"Every spirit as it is most pureAnd hath in it the more of heavenly light—So it the fairer bodie doth procureTo habit in."
churchOLD YEOCOMICO CHURCH.
OLD YEOCOMICO CHURCH.
OLD YEOCOMICO CHURCH.
Imagination and probability join hands in picturing her on horseback. She was a fearless and expert horsewoman. At thirteen years of age she had owned her own mount, her own plush saddle. Now, at twenty, we find her in "habit, hat, and feather" at home on her own dapple-gray, her brother-in-law's gift—she was too good a horsewoman for mad gallops—"pacing" through the lanes in Westmoreland to and fro from Bonum Creek to Sandy Point, or to Yeocomico church, or to superintend her own fields. Her English habit is of scarlet cloth, long and flowing as to the skirt and tightly fitted as to the bodice. Her hat is of beaver, and hat and floating plume alike are black.
This is a pleasing picture of the mother of our adored Washington, and it is as true a picture as we have authority for drawing. It would have helped much if we could have accepted any one of the portraits claiming to be genuine, although noone of them expresses the type which we may reasonably suppose to have been hers. Her own descendants and the wisest historians declare she left no portrait. A picture, claiming to be such, hangs to-day in Lancaster court-house—one that was genuine was burned in the home of her early married life. Handsome and stately she certainly was. Nor can we suppose from the character developed in her early maternal life, that she mingled to any extent in the gayeties of her time. In no letter, no record of any kind, is her name mentioned until her marriage. She was doubtless always grave, always thoughtful, concerning herself much with her religious duties, industrious in womanly occupations, reverently attentive to the services at Yeocomico church, of which the Eskridge family were members.
We may be sure she was instructed in dancing—the universal accomplishment of the time. The saintly blind preacher, James Waddell, had his daughters, to the great scandal of his Presbyterian followers, taught to dance; his defence being that "no parent has a right to make his children unfit for polite society." Members of the Lee, Corbyn, and other influential families of her neighborhood urged the building of a "Banquetting House"—a rustic casino—in Pickatown's Field in Westmoreland, according to contracts made years before, "to make an Honourable treatment fit toentertain the undertakers thereof, their wives, mistresses (sweethearts) and friends, yearly and every year;" and the "yearly and every year" was likely to be construed, as the merry colonists knew well how to construe all opportunities for pleasure. For despite Francis Makemie, James Waddell, and the truly evangelical priests of the Established Church—of whom there were still some—the times went merrily in old Virginia; and the waters of the York had cooled long ago the fevered blood of the first martyr to freedom; and Benjamin Franklin was composing ballads upon "Blackbeard, the pyrate," to say nothing of rollicking rhymes fit no longer for ears polite; and Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, and George Washington were yet unborn.
The veil of obscurity which hangs over the unmarried life of Mary Ball will never be lifted. The evidence is all in, the testimony all taken. It is certain that she could hardly escape the social round in the gay society of Westmoreland, and quite as certain that she was not a prominent part of it. When the gardener desires the perfecting of some flower, to bloom but once in a twelve-month, he keeps it secluded in some cool, dark spot—only when well rooted bringing it forth into the sunlight. Thus the mind and character grow best in quiet and seclusion, becoming serene, strong, and superior to petty passions. When Mary Ball's hour was come,when her high vocation was pressed upon her, she was rooted and grounded in all things requisite for her exalted but difficult lot.
The years of which we have no record included the formative period of her life. They were dark years in the religious history of the colony. She could have small help from the clerical guides of the day. Even at the best, a church service was mainly a social function,—prayers hurriedly read, perfunctory sermon of short duration, followed by a social half-hour for the purpose of giving and accepting invitations to dinner. The dinner ended with the inevitable punch bowl, over which the clergyman was often the first to become incapable of pursuing his journey home. It had not been so very long since a rector of the Wicomoco church had reached the limit of irreverence. While administering the Communion of the Lord's Supper, upon tasting the bread, he had cried out to the church warden, "George, this bread is not fit for a dog."[4]
A more unwilling witness against the clergy than good Bishop Meade can hardly be imagined. He tells of one who was for years the president of a jockey club; of another who was an habitué of the bar of a country tavern, often seen reeling to and fro with a bowl of "toddy" in his hands, challenging the passers-by to "come in and have a drink";of still another who indulged in a fisticuff with some of his vestrymen, floored them, and next Sunday preached a sermon from Nehemiah, "And I contended with them and cursed them and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair!" (Let us hope they were "Gentlemen" and therefore wore the wigs fashionable in their day. "Plucked off" seems to imply as much.) One of these recreant rectors fought a duel within the grounds of his own church; all of them, according to a report made to the Bishop of London, were either "slothful and negligent" or "debauched and bent on all manner of vices."
No one of the Established Church evergavehis services. They were paid for by the piece or dozen like any other merchantable article. In St. Stephen's parish the vestry book, in 1712, records the price of sermons, for instance, to "Rev. John Bell for eight sermons 450 pounds of tobacco apiece." The Rev. Mr. Lechardy rated his eloquence at a lower figure, "for two sermons 600 pounds of tobacco," etc. Notwithstanding the velvet and lace, the powder, perfume, and high-flown compliments of "the gallants of the early eighteenth century" license of speech was universal. Colonel Byrd, the courtly master of Westover, wrote letters too gross for the pages of a reputable magazine. Swearing among women was as common as in the "spacious times of great Elizabeth." From all this, no tutelage andgovernment, however careful, could insure escape. In spite of all this and more, Mary Ball acquired the refinement and moderation of speech by which she was characterized.
"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 unthinkablein 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 mottoExcitus 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 twentymiles 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 olddwelling. 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.
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.
monumentMonument at Wakefield marking the Birthplace of George Washington.
Monument at Wakefield marking the Birthplace of George Washington.
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,—andno 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 orVirginia 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 werede 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 hungWith fresh rich curtaines! Now are my Valence upImbost with orient pearles."
Losing her bed and valence, Mary Washington would have lost everything! Her dining-table andchairs 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.Thatwas 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 coalsor 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 preservedthis 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 roomswere 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'sholy will and commandments and walk in the same all the days of his life."
apronGeorge Washington's Apron.
George Washington's Apron.
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.
bewdleyBEWDLEY.
BEWDLEY.
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 GeorgeWashington; 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.
Whether the immortal cherry tree grew at this home on the Potomac, or on the farm on the Rappahannock to which the family moved, we are not instructed by the imaginings of "Parson Weems," Washington Irving, and others; but the hatchet, if the cherry tree grew in Westmoreland, must have been a very "little hatchet," indeed, for Augustine Washington removed to a seat opposite Fredericksburg when George was a small boy.
And just here the writer begs leave to enter a plea for the life of this cherry tree! Irreverent biographers sneer at it as "a myth." We have sacrificed much to truth. We have wiped from our canvas all the "gay gallants" of Williamsburg, the love-lorn wandering curate, "Sister Susie," the life in England, the charming portrait! Really, we cannot give up our cherry tree! It is deeply rooted. It has flourished more than one hundred and fifty years. Its lessons and its fruits are the crowning glory of the board on the twenty-second day of February. We positively decline to bury the little hatchet or uproot the cherry tree!
PohickPohick Church, Mount Vernon, Virginia.
Pohick Church, Mount Vernon, Virginia.
Pohick Church, Mount Vernon, Virginia.
"Parson Weems," who first told the story of the little hatchet, was an Episcopal clergyman well known to General Washington. His "Life of Washington" appeared several years before the great man's death. "It was read by him and mildly commended," says one writer. Certainly it was never contradicted. Parson Weems was an eccentric character, but so kind and charitable that his "oriental imagination" was indulgently condoned by his neighbors. He claimed to have been rector of Pohick church which was attended by General Washington. Not even this was contradicted atthe time, and is given the benefit of a doubt by the accurate old Bishop Meade himself. He loved to make people happy. He would preach to the poor negroes and then fiddle for them to dance. He probably believed with George Herbert that:—
"A verse may find him who a sermon fliesAnd turn delight into a sacrifice."
He was a charming historian. If there were no interesting facts to mitigate the dryness of a narrative, why then, of course, something must be invented! So "his books have been read," says Bishop Meade, "by more persons than those of Marshall, Ramsey, Bancroft and Irving put together." Evidently the good bishop at heart liked him. He thought him probably "too good for banning, too bad for blessing," but he admired, nevertheless, "the pathos and elegance of his writings." Now, if General Washington did not stamp the cherry-tree story as a falsehood, and if Bishop Meade does not contradict it, we may leave it, as they did, to flower and fruit for the teaching of American children.
The title of the clergyman's book was, "The Life of George Washington; With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen. By M. L. Weems, Formerly Rector of Mount Vernon Parish." It may be interesting to relate the originalcherry-tree story as it appeared in this quaint little book. The author says it was communicated to him by "an aged lady who was a distant relative, and who, when a girl, spent much of her time in the family." How convenient the aged lady, the distant relative, has always been in tradition!
"When George was about six years old he was made the wealthy master of a hatchet; of which, like most little boys, he was immoderately fond, and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his way. One day in the garden, where he often amused himself hacking his mother's pea sticks, he unluckily tried the edge of his hatchet on the body of a beautiful young English cherry tree, which he barked so terribly that I don't believe the tree ever got the better of it. The next morning the old gentleman, finding out what had befallen this tree, which, by the way, was a great favorite, came into the house, and with much warmth asked for the mischievous author, declaring at the same time that he would not have taken five guineas for the tree. Nobody could tell him anything about it. Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance. 'George,' said his father, 'do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?' This was a tough question and George staggered under it for a moment, but quickly recovered himself, and looking at his father with the sweet face of youth, brightened withthe inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, 'I can't tell a lie, Pa, you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my little hatchet.' 'Run to my arms, you dearest boy,' cried his father in transports; 'run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree, for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is worth more than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver and their fruits of purest gold.'
"It was in this way," adds Parson Weems, tagging on his moral, "by interesting at once both his head and heart, that Mr. Washington conducted George with great ease and pleasure along the happy paths of pleasure."
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. Butnature 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."
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. Thepictures 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 periodwhen 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 onlyprofited by, but fully appreciated, their excellence and the character of his mother, his behavior toward her at all times testified."
"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 periodwhen 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 onlyprofited 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 themore 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 hewas 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 surveyorto 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.