Martha Washington

THE WIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON IN HER WORKROOM AT MOUNT VERNON.

THERE are fine ladies, it is said, at present, who disdain the homely, honorable duties of housekeeping, thinking it beneath them to attend to the comfort, happiness, and dignity of their families. If any such there are, I should like to invite them to look into the workroom of Mrs. Washington, at Mount Vernon, the apartment in which the first lady of Virginia, in Virginia's palmy days, used to spend her mornings at work, surrounded by busy servants. Every great house in Virginia had such all room old times, and ladies plumed themselves upon excelling in the household arts practiced therein. This particular work-room at Mount Vernon is described in old letters of the period, copied and given to the world some years ago, by the late Bishop Meade, of Virginia.

It was a plain, good sized apartment, arranged and furnished with a view to facilitating work. At one end there was a large table for cutting out clothes upon. At that time every garment worn by the slaves had to be cut out and sewed, either by the ladies of the mansion-house, or under their superintendence. The greater part of General Washington's slaves worked on plantations several miles distant from his home, and were provided for by their several overseers; but there were a great number of household servants at Mount Vernon, besides grooms, gardeners, fishermen, and others, for whom the lady of the house had to think and contrive. At that broad table sat a skillful, nice looking negro woman, somewhat advanced in years, with a pair of shears in her hand, cutting, cutting, cutting, almost all day and every day, the countless trowsers, dresses, jackets, and shirts, needed by a family of, perhaps, a hundred persons. Everything worn by the General or by herself, except their best outside garments, which were imported from London, was made in that room, under the eye of the lady of the house.

All the commoner fabrics, too, were home-made. On one side of the room sat a young colored woman, spinning yarn; on another, her mother knitting; elsewhere, a woman doing some of the finer ironing; here a woman winding; there a little colored girl learning to sew. In the midst of all, this industry sat Mrs. Washington, ready to solve difficulties as they arose, and prompt to set right any operation that might be going wrong. She was always knitting. From morning till dinner time—which was two o'clock—her knitting was seldom out of her hands. In this work-room she usually received the ladies of her familiar acquaintance when they called in the morning, but she never laid aside her knitting. The click of her needles was always heard in the pauses of conversation.

Thus she contrived in one and the same act, to make a present and give a practical lesson in industry. She was, indeed, a signal example of that virtue, at a time when ladies of wealth and importance could scarcely avoid practicing it. She used to speak of the time spent in levees and other ceremonial duties, as " my lost days."

The chief labor of the mistress of a house then was in training servants. Mrs. Washington, like the other Virginian ladies, had an eye upon the families of her slaves —and most of them had very large families—and when she noticed a little girl that seemed bright and apt to learn, she would have her come to the work room, where she would be taught to sew, and afterwards other home arts. In this way, the house was kept supplied with good cooks, chamber-maids, seamstresses, and nurses. Promising girls were regularly brought up, or, as we may say, apprenticed to the household trade which they were to spend their lives in exercising.

This training of servants was formerly supposed to be part of the duty of all mistresses of great houses, whether the servants were white or black, bond or free. Ladies did not then regard a house, with all its complicated business and apparatus, as a great clock, which, being wound up after breakfast, would run twenty-four hours without further attention. Having themselves performed all the operations of housekeeping, and having acquired skill in their performance, they knew that a good servant is not born, but made; and they were willing to take a world of trouble in forming a servant, in order that by and by they might enjoy the ease and pleasure derived from skillful service. I must confess that sometimes, when I have heard ladies complaining of the awkwardness of girls who, until recently, had never seen a household implement more complicated than a poker or an iron pot, the thought has occurred to me that possibly, if they would take some trouble to teach such girls their duty, they would observe a gradual improvement.

There is a tradition in Virginia that Mrs. Washington, with all her good qualities, was a little tart in her temper, and favored the General, occasionally, with nocturnal discourse, too much in the style of Mrs. Caudle. The story rests upon the slightest foundation, and it is safe to disregard it. Great housekeepers, however, are not usually noted for amiability of disposition, and ladies whose husbands are very famous, are apt to be overrun with company, which is not conducive to domestic peace; nor does it tend to curb the license of a woman's tongue to remember that, at her marriage, she brought her husband a vast increase, both of his estate, and of his importance in the social system.

How far George Washington was, in his youth, from anticipating the splendid career that awaited him! He was by no means so favored in fortune and family, as his biographers would have us believe. Every reader, I suppose, remembers the fine tale, which even Mr. Irving repeats, of the youthful Washington, getting a midshipman's commission and yielding it again to his mother's tears. There lay the British man-of-war at anchor in the river. The boat was on the shore ; the lad's trunk was packed ; and, I think, his uniform was on. But, at the last moment, the tender youth, overcome by his mother's tears, declined to go. Such is the romance. The truth was this:

His mother, left a widow, was anxious for the future of her boy, fourteen years of age, whose only inheritance was a farm and tract of land on the Rappahannock, of no great value or promise. She was advised to send the lad to sea, before the mast, in one of the tobacco ships that so often ascended the broad rivers of Virginia. She was for a while disposed to favor the scheme. But her brother, Joseph Ball, a London lawyer in large practice, remonstrated against her sacrificing her son in that way, and advised her to bring him up a planter.

"I understand," he wrote, " that you are advised, and have since thought of putting your son George to sea. I think he had better be put apprentice to a tinker, for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the common liberty of the subject ; for they will press him from a ship where he has fifty shillings a month, and make him take twenty-three, and cut and slash, and use him like a dog. And as to any considerate preferment in the navy, it is not to be expected, as there are always so many gaping for it here, who have interest; and he has none."

He proceeds to tell her that a Virginia-planter, with three or four hundred acres of land and three or four slaves, has a great deal better chance of winning a comfortable and independent position, than even the captain of a merchant ship — and it was far from easy to get to be captain. " George," he concluded, " must not be in too great haste to be rich, nor aim at being a fine gentleman before his time ; " but " go on gently and with patience." The mother accepted this view of the situation, and the boy was not cut and slashed on board ship. He learned, as we all know, the business of a surveyor, and practiced that vocation until the death of his brother gave him a competent estate.

He was Colonel commanding the Virginia troops, twenty-seven years of age, and shining with the lustre of the fame recently won on Braddock's field, when first the rich young widow Custis cast upon him admiring eyes. He was riding, booted and spurred, in hot haste, from headquarters to the capital of the province, where he was to confer with the Governor concerning the defence of the frontiers. Within a few miles of his destination, he was pressed by a friend to stay to dinner. With extreme reluctance he consented, intending to mount the moment the meal was over. At the table he met the widow, and was captivated. The horses were pawing at the door, but the young Colonel came not forth. The afternoon flew by, yet he came not. Evening drew on, the horses were taken back to the stable ; Colonel Washington had made up his mind to stop all night. It was not till the next morning that he rode away.

Within a year they were married at the " White House," which was her home, and they took up their abode at Mount Vernon soon after. Her first husband had left a vast estate in lands, and forty-live thousand pounds in money, one-third of which was hers, and now became the joint property of Colonel Washington and herself. By their marriage, he became one of the richest men in Virginia. She gained an excellent husband, and her three children a wise and careful father.

If any lady in Virginia could claim exemption from the cares and labors of a household, on account of her wealth and social standing, it was Mrs. Washington. She had been an heiress and a beauty. For generations her ancestors had been persons of wealth and high consideration. Her first husband possessed a great fortune, and her second was the most illustrious personage of his time. But she deemed it a privilege to attend to the details of housekeeping, and regarded the days when she was obliged to shine in the drawing-room as "lost."

Related:

• Washington Surname Genealogy Resources
• Find Ancestors
• Biographies Online

Daughters of Genius