BIRTHPLACE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
At the Wakefield house was born, Feb. 22, 1732, the eldest son of this superb specimen of young American womanhood. There is not the least doubt that he was in every respect "a fine boy" and worthy of the best name his mother could give him.
Monument at Wakefield marking the Birthplace of George Washington.
She did not follow the invariable custom of colonial Virginians. He was not called "John" or "Augustine" or "Joseph" after his father or grandfathers. He was given the first name of the "Trusty and well-beloved George Eskridge,"—a fact which has hitherto escaped the notice of biographers,—and no more significant tribute could have been paid to faithful guardianship. According to Virginia customs, her only daughter would naturally have been named for her mother and grandmother, but here, again, affectionate gratitude for an elder sister's love to a motherless girl decided the name.
The old house with the brooding wings burned down soon after—the thrifty young housewife setting fire to it, not by "warming her posset," but in her zealous burning up of the leaves and débris of her garden. Her husband was absent at the time, but she saved some furniture and Sir Matthew Hale—and we read that the family "dined that day" in apparent content "in the kitchen." It is certain there was no great loss of pictures, hangings, bric-a-brac, bibelots, and the ten thousand trifles with which the housewife of a later day would have been encumbered. In the old wills, after disposition had been made of the bed, furniture, and "Rugg," there seems to have been little worth the dignity of a bequest. The rug—always included with the bed and its belongings—was the only carpet in general use in 1730. Besides these, a chamber could boast of little except a tall table surmounted by a small mirror, before which one must stand in arranging the head-dress only (for no part of the person lower than the head could be reflected), and a grandfather chair drawn near the ample fireplace. Both table and chair were covered in white linen or Virginia cotton cloth,—the toilet cover embroidered by the ladies of the family. Similar embroidery or a bit of brocade adorned the pin-cushion, which was an important article, conserving as it did the scarce, imported English pins—clumsy, blunt affairs, with a bit of twisted wire for the head which was always coming off.
Furniture was hard, stiff, and unyielding, not one whit more luxurious in shape and cushioning than the furniture of the Greeks, and without the charm of grace or beauty.
Moreover, it was, unhappily, built to last forever. Backs might break on the hard chairs, but the chairs never! Beds, however, were piled high with feathers, bolster, and pillows, and bed-curtains were de rigueur. Dickens complained, among the horrors of his early days in America, that he actually had no bed-curtains. Poor indeed must be the house that could not afford "fallens," i.e. valence, around the "tester" and the bottom of the bedstead. This ancient appanage of a man of quality, as early as in Chaucer's time, was sometimes richly embroidered with pearls.
"Now is Albano's marriage-bed new hung
With fresh rich curtaines! Now are my Valence up
Imbost with orient pearles."
Losing her bed and valence, Mary Washington would have lost everything! Her dining-table and chairs were of the plainest. There were no sideboards in her day anywhere—no mahogany until 1747. As to her best room, her parlor, she probably was content with a harpsichord, a table, and chairs. Great fires glorified every room in winter, and in summer the gaping, black fireplace was filled with cedar boughs and plumy asparagus.
The colonial Virginian lived much out of doors. Driven in by a storm he would find shelter in his "porch" and remain there until the storm was over. His house was a good enough place to eat and sleep in, but beauty in house-furnishing never inspired ambition. That was fully gratified if he could welcome a guest to a good dinner, and interest him afterwards in a fine horse or two and a pack of foxhounds.
That Augustine Washington's house should burn down was perfectly consistent and natural. Everything in colonial Virginia was burned sooner or later,—dwelling-houses, court-houses with their records, tobacco-houses with their treasures of Orinoko or Sweet-scented. Nearer than the spring at the foot of the hill was no water, and, except the pail borne on the head of the negro, no extinguishing appliance whatever. Churches did not burn down for the very good reason that they were never lighted or heated; thus insuring that mortification of the body so good for the health of the soul. In winter little stoves of perforated tin, containing coals or heated bricks, were borne up the aisles by footmen and placed beneath the feet of the colonial dames. Otherwise the slippered feet would surely have frozen!
It has been a favorite fashion with historians to picture the Wakefield house as an humble four-roomed dwelling. Americans love to think that their great men were cradled in poverty, but excavations have been recently made which develop the foundations of a large residence. One is inclined to wonder when and by whom the pictures were made of the birthplace of Washington, which was destroyed by fire before there was a newspaper to print a description or picture in Virginia. That the sketch of any visitor or member of the family should have been preserved nearly two hundred years is impossible. Why should it have been made at all? Nobody living in the unpretending house had then interested the world. Every such picture is from the imagination, pure and simple, of Mr. Prudhomme, who made the first for a New York publishing house. He was probably as accurate as he could be, but the house faced the road, not the river, and the latter flowed at the bottom of a hill in the rear of the mansion.
In the town of Quincy, in Massachusetts, the old home of John and Abigail Adams still stands, built in 1716, according to "a truthful brick found in the quaint old chimney." Pious hands have preserved this house, restored it, filled it with just such furniture and draperies and garments as were preserved by those who lived in the year 1750. There the house stands—an object lesson to all who care for truth about the old colonial farm-houses. Beauty, genius, and patriotism dwelt in this house. From it the master went forth to the courts of France and England and to become the President of the United States; and on the little table in the front room Abigail, the accomplished lady of beauty and talent, wrote, "This little Cottage has more comfort and satisfaction for you than the courts of Royalty."
The colonial houses of Virginia were larger, but yet were modest dwellings. They became more ambitious in 1730, but Augustine Washington's home had made a history of happiness and sorrow, birth and death, before our Mary entered it.
The universal plan of the Virginia house of 1740 included four rooms, divided by a central "passage" (never called a "hall") running from front to rear and used as the summer sitting room of the family. From this a short staircase ascended to dormer-windowed rooms above. As the family increased in numbers one-story rooms and "sheds" were tacked on wherever they were needed, without regard to architectural effect, growing around a good chimney and even enclosing a tree valued for its shade. The old house rambled about, as the land lay, so rooms were often ascended by one or more steps. I fancy this was the case with the Wakefield house—Mary Washington, her fast-coming babies, and her very large family connection demanding more room than did Jane with her two little boys.
The iron bar across the front folding-door of a colonial Virginian house was never put up in summer except in a thunder-storm. The door stood open, and proud and happy were master, mistress, children, and servants when it was thronged with friendly neighbors or wandering tourists from abroad. They were welcome to come, and to stay! One instance of a visit lasted three years; another thirteen years! Not once was the contented guest ever reminded that he had worn out his welcome! One marvels that time was found for all this hospitality. It was simply the prime occupation and duty of life; and then fashions in garments were not always changing, and the housewife had no bric-a-brac to dust and keep in order.
The Wakefield house, be it large or small, well or poorly appointed, had the honor of being the birthplace of our adored Washington, and there, or at the nearest church, he was baptized. Mildred Gregory, Augustine Washington's sister, held him in her arms and renounced for him "the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world" and all the "sinful desires of the flesh," promising that he would "obediently keep God's holy will and commandments and walk in the same all the days of his life."
George Washington's Apron.
His baptismal robe is still in existence—or was, on the 22d of February, 1850, when Virginia's monument in his honor was unveiled in Richmond.
BEWDLEY.
The Masonic orator of the day, Mr. R. G. Scott, exhibited, with Washington's sash, apron, and gloves, the small silk mantle in which he was baptized,—a sacred relic still preserved, no doubt, by the Masonic Lodge of Richmond or Fredericksburg.
Mildred Gregory was then a widow. Her three beautiful daughters (destined to take and keep the hearts of a family of Thorntons) were present at the christening and full of interest in their Aunt Mary and her first boy. Uncle Augustine did not signify! He had two boys already. Were they not ordinary, commonplace fellows—their own everyday playmates?
The proud young mother hastened to present her fine boy to her own kindred, and when he was a month old she took him to visit her cousin, Major James Ball at "Bewdley," in Lancaster County. The house still stands that sheltered George Washington in infancy.
If any one wishes to know the probable appearance and extent of the house in which he was born, the two-hundred-year-old house at Bewdley will perhaps furnish the most accurate example. The steep, double-storied roof, the heavy, outside chimneys, the old kitchen in the yard, are all characteristics.
Probably the Wakefield house was never rebuilt. Fifty years ago a solitary chimney, and a small, engraved stone marked the birthplace of George Washington; the stone, the first monument ever dedicated to his memory, having been placed there by the pious hands of George Washington Parke Custis. A better stone, protected by an iron railing, now marks the spot.