Washington
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Washington devoted part of the Christmas season to preparing for publication a suitable notice of the allotments of land. To justify himself, he reported at length on the different tracts. He explained the request of Council that he advertise what had been done and told how he had promised to return his quota if inequity were alleged by veterans and proved to the satisfaction of Council.
Recovery of his costs from officers who had contributed nothing to the surveys was one of a number of difficulties that confronted Washington during a winter that was soft and beneficent in comparison with the preceding icy season. Unpleasant was the prospect that his dearest friends, the Fairfaxes of Belvoir, were going to leave Virginia for a prolonged visit and perhaps permanent residence in England. Their absence would be deprivation. Washington, of course, would collect Fairfax’s accounts and do what he could to look after the absent proprietor’s interests: there could be no new neighbors at Belvoir like those who were about to depart.
The superlative vexation was the attempt to establish a mill on the Youghiogheny. To improve his land and direct the building of the mill, Washington entered into a partnership with Gilbert Simpson, member of a family who had been among Washington tenants as early as 1762. Simpson, although his spouse was opposed, agreed to go to the Youghiogheny with some of Washington’s slaves, tools and implements, and with his own horses and utensils, and start a joint adventure. This seemed a promising arrangement, but from the time Simpson wrote his first report to his partner he was despairing. There was no better land in that part of the world, Simpson said, but he never was in good health from the time of his arrival. “I intend to do the best I can to improve your land until the fall,” the unhappy, homesick man wrote, “and then to quit the concern. . . .”
Disappointments were sharpened and business snarled that winter and spring by one of the strangest disasters that had been visited on Virginia. In January 1773 the Treasurer observed peculiarities in notes of the issues of 1769 and 1771 that had been returned for retirement. This currency was well-executed counterfeit in which even the watermark of the notepaper had been duplicated by impression. The Treasurer promptly published a warning of the circulation of the false notes and a description of them. Public apprehension convinced the Governor he must act. Council was hurriedly assembled. Soon there appeared in Williamsburg a man named John Short, who was described as a one-time participant in the counterfeiting. The criminals, he said, included a ringleader who resided in North Carolina and fifteen or sixteen men of influence in Virginia. Unless arrests were made quickly, Short warned, it soon would be exceedingly dangerous to deal with the culprits. The Governor placed warrants in the hands of Capt. John Lightfoot, a man of known resolution, and gave him full authority to call for help from the County Lieutenant and other trustworthy men of Pittsylvania, where the workshop of the counterfeiters was said to be. Back to Williamsburg on February 23 came Lightfoot. In his custody were five men who had been caught at work in a complete counterfeiting shop. Several suspects were said to have fled. Still others were reported to have been locked up in county jails. The men caught by Lightfoot were examined by Speaker Randolph in the presence of the Governor and other notables, all of whom agreed that the prisoners, with one exception, should be held. Soon afterward the accused were given a hearing before the Court of York County and remanded to the Williamsburg jail where they were joined by a suspect who showed a disposition to confess and become the King’s witness. At this stage of the proceedings the General Assembly met, March 4, 1773, in answer to the Governor’s summons.
Washington’s departure for this session was hampered by plans he was making for Jack. That young gentleman manifestly was wasting time with the Reverend Boucher. Washington’s decision to send the boy to college now had become fixed. Boucher was all for King’s College in New York, because it was located in what he understood to be “the most fashionable and polite place on the continent,” and he was able to bring Washington to acquiesce in this choice. The Colonel made plans for going to New York and entering Jack in college before making the journey to Williamsburg for the spring settlement of accounts; but the summons to an early session of the Assembly upset this schedule.
With Martha and Patsy, Washington reached Williamsburg the day the Assembly met. The talk was of the counterfeiting and the methods Dunmore had used in dealing with it. Every Burgess admitted that so extreme a case called for strong measures. At the same time, the Burgesses were disturbed that Dunmore had disregarded the Court of Pittsylvania County and taken men from their own vicinage for trial. Should this be permitted to pass without protest? The answer of the Burgesses was creditable to them. When they prepared the usual address to the Governor, they thanked him for endeavoring to bring the counterfeiters to justice; “but,” they affirmed in sharpest antithesis, “the proceedings in this case, my Lord, though rendered necessary by the particular nature of it, are nevertheless different from the usual mode, it being regular that an examining court on criminals should be held, either in the County where the fact was committed, or the arrest made.” Dunmore did not like this. In replying to the address, he expressed surprise that when he was seeking to punish the guilty, his conduct “could by any means be thought to endanger the safety of the innocent.” He held his ground and had the support of more than half the members of the General Court that the proceedings were legal.
Washington was preparing to leave Williamsburg when, on March 12, a motion was made that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on the state of the Colony. Some of the members who followed the leadership of Patrick Henry had been conferring on the course of action Virginia should take to establish the truth or falsity of what was being reported concerning stern measures the home government was to employ against Colonies that resisted the Ministry. Rhode Island and Massachusetts, especially, were in controversy with Britain, but how they proposed to defend their rights, the Virginians did not know. Discussion in the taverns consequently had dealt with proposals for the establishment among the Colonies of committees similar to the one Virginia long had maintained in order to correspond with her agent in England.
The motion was passed, the chair was vacated, the House was in Committee of the Whole. Recognition was given Dabney Carr, junior Burgess from Louisa. Carr read a brief preamble and then proposed that eleven Burgesses be named as a Committee of Correspondence. These eleven were “to obtain the most early and authentic intelligence of all such acts and resolutions of the British Parliament, or proceedings of administration, as may relate to or affect the British Colonies in America, and to keep up and maintain a correspondence and communication with our sister Colonies, respecting these important considerations; and the result of such their proceedings, from time to time, to lay before this House.” Carr argued that it was imperative all the Colonies know what was threatened against any one of them. Accepted in Committee of the Whole, Carr’s proposals were adopted unanimously by the House.
Estimates of the resolutions varied greatly. Jefferson and Carr agreed that the effect would be a call for a meeting of representatives of all the Colonies for maintenance of common rights. In New England, Samuel Adams said the “truly patriotic resolves” of Virginia would gladden “the hearts of all who are friends of liberty.” Governor Dunmore was not inclined to take seriously the action of the Virginia lawmakers. “Your Lordship will observe,” he wrote the Earl of Dartmouth, “there are some resolves which show a little ill humor in the House of Burgesses, but I thought them so insignificant that I took no matter of notice of them.”
At intervals during the session, Washington had numerous opportunities of talking with Dunmore, a hard-headed Scot of Washington’s own age, who had a kindred appetite for land. As a result, Dunmore engaged to go with Washington to the Ohio country that summer. After the Colonel found when he could undertake the journey, Dunmore was to come to Mount Vernon, whence the start was to be made. Washington was looking also to West Florida where, as he understood the facts, bounties of lan
d were available to veterans of the French and Indian War in accordance with the proclamation of October 1763. Washington had not exercised his rights under that proclamation and now asked James Wood, who was about to go to West Florida to explore the country, to take up there for him all the land to which a field officer was entitled.
Back at Mount Vernon on March 16, Washington had two days in which to catch up with accumulated business. Then he enjoyed a few spirited fox hunts. After that he had a surprise of first magnitude: Jack had become engaged to marry. The girl was Eleanor, more familiarly “Nelly,” Calvert, second daughter and one of the ten children of Mr. and Mrs. Benedict Calvert of Mount Airy, across the Potomac in Maryland. Benedict Calvert was the illegitimate son of Charles Calvert, fifth Lord Baltimore, who acknowledged paternity and gave the young man a start but never let the name of the mother be known. In 1745 Benedict became Collector of Customs at Patuxent, the next year he received appointment to the Council, and in 1748 he married a distant cousin, Elizabeth Calvert, daughter of Gov. Charles Calvert. As Benedict Calvert’s connections were of this eminence, his accident of birth was not regarded as a social stigma. Washington and Jack’s mother were hurt that the boy had not confided in them on a matter that might shape his entire life, but their decision was to accept the engagement—what else could be done?—and by joint consent to have the marriage postponed until Custis had gone to college. The immediate procedure was for Washington to write Calvert, approve the match and state his hope that Jack would progress further in his studies before the marriage should be solemnized. It was a task which, Washington confessed, was embarrassing to him, but one he discharged forthrightly. He closed with an invitation for the Calverts to visit Mount Vernon. Calvert replied with thanks for praise of Nelly and expressed his entire agreement that “it is, as yet, too early in life for Mr. Custis to enter upon the matrimonial state.” He hoped that Jack’s attendance on college would make for the future happiness of the young people and that “this separation will only delay, not break off, the intended match.”
If Jack was fated to become engaged to a girl when he should have been engaged only in his studies, Washington well may have hoped that the boy had escaped, without dishonor, from premature marriage. The task immediately ahead was getting young Custis off promptly to New York with the least reluctance and the fewest tears. In proceeding to do this, Washington and Martha did not attempt to keep Jack from Nelly. They visited the Calverts, entertained them at Mount Vernon and made some of Nelly’s friends a part of their own circle. When the date for departure approached, it was agreed that Jack should start two days ahead of Washington and should spend the time at the home of his fiancée, where Washington called for him May 10.
Washington found New York, where he arrived May 26, preparing for a farewell to an old acquaintance of his. Thomas Gage, now a Lieutenant General and still Commander-in-Chief of the British military forces in America. Gage had been on the continent almost continuously after 1755; now he was to leave with all the ceremonies New York could stage for him. It was pleasant to share on May 27 in the “elegant entertainment” the merchants and other citizens gave the General. Three days later Washington dined with Gage and, meantime, enjoyed numerous social affairs. At King’s College no difficulty was encountered in registering Jack. The President, the Rev. Myles Cooper, proved to be full of zeal for King and church, a warm advocate of an American episcopate and a vehement enemy of dissenters. Washington started for home May 31 and reached there June 8.
Much pleased that the boy was at a good school and away from the temptation to marry on sudden impulse, Washington resumed his normal enjoyments and encountered the usual vexations, together with some he had not known previously. Troublesome boundary-disputes had developed on the Custis property on the Eastern Shore and on one of the plantations near the White House. Tobacco was selling very poorly. Gilbert Simpson had abandoned the joint settlement and mill-site on the Youghiogheny, had left Washington’s slaves and property there and returned to his own farm in Loudoun County. Washington was angered by Simpson’s behavior, but at the moment he was unable to do anything.
Mount Vernon was crowded with guests. Nelly Calvert and one of her girl friends were there; on the eighteenth Jack Washington, his wife and two children arrived for a visit. The next day, shortly before five o’clock, there was a stir of a sort that came often and unhappily—Patsy had been seized with one of her fits. This time the girl did not utter a word. Not a groan and scarcely a sigh escaped her lips. In less than two minutes she was dead. Martha, of course, was overwhelmed. Washington himself was shaken. Immediately, there was nothing he could do except comfort Martha as best he could, notify Jack and the kinsfolk around Williamsburg, and have the body of the seventeen-year-old girl made ready for burial.
Everything was done decorously and quietly. Condolence was as candid as kindly. Governor Dunmore understood instinctively that the proposed western journey with Washington had to be delayed. He wrote: “. . . as the poor young lady was so often afflicted with these fits, I dare say she thinks it a happy exchange.” Fielding Lewis said: “Poor Patsy’s death must have distressed Mrs. Washington very much, but when she considers the unhappy situation she was in and the little probability of ever getting well, she must conclude that it’s better as it is, as there was little appearance of her ever being able to enjoy life with any satisfaction.”
Patsy’s death might end the greater part of Washington’s financial distress. Thanks to prudent administration, her estate had increased to £16,000 and more. Half this went to Jack and half, through Martha, to Washington. He wrote his London factors briskly: “. . . as I would choose to discharge my debt to you I would apply her money . . . to that purpose, provided I can sell out without loss; be so good therefore as to let me know as soon as you can what steps are necessary to be pursued, in order to do this, and upon what terms it is to be done.”
Washington the planter now became Washington the land broker. He was resolved that he would comply promptly with all the statutory conditions of “seating” new lands. He reasoned that settlers who went to western lands in order to advance their own fortunes would do better by him than would overseers or managers and undertook to draw settlers to his lands which, he said in an advertisement, were “among the first which have been surveyed in the part of the country they lie in”; but none came. Difficulties attending the development of this land were not a barrier to the acquisition of more—and more and more. Washington was committed to his view that the road to wealth ran on the frontier, and he set no limit to what he would patent if he could find low-lying, easily-developed tracts of first quality, no matter where—on the Scioto River, the western boundary of the proposed new Ohio Colony, or on the Mississippi in West Florida, though the prospect of this was dimming.
To find time for steadfast pursuit of wealth in the west, Washington learned how to organize and perform the work he had to do as plantation-owner, as counsellor of his neighborhood, as executor and administrator, as stepfather of the somewhat unstable Jack, as the husband of a grief-stricken wife, as a private gentleman who enjoyed his rightful share of sports—and so endlessly. He never could have finished all his duties—to say nothing of keeping his books and conducting his correspondence—had he not risen early and ordered his hours.
He turned much to a gratifying task—the enlargement and further adornment of Mount Vernon. A gardener had been employed in January; much painting was in contemplation; 60,000 brick had been burned for new foundations and buildings; close to 15,000 shingles had been purchased. Although Patsy was missed hourly, the place was more beautiful than ever when, on October 19, Washington set out for Williamsburg to settle his business with the merchants who would assemble there at the end of the month. Martha traveled with him, as did Jack, who had come home from New York for vacation. The boy had been much shocked by Patsy’s death, but he brought with him good reports from Cooper and a tutor. Washington was pleased to hear these and, now as always, he had s
atisfaction in the company of Martha and her son as they rode on to Eltham, which they reached on October 23.
After two days there, Washington went to Williamsburg, and renewed the veterans’ agitation for land. In so far as the proclamation of 1763 was a basis of claims, he could do no more than submit the petition he had prepared in the name of the prospective beneficiaries. Those of the volunteers of 1754 who had received the tract of 51,302 acres had called a meeting at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, October 20, to make a final partition. Delinquent contributors, passed over in the first distribution, were now to receive their acreage. At the same time, Washington and a few others who had benefited in the first allotment had a new chance of increasing their holdings. No formal prote ts over inequitable distribution had been received, and all claims appeared to be satisfied. Left over were 18,887 acres. Washington proposed that this be divided among those who “had been at all the trouble and whole risk” of advancing their full part of the cost of exploration, surveys and patents. He urged that these men share in percentages that corresponded to the proportions of the original allotment; had not the Governor and Council provided that part of the reservation of thirty thousand should be for those who sustained extra expense in seeking to procure suitable lands for the soldiers? The Colonial officials now made the “second apportionment” as Washington recommended and added what Washington termed “the dividend” to those who had footed the bills for exploration and surveys.