On February 23, the Washingtons moved in. They thoroughly enjoyed their spacious new home, where they could even keep two cows in the stable area to provide milk for household cookery. The milk in New York, brought over from Long Island farms, had a strong taste because of the wild garlic growing in the island’s pastures and turned sour quickly.
The family had to do without Tobias Lear for a few weeks when he went home to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to marry his sweetheart. Mary Long, the daughter of a colonel, had just turned twenty when they married on April 18, 1790. After a few weeks’ leave, Tobias and Polly (the usual nickname for Mary) returned to New York to live at the president’s house. It was convenient for them, but it was probably also George’s partial solution to Martha’s loneliness when he was forced to be away. To a great extent, Polly Lear took Fanny Washington’s place: she was a pretty, sociable young woman who became Martha’s closest female companion during the first term, at home or out and about, helping plan her official functions.
The Washingtons were delighted with the arrival of Thomas Jefferson, a southern planter of similar background to themselves, albeit a decade younger; if not a close friend, he was someone George had felt an affinity for during the years since the Revolution, writing to him frequently for advice. The tall, lanky redhead rented lodgings on Maiden Lane, close to the other members of the government, and called on the president on Sunday afternoon, March 21. One of Jefferson’s like-minded friends in New York was the Virginian James Madison, so wizened that he looked elderly at forty. Madison was a brilliant parliamentary and political strategist who had been Washington’s closest adviser and confidant in the early days of the presidency, helping design the machinery of government and guiding measures through the House, where he served as a representative. Another of Madison’s friends had been Alexander Hamilton, with whom he had worked so valiantly on The Federalist Papers.
But the two had become estranged over the question of the national debt. As secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was charged with devising a plan to place the nation’s credit on a solid basis at home and abroad. When Hamilton presented his Report on the Public Credit to Congress in January, there was an instant split, roughly geographic, north vs. south. His report called for the assumption of state debts by the nation, the sale of government securities to fund this debt, and the creation of a national bank. Washington had become convinced that Hamilton’s plan would provide a strong economic foundation for the nation, particularly when he thought of the weak, impoverished Congress during the war, many times unable to pay or supply its troops.
Madison led the opposition, incensed because he believed that dishonest financiers and city slickers would be the only ones to benefit from the proposal, while poor veterans and farmers would lose out. Throughout the spring, the debate continued. Virtually no other government business got done as Hamilton and his supporters lobbied fiercely for the plan’s passage and Madison and his followers outfoxed them time and again in Congress. Although pretending to be neutral, Jefferson was philosophically and personally in sympathy with Madison.
By April, Hamilton’s plan was voted down and seemed to be dead, just as a new debate broke out over the placement of the national capital. Power, prestige, and a huge economic boost would come to the city named as capital. Hamilton and the bulk of New Yorkers and New Englanders wanted the capital to continue in New York City; the city government had already begun building a grand presidential residence at the tip of the island in hopes that it would sway votes. One large group was in favor of Philadelphia, the nation’s leading city, and a third group (which included Jefferson and Madison) was in favor of a new city altogether, to be built somewhere in the upper South.
Washington had never imagined the level of hostility that the debates of 1790 would reach. He wrote that the matters before Congress had been “agitated with a warmth & intemperance; with prolixity & threats; which it is to be feared has lessened the dignity of that body.” Political parties, to his mind, were the plague of effete, tyrannical European kingdoms. He assumed that intelligent, patriotic Americans could work together, making compromises for the good of the new Republic. Despite these initial rumblings, he still believed it possible.
On Sunday, May 9, Washington noted in his diary that he stayed at home all day, suffering from a bad cold. The next day, he didn’t write in the diary; he was seriously ill, having developed pneumonia. Each day he sank deeper, burning with fever and becoming delirious. His physicians feared that he would die. The house was thronged with company, expressing their sympathy to Martha and asking for the latest news. The future of the nation depended on him just as much in 1790 as it had in 1789. One senator wrote of the scene: “Every eye full of tears. His life despaired of.”
On May 15, the doctors believed he was dying. But around four or five in the afternoon, his illness reached a crisis. He broke into a very heavy sweat, which continued through the night, his fever dropped, and he began speaking intelligibly again. Jefferson wrote: “From total despair we are now in good hopes of him.” At his age, Washington didn’t bounce right back but was “in a convalescent state for several weeks after the violence of it [the pneumonia] had passed,” he wrote, with no inclination to do more than the barest minimum of his duties.
Martha herself was limp with relief at George’s second miraculous survival. She wrote to Mercy Warren: “During the President’s sickness, the kindness which everybody manifested, and the interest which was universally taken in his fate, were really very affecting to me. . . . Happily he is now perfectly recovered and I am restored to my ordinary state of tranquility, and usual good flow of spirits. For my part I continue to be as hap[p]y hear as I could be at any place except Mount Vernon.” Depression was a fleeting condition for her when her husband needed attention.
To see his wife happy and contented always made George happy as well, because he depended so much on her to keep up his own spirits. Whenever she was unhappy or depressed, he became “uneasy,” which translated to worried sick in his lexicon. They were always attuned to each other’s health and feelings. Martha wrote about her happiness at returning to Mount Vernon for a visit, primarily because she believed “the exercise, relaxation and amusement . . . will tend very much to confirm the President’s health.”
By June 6, he felt well enough to continue his efforts at bringing his advisers into harmony, and he went on a three-day fishing trip with a party that included Jefferson and Hamilton. Martha was obviously aware of George’s concern about the tensions in the administration and with his old ally James Madison. Personality conflicts—and this one was becoming quite personal—were the sort of matter on which he valued her opinion. Since Jefferson was a widower and Madison a lifelong bachelor, who hadn’t yet met Dolley Todd, she was unable to form the friendships with their wives that might have at least tempered some of the acrimony.
Jefferson’s opinion of Martha was never very high. He gave her credit for being unspoiled by the flattery that was lavished on her. But he thought her “a rather weak woman” who admired her husband far too deeply. His taste ran to flirtatious married women like Angelica Schuyler Church, Hamilton’s beautiful sister-in-law. He didn’t recognize either Martha’s intelligence or the strength of her principles. Instead, he attributed her lack of pride and affectation to “the goodness of her heart, not to the strength of her mind.”
Besides the strong political factors that encouraged Jefferson and Madison to compromise with Hamilton on finance, the president’s illness and his desire for their cooperation may have played at least a small part. Toward the end of June, the three men dined at Jefferson’s lodgings and agreed to a complex trade of votes that led to the adoption of Hamilton’s financial plan and the agreement that the capital would be moved to Philadelphia for ten years. A site would be chosen by the president somewhere on the Potomac River, where a new capital city would be built. The government would move south in 1800.
The previous year, Washington had been too ill to
celebrate the anniversary of independence. This year, he and Martha had a lot to celebrate—his health restored, a financial program in place, and a new capital to be planned in the area he had always favored. July 4 was a Sunday, so the celebration took place the following day. To the firing of cannons and small arms and the beating of drums, all the congressmen, senators, public officers, foreign representatives, members of the Order of the Cincinnati, and militia officers went to the president’s house for wine, punch, and cakes. The Washingtons then went with the crowd to St. Paul’s to hear an oration on independence.
While Congress was still in session, the Washingtons continued inviting government members and their wives on excursions. In June, Martha and Abigail took “a very agreeable Tour” to the falls of the Passaic River in New Jersey. This was the first big waterfall that Martha had ever seen. Spray from the falls rose like smoke high in the air. White water dropped a hundred feet into a cleft; far below, the semigloom was colored by “a beautiful rainbow in miniature.”
On July 10, they put together a group in several coaches—John and Abigail Adams, Henry and Lucy Knox, Alexander and Betsy Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Tobias and Polly Lear, the aides, and everybody’s children. They all drove up to visit old Fort Washington at the northern end of Manhattan Island, the scene of a Revolutionary War battle, before enjoying a catered dinner at a house that had once been Washington’s headquarters.
Although he had fought native Americans fiercely on the frontier during the French and Indian War, Washington’s views on the proper relationship with the Indian nations to the west and south had evolved. He stood against the plans of states like Georgia to despoil the Indians of their land, sending David Humphreys to meet with the Creeks to discover their opinions of the American nation. Basically, his government treated the Indian confederations as foreign powers and attempted to win them over to the American side, despite the influence of British and Spanish agents. During his presidency, several groups of Indians came to the capital to meet with the president and were entertained with great ceremony. Warfare was never his goal, although within two years he appointed Anthony Wayne commander of the army with the express mission of defeating the tribes of the Northwest to quiet the frontier.
The southern Creeks, wooed by the British and the Spanish, not to speak of the Georgians, were diplomatically very important; a major faction was led by Alexander McGillivray. Although his father was a Scot and his grandfather French, he inherited leadership through the maternal line. Arriving in New York in late July, McGillivray led a large entourage of Creek leaders; Abigail Adams was fascinated by them, describing them as “very fine looking Men, placid countenances & fine shape.” They stayed for about three weeks at an inn near Richmond Hill, where they visited often. She admired McGillivray, remarking with unconscious irony that he “speaks English like a Native.” The Creeks were entertained at formal dinners by the Washingtons, the Adamses, and many other political leaders. After a treaty was signed on August 7, they had a great bonfire outside their inn, “dancing round it like so many spirits hooping, singing, yelling,” before attending an official celebration and returning to the South.
Congress adjourned soon afterward, and Washington took the opportunity for a quick visit to Rhode Island, which he had deliberately avoided on his northern tour of the year before. It had not then ratified the Constitution. Finally, a bare majority of the state’s leaders realized the futility of going it alone and had joined the other twelve states of the United States.
As they prepared to leave New York, the Washingtons gave a farewell dinner at the mansion for the governor, mayor, and city aldermen. Despite pleading that they be allowed to leave without ceremony, all the city and state notables and militia turned up early on the morning of August 30, 1790, to escort them in procession from the house to the river. At the wharf, their escorts moved to right and left, and the Washingtons, their family, aides, and servants marched through cheering lines and onto the presidential barge to the accompaniment of a thirteen-gun salute. According to the Gazette, “Mrs. Washington appeared greatly affected on this occasion.” On the New Jersey side, Washington dismissed the barge and sent it back to the gentlemen who had built it for his use.
Tobias and Polly Lear stayed behind in New York, winding up housekeeping, overseeing the thorough scouring of the Macomb house, the packing of furniture in hay and china and ornaments in bran, and the sale of extra furniture, the cows, and the old chariot. It was a slow business. The Lears didn’t leave the city until fall, taking a stagecoach to Philadelphia. Two sloops were rented to carry furniture and the servants. In the new capital, they moved into rented lodgings until work on the mansion was far enough along for them to move in.
Traveling south toward home, the presidential party stopped in Philadelphia to see about the house they would occupy. Delightfully enough, the large Morris mansion on High Street had been rented for them. Both Martha and George had been guests there; the Morrises obligingly moved to another house at the corner of the same block to make the house available for them.
Safely settled in at Mount Vernon, George regained his health as he rode over his land and tended to farming. He amused himself with a longer excursion to select a site for the new capital. For many solid geographic and economic reasons, he chose an area of Maryland at the southern end of the Potomac. That it was close to Mount Vernon meant he could look over the work as it progressed.
Martha too was in her element, reunited with Fanny Washington, surrounded by children. Nelly Stuart would have come over for a long visit as soon as her former mother-in-law arrived; they corresponded often, and Martha always let her know when they were returning to Mount Vernon. By this time, Betsy and Patty Custis were in their teens, as was Harriot Washington. Nelly and Wash were eleven and nine. The Stuarts’ three little girls were stair steps from one to six. Fanny and George Augustine’s Maria was a little over a year old, lately joined by another Washington namesake, the baby George Fayette. It must have been bedlam with ten children around the house, but it was just the sort of happy uproar that Martha loved.
That fall, a young Philadelphian visited Mount Vernon and wrote home to his father, “Hospitality indeed seems to have spread over the whole place its happiest, kindest influence. . . . Mrs. Washington is the very essence of kindness. Her soul seems to overflow with it like the most abundant fountain, and her happiness is in exact proportion to the number of objects upon which she can dispense her benefits.”
During their three-month stay at home, Martha finally convinced George that he had made a mistake in restricting their social life so severely. He had bowed to his advisers’ opinions to avoid criticism. But, as she probably pointed out to him, they had been criticized all the same, accomplishing nothing but making her unhappy. Considering how attentive George was to his wife’s feelings, it was amazing that it took her a year to convince him to relax his strictures. The formal presidential entertainments would continue in Philadelphia, basically unchanged, but she would be free to accept private invitations and to entertain her own friends as she liked.
On November 28, 1790, Martha and George arrived in Philadelphia, children and servants in tow. Of course, renovations and additions to the Morris house had taken longer than expected and still weren’t finished—to George’s great irritation. Punctuality was one of his watchwords, and he complained mightily and often when others failed to value it as highly as he did. Making Philadelphia the capital was a bonanza for the building trade, not to speak of land-lords and merchants. The town rang with hammer blows as builders tried to get all the rental houses and lodgings in shape for the fall influx of government officials and legislators.
Bush Hill, a country house rented by the Adamses, was also in disarray. Abigail had gotten to Philadelphia in October, and Polly Lear called on her in the midst of her lumber and boxes. According to the exasperated Abigail, Polly assured her “that I am much better off than Mrs. Washington will be when she arrives.” The Lears had been arrangi
ng things at the Morris house, overseeing “58 loads of furniture delivered . . . 2 days work with carts.”
To the three-story brick house flanked by brick walls, they had added a wing for a servants’ hall and bedrooms, as well as the inevitable enlargement of the stables. Behind the walls, there was a good-size garden with large trees, ending at a coach house and stables that opened to an alley. Servants lived in the new ell, over the stables, and in outbuildings. Some white servants, including the household steward, had come from New York; others were hired in town. Among the Mount Vernon slaves, Molly and Oney had accompanied the Washingtons; the cook, Hercules, his son Richmond, Christopher, and Austin, a man of all work, came shortly afterward by stage or boat.
The two large “public” rooms on the first and second floors had been enlarged for presidential entertainments by throwing out bow windows overlooking the garden. Bow windows were the height of fashion, making rooms lighter and airier. Extra crimson fabric had to be purchased to extend the drapes in the dining room. On the second floor, the family had two drawing rooms, their bedrooms, and dressing rooms (Martha’s warmed by a new cast-iron stove). The Lears occupied a large room on the third floor, along with two rooms for the aides, who had to accept the bachelor’s lot of shared rooms. The president’s office was also on that floor; those calling on government business had to climb two steep flights of stairs to reach it.
Philadelphia had become larger and more elegant with each passing year. A French observer claimed that “Philadelphia may be considered the metropolis of the United States. It is certainly the most beautiful and best-built city in the nation, and also the wealthiest, though not the most ostentatious.”
Martha Washington Page 21