of Washington, for, though it be admitted in the
latter case that George may not have objected to her fortune, we can not
escape the conclusion that he truly loved her.
In fact, the match seems to have been ideally successful in every
respect except one. The contracting parties remained reasonably devoted
to each other until the end and though tradition says that Martha would
sometimes read George a curtain lecture after they had retired from
company, there remains no record of any serious disagreement. Though not
brilliant nor possessed of a profound mind, she was a woman of much good
sense with an understanding heart. Nor did she lack firmness or public
spirit. Edmund Pendleton relates that when on his way to the Continental
Congress in 1774 he stopped at Mount Vernon, "She talked like a Spartan
mother to her son on going to battle. 'I hope you will all stand firm--I
know George will,' she said."
The poorest artisan in Boston with nothing to lose but his life did not
embrace the patriot cause with any greater eagerness than did these
Washingtons with their broad acres and thousands of pounds on bond.
There is every reason to believe that Martha Washington was helpful to
her husband in many ways. At home she was a good housewife and when
Washington was in public life she played her part well. No brilliant
sallies of wit spoken by her on any occasion have come down to us, but
we know that at Valley Forge she worked day and night knitting socks,
patching garments and making shirts for the loyal band of winter
patriots who stood by their leader and their cause in the darkest hour
of the Revolution.
A Norristown lady who paid her a call in the little stone house that
still stands beside the Schuylkill relates that "as she was said to be
so grand a lady, we thought we must put on our best bibs and bands. So
we dressed ourselves in our most elegant ruffles and silks, and were
introduced to her ladyship. And don't you think we found her _knitting
with a specked apron on!_ She received us very graciously, and easily,
but after the compliments were over, she resumed her knitting."
But the marriage was a failure in that there were no children. No doubt
both wanted them, for Washington was fond of young people and many
anecdotes are handed down of his interest in little tots. Some one has
remarked that he was deprived of offspring in order that he might become
the Father of His Country.
Toward those near and dear to her Martha Washington was almost foolishly
affectionate. In one of her letters she tells of a visit "in
Westmoreland whare I spent a weak very agreabley. I carred my little
patt with me and left Jackey at home for a trial to see how well I coud
stay without him though we ware gon but won fortnight I was quite
impatiant to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a
noise out, I thought thair was a person sent for me. I often fancied he
was sick or some accident had happened to him so that I think it is
impossible for me to leave him as long as Mr. Washington must stay when
he comes down."
Any parent who has been absent from home under similar circumstances and
who has imagined the infinite variety of dreadful things that might
befall a loved child will sympathize with the mother's heart--in spite
of the poor spelling!
Patty Custis was an amiable and beautiful girl who when she grew up came
to be called "the dark lady." But she was delicate in health. Some
writers have said that she had consumption, but as her stepfather
repeatedly called it "Fits," I think it is certain that it was some form
of epilepsy. Her parents did everything possible to restore her, but in
vain. Once they took her to Bath, now Berkeley Springs, for several
weeks and the expenses of that journey we find all duly set down by
Colonel Washington in the proper place. As Paul Leicester Ford remarks,
some of the remedies tried savored of quackery. In the diary, for
February 16, 1770, we learn that "Joshua Evans who came here last Night
put an iron Ring upon Patey and went away after Breakfast." Perhaps
Evans failed to make the ring after the old medieval rule from three
nails or screws that had been taken from a disinterred coffin. At any
rate the ring did poor Patty little good and a year later "Mr. Jno.
Johnson who has a nostrum for Fits came here in the afternoon." In the
spring of 1773 the dark lady died.
Her death added considerably to Washington's possessions, but there is
every evidence that he gave no thought to that aspect of the matter.
"Her delicate health, or perhaps her fond affection for the only father
she had ever known, so endeared her to the 'general', that he knelt at
her dying bed, and with a passionate burst of tears prayed aloud that
her life might be spared, unconscious that even then her spirit had
departed." The next day he wrote to his brother-in-law: "It is an easier
matter to conceive than describe the distress of this Family: especially
that of the unhappy Parent of our Dear Patey Custis, when I inform you
that yesterday removed the Sweet Innocent Girl [who] Entered into a more
happy & peaceful abode than any she has met with in the afflicted Path
she hitherto has trod."
Before this John Parke Custis, or "Jacky," had given his stepfather
considerable anxiety. Jacky's mind turned chiefly from study to dogs,
horses and guns and, in an effort, to "make him fit for more useful
purposes than horse races," Washington put him under the tutorship of an
Anglican clergyman named Jonathan Boucher, who endeavored to instruct
some of the other gilded Virginia youths of his day. But Latin and Greek
were far less interesting to the boy than the pretty eyes of Eleanor
Calvert and the two entered into a clandestine engagement. In all
respects save one the match was eminently satisfactory, for the Calvert
family, being descended from Lord Baltimore, was as good as any in
America, and Miss Nelly's amiable qualities, wrote Washington, had
endeared her to her prospective relations, but both were very young,
Jack being about seventeen, and the girl still younger. While consenting
to the match, therefore, Washington insisted that its consummation
should be postponed for two years and packed the boy off to King's
College, now Columbia. But Martha Washington was a fond and doting
mother and, as Patty's death occurred almost immediately, Jack's absence
in distant New York was more than she could bear. He was, therefore,
allowed to return home in three months instead of two years, and in
February, 1774, was wedded to the girl of his choice. Mrs. Washington
felt the loss of her daughter too keenly to attend, but sent this
message by her husband:
"MY DEAR NELLY.--God took from me a Daughter when June Roses were
blooming--He has now given me another Daughter about her Age when Winter
winds are blowing, to warm my Heart again. I am as Happy as One so
Afflicted and so Blest can be. Pray receive my Benediction and a wish
that you may long live the Loving Wife of my happy Son, and a Loving
Daughter of
"Your affectionate Mother,
"M. WASHINGTON."
The marriage, it may be added here, sobered John Custis. He and his
bride established themselves at Abingdon on the Potomac, not far from
Mount Vernon, and with their little ones were often visitors, especially
when the General was away to the war and Mrs. Washington was alone.
Toward the close of the war Jack himself entered the army, rose to the
rank of colonel and died of fever contracted in the siege of Yorktown.
Thus again was the mother's heart made sorrowful, nor did the General
himself accept the loss unmoved. He at once adopted the two youngest
children, Eleanor and George Washington Parke, and brought them up in
his own family.
Eleanor Custis, or "Nelly," as she was affectionately called, grew up a
joyous, beautiful cultured girl, who won the hearts of all who saw her.
The Polish poet, Julian Niemcewicz, who visited Mount Vernon in 1798,
wrote of her as "the divine Miss Custis.... She was one of those
celestial beings so rarely produced by nature, sometimes dreamt of by
poets and painters, which one cannot see without a feeling of ecstacy."
As already stated, she married the General's nephew, Lawrence Lewis. In
September, 1799, Washington told the pair that they might build a house
on Grey's Heights on the Dogue Run Farm and rent the farm, "by all odds
the best and most productive I possess," promising that on his death the
place should go to them. Death came before the house was built, but
later the pair erected on the Heights "Woodlawn," one of the most
beautiful and pretentious places in Fairfax County.
George Washington Parke Custis grew up much such a boy as his father
was. He took few matters seriously and neglected the educational
opportunities thrown in his way. Washington said of him that "from his
infancy I have discovered an almost unconquerable disposition to
indolence in everything that did not tend to his amusements." But he
loved the boy, nevertheless, and late in life Custis confessed, "we have
seen him shed tears of parental solicitude over the manifold errors and
follies of our unworthy youth." The boy had a good heart, however, and
if he was the source of worry to the great man during the great man's
life, he at least did what he could to keep the great man's memory
green. He wrote a book of recollections full of filial affection and
Latin phrases and painted innumerable war pictures in which Washington
was always in the foreground on a white horse "with the British
streaking it." Washington bequeathed to him a square in the City of
Washington and twelve hundred acres on Four Mile Run in the vicinity of
Alexandria. Upon land near by inherited from his father Custis built the
famous Arlington mansion, almost ruining himself financially in doing
so. Upon his death the estate fell to his daughter, Mrs. Robert E. Lee,
and it is now our greatest national cemetery.
Mrs. Washington not only managed the Mount Vernon household, but she
looked after the spinning of yarn, the weaving of cloth and the making
of clothing for the family and for the great horde of slaves. At times,
particularly during the Revolution and the non-importation days that
preceded it, she had as many as sixteen spinning-wheels in operation at
once. The work was done in a special spinning house, which was well
equipped with looms, wheels, reels, flaxbrakes and other machinery. Most
of the raw material, such as wool and flax and sometimes even cotton,
was produced upon the place and never left it until made up into the
finished product.
In 1768 the white man and five negro girls employed in the work produced
815-3/4 yards of linen, 365-1/4 yards of woolen cloth, 144 yards of
linsey and 40 yards of cotton cloth. With his usual pains Washington
made a comparative statement of the cost of this cloth produced at home
and what it would have cost him if it had been purchased in England, and
came to the conclusion that only £23.19.11 would be left to defray the
expense of spinning, hire of the six persons engaged, "cloathing,
victualling, wheels, &c." Still the work was kept going.
A great variety of fabrics were produced: "striped woolen, wool plaided,
cotton striped, linen, wool-birdseye, cotton filled with wool, linsey,
M's and O's, cotton Indian dimity, cotton jump stripe, linen filled with
tow, cotton striped with silk, Roman M., janes twilled, huccabac,
broadcloth, counter-pain, birdseye diaper, Kirsey wool, barragon,
fustian, bed-ticking, herring-box, and shalloon."
In non-importation days Mrs. Washington even made the cloth for two of
her own gowns, using cotton striped with silk, the latter being obtained
from the ravellings of brown silk stockings and crimson damask
chair covers.
The housewife believed in good cheer and an abundance of it, and the
larders at Mount Vernon were kept well filled. Once the General
protested to Lund Washington because so many hogs had been killed,
whereupon the manager replied that when he put up the meat he had
expected that Mrs. Washington would have been at home and that he knew
there would be need for it because her "charitable disposition is in
the same proportion as her meat house."
[Illustration: Weekly Report on the Work of the Spinners]
She had a swarm of relatives by blood and marriage and they visited her
long and often. The Burwells, the Bassetts, the Dandridges and all the
rest came so frequently that hardly a week passed that at least one of
them did not sleep beneath the hospitable roof. Even her stepmother paid
her many visits and, what is more, was strongly urged by the General to
make the place her permanent home. When Mrs. Washington was at home
during the Revolution her son and her daughter-in-law spent most of
their time there. After the Revolution her two youngest grandchildren
resided at Mount Vernon, and the two older ones, Elizabeth and Martha,
were often there, as was their mother, who married as her second husband
Doctor Stuart, a man whom Washington highly esteemed.
It would be foolish to deny that Mrs. Washington did not take pleasure
in the honors heaped upon her husband or that she did not enjoy the
consideration that accrued to her as First Lady of the Land. Yet public
life at times palled upon her and she often spoke of the years of the
presidency as her "lost days." New York and Philadelphia, she said,
were "not home, only a sojourning. The General and I feel like children
just released from school or from a hard taskmaster.... How many dear
friends I have left behind! They fill my memory with sweet thoughts.
Shall I ever see them again? Not likely unless they come to me, for the
twilight is gathering around our lives. I am again 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."
That she did not overdraw her account of her industry is borne out by a
Mrs. Carrington, who, with her husband, one of the General's old
officers, visited Mount Vernon about this time. She wrote:
"Let us repair to the Old Lady's room, which is precisely in the style
of our good old Aunt's--that is to say, nicely fixed for all sorts of
work--On one side sits the chambermaid, with her knitting--on the other,
a little colored pet learning to sew, an old decent woman, with her
table and shears, cutting out the negroes' winter clothes, while the
good old lady directs them all, incessantly knitting herself and
pointing out to me several pair of nice colored stockings and gloves she
had just finished, and presenting me with a pair half done, which she
begs I will finish and wear for her. Her netting too is a great source
of amusement and is so neatly done that all the family are proud of
trimming their dresses with it."
This domestic life was dear to the heart of our Farmer's wife, yet the
home-coming did not fail to awaken some melancholy memories. To Mrs.
George Fairfax in England she wrote, or rather her husband wrote for
her: "The changes which have taken place in this country since you left
it (and it is pretty much the case in all other parts of this State)
are, in one word, total. In Alexandria, I do not believe there lives at
this day a single family with whom you had the smallest acquaintance. In
our neighborhood Colo. Mason, Colo. McCarty and wife, Mr. Chickester,
Mr. Lund Washington and all the Wageners, have left the stage of human
life; and our visitors on the Maryland side are gone and going
likewise."
How many people have had like thoughts! One of the many sad things about
being the "last leaf upon the tree" is having to watch the other leaves
shrivel and drop off and to be left at last in utter loneliness.
Like her husband, Mrs. Washington was an early riser, and it was a habit
she seems to have kept up until the end. She rose with the sun and
after breakfast invariably retired to her room for an hour of prayer and
reading the Scriptures. Her devotions over she proceeded with the
ordinary duties of the day.
She seems to have been somewhat fond of ceremony and to have had a
considerable sense of personal dignity. A daughter of Augustine
Washington, who when twelve years of age spent several weeks at Mount
Vernon, related when an old woman that every morning precisely at eleven
o'clock the mistress of the mansion expected her company to assemble in
the drawing-room, where she greeted them with much formality and kept
them an hour on their good behavior. When the clock struck twelve she
would rise and ascend to her chamber, returning thence precisely at one,
followed by a black servant carrying an immense bowl of punch, from
which the guests were expected to partake before dinner. Some of the
younger girls became curious to discover why her "Ladyship" retired so
invariably to her room, so they slipped out from where she was
entertaining their mothers, crept upstairs and hid under her bed.
Presently Lady Washington entered and took a seat before a large table.
A man-servant then brought a large empty bowl, also lemons, sugar,
spices and rum, with which she proceeded to prepare the punch. The young
people under the bed thereupon fell to giggling until finally she became
aware of their presence. Much offended, or at least pretending to be,
she ordered them from the room. They retired with such precipitancy that
one of them fell upon the stairway and broke her arm.
Another story is to the effect that one morning Nelly Custis, Miss
Dandridge and some other girls who were visiting Nelly came down to
breakfast dressed dishabille and with their hair done up in curl papers.
Mrs. Washington did not rebuke them and the meal proceeded normally
until the announcement was made that some French officers of rank and
young Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, who was interested in Miss Custis,
had driven up outside, whereupon the foolish virgins sprang up to leave
the room in order to make more conventional toilets. But Mrs. Washington
forbade their doing so, declaring that what was good enough for General
Washington was good enough for any guest of his.
She spoiled George Washington Custis as she had his father, but was
more severe with Eleanor or Nelly. Washington bought the girl a fine
imported harpsichord, which cost a thousand dollars and which is still
to be seen at Mount Vernon, and the grandmother made Nelly practise upon
it four or five hours a day. "The poor girl," relates her brother,
"would play and cry, and cry and play, for long hours, under the
immediate eye of her grandmother." For no shirking was allowed.
The truth would seem to be that Lady Washington was more severe with the
young--always excepting Jacky and George--than was her husband. He would
often watch their games with evident enjoyment and would encourage them
to continue their amusements and not to regard him. He was the confidant
of their hopes and fears and even amid tremendous cares of state found
time to give advice about their love affairs. For he was a very human
man, after all, by no means the marble statue sculptured by some
historians.
Yet no doubt Mrs. Washington's severity proceeded from a sense of duty
and the fitness of things rather than from any harshness of heart. The
little old lady who wrote: "Kiss Marie. I send her two handkerchiefs to
wipe her nose," could not have been so very terrible!
She was beloved by her servants and when she left Mount Vernon for New
York in 1789 young Robert Lewis reported that "numbers of these poor
wretches seemed most affected, my aunt equally so." At Alexandria she
stopped at Doctor Stuart's, the home of two of her grandchildren, and
next morning there was another affecting scene, such as Lewis never
again wished to witness--"the family in tears--the children a-bawling--&
everything in the most lamentable situation."
Although she was not the paragon that some writers have pictured, she
was a splendid home-loving American woman, brave in heart and helpful to
her husband, neither a drone nor a drudge--in the true Scriptural sense
a worthy woman who sought wool and flax and worked willingly with her
hands. As such her price was far beyond rubies.
As has been remarked before, no brilliant sayings from her lips have
been transmitted to posterity. But I suspect that the shivering soldiers
on the bleak hillsides at Valley Forge found more comfort in the warm
socks she knitted than they could have in the _bon mots_ of a Madame de
Stael or in the grace of a Josephine and that her homely interest in
their welfare tied their hearts closer to their Leader and
their Country.
It is not merely because she was the wife of the Hero of the Revolution
and the first President of the Republic that she is the most revered of
all American women.