First of Men

by Ferling, John;

  The claimants met in 1770 and agreed to permit Washington, a surveyor and an experienced frontiersman, to search the area for suitable tracts. That autumn Washington departed for the West, undertaking his first junket over the mountains in more than a decade. Traveling with several servants and his old army doctor, James Craik, who had set up a practice in nearby Alexandria, he arrived at the residence of William Crawford after eight days of hard walking and horseback riding. The party lodged with Crawford for three days, while Washington and the frontiersman inspected some other lands (and a coal mine) near the Youghiogheny that seemed intriguing. Another day’s travel brought them to the forks of the Ohio, guarded now by Fort Pitt. Washington stayed at a tavern in the “town” of Pittsburgh, a rude village of twenty log cabins, and that evening he dined with the British officers garrisoned at the reconstructed stockade. A day or two later the men, joined now by several Indian guides, shoved off down the Ohio, beginning a month-long canoe trip that spanned over eleven hundred miles. Aside from some early season snow and the anxiety provoked by news (false news, it soon was happily learned) that Indians recently had murdered white settlers along the river, the trip was pleasant. The men stayed on the Ohio, leaving it just once for five days to explore the Great Kanawha River and the lands about it. Washington ran no surveys, but he took copious notes and he marked off two corners of “the Soldiers L[an]d (if we can get it). . . .” By mid-November they were back in Pittsburgh, and a few days later, after an absence of nine weeks, Washington was resting before his hearth at Mount Vernon.19

  He was not idle for long. He used his influence to secure the selection of his old friend Crawford as the official surveyor of the bounty lands. Then, when the tracts were located, he utilized his persuasive powers with the veterans to attain Crawford’s appointment as the surveyor to divide the general tracts into individual portions. Meanwhile, Washington set about to gently persuade some veterans to sell their shares to him; he told some men that their segments were likely to be “very hilly and broken,” and he emphasized the uncertainty of ever acquiring the land, observing that should Britain create a new colony in the West it undoubtedly would include “every Inch of the Land we are expecting. . . .” He also enlisted his brother’s aid, asking Charles to see some of the men without letting them know whom he represented, and “if you would (in a joking way, rather than in earnest, at first) see what value they set upon their lands.” By one argument or another Washington, for a pittance, purchased lots totaling over fifty-one hundred acres. After having met twice with the surveyor, Washington next presented to the government a plan for the division of the bounty, a scheme by which he proposed to keep the best lands for himself (why not, he told a friend, for “if it had not been for my unremitting attention to every circumstance, not a single acre of Land would ever have been obtained.”) The government, though ignorant of the nature of each tract, gladly accepted Washington’s plan. Through grant and purchase he received 20,147 acres. At the time, no one complained, but later some of the men exploded when they actually saw their plots, venting their wrath at Crawford. They were “a good deal shagereend,” the surveyor told Washington, to learn that “you in Chief of your Surveys [and Dr. Craik] have all bottom . . . Land.” None of the land “in that Country is so good as your Land and his Land,” he added.20

  Only George Muse, the scapegoat for the debacle at Fort Necessity, dared to complain directly to Washington of the bilking he believed he had received. Washington’s response was crude and visceral, and worth repeating:

  As I am not accustomed to receive such from any Man, nor would have taken the same language from you personally, without letting you feel some marks of my resentment; I would advise you to be cautious in writing me a second of the same tenour; for though I understand you were drunk when you did it, yet give me leave to tell you, that drunkness is no excuse for rudeness; and that, but for your stupidity and sottishness you might have known, by attending to the public Gazettes . . . that you had your full quantity of ten thousand acres of land allowed you. . . .21

  If Muse complained openly, other men apparently protested in private, and when it was discovered in 1775 that Crawford had failed to take the oaths required of a surveyor, his measurements were disallowed by Virginia’s governor. There the matter rested until three years after the Revolution began, when the House of Burgesses declared the original survey valid. Washington would get his land if America secured its independence.22

  For all his frenetic business and speculative endeavors, Washington hardly exhausted his resources. He lived in an elegant, even opulent, manner, attended at Mount Vernon by thirteen house slaves. He poured forth a steady stream of orders to his overseas agents, purchasing guns and hunting paraphernalia, large quantities of rum and larger amounts of wine, preferring Madeira, though he also ordered other varieties by the butt (150 gallons). He frequently ordered delicacies not available in Virginia: several varieties of nuts, cheeses, candies, teas, sweetmeats, and citrus products, plus refined sugar, spices, and soap. His huge clothing purchases were staggering. He placed nine separate orders for shoes (about two dozen pairs) and boots within a decade, and he often requested gloves, trousers, hose, and suits. He acquired a new carriage (“in the newest taste, genteel and light”) to replace Martha’s dilapidated buggy. A fancy saddle and an elegant sword sent from London must have enabled him to cut an imposing figure. Of course, much of what he requested was for Martha—fabrics, ribbons, clothing, perfume, and snuff, for instance—and he also bought furniture, china, pewter, and silverware from abroad for the mansion.23

  Since the goods he bought had to be transported across the Atlantic, he was forever tormented by shipping problems and other perplexities. Often the clothing fit poorly, if at all; one time the ship’s crew broke into his wine and freely imbibed. The merchandise often was damaged—broken, water-stained, moth-eaten. Sometimes the company sent the wrong items. He once ordered small busts of six famous soldiers for his mantel, but his factor substituted statues of six nonmilitary figures from antiquity. The goods often arrived at the wrong river, or they never arrived at all. Once, piqued by the futility of it all, he maintained that the English merchants “palm sometimes old, sometimes very slight and Indifferent Goods upon us,” and he complained to his agent that his goods were “mean in quality but not in price.” Mostly, though, he seemed resigned to his fate and he quietly submitted to the inconveniences.24

  Washington’s fifteen years as a planter-entrepreneur seem to have been a period when happiness far outweighed sadness at Mount Vernon. Despite his busy schedule and frequent absences, Washington found time for recreation. He enjoyed both horse and boat racing, and like other roughhewn provincials he found cockfighting to his liking. Exotic animals intrigued him too. He once paid to see a lion and a tiger, and on another occasion he arranged to have an elk brought to Mount Vernon; he even tried, without success, to acquire buffalo for his pastures. He occasionally trekked to Alexandria to the theater, and he frequently took in plays while he was in Williamsburg. He seemed to entertain incessantly at Mount Vernon, chatting with friends over wine (he was not fond of other spirits, though he stocked whiskey for his guests), or playing cards, backgammon, and billiards. When he was in town he frequented taverns, and he seldom failed to spend some time visiting friends at the Masonic lodge hall (he had become a member of the order in 1753, quickly rising to Master Mason). Washington was a horse fancier too; he loved these elegant animals and he enjoyed trading and breeding them. Balls and wedding and dances afforded him an opportunity to visit with other farmers, but if he was displeased with the rustic’s amenities he might grump to his diary, as he did after a party in Alexandria when a maladroit hostess served tea that tasted like hot water, provided an inadequate amount of food, and used pocket handkerchiefs for napkins and a tablecloth.

  Washington worked vacations into his schedule when possible. He and Martha occasionally slipped away to Eltham, Burwell Bassett’s estate on the Pamunkey, not far removed f
rom the White House. At other times the family made the four-to-five-day journey across the mountains to Berkeley Springs, the warm water springs where Lawrence vainly had sought a cure. Washington found the summer heat militated by this environment, and with a cook and servants in tow he came here often, residing for up to six weeks in a cottage that George Mason, his Potomac neighbor at nearby Gunston Hall, kindly made available.

  Washington loved the outdoors and his happiest moments came when he plunged off into the forests. He was fond of searching out a mountain stream and trying his luck with the fish, but more than anything he enjoyed hunting. Nothing seemed so relaxing and invigorating as a day in the fields with his dogs (to whom he gave names like Mopesy, Tarter, Jupiter, Trueman, Tiple, Truelove, Juno, Dutchess, and Sweetlips) in quest of duck, pheasant, deer, or fox, sports to which he often devoted ten full days or more a month. As with his horses, Washington took great care in the breeding of his hounds, but woe be to any offspring which through accident was not pedigree. He simply drowned those unfortunate pups.25

  Something of Washington’s attitudes and manners also are apparent in what he did not enjoy. He was not fond of leisure reading. He acquired many of the better books concerning scientific agriculture, but, otherwise, in these adult years he chiefly read military manuals and biographies of former martial leaders. He was familiar with important literary works like Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy, but he neither read the great works of the Enlightenment nor the principal tracts of the political theorists of his age.26 The natural world was an important part of his life, yet his interest in nature was purely utilitarian; when he noted in his diary varieties of trees or climatological trends it always was with an eye on speculative or farming concerns. Collecting objects of art held no allure for him; and his furniture acquisitions, while tasteful, were made more with the functionalism of each piece in mind. While he loved Mount Vernon and carefully planned each addition, he remodeled only for practical reasons, never from aesthetic inclination, and he lived in the mansion for nearly twenty years before he employed a gardener to formally design the grounds.

  Washington was not particularly fond of attending church. His religious interests were awakened for a time during Lawrence’s protracted illness, but thereafter his faith was a rather private matter. He served for several years as a vestryman (along with eleven other men) for Truro Parish, a post concerned with collecting funds and constructing facilities. Yet he attended services only about once each month, and when he did escort Martha to worship he did not partake of the Eucharist. He was not a Deist, however. He believed in God’s intervention in worldly affairs, and he anticipated a life after death.

  He could be rather droll about his piety. Having learned that a friend had not attended church, Washington whimsically chided him and, very much tongue in cheek, he added: “Could you but behold with what religious zeal I hie me to church on every Lord’s Day, it would do your heart good, and fill it . . . with equal fluency.”27

  Washington seemed even less eager to spend time with his mother than he was to attend church. A domineering woman, she must have nagged at her son when they were together, complaining and offering unsolicited advice that either provoked a tempest with the quick-tempered young man or left him stewing. Washington resolved the problem simply by seeing as little of her as possible. The distance between their estates (Ferry Farm was a solid day’s ride away) was a good excuse for only an occasional visit, and, besides, he was genuinely busy with his farm and his own family’s obligations. He apparently did not invite her to stay at Mount Vernon. Mary Washington remained at Ferry Farm until 1771, grappling with its exhausted land without much success. Four times after 1765 she called on her son for financial assistance, and each time he complied, giving her more than £25 altogether. But in 1771 George, together with his brother Charles and his sister Betty, decided the sixty-three-year-old woman could live more comfortably elsewhere. True to form, however, this tough old lady negotiated a deal: she was to be ensconced in a comfortable house on one of George’s lots in Fredericksburg; George was to provide her necessities; and he was to pay her an annual rent—apparently about £30—for Ferry Farm (which, in fact, he legally owned and would now manage through an overseer). Her son agreed, but he was a shrewd chip off the block too. Shortly after his mother had moved, Washington sold the farm for £2000.28

  If Washington scarcely saw his mother, he had plenty of other visitors. In an age when travel was slow and inns were scattered or nonexistent, wayfarers in the South expected to be lodged at the residences of others of their social class. So many pilgrims stopped by Mount Vernon that at times it seemed certain that George and Martha would never be alone, and once, in exasperation at the ubiquitous guests, he remarked in his diary: “Mrs. Possey, & some young woman whose name was unknown to any Body in this family, dined here.”29

  The Washingtons’ best friends were the Bassetts and the Fairfaxes. Burwell Bassett and Martha’s sister lived so far from the Potomac, however, that the families saw one another only infrequently. But Washington wrote to Bassett often, sending him gossip about mutual acquaintances and keeping him abreast of affairs at Mount Vernon. George and Martha also developed an affinity for Bryan Fairfax, George William’s half brother who had emigrated to America in 1751 and settled (with Sally Fairfax’s sister) on Lord Fairfax’s estate in the Shenandoah. About the same age as George, yet less sober and more of a madcap, Fairfax served with Washington for years in the Burgesses and the two grew to be fast fox-hunting chums.30

  Sally and George William Fairfax were closer than anyone else to Washington and his wife. George and young Fairfax for years had maintained a cordial, but distant, friendship. George William after all was older, a married man when Washington still was in his teens; for several years in fact young George persisted in calling the master of Belvoir “Mister Fairfax.” But after Washington matured the two men grew quite close, each admiring traits in the other which they believed were lacking in their own makeup. The one urbane, polished, well educated, something of a man of the world, the other athletic, graceful, courageous, a man equally at home in the raw wilderness or in the domesticity of his dining room. The two families had much in common: both were wealthy and powerful, and everyone was about the same age, give or take a few years. Strangely, too, for that time and place, neither family had produced any children. Yet, enough differences in temperament existed among all four to create an engaging diversity. Most importantly, Martha quickly accepted these old friends of her husband, and eventually she too grew close to the Fairfaxes. The families visited often, sometimes staying overnight at the other’s mansion. The men hunted together, contemplated joint business deals, and sat side by side in the Burgesses. The women come to us in more shadowy terms, and it is more difficult to understand the bond that seemed to have developed between one who was so pert and flippant and one who was so matronly. But they did grow close, whether in spite of or because they were so different.

  George and Martha had lived at Mount Vernon for only about a year when family business called the Fairfaxes to England for several months. While they were abroad George William did not write Washington, but Sally did. Yet Sally seemed to have changed when they returned to Virginia, acting for a time as if after experiencing the luster of Old World society everything about the provinces had seemed to pale by contrast. What transpired between her and George in the following decade can only be guessed at. His diary references about her were curt. For instance: “Monday Feby. 25th . . . Colo. Fx & his Lady . . . dined here. So[uther]ly Wind and remarkable fine clear day.”31 In all likelihood nothing happened between the two. If they still had tender feelings about one another, they probably communicated them silently. Each had much to lose if matters went beyond that. And Washington, shy and prudent, and inordinately proud of his virtue, was unlikely to push things too far.

  In the early 1770s Sally fell ill, requiring medical attention that could only be found overseas. She and her husband sailed to England in 17
73, never to return. Permanent residence abroad had not been in their plans, but when the opportunity to return to America arrived the colonies were at war with Britain, and Fairfax proclaimed his loyalty to the Crown. If they did not come back to Virginia, they were not forgotten. Washington continued to correspond with George William, often alluding to the times he had spent at Belvoir as “the happiest moments of my life.” A quarter century after he last had seen Sally, and not long after he had learned of her husband’s death, Washington wrote to her for the last time. In some ways it was a curious letter, alternately stiff and formal, yet breezily chatty. He seemed, too, to make a special effort to impress her, inserting a passage in French, one of the rare times he ever employed such a device. In two widely separated sections he spoke of his feelings for her. The “happiest [moments] in my life,” he wrote, were those “I have enjoyed in your company.” So often, he admitted, he still looked toward Belvoir and thought of her. Then, at the end of the missive, and rather obliquely, he suggested that she return to Virginia.32