Mary Ball Washington Read online

  HER SOCIAL LIFE GROWING UP WAS NOT ONLY CENTERED ON HORSES AND education. One author, Virginia Carmichael, painted a picture:

  The only social events that took place outside of plantation life were the Governors’ entertainments at Williamsburg. But certainly they entertained at home. At Christmas time, there were great festivities at every manor house. Huge fires burned in cavernous fireplaces. Enormous punch bowls graced the side-boards. Holly and mistletoe hung on the walls, and to the music of the fiddle, beaux and belles stept the minuet. In summer there were horse races, cock fights, boat races, bowling games, and tournaments. Wagers were laid on every sport. And the stakes were high.39

  Come hell or high water, friends joined friends for events and fun and merriment during the summer, fall, winter, or spring. Dancing was popular for both sexes, and Mary was fond of it, especially as a single maiden among the men. The Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, along with the countless creeks of Virginia, also offered ample opportunities for sailing. These were all activities she would have thought adventurous as she matured.

  ON FEBRUARY 22, 1726, SAMUEL BONUM DIED, AND LEFT TO MARY, IN ACCORDANCE with his will, “my young dapple gray riding horse,” a sign of immense respect for the eighteen-year-old sister-in-law.40 Within five years, she had lost a mother and a brother-in-law, and at about twenty years of age. Her father was long dead.

  Within these twenty years of her life, Mary Ball, born in Epping Forest and residing in Westmoreland County, went from house to house, guardian to guardian, growing from a little girl into a woman. James Flexner opined, “With no parents to tame her and as possessor, due to numerous deaths, of a tidy little estate, she became very self-willed.”41

  Yet Nancy Turner said these years “were to prove for Mary Ball the easiest of all her years.” She continued, “The times, so far as she was concerned, seemed fairly peaceful. . . . England was taking a holiday from active warfare, though she still kept up her bickering with France over the question of American boundaries. . . .”42

  The loss of a father, stepfather, mother, and brother-in-law, parents and guardians all, is no small event now, especially at a young age, and it wasn’t during the eighteenth century, either. Thus eminent biographer and historian Willard Sterne Randall almost did a disservice to the young maid when he said, matter-of-factly, “Each time a parent or stepparent died, Mary Ball received a legacy in land, livestock, furniture, slaves, cash, and, usually, a good horse.”43 Factually correct; in each inheritance, she received something from a guardian’s death. But Randall implied at first viewing that each death was a means to an end: a death occurred; now where’s the inheritance, and where’s the good horse?

  Indeed, the trauma of these losses probably informed Mary’s overprotective tendencies toward her eldest son in later life. She had had so many close relatives taken from her. It was understandable that she would wish to keep George out of danger’s way, even when such a desire conflicted with his ambition and, ultimately, his role in history.

  While the deaths of Mary’s loved ones and family should not be trivialized, Turner was not incorrect in saying these were quiet years. The colonies in the early 1700s were stable, finally forming after a rocky and often bloody and disastrous start. England had two monarchs in these years, switching a dynasty from the Stuarts to the Hanovers with relative ease, at least compared to the previous two centuries. England was rich, the emperor of the sea with its mighty fleets, as evidenced by the colonies.

  Mary had an entire life, and family, and wars, ahead of her.

  ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, THE GREAT NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH diplomat, visited the United States in 1831 to study American culture. After returning, he wrote Democracy in America, his two-volume masterpiece explaining the differences between nineteenth-century French and American culture—one aristocratic, another democratic; one with a history of nobility and kings and queens, another with presidents and representatives.

  He wrote of the typical nineteenth-century American girl:

  She has scarcely ceased to be a child when she already thinks for herself, speaks with freedom, and acts on her own impulse. The great scene of the world is constantly open to her view; far from seeking concealment, it is every day disclosed to her more completely, and she is taught to survey it with a firm and calm gaze. Thus the vices and dangers of society are early revealed to her; as she sees them clearly, she views them without illusions, and braves them without fear; for she is full of reliance on her own strength, and her reliance seems to be shared by all who are about her. An American girl scarcely ever displays that virginal bloom in the midst of young desires, or that innocent and ingenuous grace which usually attends the European woman in the transition from girlhood to youth. It is rarely that an American woman at any age displays childish timidity or ignorance. Like the young women of Europe, she seeks to please, but she knows precisely the cost of pleasing. If she does not abandon herself to evil, at least she knows that it exists; and she is remarkable rather for purity of manners than for chastity of mind. I have been frequently surprised, and almost frightened, at the singular address and happy boldness with which young women in America contrive to manage their thoughts and their language amidst all the difficulties of stimulating conversation; a philosopher would have stumbled at every step along the narrow path which they trod without accidents and without effort. It is easy indeed to perceive that, even amidst the independence of early youth, an American woman is always mistress of herself; she indulges in all permitted pleasures, without yielding herself up to any of them; and her reason never allows the reins of self-guidance to drop, though it often seems to hold them loosely.44

  It could apply to the girl in the 1830s, and it could apply to the girl in the 1700s.

  A century had passed between Mary Ball’s girlhood and Tocqueville’s writing, in which the idea of the United States, separate from the English Crown, was not even toyed with.

  The two were nearly indistinguishable.

  Chapter 4

  The Marriage of Mary Ball and Augustine Washington

  1731

  “Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband. . . .”

  No one alive today knows for sure what Mary Ball Washington looked like. She was once described by a great-granddaughter as being “of medium size, and well-proportioned, the dignity of bearing and the erect carriage giving something of stateliness to her presence, while her brown hair was fine, and her eyes a clear blue.”1 Eminent historian Benson John Lossing elaborated, “She was of the full average height of women, and in person she was compactly built and well proportioned. She possessed great physical strength and powers of endurance, and enjoyed through life robust health.” Writing in the late 1800s, he presumably heard of this straight from direct relatives or others in the Lancaster and Fredericksburg, Virginia, region who knew her or knew of her. “Her features were strongly marked, but pleasing in expression,” he continued. “At the same time, there was a dignity in her manner that was at first somewhat repellant to a stranger, but it always commanded the most thorough respect from her friends and acquaintances. Her voice was sweet, almost musical in its cadences, yet it was firm and decided, and she was always cheerful in spirit.”2 No doubt the memories of a family member would be glossy and protective. Other descriptions of Mary vary greatly from this one.

  These descriptions of Mary were all passed down through folklore, and no known original portrait was painted of her while she lived. The only contender was a somewhat mysterious 18-by-21-inch painting of an elderly woman “at the age of about four-score” in profile, painted supposedly around 1786 by Robert Edge Pine. A known painter, Pine had created such works as Congress Voting Independence around 1784 and a likeness of George Washington in 1785.

  This portrait was discovered in Fredericksburg in 1850, and through the following decades was passed on until 1916, when a photomechanical print of the portrait was made. At the bottom of the print, as inscribed by W. Lanier Washington, a descendant of Mary’s, was
written, “There is no other portrait of Washington’s mother so well authenticated as this. However, it is still almost unknown to the American people, and nearly all of those who see it in this copy are seeing it for the first time.”3

  It is unclear how truthful the printer’s claim was, and experts today cast doubt on its authenticity. Art expert and historian Charles Henry Hart in the early twentieth century stated that there was “not any direct evidence” of its legitimacy.4 Recent scholarship has also doubted its authenticity. The website of Mount Vernon has said that the portrait is “spurious”5 and doubts have been cast on its true depiction, possibly due to its questionable origins and absence from public record. Executive director Karen Hart of the Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library in Lancaster, Virginia, stated that “there is no evidence that Mary Ball Washington ever sat for a portrait. . . . These works of art are based on a mix of truth and myth.”6 Michelle Hamilton, the manager of the Mary Washington House in Fredericksburg, Virginia, also waved it away, calling it nothing more than a “feminized version of George” Washington.

  “That’s not her,” she definitively declared.7

  Yet another, George Washington Parke Custis, Mary’s own great-grandson, confirmed “there was no portrait extant of the Mother of Washington.” Her own grandson would have known of the existence of even a single painting of his grandmother, which at the least would have been wanted—if not “highly prized”—by Washington himself.8 George Washington Parke Custis’s sister, Nelly Lewis, married to Betty and Fielding’s son Lawrence, agreed similarly, arguing, “I do not believe the [general’s] mother ever had her likeness taken by any one—and certainly if it ever had been taken, her children and strangers would have possessed it.”9

  What we do know is that something about her caught the eye of Augustine Washington.

  WHILE MARY GREW FROM CHILDHOOD TO WOMANHOOD IN EARLY eighteenth-century Westmoreland County, Augustine Washington, born 1694, over a decade her senior, was also learning and maturing. Like Mary, he experienced tragic losses in his youth, a shared experience which might have brought them together. On the other hand, Augustine had lived a lot of life by the time he encountered young Mary Ball.

  The future husband of Mary Ball lost his father, Lawrence, when he was only four years old, mirroring Mary’s loss of her own father at a young age. Under the care of his mother, he learned typical Virginian boyhood tasks befitting “the well-born, well-endowed colonial youths of the period.” This included military training, the hunting of all sorts of animals and wildlife, and management of plantations and properties.10

  Mildred Washington remarried around 1700 to rich merchant George Gale of Whitehaven, Cumberland, England, to which they, Augustine and his siblings included, relocated soon after. They had met in Virginia, as George’s profession required constant trading between the colonies and England. Soon after the move, George and Mildred had a child, a daughter also named Mildred, on January 25, 1701, but she died two months later.

  The mother Mildred, however, was spared the pain of seeing her own daughter die in infancy, as she died shortly thereafter and was buried five days after the birth of her daughter. Mildred’s will, made shortly before her death, noted that she was “doubtful of the recovery of my present sickness,” and left part of her inheritance from her previous husband to his brother, John Washington, and another to her current husband. To George Gale she also gave the right to raise her children.

  She was buried at the Chapel of Saint Nicholas in Whitehaven, a small, uncomplicated church. Today, a plaque marks the cemetery. (The Union Jack and thirteen-starred Stars and Stripes are also displayed, crossed in union11).

  Augustine had lost his father and mother by the time he was seven years old. Under his stepfather’s supervision, he was educated at Appleby School in the very north of England, in the county of Westmorland. Sometime later—not much later, within three years of Mildred’s death—John Washington, a cousin to Augustine’s father, won custody of the children, the ten-year-old included.12

  They went back to Virginia in 1704.

  RON CHERNOW WROTE, “RAW-BONED AND GOOD-NATURED, AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON remains a shadowy figure in the family saga.”13

  The next decade in young Augustine’s life, from 1704 to 1713, was marked by the guardianship of his father’s cousin, who raised him along with his own children, all living in Chotank, Stafford County, Virginia. It was close to Bridges Creek. A receipt for all of George Gale’s responsibilities and guardianship was signed on April 6, 1704, to “hereby discharge the said George Gayle from all further demands on account of the Estates and portions of the said children.”14

  Augustine was called “Gus” by those who knew him, particularly friends, and had an ambitious personality suiting any Virginian wanting land.15 He acquired land in 1715 when he came of age, at twenty-one. Included in this inheritance were the nearby Bridges Creek plantation; over a thousand acres of fertile land; tobacco, slaves, horses, sheep, and livestock, and many other household or plantation items such as dishes, two dogs, tools, saddles, and kettles.16

  That same year, 1715, he married Jane Butler, five years younger, the daughter of neighbor Caleb Butler. This was the first of his “several Ventures,” he wrote years later in his will.17 Perhaps that was with a touch of humor or with some lighthearted fun about the relationship between himself and his wives; it also offered more of who he was than anything like deeds and inheritance records. But with Jane Butler came 1,750 acres of land, which was combined with his inheritance at Bridges Creek.18

  Through these fourteen years of marriage with Jane Washington (née Butler) from 1715 to 1729 the couple had four children: Butler, Lawrence, Augustine Jr., and Jane. Butler died in infancy, and Jane died in childhood.19 Lawrence Washington, in his later years, would prove to be the best mentor to his younger half brother George, influencing him more than perhaps any other man in the boy’s life.

  THESE YEARS FOR AUGUSTINE WERE RICH IN MONEY, WEALTH, AND INFLUENCE, as he became more aware of his interest and talents, more aware of himself. In these years he acquired land; contracts and grants and leases; and court orders to right what he perceived as wrongs. In the court orders of Westmoreland County, Augustine Washington filed suit against a certain William Brown Mulatto, and “declared against him for the sum of 794 pds of tobacco.” Brown did not appear before the Westmoreland court twice, and thus on May 28, 1725, his absence “confirmed” the debt.20

  OVER 1,700 ACRES BELONGED TO THE NEWLY MARRIED AUGUSTINE, AND HE purchased more in 1718 at Popes Creek from Joseph Abbington, already expanding his ancestors’ property, for a large sum of 280 pounds. It was a cleared land, having been used for decades before.21 Four years later, in 1722, he continued construction on the house, completed by 1728.

  It was at this home at Popes Creek that Augustine would spend about a decade of his life, nearly the longest he continuously stayed in a single home. Additional plantations and farms were bought and conjoined. It was at this home that he and his second wife had children (all his children from his first were born before the house was completed. This home is now marked with a federally owned national park monument.)

  THE REGION WAS RICH IN IRON, A HIGHLY DESIRED COMMODITY FOR THE Mother Country. With that in mind, in 1723, John England at the Principio Company visited the region, and soon Augustine made a deal with the English mining company to lease out part of his land. An agreement between the two was signed by March 2, 1729, stating that three years earlier, on July 24, 1726, Augustine agreed to “demise, grant, bargain, and sell” about 1,600 acres of land to mine iron ore.22 He would be compensated and share a portion of the profit for the use of his land. “This,” says Charles Hatch, “turned Augustine in a new direction as he became particularly interested in iron manufacturing in its various aspects—financial, managerial and operational.”23 An iron furnace was built on his land in Stafford County, and Principio soon after owned land in Maryland, becoming one of the most significant iron producers in colonial
America.

  The move would prove profitable both to Augustine, who would eventually come to own about a twelfth of the company, and to Principio itself, as Virginia pig-iron exports by the mid-1700s were over three thousand tons per annum, ten times more than the rest of the colonies. To compare, all of England’s native iron amounted to less than seventeen thousand tons per year.24 The contract stated, in addition to the leased land, that Augustine would receive 20 shillings per ton carted from the mine to the furnace, about two miles, which required additional workers, servants, and slaves.25

  To be clear, it was not an easy task leasing the land or contracting for iron. Douglas Freeman noted as much, as “in general, the Virginia iron industry was not prosperous. Operators of colonial furnaces were not permitted under British law to export bar iron. Nor were they allowed to make iron castings, such as pots, firebacks and andirons,” though there are instances of owners selling such items in reality. Freeman continues that in Augustine’s case specifically, the contract was “an acceptable one,” but it was straining.26

  Augustine’s land owned by Principio Company was later designated a historical archaeological site, entering the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

  JANE WASHINGTON DIED NOVEMBER 24, 1729. HER HUSBAND WAS NOT BY HER side, but in England negotiating an additional contract with Principio. In fact, upon learning of his wife’s death when he returned, he froze . . . in productivity, in interest in money, in land, in leasing. He became demotivated, deflated. It was so apparent he was in grief that one stockholder of Principio Company, John Wightwick, wrote on October 2, 1730, to John England, “I think this is treating us neither kindly nor honorably to leave us in so great a state of uncertainty.” Augustine refused to answer questions or make decisions that were laid out to him, despite “having sufficient time to consider it,” according to the letter.27