MurattPrince Murat.
Prince Murat.
Prince Murat.
It is said that she was well received abroad: "In London she stood up for her country and fought its battles in all companies." She was once accompanied by John Randolph of Roanoke and other distinguished personages on a visit to the London art galleries. In one of these the portraits of Washington and Napoleon hung side by side, and Randolph (who was always dramatic), pointing tothe pictures, said, "Before us we have Napoleon and Washington, one the founder of a mighty Empire, the other of a great Republic." Then turning to Catherine with extended hand, "Behold!" he exclaimed, "in the Princess Murat the niece of both—a distinction which she alone can claim."
As the century neared its highest noon Fredericksburg became the home of one and another of the men destined to earn immortal fame in the Revolution. James Monroe lived there, whose hand, long since mingled with the dust, has yet the power to stay the advance of nations. Men of wealth secured the pleasant society all around by a residence in the town. As many as ten coaches were wont to drive out in company when the summer exodus to the springs set in.
There was a famous tailor in Fredericksburg who made the lace-trimmed garments for these gentry,—William Paul, a Scotchman. Hanging in his shop, was a handsome portrait of "my sailor brother John" as he explained to his customers. Anon the tailor died, and John came over to administer upon his estate. He found friends—Colonel Willy Jones and Doctor Brooke—who aided him materially in the first years of his life in Fredericksburg. In gratitude to the former he assumed the name of "Jones," and the latter he made surgeon of theBon Homme Richard—for this was John Paul Jones the great, the brilliant naval officer of our Revolution.Congress gave him a commission and a ship,The Alfred, and on board that ship he hoisted before uelphia, with his own hands, the flag of freedom—the first time it was displayed. He claimed and received the first salute the flag of the infant Republic received from a foreign power. He served through the war, and at his death was the senior officer of the United States navy.
The essential principles in the drama of human life are ever the same although its outward aspect changes with changing circumstances. But in some ages events develop more rapidly than in others under the urgency of peculiar conditions.
In colonial Virginia the story was told over and over again before the final fall of the curtain. Scenes shifted with wonderful rapidity. The curtain, in mimic drama, is usually rung down at the church door after the early or late wooing and marriage; but in Virginia in the eighteenth century this was only the first in a drama of five or more acts. The early death of the first bride left a vacancy speedily filled by new and successive unions with new associations and combinations. Five times was not an unusual number for men to remarry.
This meant five wooings, five weddings, five "infairs," many births (varying in number from one to twenty-six), five funerals,—all to be included in thirty adult years more or less. Then, too, there were five tombstones to be erected and as manyepitaphs to be composed—no two of which to be alike. One wife (usually the first) almost exhausts the vocabulary of adoring affection, another's piety is emphasized, another "lived peacably with her neighbors"; each one was "as a wife dutiful." "Obedient" was a word dear to the colonial husband.
We have no authority for supposing that the officiating clergyman at a funeral was ever actually retained for the ensuing nuptials of the bereaved. Initial steps in that direction were never taken in Virginia until a husband or wife was well under the sod. Divorce being unknown, unthinkable indeed, husbands and wives were united in bonds indissoluble, until death did them part. But when it did—why, then there was no reasonable cause for delay. It was not at all unusual for the new husband to offer for probate the will of his predecessor. Man in those days did not believe he was made to mourn, at least not for maid or matron, nor that charming women were created to weep in widow's weeds beyond the decent period of two months. The little hands were firmly drawn from their pressure upon the tearful eyes, tucked comfortably under a new, strong arm, and the widow's little baronry stitched to a new sleeve. There were exceptions, of course, but not many. When one of the husbands of Mary Washington's charming nieces (the Gregory girls) lay mortally ill, he looked up with anguish at the lovelyyoung wife bending over him, and implored her to keep herself for him. She readily promised never again to marry, and kept her promise. Another, left a widow, essayed to follow the sublime example of her sister. One of the masterful Thorntons sued for twenty years, but won at last. The statute of limitations in Cupid's court held for twenty years only in colonial Virginia.
Writers of the period explain these multiplied marriages by the necessity of a protector for every woman owning land to be cultivated by negro slaves and indented servants, and on the other hand the woful state of a large family of young children left motherless at the mercy of those servants. The new master and the new mother became a necessity.
It sometimes happened that the newly contracting parties had already many children from the three or four previous marriages. These must now be brought under one sheltering roof. The little army must be restrained by strict government; hence the necessity for the stern parental discipline of colonial times. "It is gratifying, my dear," said an amiable patriarch, "to find thatyourchildren,mychildren, andourchildren can live so peacefully together," nobody knowing so well as the patriarch and the children at what price the peace had been purchased.
Thus it can be easily seen how maddening anenterprise is the attempt to trace Virginia relationships, and how we so often lose a woman and give her over as dead to find her resurrected under a new name. We once lost Mary Washington's sister Hannah (Ball) Travers. She turned up at last as Mrs. Pearson! To sort and label and classify Virginia cousins means nervous prostration. In the families of Thornton, Carter, and their kin, it means more! Madness lies that way!
The spinster of uncertain age, known irreverently as an "old maid," was a rare individual in colonial Virginia. We all know Colonel Byrd's "Miss Thekky, mourning her virginity." We really cannot name another.
When a good man, addressing himself to the compilation of family records for his children, was constrained to admit that one was unmarried, he made haste to declare that she "lived single by her own choice." Colonel Byrd Willis says of his daughter Mary, "She is unmarried—but by her own choice. It will be a fine fellow who can tempt her to leave her home. She has not seen him yet!" He goes on to enumerate her social triumphs. There had been a "Bouquet Ball," of which a certain commodore was made king. He chose Miss Mary Willis, and bestowed upon her the bouquet. A foot-note informs us that she isn't single any more! She has married the commodore!
ByrdColonel Byrd.
Colonel Byrd.
Colonel Byrd.
Stern as was the parental discipline of the time, the spirit of the young men, who were accounted grown and marriageable at nineteen, was in no wise broken or quenched. Many of them ran awayfrom their masters at the schools in England and Scotland, and their fathers' agents had much ado to find and capture them again. The sons of John Spotswood were lost in England for many months, but were back home again in time to be gallant officers in the Revolution. And even the conservative blood of the Washingtons was not strong enough to temper that of the Willises, for Mildred Washington's grandson "Jack" Willis ran away from school and joined a party to explore the wilderness of Kentucky. They were attacked by Indians, and were scattered; Jack escaped in a canoe, and was thefirst white manto descend the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. His father had sewed some doubloons in his jacket, but he gave them to a man in New Orleans to purchase clothing and food, and never again beheld his agent or the doubloons or their equivalent. He worked his way in a sailing vessel to New York, andwalkedfrom New York to his home in Virginia, arriving, like the Spotswood boys, just in time to enter the army with his father and serve to its close. He was a son of Lewis Willis, Washington's schoolmate.
About 1740 the importation of horses of the English racing stock commenced, also the breeding of horses for racing. Between 1740 and 1775 are recorded the names of fifty imported horses and thirty mares of note: Aristotle, Babraham, Bolton,Childers, Dabster, Dottrell, Dimple, Fearnaught, Jolly Roger, Juniper, Justice, Merry Tom, Sober John, Vampire, Whittington, Janus, Sterling, Valiant, etc. Owners of these horses among Mary Washington's neighbors were Roger Gregory, Colonel John Mercer of "Marlboro," Mr. Spotswood, William Fitzhugh of "Chatham," all the Thorntons, andlaterColonel George Washington of Mount Vernon, who was a steward of the Alexandria Jockey Club and ran his own horses there and at Annapolis! There was a fine race-course at Fredericksburg, and purses were won from ten to a hundred pounds. This, the prime amusement in spring, summer, and autumn, was varied (alas!) by cock-fights, wrestling-matches, and rough games, in which the common people, as in England, participated, while the gentry looked on and awarded prizes. But in the long winter evenings, neighbors gathered for Christmas and other house-parties, indulged in the gentle art of story-telling. Later, old Fredericksburg boasted a notable, peerless raconteur, John Minor, but his stories were built upon Virginia's legends; his home, "Hazel Hill," was the rendezvous of all the neighbors, young and old, in quest of sympathy or counsel, or advice in the honorable settlement of quarrels, or for a season of genial companionship. Around the fireside at "Hazel Hill" the children would gather for their own story-telling hour "between daylight and dark," and there the immortal"B'rer Rabbit" appears, but not for the first time, in the annals of colonial history, and her Serene Highness, the "Tar Baby," held her nightly court.
Around the winter fireside in the old colonial houses, the children, and their seniors as well, learned the folk-lore of their native colony, for, young as was the new country, Virginia had already her legends: the mystic light on the lake in the Dismal Swamp, where the lost lovers paddled their ghostly canoe; the footprints of the Great Spirit on the rocks near Richmond; the story of Maiden's Adventure on the James River; the story of the Haunted House—the untenanted mansion at Church Hill—untenanted for eight decades because the unhappy spirit of a maiden tapped with her fan on the doors where wedded couples slept, invoking curses upon love that had failed her; of sweet Evelyn Byrd, who rested not under her monument at Westover, but glided among the roses, wringing her hands in hopeless grief for the loss of a mortal's love; and of the legend of the wonderful curative spring just discovered in Greenbrier County (learned from an old Indian of the tribe of the Shawnees)—how one of the great braves had once been missed from the council-fires and been found in a valley, weak and supine, binding the brows of an Indian maid with ferns and flowers; how two arrows had sped by order of the Great Spirit, one destined for the man, one for the maid; how the recreant warrior hadbeen slain by the one, but the other arrow had buried itself in the earth and when withdrawn a great, white sulphur spring had gushed forth; how the maiden was doomed to wander as long as the stream flowed, and not until it ceased could her spirit be reunited to that of her lover in the happy hunting-grounds; also how the body of the slain warrior was laid towards the setting sun, and the form of the sleeping giant might be clearly discerned despite the trees that grew over it.
WestoverWESTOVER.
WESTOVER.
WESTOVER.
And one more Indian legend is so charming that we may be forgiven for perpetuating it on these pages, remembering that these are genuine Indian legends which have never before been printed. This last was the story of the Mocking-bird. How once long ago there were no wars or fightings, or tomahawks or scalpings among the Indians. They were at perfect peace under the smile of the Great Spirit. And in this beautiful time those who watched at night could hear a strange, sweet song sweeping over the hills and filling the valleys, now swelling, now dying away to come again. This was the music of all things; moon, stars, tides, and winds, moving in harmony. But at last Okee, the Evil One, stirred the heart of the red man against his brother, and the nations arrayed themselves in battle. From that moment the song was heard no more. The Great Spirit, Kiwassa, knew that his children bemoaned their loss, and he promised them the song shouldnot be lost forever. It would be found some day by some brave—loftier, better, stronger, than all others.
It fell at last that a chieftain loved the daughter of a hostile chief. Both were captured and burned at the stake. Both died bravely, each comforting the other. After death the chief, because he had been so brave, was given the body of a bird, and sent in quest of the Lost Song. When he found it, and only then, could all be forgiven and the spirits of the lovers be reunited in the happy hunting-grounds. Since then the bird has travelled north, south, east, west, and wherever it goes it learns the songs of all creatures, learns and repeats them. But the hatchet is not yet buried; the Lost Song not yet found. Imagination can supply few pictures fairer than this: firelight playing on the attentive faces of old cavaliers and matrons, young men and lovely maidens, the centre their accomplished host, "the pink of a chivalric gentleman," gallant, cultured, refined, and at his knees, in his arms, and seated on his shoulders, happy children, not only those of his house-party, but others among his neighbors who dropped in especially for the children's hour.
It is evident that Mary Washington's social life must have been an active one. At the weddings and the christenings of her large circle of neighbors and kindred she was certainly present. But I doubt whether she ever attended the races, "Fish Frys,and Barbecues," of which her neighbors were so fond. Not that she ventured to express disapproval of things with which the clergy found no fault, but she was a strict economist of time, never wasting it on trifles. She kept her own accounts, managed her own plantation, and kept a stern watch on the overseers of her son's estates.
To do this, and at the same time fill her place in her large circle of friends, whose relations with her warranted their coming at will for long visits, required all the method and management of which she was capable.
Besides the householders, with their sons and daughters, who regularly exchanged visits with each other at least once or twice annually, Virginia had also her class of impecunious bachelors, whose practice was to visit from house to house, taking in all the well-to-do families. Until the Revolution—when they had something else to do—they represented the class of hangers-on to wealth, known to-day as "the little brothers of the rich,"—very nice, adaptable, agreeable gentlemen, whom everybody likes, and to whom society is willing to give much, exacting little in return. In pre-Revolutionary Virginia, however, they could and did give something. They gathered the news from house to house, brought letters and the northern papers; were intelligent couriers, in short, who kept the planter well-advised of all political rumors. Theypossessed certain social accomplishments, could carve fairy baskets out of cherry stones, cut profile portraits to be laid on a black background, and make and mend pens to perfection. "When I was in Stafford County a month ago," says the tutor at "Nomini Hall," "I met[7]Captain John Lee, a Gentleman who seems to copy the character of Addison's Will Wimble. He was then just sallying out on his Winter's Visits, and has got now so far as here; he stays, as I am told, about eight or ten weeks in the yeare at his own House, the remaining part he lives with his Waiting Man on his Friends." Captain Lee, by the way, is further recorded as "adistantcousin of the Lees of Westmoreland."
In making these visits to the large country houses, young people would naturally confer together and manage to meet those they knew best and liked best. Thus it would sometimes happen (and who so willing as the hosts?) that a large house-party would assemble unheralded, and the house be filled with a merry company. "The usual retinue," says General Maury, "at my wife's home was fifteen or more well-trained servants when the house was full of company; and as many as thirty or more of the family and friends daily dined there together for weeks and months at a time." This was at Cleveland, near Fredericksburg; and hospitality quite as generous ruled all the homes in Mary Washington's neighborhood.
It sometimes happened that the capacity of the elastic house reached its limit. On one such rare occasion a belated Presbyterian minister alighted at the front gate and walked in with his baggage,—a pair of well-worn saddle-bags. He was warmly welcomed, of course, but the lady of the manor was in despair. Where could he sleep? Every corner was full. One couldn't ask a clergyman to spend the night on a settee in the passageway, nor lie upon a "pallet" of quilts on the parlor floor. The children heard the troubled consultation as to ways and means with their "Mammy," and were full of sympathy for the homeless, unsheltered guest. The situation was still serious when the household was summoned to family prayers. The clergyman—a gaunt specimen with a beaklike nose and mournful voice—launched into the one hundred and second Psalm, pouring out, as the pitying children thought, his own soul in its homeless desolation. When he reached the words, "I am like a pelican in the wilderness: I am like an owl in the desert: I am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop," the exultant voice of the youngest little girl rang out, "Mamma, he can roost on the tester!" One cannot wonder at this advice from a hospitable man who had been literally "eaten out of house and home," "I advise my son to keep out of other people's houses, and keep other people out of his own."
One can hardly imagine the care and labor involvedin so much entertaining. Nobody ever passed a house without calling; nobody ever left it without refreshment for man and beast. Horses and servants attended every visitor.
kitchenThe Kitchen of Mount Vernon.
The Kitchen of Mount Vernon.
The Kitchen of Mount Vernon.
Think of the quantity of food to be provided! And yet, a housewife'sbatterie de cuisinewas of the simplest. The kitchen fireplace held the iron pot for boiling the indispensable and much-respected gammon of bacon (Virginia ham), and there were lidded ovens, large and small, standing high on four feet, that coals might burn brightly beneath them. There was a "skillet," with its ever ascending incense from frying chickens and batter-cakes,—a long-handled utensil with no feet at all, but resting upon the portable, triangular "trevet,"—which,being light, could be thrust into the very heart of the fire or drawn out on the fire-proof dirt floor. There was a "hoe," known as a cooking utensil only in Virginia, slanting before the coals for the thin hoe-cake of Indian meal. In front stood the glory and pride of the kitchen,—the spit, like two tall andirons with deeply serrated sides, on which iron rods holding flesh and fowl could rest and be turned to roast equally. An ample pan beneath caught the basting-butter and juices of the meat. This spit held an exposed position, and has been known to be robbed now and then by some unmannerly hound, or wandering Caleb Balderstone, unable to resist such temptations. What would the modern queen of the kitchen think of "a situation" involving such trials,—her own wood often to be brought by herself, her breakfast, including four or five kinds of bread (waffles, biscuit thick and thin, batter-cakes, loaf bread), her poultry to be killed and plucked by herself, her coffee to be roasted, fish scaled and cleaned, meats cut from a carcass and trimmed, to say nothing of cakes, puddings, and pies? And all this to be done for a perennial house-party, with its footmen and maids!
True, the negro cook of colonial times had many "kitchen-maids,"—her own children. But even with these her achievements were almost supernatural. With her half-dozen utensils she served a dinner that deserved—andhas—immortality!"Old Phyllis," the cook at "Blenheim," "Mammy Lucy" at Cleveland, and many others have a high place in an old Virginian's Hall of Fame,—his heart!
There was no lack of service in Mary Washington's day. The negro was docile, affectionate, and quick to learn, at least these were the characteristics of those employed in households. But even as late as in Mary Ball's girlhood the negroes had no language intelligible to their employers. One of the Lancaster clergymen, Mr. Bell, writes that his congregation includes many "negroes, who cannot understand my language nor I theirs." There is something infinitely pathetic in this picture of the homeless savage in a strange land. The African, finding himself not understood, made haste to acquire the language spoken to him. His intimate association was with the indented white men who labored with him, and he then and there created a language distinctively known as his own, to which he still clings and which contains, I believe, no word that can be traced to African origin—at least this is true of the Virginia negro's dialect. "It appears that the indented servants from whom he learned must have come from Warwickshire. The negro dialect can be found in Shakespeare;[8]for instance, 'trash,' afterwards accentuated by 'po' white trash.' 'What trash is Rome, what rubbish, what offal,' saysCassius. 'They are trash,' says Iago, etc. 'Terrify,' for 'aggravate' or 'destroy,' is Warwickshire; also 'his'n,' 'her'n,' for 'his' and 'hers'; 'howsomdever,' for 'however' (Venus and Adonis); 'gawm,' for 'soiling hands or face'; 'yarbs,' for 'herbs'; 'make,' for 'kindle' (make the fire); 'like,' for 'likely' (I was like to fall); 'peart,' for 'lively'; 'traipsing,' for 'walking idly about'; 'ooman,' for 'woman'; 'sallit,' for 'green stuff'; 'yourn,' for 'yours.' These and many more negro words are taken from Warwickshire dialect, and are to be found in Shakespeare." Upon this root the negro grafted, without regard to its meaning, any and every high-sounding word which he happened to hear, and which seemed to him magnificent. The meaning signified so little that he never deemed it necessary to ask it. The result was, to say the least, picturesque.
The church being his earliest school, he was soon impressed by the names of certain of the Hebrew Patriarchs, and the first names with which he endowed his children were Aaron, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Isaiah. Why he scorned Jeremiah, Nahum, Ezekiel, and others, is best known to himself. Later, he caught from the companionship of the schoolboys the names of the heroes of antiquity, giving decided preference to Pompey and Cæsar. There was a Josephus in a Fredericksburg family, differentiated in the next generation byJimsephus.Later still his fancy was caught by the shining lights of the Revolution. A goodly crop followed of Washingtons, Jeffersons, and Randolphs. There was even a Rochambeau, unhappily corrupted into "Rushingbow."
While the queen of the nursery was an ebony incarnation of faithful love, tenderness, and patience, she never surrendered her sceptre until her charges were actually married. She never condescended to be taught by those to whom she had herself been teacher. "Mammy," exclaimed a little Fredericksburg maiden of ten, "what do you think? I have found an ungrammatical error in the Bible." "Kill him, honey! Kill him quick! He'll eat up the pretty book-mark!" exclaimed the old nurse, too proud to acknowledge her ignorance of the beautiful new word.
"Po' white trash" was a term applied to all householders who could not afford style in living and equipage, notably to those (and they were few) who owned no slaves. There was no squalor, no pauperism in Virginia in 1740 and later. Even indented servants prospered sufficiently after a few years to send to England for servants of their own. The convict labor of Virginia was mainly employed in the fields and on the boats; and it is recorded that these convicts were short-lived, the hot sun giving them always a "seasoning fever" which often proved fatal. Of course political convicts were of adifferent class, and when found to have been educated were employed as teachers.
Entirely distinct from these was the class who were entitled to write "Gent" after their names, as their English fathers had done. "The term 'Gentleman,'" says Mr. Lyon Tyler, "assumed a very general meaning in the succeeding century, but its signification at this time was perhaps what Sir Edward Coke ascribed to it,qui gerit arma, one who bears arms."
It was not the custom then as now to address a man without some prefix. He was "Squire" if he was a member of the King's Council; "Gent" if he bore arms, otherwise "Mr."; and if in humble life, "Goodman." Women of any degree were "Mistress"—Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Mistress Mary Stagg; in middle class, "Dame"; of gentle blood, "Madam" and "Lady." In theVirginia Gazette"Lady Washington's" comings and goings are duly chronicled. Even now the Virginian loves to endow his fellows with a title, and risks "Colonel" in default of a better.
The Virginia woman, at the period of which we write, felt keenly the disadvantage of her remoteness from that centre of knowledge and courtly usage, the mother country. Men who were educated abroad began to accumulate books for ambitious libraries, but these books were largely in the Latin tongue, and the Virginia girl had not the courage of QueenElizabeth, and did not address herself to the study of the Classics that she might "match the men." She had good, strong sense, and the faculty known as mother-wit, but I am afraid I must confess she had small learning. What time had she—married at fifteen—to read or study? As to Mary Washington, her library, for ought we know to the contrary, seems to have begun and ended with "Sir Matthew Hale." In 1736 Mr. Parks published hisVirginia Gazettefor fifteen shillings a year. Beverley & Stith had published their "Histories," and William Byrd his "Pamphlets." These she may have read; but it is extremely doubtful whether she read the poems and other society doings, records of races and other happenings, which appeared weekly in theGazette, or approved of seeing the names, qualities, and fortunes of the ladies recorded as frankly as at the present day.
These ladies were the daughters, sisters, and wives of men of brilliant genius and attainments. They could hardly sustain such relations with such men without becoming themselves superior women. Dr. Archibald Alexander knew Mrs. Meredith, the sister of Patrick Henry. "She was, in my judgment, as eloquent as her brother; nor have I ever met with a lady who equalled her in powers of conversation."
Something then was said of a woman besides what she wore, whither she went, and whom she entertainedat dinner and tea. There were women of whom theGazettekindly said they possessed "amiable sweetness of disposition, joined with the finest intellectual attainments," but I am constrained to challenge the latter if it presupposes the attainments to have been literary. How could it be otherwise when Thomas Jefferson prescribed that his daughter's time should be divided between dancing, music, and French? And when Charles Carter, of "Cleve," after ordering that his sons, John and Landon, then in England, should master languages, mathematics, philosophy, dancing, fencing, law, adds, "And whereas the extravagance of the present age, and the flattering hopes of great Fortunes may be a temptation to run into unnecessary Expenses of Living, it is my positive Will and desire that my Daughters may be maintained with great frugality, andtaught to dance."
The young women whose brothers had tutors at home were fortunate. They learned to "read and write and cypher." Then there were men
"Glad to turn itinerantto stroll and teach from town to town"
and from plantation to plantation. From these the young ladies had their music and dancing lessons. Their letters are very stilted and polite,—poor dears,—but "intellectual attainments" do not appear in many of them. They usually end withlaying upon a bad pen all the blame for all shortcomings. "Excuse bad spelling and writing, for I have ane ill pen," said Jeanie Deans. The colonial ladies made no apology for their phonetic spelling. Was not that all right? If "hir" did not spell "her," pray, what did it spell? "Bin" was surely more reasonable than "been"; "tha" than "they." There were "Dixonaries" in the closets along with the Latin books, but they were troublesome, and not always to be trusted. Dr. Johnson—if we can imagine him as such—was in their day a sweet babe in long clothes!
When the slow-sailing ships arrived from England one might have the fashions of six months ago.
English cousins sometimes came over, and very nervous were the Virginia girls lest the Westernménageshould be found to be behind the times. Among old letters a certain Miss Ambler appears to have been dreadfully aggrieved by the criticisms of some English cousins. "Everything we eat, drink or wear seems to be wrong—the rooms are too cold or too hot; the wood is not laidstraighton the Andirons:—and even poor Aunt Dilsey does not escape censure,—dear Aunt Dilsey whom we all so love! Actually, Aunt Dilsey came to me in tears, and said she had been ordered to pull down her bandanna so that none of her wool would show in the back of her poor neck, and to draw cottongloves over her hands for they were 'so black and nasty'!"
MonroeJames Monroe.
James Monroe.
James Monroe.
Many of the Virginians, at that early day, were advocates of negro emancipation. James Monroe, who lived in Fredericksburg, was the great friend of emancipation. Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, was named in his honor. It was a citizen of Fredericksburg, in 1782, who introduced into the body,which had replaced the House of Burgesses, the first resolution for the emancipation of negroes and for the prohibition of the slave trade ever offered in America. General John Minor, of "Hazel Hill," was the author and advocate of this measure. In 1792 the first-published utterance against slavery in this country appeared in a tract entitled, "Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy," by the Rev. David Rice. When estates were settled large numbers of negroes were manumitted by common consent and sent to Liberia.
We have reason to believe that house servants were treated with the affectionate consideration they deserved. Mr. Custis distinctly declares that this was true of Mary Washington,—that she was always kind to her servants, and considerate of their comfort. The man or woman who treated servants with severity was outlawed from the friendship and respect of his neighbors, many of whom at a later day freed their slaves and left them land to live upon.
"The search-lights of history have unfolded to us nothing of interest touching Mrs. Washington from the time of the French and Indian War until the awakening of the great Revolution. Fortunate is the woman, said the Greek of old, of whom neither good nor ill is spoken. And, curtained away from the world, the matron lived under the great Taskmaster's eye, in the bosom of that home, by whose fruit ye shall know her. Many years had rolled by since she settled at 'Pine Grove,' with her first-born son. And, while she lived in retirement and in silence, how had great events rushed forward; how had the child become the father to the man? Grave tasks were his while yet a boy. Step by step he ascended the ladder of honor and usefulness. A surveyer for Lord Fairfax at sixteen, crossing the Blue Ridge on horseback, traversing the wilderness to the bounds of civilization, getting six pistoles, or something more than $7 a day, for his efficient service, while in leisure hours he read under the guidance of Lord Fairfax, the history of England, the 'Spectator,' and other books of that high order; appointed public surveyor a little later, and then adjutant-general of Virginia troops at nineteen; managing a great plantation and training the Militia of the State; at twenty-one penetrating the Northwest as a negotiator for Governor Dinwiddie, and fighting the French; aide-de-camp to Braddock,a little later, in his ill-starred expedition, suffering defeat; with the victor at Fort Duquesne, where Pittsburg now stands, at twenty-six; member of the Virginia House of Burgesses at twenty-seven; ever onward, ever upward, until, as the great Revolution broke out, we find him journeying to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Continental Congress, and presently appearing on the field of Boston as commander-in-chief of the Continental army!"
"The search-lights of history have unfolded to us nothing of interest touching Mrs. Washington from the time of the French and Indian War until the awakening of the great Revolution. Fortunate is the woman, said the Greek of old, of whom neither good nor ill is spoken. And, curtained away from the world, the matron lived under the great Taskmaster's eye, in the bosom of that home, by whose fruit ye shall know her. Many years had rolled by since she settled at 'Pine Grove,' with her first-born son. And, while she lived in retirement and in silence, how had great events rushed forward; how had the child become the father to the man? Grave tasks were his while yet a boy. Step by step he ascended the ladder of honor and usefulness. A surveyer for Lord Fairfax at sixteen, crossing the Blue Ridge on horseback, traversing the wilderness to the bounds of civilization, getting six pistoles, or something more than $7 a day, for his efficient service, while in leisure hours he read under the guidance of Lord Fairfax, the history of England, the 'Spectator,' and other books of that high order; appointed public surveyor a little later, and then adjutant-general of Virginia troops at nineteen; managing a great plantation and training the Militia of the State; at twenty-one penetrating the Northwest as a negotiator for Governor Dinwiddie, and fighting the French; aide-de-camp to Braddock,a little later, in his ill-starred expedition, suffering defeat; with the victor at Fort Duquesne, where Pittsburg now stands, at twenty-six; member of the Virginia House of Burgesses at twenty-seven; ever onward, ever upward, until, as the great Revolution broke out, we find him journeying to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Continental Congress, and presently appearing on the field of Boston as commander-in-chief of the Continental army!"
Thus spoke, out of the fulness of his heart, Senator Daniel at the unveiling of the Mary Washington monument, but the truth is that these years were marked by many cares and anxieties. Five times had Samuel Washington married: Jane Champe, Mildred Thornton, Lucy Chapman, Anne Steptoe, the widow Perrin. This list sounds like a chapter from the reign of Henry the Eighth. Tradition says he was separated from some of his wives otherwise than by death. It is certain he was unfortunate in money matters, having many children and finding it "hard to get along." His brother was always helping him. His children were much at Mount Vernon, especially Steptoe Washington and Harriett Washington, whose names appear frequently upon the general's expense book. He enters various items against Harriett,—earrings and necklace and many garments. He bemoans, "She was not brung up right! She has no disposition, and takes no care of her clothes, which are dabbed about in every corner and the best arealways in use." "In God's name," he writes to his brother, John Augustine, "how has Samuel managed to get himself so enormously in debt?" He found places from time to time for many of Samuel's sons, and was never other than good to all.
John Augustine Washington, the general's favorite brother, married Hannah, and settled in Westmoreland. Charles, the youngest, married Mildred Thornton of the Fall-Hill Thorntons, near Fredericksburg. His home was in Charlestown, Jefferson County. Of him the world has known but little. In the presence of a planet of the first magnitude the little stars are not observed.
Mary Washington was now alone at "Pine Grove." Her windows commanded Fredericksburg and the wharf, where the ships from England unloaded rich stuffs to tempt the Virginian, loading again with sweet-scented tobacco for the old country that had so quickly learned to love the luxury from the new. It is doubtful whether she ever bought from these vessels. She certainly never sold to them. In 1760 she writes to her brother Joseph in England, excusing herself for having sent him no letters, "As I don't ship tobacco the Captains never call on me, soe that I never know when tha come and when tha goe." She was a busy woman, minding her own affairs and utterly free from idle curiosity. Her life was full of interest and occupation. The conscientioushousewife of her day was burdened with many cares. The large plantation must support itself. Nearer than Annapolis and Williamsburg were no shops or stores from which supplies could be drawn. The large number of servants living on the plantations demanded great quantities of food and clothing, and the farm work many utensils,—all of which were manufactured on the farm itself. The diary of a New Jersey tutor gives us interesting accounts of life in the Westmoreland neighborhood, where lived the Lees, Carters, Washingtons, Tayloes, and other large landholders. Higher up, near Mount Vernon, dwelt George Mason of "Gunston Hall," and his son, John, is our eye-witness-chronicler of the plantation life near Mary Washington.
"It was the practice of gentlemen of landed and slave estates so to organize them as to have resources within themselves. Thus my father had among his slaves carpenters, coopers, sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers and knitters, and even a distiller. His woods furnished timber and plank for the carpenters and coopers, and charcoal for the blacksmith; his cattle, killed for their own consumption, supplied skins for the tanners, curriers and shoemakers; his sheep gave wool, his fields flax and cotton for the weavers; and his orchards fruit for the distiller. His carpenters and sawyers built and kept in repair all the dwelling houses, barns, stables, ploughs, harrows, gates, &c., on his plantation. His coopers made the hogsheads for tobacco and the casks to hold the liquors. The tanners and curriers tanned the skins for leather andthe shoemakers made them into shoes for the negroes. A Professed shoemaker was hired for three or four months in the year to come and make up the shoes for the family. The blacksmiths did all the iron work required on the plantation. The spinners and knitters made all the clothes and stockings used by the negroes, and some of finer texture worn by the ladies and children of the family. The distiller made apple, peach and persimmon brandy. A white man, a weaver of fine stuffs, was employed to superintend the black weavers."[9]
"It was the practice of gentlemen of landed and slave estates so to organize them as to have resources within themselves. Thus my father had among his slaves carpenters, coopers, sawyers, blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers and knitters, and even a distiller. His woods furnished timber and plank for the carpenters and coopers, and charcoal for the blacksmith; his cattle, killed for their own consumption, supplied skins for the tanners, curriers and shoemakers; his sheep gave wool, his fields flax and cotton for the weavers; and his orchards fruit for the distiller. His carpenters and sawyers built and kept in repair all the dwelling houses, barns, stables, ploughs, harrows, gates, &c., on his plantation. His coopers made the hogsheads for tobacco and the casks to hold the liquors. The tanners and curriers tanned the skins for leather andthe shoemakers made them into shoes for the negroes. A Professed shoemaker was hired for three or four months in the year to come and make up the shoes for the family. The blacksmiths did all the iron work required on the plantation. The spinners and knitters made all the clothes and stockings used by the negroes, and some of finer texture worn by the ladies and children of the family. The distiller made apple, peach and persimmon brandy. A white man, a weaver of fine stuffs, was employed to superintend the black weavers."[9]
To carry on these operations—to cure and preserve meats, fruits, and medicinal herbs, make vinegar and cordials, and to prepare constantly for a great deal of company, coming incessantly to stay at the house—required unceasing attention and strict method.
This is a large pattern which was repeated on a smaller scale by Mary Washington. Method became, with her, almost a mania. Her neighbors set their watches by the ringing of her bells. She was never the fraction of a minute too late at church. She was punctiliously exact in her observance of all appointments and prompt to the minute in meeting those appointments. By the well-regulated clock in her entry—the clock which is now preserved at "Kenmore"—all the movements of her household were regulated. Her illustrious son had also such a clock. He graciously allowed, at dinner, five minutes for the possible variation of timepieces.After they expired he would wait for no one. If an apologizing guest arrived after the dinner was advanced, his excuses were met with the simple announcement, "Sir, I have a cook who never asks whether the company has come, but whether the hour has come." His mother had taught him the value of time. Her teaching followed him through life, and was obeyed after he was President of the United States. The chaplain of Congress records that the hour of noon having been fixed for hearing the President's message, he usually crossed the threshold exactly as the clock was striking twelve.
A contemporary observer relates that "Mrs. Washington never failed to receive visitors with a smiling, cordial welcome," but adds quaintly that "they were never asked twice to stay, and she always speeded the parting guest by affording every facility in her power." Perfectly sincere herself, she believed them sincere when they declared themselves unable to remain.
She was said to possess a dignity of manner that was at first somewhat repellent to a stranger, but always commanded thorough respect from her friends and acquaintances. Her voice was sweet, almost musical in its cadences, yet firm and decided, and she was always cheerful in spirit. "In her person she was of the middle size, and finely formed; her features pleasing, yet strongly marked."
Her young friends and grandchildren oftenvisited her. Lawrence Washington, her son's cousin and playmate, said: "I was more afraid of her than of my own parents—and even when time had whitened my locks I could not behold that majestic woman without feelings it is impossible to describe. She awed me in the midst of kindness."
"She was," said one of her family, "conspicuous for an awe-inspiring manner, so characteristic in the Father of our Country. All who knew her will remember the dignified matron as she appeared when the presiding genius of her well-ordered home, commanding and being obeyed," never speaking ill of any one, never condescending to gossip herself or encouraging gossip in others.
I have always felt that this Lawrence Washington, the only person who knew Mary Washington many years intimately, and who wrote his impressions of her, was responsible for the universal opinion that she was stern and repelling,—an opinion that has colored all the traditions of all the others who knew her as children. I am persuaded that this Lawrence did the mischief. Somebody sowed tares in the fair field of her reputation. Lawrence, I am sure, was the kind of boy known as "a terror,"—a boy who chased chickens, brought hounds and muddy feet on the polished floors, trampled flower-beds, rifled the fruit trees, overturned pans of milk, upset the furniture, and broke the china. Well might he be more afraid of Mrs. Washington even than of his ownparents (and what more could he say?), and we may believe he had many a scolding and in his early years an opportunity to test the flavor of the peach tree.
I am so fully assured that his testimony was the beginning of all that Mary Washington has suffered at the hands of her countrymen, that I have diligently looked up his record, hoping to find that he came to no good: but alas! he is mentioned with affectionate respect in George Washington's will as "the acquaintance and friend of my juvenile years." It is some comfort, however, to find he had a wild son, Lawrence, who fought a duel, and gave him no end of trouble!
And as to the traditions! What are they worth? Has the reader never stood in a line when a story whispered from one to the other was told aloud at the end, and in no case ever found to be the story of the beginning? Thomas Fuller tells of the name "Musard," which became, as it passed down the generations from lip to lip "Roper." A popular dramatic reader once took for his text the words "come here," and showed how accent, gesture, and tone could change their meaning from invitation to menace, from tenderness to fury.
The stories told of Mary Washington were always altered to fit the prevailing opinion of her sternness. Let me give an example. "When General Washington sent over the country to impresshorses (and pay for them) his officers were attracted by a pair ploughing in a field. The driver was ordered to unhitch them, but an ebony Mercury ran to warn his mistress who appeared in her doorway. 'Madam,' said the officer, 'we bear General Washington's orders to take these horses.' 'Does George need horses?' said Mary Washington. 'Well, he can have mine, but he must wait until my field is finished.'"
Now this is a poor little story, with no point at all save to illustrate Mary Washington's estimation of the relative importance of the sword and the ploughshare. Like all others it is changed as the years pass. A short time ago a revised edition reached me from the West.
This is the amended story: "'What are you doing there with my horses?' said an irate old woman who appeared just then on the field. 'Leave the place instantly!' 'But—Madam—we have orders from the Commander-in-chief! We must obey.' 'Well, then, you may just obeyme! Go back and tell yourCommander-in-chief' (with great scorn and derision) 'that his mother's horses are not for sale, and he can't borrow 'em till her spring ploughing is done.' It was the part of prudence to leave. The officers left!"
The story grew to this proportion in a hundred years. Given another hundred, and we will find that Mary Washington laid violent hands on themen who claimed the horses, and chastised the ploughmen who surrendered them.
In 1765 two pair of observant eyes opened upon the world, and were focussed upon the "awe-inspiring" lady, Betty Lewis, little Betty and Dr. Charles Mortimer's little Maria. The children were playmates, schoolmates, and girl friends from a very early age, each intimate at the other's home and both intimate at the home of Mary Washington. They adored her! They found naught to remember but smiles, gentle words, sweet, motherly ways. Betty (afterwards Mrs. Charles Carter) has furnished many of the unimportant traditions quoted in various accounts of her grandmother's home life. They come to us as traditions of traditions, not to be despised, yet not to be accepted as history. The other pair of eyes were keener for the dress and belongings of her venerable friend. To Maria Mortimer, daughter of Mary Washington's physician, we are indebted for the familiar picture of the short skirt and sack,—a sort of cote-hardi,—the mob cap, the table upon which lay "Sir Matthew Hale" and his ally, in the presence of which there was such small hope for the sinner. Freshly gathered from the friendly peach tree, this was used as freely—this much we willingly concede—as circumstances demanded. The two children played happily at her knee despite the menacing tools of the Inquisition, which we would fain believe were never used on them.