Mary Ball Washington

by Craig Shirley

  THE MONTH OF JUNE SAW A BITTER FIGHT IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, FOR ITS very existence. The 170-strong delegates met from June 2 to June 27, with a final vote for ratification being evenly split, 89 aye to 79 nay. One the leaders of the nays was Patrick Henry, that prickly firebrand who hadn’t lost his spark even a decade later.

  It was a grueling convention, with each day dedicated to the problems of each individual article. Debates stemming from the phrase “We the People” in the very preamble brought shouting matches as Henry declared it was not appropriate for some Philadelphia convention to say they are “the People.” He called the entire process “absurd” and of “lunatic” proportions, to have it ratified and then amended. “Were I about to give away the meanest particle of my own property, I should act with more prudence and discretion,” he declared on Monday, June 9. “My anxiety and fears are great lest America, by the adoption of this system, should be cast into a fathomless bottom.”36

  And so it went for a month, with Henry and sizable opposition on one end, and James Madison and sizable support on the other, until June 25, 1788, when a vote for ratification barely passed.

  Immediately after, a committee of twenty was appointed to address proposed amendments. In total, a “bill of rights” with twenty items was proposed, along with twenty amendments to the Constitution. “That there are certain natural rights, of which men,” said the first, “when they form a social compact, cannot deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” The second declared “all power is naturally vested in and consequently derived from the people.” Refusal to quarter soldiers, freedom of religion, a ban on excess bail, the right of peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, all proposed here in these “essential and unalienable rights of the people.”37

  Virginia became the tenth state to say aye to the Constitution.

  AS SHE NEARED THE AGE OF EIGHTY, HER HEALTH DETERIORATING, MARY Ball Washington knew her time of judgment was soon to arrive. That decay of nature that Sir Matthew Hale wrote of long ago was finally catching up with her.

  It was time to set her final stage of life in motion.

  Comprising fewer than six hundred words, Mary Washington’s last will and testament was drafted by her next-door neighbor and friend James Mercer. No relation to her physician Hugh Mercer, James lived at the St. James’ House on Charles Street, a typical and small Colonial home built two decades earlier.

  Mary began her last will and testament with an exhortation appropriate for a religious widow: “In the name of God! Amen! I, Mary Washington of Fredericksburg in the County of Spotsylvania, being in good health . . .”

  Good health or not, her will, signed and sealed on May 20, 1788, would be executed before too much longer.38

  THE URGENCY OF HIS MOTHER’S ILLNESS PLAGUED GEORGE, WHO WAS IN Mount Vernon tending to his fields on the date that Mary’s will was drafted. Presumably receiving word she was writing her will, he decided to pay her a visit, one of the very few these last years.

  On the morning of Tuesday, June 10, George and Martha traveled south to Fredericksburg, spending the night at Colonel Thomas Blackburn’s in Prince William County. The next morning, they went out again, hoping to catch William Fitzhugh for dinner across the Rappahannock, but due to his absence, they instead crossed the river and “alighted at my Mothers and sent the Carriage & horses to my Sister Lewis’s—where we dined and lodged.”39 He, of course, as was his duty, gave her some money, this time 4 pounds, 4 shillings.40

  Legend has it that during this time—specifically during the ministry of Thomas Thornton, which started in January 1788—when George visited his aging mother, he attended church the following Sunday. Here, his diary entry supported it. And here, Philip Slaughter, an early historian of Saint George’s Church in Fredericksburg, published a rather fun anecdote, by way of future judge John Tayloe Lomax, who was seven years old at the time. “On Sunday,” Slaughter said, “in accordance with the uniform habit, he attended the Episcopal Church, and so great was the crowd drawn together by his presence, that some of the timbers in the gallery which had not been well adjusted, settled into their places with a slight crush, which excited great alarm for fear the church was falling.” The congregation quickly evacuated through any door and window they could, until a clerk calmed them down and asked that they return.41

  The trip down and back put George behind on his correspondences; he offered apologies in letters to Henry Knox, Richard Henderson, and James Madison for not responding sooner to their missives. In all replies, he noted his visit to his mother (to Madison he wrote, “My aged and infirm mother”).42

  AS THE YEAR 1788 CAME TO A CLOSE, SO TOO DID THE DEBATE ON RATIFICATION: on July 26, New York became the eleventh state to accept the substance of the Constitution with requested alterations. Through the following months, until September 13, there waged a congressional debate about the next step in the formation of the United States.43

  In particular, that would be the election of its first president.

  Chapter 13

  Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return

  THE ILLNESS, DEATH, AND WILL OF MARY BALL WASHINGTON

  1788‒1789

  “She is translated to a happier place.”

  The year 1789 began with a political revolution: on January 7, George Washington was chosen to lead the newly formed country. “All 69 electors voted for Washington, making him the only president in American history to win unanimously,” wrote Ron Chernow.1 (Only two presidents have come close since then, Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984, both winning all but one state.)

  John Adams of Massachusetts, the runner-up with 34 electoral votes (but carrying no majority in the states), was elected as the nation’s first vice president.

  “NATIVE SON ELECTED FIRST PRESIDENT!” shouted the Virginia Herald and Fredericksburg Advertiser in big, bold type. Indeed, the Fredericksburg community was in joyous celebration that their very own, though expected, had become the leader of a new nation.2

  One cannot underestimate how obvious the choice was. From the moment the Constitution was ratified, it was clear Washington would be the man to lead. Everybody knew his résumé. Washington of course privately saw it with trepidation: “In answer to the observations you make on the probability of my election to the Presidency (knowing me as you do),” he wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette a year earlier, “I need only say, that it has no enticing charms, and no fascinating allurements for me.”3 Months later, to Alexander Hamilton, he wrote, “I should unfeignedly rejoice, in case the Electors, by giving their votes in favor of some other person, would save me from the dreaded Dilemma of being forced to accept or refuse.”4 In the Federalist Papers, making the case for a Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation, Hamilton, along with John Jay and James Madison, had always imagined Washington when describing the Chief Executive.

  In subsequent months, a fierce debate erupted on how to address the president himself. John Adams and others suggested “His Highness the President of the United States and Protector of Their Liberties.” Others, like Thomas Jefferson, wanted “His Excellency,” or “His Honor,” or “Esquire.” Still others wanted a simple “George W., President of the U.S.,” with no title. It was eventually decided by Washington himself a simple and straightforward solicitation: “Mr. President.”5

  Washington understood the weight of the responsibility that would befall him on April 30, 1789, Inauguration Day. In response to an earlier letter from Senator John Langdon of New Hampshire, he officially accepted the results of the election: “Having concluded to obey the important & flattering call of my Country, and having been impressed with an idea of the expediency of my being with Congress at as early a period as possible,” he said simply, “I propose to commence my journey on thursday [sic] morning which will be the day after to morrow.”6

  However, before he could leav
e for New York, to end his retirement for yet another time, he would need to wrap things up at home, his beloved Mount Vernon, and make the journey to see his mother for what he probably knew would be the last time.

  HE AGAIN PLACED THE EVER-DIFFICULT MOUNT VERNON PLANTATION IN the hands of George Augustine Washington, realizing he would not be able to return for some years from New York City. Just several months earlier, in December, he saw his potato crop fail, as it had continuously lost money. Letters went out to George Augustine about the estate and how to pay for the failing crops amid a poor economy.

  On Saturday, March 7, 1789, he left for Fredericksburg “to discharge the last Act of personal duty, I may, (from her age) ever have it in my power to pay my Mother.”7

  He arrived in the evening of that same day. The Virginia Herald and Fredericksburg Advertiser painted the scene of his visit with jubilance. “His Excellency GEORGE WASHINGTON arrived in town from Mount Vernon, and early on Monday morning he let out on his return. The object of his Excellency’s visit was, probably, to take leave of his aged mother, sister, and friends.”8

  What a momentous occasion, it implied, to have the favorite son, the newly elected leader of America, return home.

  In reality, there was probably little joy when he saw his ailing mother.

  The cancer that they had discovered several years earlier would have taken a toll at the age of eighty. Cancer, a terrible disease that baffled doctors—how to prevent or treat it was unknown.

  With no medication or remedies identified at the time to relieve her of pain and discomfort, she would most likely have been thin, frail, and easily fatigued.

  When mother and son saw each other for the last time, he sat with her, informing her of the grandest responsibility and honor that had been bestowed on him. George Washington Parke Custis, who would have been at the tender age of nearly eight at the time, relayed the story. “The people, madam,” son said to mother, “have been pleased, with the most flattering unanimity, to elect me to the chief magistracy of these United States.”

  Did she know what a chief magistrate was, in the context of the new nation? Perhaps she thought her son had been appointed king. If her supposed Loyalist views were true, the thought of King George Washington, the First of America, may have sounded quite pleasing.

  Either way, she understood its significance and the faith that the electors, the people, had placed in her son. Whether king or president or simple “leader,” to rule a country was a grand duty. “But before I can assume the functions of my office,” George continued, “I have come to bid you an affectionate farewell. So soon as the weight of public business, which must necessarily attend the outset of a new government, can be disposed of, I shall hasten to Virginia, and—”

  “—and you will see me no more,” Mary interrupted. The reason for the trip here was clear and weighed heavily. George was saying a final goodbye.

  Mary continued, “My great age, and the disease which is fast approaching my vitals, warn me that I shall not be long in this world. I trust in God that I may be somewhat prepared for a better.”

  It is not hard to imagine that Mary reached out and placed her hands on George’s gray head, in the ancient gesture of benediction. “But go, George, fulfill the high destinies which Heaven appears to have intended you for; go, my son, and may that Heaven’s and a mother’s blessing be with you always,” she said.

  Here, Custis added a little of his own commentary, imagining son and mother embracing, the man’s head resting gently on her shoulder. “That look which could have awed a Roman senate in its Fabrician day, was bent in filial tenderness,” he said.9

  Further lore, via a descendant, provided an apocryphal but closing tale for the final encounter of mother and son. As George got up and headed to the door, with Mary by his side, he reached into his purse and brought out some gold coins. It had been second nature, really, to give her money every time he visited, and this was no exception. But again, apocryphally, this time, she refused. “I don’t need it, my son,” she said. “My wants are few, and I think I have enough.”

  George responded, “Let me be the judge of that, mother, but whether you think you need it or not, keep it for my sake.”10

  He recorded in his ledger his giving of 8 pounds, 8 shillings, to his mother.11 Whether or not the conversation took place, he still felt it was, as a dutiful son, his responsibility to provide her even in her dying days. He left for Mount Vernon within two days—and George never saw Mary again.

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER, ROBERT LEWIS, BETTY’S SON, WAS OFFERED THE POSITION of secretary to his uncle the president, a large responsibility that Robert realized he was “under a thousand obligations” to thank him for. Mary got word of young Robert’s moving northward to New York with Martha and George, and offered him her carriage. “My grandmother was very well disposed to lend the carriage,” he wrote, “but on condition that it should be returned when of no further use to my aunt.”12 The offer of the carriage was never accepted, however, for some unknown reason.

  IN THE INTERVENING MONTHS BETWEEN HER FINAL GOODBYE TO HER SON and her death, the cancer would have become more and more aggressive, to the fear of her, her children, and her doctors. Mary knew the outcome, as newspapers announced many times the deaths of others by that terrible disease.

  Cancer had been of note by this time. In 1738, an unnamed woman in Maryland noticed a small tumor on her breast and chalked it up to a wound. Some months later, as it was reported, “the whole Breast became Tumeified, and to such a Bulk, that there remained no Hope to repel contained Matter.” But the disease was determined incurable.13

  Through decades of research and trial and error, there were reports of cures discovered all around the colonies and in England. One woman from Prince Edward County, Virginia, thought she had discovered a cure, publicly advertising it. However, it was reported soon after that it “has been proved ineffectual, and so far from producing a perfect cure.” The cure as Constant Woodson attested only hurt the patient. James Kirk, a relative of the patient, posted a warning to anyone who had or wanted help.14

  MARY MAY HAVE FIRST DISCOVERED THE LUMP IN HER BREAST SOMETIME in the previous few years. Women’s clothing was designed with a loose front, so it was easy to notice any peculiarities or abnormalities. Mary may have just thought it a mole or something that would go away in time.

  She had hoped, and perhaps prayed, that it wouldn’t be what she had feared. That lump did not go away, but instead spread.

  AS HEROIC AND GODLIKE AS EARLY BIOGRAPHIES DESCRIBE HER, MARY’S death was not one of an Amazon warrior or of some grand Homeric heroine. She died in pain. Probably a great deal of pain.

  The spring of 1789 passed, and the cancer would have spread through her body. Dr. Charles Mortimer and Dr. Elisha Hall, both Fredericksburg physicians and friends of the Washingtons, tried unsuccessfully to slow it if not cure it. All sorts of medicines were tried and failed. Dr. Hall even solicited help from Dr. Benjamin Rush, his cousin and friend, in Philadelphia. Rush responded in a letter on July 6, 1789: “My dear Kinsman,” he addressed it respectfully.

  The respectable age and character of your venerable patient lead me to regret that it is not in my power to suggest a remedy for the cure of the disorder you have described in her breast. I know nothing of the root that you mentioned is found in Carolina and Georgia, but from a variety of inquires and experiments I am disposed to believe that there does not exist in the vegetable kingdom an antidote to cancers. All the supposed remedies I have heard of are compounds of some mineral caustics. . . . From your account of Mrs. Washington’s breast, I am afraid no great good can be expected from the use of [Dr. Martin’s powder]. Perhaps it may cleanse it and thereby retard its spreading. You may try it, diluted in water. Continue the application of opium and camphor, and wash it frequently with a decoction of red clover. Give anodynes when necessary, and support the system with bark and wine. Under this treatment, she may live comfortably many years and finally die of old age.15
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br />   While mastectomies did occur, in the age before anesthesia, with the advance of both the cancer and the patient’s age, it was decided not to put her under the knife. Surgery was highly dangerous, and to operate on Mary would in and of itself be something no doctor would have wanted to do. Dr. Hall, hearing the advice of his cousin, probably then applied a root of vegetable and arsenic with all other suggestions. “She may live comfortably many years,” Rush had said.

  She did not. She died within two months.

  As her son, the president, was becoming familiar with his new job in New York, as Congress was passing legislation on taxes and tariffs and beginning the establishment of departments (the first, the Department of State, was established on July 27), family and neighbors and doctors rushed to the aid of Mary, trying all sort of experiments. George himself fell extremely ill, with a tumor growing on his left leg and an accompanying fever. A New York City physician, Dr. Samuel Bard, diagnosed the president with anthrax—a disease with symptoms of swelling and painful lumps.16

  As the United States was only a couple months into its brand-new experiment, Mary lay dying. Betty was by her side. She wrote to her older brother, the president of the United States, on July 24, “I am sorry to inform you My Mothers Breast still Continues bad. God only knows how it will end; I dread the Consequence. she is sensible of it & is Perfectly resign’d—wishes for nothing more than to keep it Easy.” And in what George may have thought was a surprise, his mother cared little about herself, but about him and his illness: “She wishes to here [sic] from you, she will not believe you are well till she has it from under your Hand.” These were her only known last words, to care about her son’s well-being and her son’s health, knowing her own death was imminent.