Martha Washington

by Patricia Brady

  Every time the French government changed, a new minister with fresh instructions and objectives was sent to America. Edmond Charles Genêt, a particularly aggressive and undiplomatic envoy, had landed at Charleston on April 8. He acted as a free agent, not bothering to present his credentials to the government right away. For some weeks, he appealed directly to American citizens, commissioning privateers and talking of forming an army to attack the Spanish colonies. Republican newspapers supported this charismatic Frenchman and his government, demanding an end to neutrality and an alliance against France’s enemies. On May 18, Genêt finally called on the president and then continued his gadfly activities in Philadelphia, vocally opposing the actions of Washington and his government—some thought fomenting a violent new revolution in the United States.

  While trying to balance foreign and domestic affairs with the hostility among his cabinet members, Washington was also called on to advise Fanny Washington about her finances and future, as well as attend to the management of Mount Vernon. With a tenuous calm reigning in Philadelphia, he went home again in July for a week or so, celebrating the Fourth of July in Alexandria and installing his nephew Howell Lewis as temporary manager. Martha stayed in Philadelphia, where she invited friends and their children to view the fireworks on Market Street from the roof of her kitchen. She devoted herself to looking after the family and providing comfort for her sorely beset husband as he dashed back and forth from Virginia to Pennsylvania.

  The deadly yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia in July was an ominous note in keeping with the rest of Washington’s second term. Yellow fever first broke out in North American port cities in the mid-eighteenth century. The virulent fever, carried by the Aedes egypti mosquito, required three factors to become epidemic. Philadelphia provided them all—the arrival of infected human victims, breeding grounds for clouds of mosquitoes, and thousands of people without immunity living crowded together. Ships from the West Indies, where the disease was raging that summer, arrived regularly at the Delaware River wharves, and the city’s cisterns, wells, and swampy areas provided an ideal environment for mosquitoes. The streets around the docks were chock-full of immigrants, living cheek by jowl in decrepit buildings. They lacked immunity because they had never been exposed to the disease.

  The outbreak started down on Water Street in July, a slum lodging-house tenant here, a sailor there, then a sharp increase in deaths throughout the neighborhood. City authorities tried to convince themselves that it wasn’t the beginning of an epidemic, just the usual summer fevers among the poor. To Martha’s great sadness, Polly Lear contracted a fever and died on July 26 after a week’s illness, probably not yellow fever to judge by the absence of the typical symptoms. Tobias bore his loss “like a philosopher.” The Washingtons attended the funeral of the “pretty spritely woman,” and Hamilton and Jefferson overcame their differences long enough to join the other pallbearers.

  By August, the raging fever, black vomit, bleeding orifices, delirium, and jaundice—all symptoms of the disease—had spread to sufferers in more privileged neighborhoods, and every day fatalities were doubling, tripling, quadrupling. Barrels of tar were burned in the streets and gunshots rang out, both well-known antidotes against the fever. To avoid panic, church bells were no longer rung for the dead, and the doors of victims’ houses were marked to warn off visitors.

  In the face of this monstrous onslaught of yellow fever, people with means and some without began leaving Philadelphia for the countryside, first a trickle, then a stream, and at last a flood, until nearly 40 percent of the population had gone. Still the death toll mounted, gravediggers driving wagons through the deserted streets, crying, “Bring out your dead.” Bodies were thrown over cemetery walls, ready-made coffins were piled up near the State House, and trenches were dug in potter’s field to bury the poor in mass graves.

  George decided to send the family to Mount Vernon in early August for their safety. As a matter of pride, he felt obligated not to leave town earlier than his announced departure date, but Martha flatly refused to leave without him. If he wanted to put his life in danger, so would she. Since Jefferson, Knox, and Randolph had all evacuated, the work of the government had come to a standstill. As he wrote to Tobias Lear, who was abroad on business: “Mrs. Washington was unwilling to leave me surrounded by the malignant fever wch. prevailed, I could not think of hazarding her and the Children any longer by my continuance in the City . . . [it] was becoming every day more and more fatal.” The entire family left on September 10.

  Both Alexander and Betsy Hamilton had come down with the disease in early September, he seriously, she lightly. Martha sent good wishes and several bottles of good wine, one of the sovereign remedies of the eighteenth century. The enmity between Jefferson and Hamilton was so fierce that in a letter to Madison, Jefferson characterized his opponent’s illness as imaginary, brought on by Hamilton’s “excessive alarm.” Mocking his supposed timidity on water and horseback, Jefferson expressed his doubt that Hamilton’s “courage of which he has the reputation in military occasions were genuine.” This from a man who hadn’t fired a shot in the Revolution and had abandoned Richmond in the face of approaching British troops when he was governor of Virginia.

  George and Martha spent the fall at Mount Vernon, devoting themselves to their own affairs. Fanny Washington and her three little children joined them. Although she had inherited property from her husband, Fanny had no idea how to handle it. She clung to her aunt, enjoying the pleasure of her company at Mount Vernon “to soften the sorrows I must feel on going there.”

  Cold weather at last put a stop to the epidemic. The final death toll was about five thousand—nearly 12 percent of Philadelphia’s entire population, leaving behind empty houses, failed businesses, and overcrowded graveyards. One of the victims was Samuel Powel, the city’s mayor and the Washingtons’ friend. Martha wrote a little later about Philadelphians: “They have suffered so much that it can not be got over soon by those that was in the city. Almost every family has lost some of thair friends—and black seems to be the general dress of the city.”

  Congress declined to reconvene in a city where their lives might still be in danger. Along with hundreds of Philadelphians, its members gathered in the suburban village of Germantown, a hilly little place of summer houses. The Washingtons arrived there on November 1, renting a partially furnished house from Isaac Franks. They had two wagonloads of furniture sent out from Philadelphia to fill in the gaps. The two-story house sat smack on the main Germantown road, opposite Market Square.

  Genêt’s recall had been demanded, but the envoy didn’t care to risk his life with the latest turn of the revolutionary wheel of government in France. He remained in New York, where he married one of Governor Clinton’s daughters. The wild fervor of the Philadelphia street mob had been dampened by the epidemic, and Freneau had gone bankrupt, which removed one aggravation. Then Jefferson resigned from the government, to the president’s true regret. Despite their differing opinions, Washington respected his secretary of state’s manifest abilities, little realizing that Jefferson was already hard at work building an opposition party. It would take its name from its major tenet—the Republican party.

  That winter was cold, with the Delaware River “so full of Ice that noe vessel can pass.” The theater and the dancing assemblies had been canceled during the epidemic and remained so for months. Martha wrote in February: “We have been very dull hear all winter, thare has been two assemblys—and it is said that the players are to be hear soon. If they come and open the new theater I suppose it will make a very great change. . . . Something of that sort seems to be necessary as a great number of the people in this town is very much at a loss how to spend their time agreeably. The gay are always fond of some new [scene] let it be what it may. I daresay a very little time will ware off the gloom if gay amusements are permitted hear.”

  Martha liked the theater, balls, and assemblies but amused herself just as easily at home—talking
with her husband, family, and friends, enjoying her needlework and books. She had always read the Bible and the Anglican prayer book, but during these years, she greatly expanded her reading tastes. Especially in Philadelphia, the publishing capital of the nation with numerous printing presses, gazettes, and well-stocked bookstores, she found pleasure in the variety of books available.

  The evangelical preachers who proselytized in Virginia—Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists—had never attracted Martha, nor had the austere Quakers. She remained loyal all her life to the Anglican (by then American Episcopal) Church and its doctrines. Within its doors were a wide range of religious opinions and practices. Very few hellfire-and-damnation sermons were preached in her church, and she took comfort from its familiar litany. Unlike more puritanical denominations, Episcopalians didn’t declare life’s pleasures sinful unless carried to excess—dancing, drinking wine, playing cards for small stakes, wearing pretty clothes, and traveling or entertaining on Sunday after church.

  Martha explored her religion in more depth through several books; most of them emphasized the importance of good works and tolerance for the beliefs of others, in addition to Christian faith. From Bishop George Horne’s Commentary on the Book of Psalms to John Berridge’s The Christian World Unmasked, they were thoughtful and inspirational books for the general public by popular Anglican clerics.

  More interesting was her choice of the Works of Josephus. One of the most reprinted histories in the world, it is a firsthand account by a first-century Jew of the Jewish rebellion against Rome, the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, and Jesus in the flesh. It provides a clear exposition of Jewish history and beliefs.

  Martha also read literary miscellanies put together more for the expanding reading public than for scholars. They were often entitled The Beauties of . . . and included an introduction and biographical information on the authors of the selected poetry or prose pieces. One of the most popular of these collections was The Beauties of Milton, Thomson, and Young. Her library included The Beauties of Nature as well as a copy of Mercy Warren’s Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous.

  Novels weren’t readily available to her as a girl and young woman, but she took happily to them in her sixties. She read Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, Regina Roche’s thriller, Children of the Abbey, Samuel Johnson’s bit of satirical exotica The Prince of Abyssinia (Rasselas), and Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story. All their plots incorporate sexual attraction, the search for happiness, and loads of double dealing. Even though the virtuous are rewarded in the end, the characters are put in morally hazardous situations on their treks to the last page.

  Inchbald was a famous British actress and playwright whose novel became a transatlantic best-seller. The first half of A Simple Story recounts the love story of a feckless and self-willed young socialite, a Protestant, and her guardian, a Jesuit priest. The sexual tension between them is so palpable that he asks to be released from his vows when he inherits an earldom; they marry, but she eventually strays. To offset such racy material, the second half of the book deals as tepidly as possible with the reconciliation between the priest/earl and their daughter.

  Martha was religious, but not a prude. She fully understood sexual attraction and was uninhibited in her enjoyment of plays and books whose plots revolved around its effects. She was tolerant in real life as well. Even as a married woman, Kitty Greene and her flirtations had been gossiped about; after Nathanael’s death, people accused her of having affairs with married men. For years, she lived with her children’s much younger tutor until she finally married him. Martha gave dinners and went to the theater with her when she was in the capital and always wrote to Kitty with loving kindness.

  George subscribed to stacks of newspapers that she also read. She subscribed to magazines, several of which started up in this period but seldom lasted long. Among them were The New York Magazine, or Literary Repository; Oswald’s Gazetteer; and the Lady’s Magazine and Musical Repository.

  Having lots of books and newspapers around the house encouraged the teenage Nelly in her lifelong habit of reading. She now studied both French and Italian, sometimes getting up at a quarter to five in the morning to do her lessons. Her grandmother was very strict about her music. The poor girl practiced for hours on the harpsichord, playing and crying, crying and playing, but she became a fine musician. She and her friends giggled and gossiped about the boys in their social set. George found them delightful, but Martha was sometimes a bit aggravated by their silliness: “I hope when Nelly has a little more Gravatie she will be a good girl—at present she is I fear half crasey.”

  Wash hated the educational part of school (playtime was fine)—studying, writing, reading, and doing homework. Even when his grandparents tried to force him to do his lessons, he was down the stairs and out the door as soon as they turned their backs. Martha had no doubt the schools were to blame: “In this city everyone complains of the difficulty to get their children educated—my dear little Washington is not doing half so well as I could wish . . . and we are mortified that we cannot do better for him.”

  In early February 1794, Elizabeth Scott Peter, the wife of a wealthy Georgetown merchant, Robert Peter, came to visit for about six weeks, bringing letters from home along with Betsy and Patty Custis. Barely turned seventeen, Patty was engaged to the Peters’ son Thomas. It seems to have been a love match, but financial agreements still had to be made. As Martha noted approvingly: “The old gentleman [Robert Peter] will comply with Doctor Stuart’s bargain.” She went on: “Patty has given him leave to visit her as a lover. I suppose by that he is agreeable to all parties—if it is so I shall be very happy to see her settled with a prospect of being happy.” She believed in good financial settlements, but she also believed in marrying for love, as she had.

  A week after Congress adjourned in June, George took one of his quick trips home. On Sunday, June 22, he went for a ride to the falls of the Potomac. His horse stumbled on the rocks, and he wrenched his back severely while preventing it from falling and throwing him. In his weekly letter, he told Martha about the accident but reassured her that he was better. Since she already believed that the presidency was killing him, she was beside herself with anxiety.

  No doubt she wrote to her husband, but her letter to Fanny Washington demanded full details: “I have been so unhappy about the Presid[en]t that I did not know what to do with myself.” Martha feared that he had underplayed his injury: “Don’t let me be deceived. . . . I beseech you to let me know how he is soon as you can and often.” If he was to be detained there any longer, she would “get into the stage or get stage horses” and come down to care for him herself. Their coach was in Virginia. No matter how awful stagecoach travel was, with its backless seats, smelly passengers, baggage crammed into every spare inch, and poorly sprung vehicles, Martha was ready to brave it all for him.

  But George returned to Philadelphia on time, so she didn’t have to take the stage. This was a landmark accident in the life of a horse-man famous for his strength and agility. In the eighteenth century, people in their sixties were definitely elderly. The first term had aged them both; the second finished the job. Still thin and muscular, George rode or walked most days for exercise, but he was becoming noticeably stooped, deaf, and dependent on his glasses for reading.

  At five feet tall, Martha put on weight easily; she no longer rode horseback and frequently indulged her fondness for candy and desserts. The pleasing plumpness of her middle age had become grandmotherly stoutness, complete with double chin. She often suffered from colic and severe stomach pains. Both of them were prone to colds and general aches and pains.

  Fanny Washington had decided to move into the president’s house in Alexandria so her children could go to school in town. She was in easy visiting distance from either the Federal City or Georgetown. Her old friend from the early days at Mount Vernon, Tobias Lear, started riding over from Georgetown, where he was in business. By early August, they were married. He
knew she was tubercular, but consumption had romantic overtones at that time, as its victims grew thin and languid, with luminous skin. They had a few happy months, but the following March both Fanny and her daughter fell desperately ill with some passing fever. Maria recovered, but it was too much for Fanny’s weakened state of health. Within a week, she was dead. Although they had been prepared for her loss by Lear’s despairing letters, George wrote, in a letter signed by Martha also: “It has fallen heavily notwithstanding.”

  Fanny’s orphaned children were then seven, six, and five. As their stepfather, Lear was responsible for them. Tobias and his mother kept the boys together, along with his son, Lincoln, and saw to their schooling. But Maria was so rude to Mrs. Lear and so unmanageable in her grief that she was sent to boarding school and then to live with an aunt until she married. Although Martha loved the little girl, she couldn’t take another child into the president’s house. She wrote Mrs. Lear, “It gives me pain to think that a child as circumstansed as she is should not have a disposition to make herself friends—her youth will plead for her.”

  The summer of 1794, politics took a turn for the worse. The excise tax on whiskey had been controversial since its imposition; on the frontier, distilling grain into whiskey was the most efficient way of producing a commodity easily portable over trails and terrible roads. Those accused of breaking the law would be tried in district courts far from their homes—an expensive journey whatever the outcome of the trial. In the summer of 1794, farmers/distillers in western Pennsylvania rebelled against the tax and attacked tax collectors in what became known as the Whiskey Insurrection. Although encouraging changes in the law, Washington would not accept any defiance of federal authority. He believed that the nation’s stability and future rested on respect for the law.