THE YOUNG WIDOW AND HER FAMILY
Augustine Washington selected a fine site on the banks of the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg, and near "Sting Ray Island," where the very fishes of the stream had resented the coming of Captain John Smith. The name of this home was Pine Grove. "The situation was commanding[5] and the garden and orchard in better cultivation than those they had left. The house was like that at Wakefield, broad and low with the same number of rooms upon the ground floor, one of them in the shed-like extension at the back; and the spacious attic was over the main building. It had its name from a noble body of trees near it, but was also known by the old neighbors as 'Ferry Farm.' There was no bridge over the Rappahannock and communication was had with the town by the neighboring ferry." "Those who wish to associate Washington," says another writer, "with the grandeurs of stately living in his youth, would find all their theories dispelled by a glimpse of the modest dwelling where he spent his boyhood years. But nature was bountiful in its beauties in the lovely landscape that stretched before it. In Overwharton parish, where it was situated, the family had many excellent neighbors, and there came forth from this little home a race of men whose fame could gather no splendor had the roofs which sheltered their childhood been fretted with gold and blazoned with diamonds. The heroic principle in our people does not depend for perpetuity on family trees and ancestral dignities, still less on baronial mansions."
Augustine Washington died in 1743, at the age of forty-nine, at Pine Grove, leaving two sons of his first wife, and four sons and one daughter our Mary had borne to him, little Mildred having died in infancy. We know then the history of those thirteen years, the birth of six children, the death of one, finally the widowhood and desolation of the mother.
At the time of his father's death, George Washington was only ten years of age. He had been heard to say that he knew little of his father except the remembrance of his person and of his parental fondness. To his mother's forming care he himself ascribed the origin of his fortune and his fame.
Mary Washington was not yet thirty-six, the age at which American women are supposed to attain their highest physical perfection. Her husband had left a large estate under her management to be surrendered in portions as each child reached majority. Their lands lay in different parts of the country,—Fairfax, Stafford, King George, and Westmoreland. She found herself a member of a large and influential society, which had grown rapidly in wealth, importance, and elegance of living since her girlhood and early married life in Westmoreland. Her stepson, Lawrence, married a few months after his father's death, and she was thus allied to the Fairfaxes of Belvoir—allied the more closely because of the devotion of Lawrence to her own son George. Lawrence, with his pretty Anne Fairfax, had gone to live on his inherited estate of "Hunting Creek," which he made haste to rechristen in honor of an English admiral, famous for having recently reduced the town and fortifications at Porto Bello; famous also for having reduced the English sailors' rum by mixing it with water. He was wont to pace his decks wrapped in a grogram cloak. The irate sailors called him, and the liquor he had spoiled, "Old Grog." The irreverent, fun-loving Virginians at once caught up the word, and henceforth all unsweetened drinks of brandy or rum and water were "grog," and all unstable partakers thereof "groggy."
Mary Washington, young, handsome, and the mistress of a fine estate, was closely connected by ties of kindred with nearly all of the families we shall describe hereafter. She could have elected for herself a gay life of social pleasure, and could have been a prominent figure in that life. The pictures we have of her were nearly all drawn by George Washington Parke Custis, whose authorities were the old neighbors who knew and remembered her well at a later day, and in their turn had gathered impressions from the companions of her early womanhood.
"She is the most excellent woman," says Goethe, "who when the husband dies, becomes as a father to the children."
This was the part which Mary Washington, in her thirty-sixth year, elected to perform for her five fatherless children,—George, Elizabeth, Samuel, John Augustine, and Charles. Pleasing stories are told of how the young widow would gather her brood around her, reading them lessons from some good book, and then repairing to her domestic tasks. She exacted the strictest obedience from her children. She directed alike their amusements and their education, manifesting in her administration of family affairs great good sense, resolution, and business capacity.
Mr. Custis often visited her in his childhood, and although too young to appreciate her, has gathered material for a noble tribute to the youthful matron, which is best given in his own words:—
"Bred in those domestic and independent habits which graced the Virginia matrons in the old days of Virginia," says Mr. Custis, "this lady, by the death of her husband, became involved in the cares of a young family, at a period when those cares seem more especially to claim the aid and control of the stronger sex. It was left for this eminent woman, by a method the most rare, by an education and discipline the most peculiar and imposing, to form in the youth-time of her son those great and essential qualities which gave lustre to the glories of his after-life. If the school savored the more of the Spartan than the Persian character, it was a fitter school to form a hero, destined to be the ornament of the age in which he flourished, and a standard of excellence for ages yet to come.
"The home of Mrs. Washington, of which she was always mistress, was a pattern of order. There the levity and indulgence common to youth were tempered by a deference and well-regulated restraint, which, while it neither suppressed nor condemned any rational enjoyment used in the springtime of life, prescribed those enjoyments within the bounds of moderation and propriety. Thus the chief was taught the duty of obedience, which prepared him to command. Still the mother held in reserve an authority which never departed from her, even when her son had become the most illustrious of men. It seemed to say, 'I am your mother, the being who gave you life, the guide who directed your steps when they needed a guardian: my maternal affection drew forth your love; my authority constrained your spirit; whatever may be your success or your renown, next to your God, your reverence is due to me.' Nor did the chief dissent from the truths; but to the last moments of his venerable parent, yielded to her will the most dutiful and implicit obedience, and felt for her person and character the highest respect, and the most enthusiastic attachment.
"Such were the domestic influences under which the mind of Washington was formed; and that he not only profited by, but fully appreciated, their excellence and the character of his mother, his behavior toward her at all times testified."
It was of the first importance that she should take care of the inheritance of her children. She must keep the land together and glean from it maintenance and education for her four boys and her daughter.
Virginians were taught to hold their land at any sacrifice. "Never part from your land, boys!" said Frances Bland Randolph to John Randolph and his brother. "Keep your land and your land will keep you!" And yet this plan did not insure competence. Land would keep the family, it is true, but afford small margin for education. Mary Washington realized this and wisely prepared her sons to earn their own living.
She sent George to an old-field school of Master Hobby, the sexton of the parish church, and then under his brother Lawrence's guidance to Master Williams. During one winter he rode on horseback ten miles to school every morning, returning home at night to prepare his tasks for the next day. At another time he ferried himself across the Rappahannock to his "day-school,"—the old academy at Fredericksburg, afterwards attended by Madison and Monroe. He was never sent, like other gentlemen's sons, to a college or university at home or abroad. Conscious of this, he was probably the more diligent to overcome by his own industry all deficiencies of opportunity.
He proved an apt scholar, and soon possessed the rudiments of a practical education, which was expanded in later life by reading into scholarly accomplishments. But it was she, the mother, who first cast his mind and heart in the right mould.
This schooling, supplemented by his own study and experience, was his only foundation for that "thorough knowledge of the technical part of his profession, that skill in military combinations, and extraordinary gifts of military administration," which has won the unstinted praise of England's brilliant historian. But it was from the training of early habits by his watchful mother that he became, as Lecky adds, "punctual, methodical, and exact in the highest degree, managing the minute details so essential to the efficiency of an army." From his mother he inherited qualities which she herself possessed in an eminent degree,—"a rare form of courage which can endure long-continued suspense, bear the weight of great responsibility, and encounter, without shrinking, risks of misrepresentation and unpopularity."
She early proved herself to be a strong, self-reliant woman, with executive ability and a supreme power of awing and governing others. Her life was given to her children and to the care of a thriving plantation; to sowing, and planting, and reaping; to the rearing of fine, blooded cattle. Her children had a plain, abundant, comfortable home, and led healthy out-of-door lives. She made Truth and Honor her handmaidens, and in their defence ruled her house with austerity, that "austerity in woman so often the accompaniment of a rare power of loving, causing love to be piety, tenderness, religion, devotion strong as death."
Surrounding her children with all the comforts of a well-governed household, she loved them, taught them, persuaded them. If all failed, if Sir Matthew Hale was in vain, and headlong youth yielded not when the right was at issue, she did not disdain to command another influence, pliant, pungent, prompt, and most convincing,—a bundle of keen rods gathered daily from the friendly peach tree! This lay always upon her historic table, or found place in her capacious pockets when she went abroad. It was the presence of this ally, offensive and defensive, which made harder the telling of the truth and enhanced the sublimity of virtue.
Tradition insists that she possessed a high spirit, passionate, lofty, intense, and yet under the most magnificent control; that her feelings were so deep and strong she durst not show them, durst not even recognize them, lest they should master her. "A lady," says Andrew Lang, "is a woman of high breeding, high passion and high courage." Mary Washington was a lady! She was tender, gracious, and courteous to her neighbors in humble station, but to them as to others she made hard the way of the transgressor. Yet she knew how to excuse and forgive.
Tradition relates that when George was a fine, big boy of twelve, he was fired with ambition to conquer the spirit of an exceedingly valuable colt which had never permitted the near approach of man or boy. One morning early this feat was achieved. George with his brothers having chased the rebel into a corner of the pasture, he vaulted upon the back of the dangerous animal, which plunged forward so madly that a blood-vessel was ruptured, dying, like the Indian, with a broken heart sooner than submit.
There were five anxious faces around the breakfast table that morning! Presently the mother forced matters to an issue by asking: "Boys, have you seen my fine sorrel colt lately? Is he as big as his sire?"
Four pairs of eyes were turned to George, who unhesitatingly answered: "Madam, that horse possessed an ungovernable spirit which had to be conquered. I mounted him this morning, and he plunged violently and killed himself." The mother's face flushed for a moment, and then she said quietly: "That seems to be a pity! But I am proud and grateful for my brave, truthful son!"
This son was always a prince among boys, as he was afterwards a king among men. Strong, brave, athletic, with a grand air, he became the prime favorite of his aristocratic brother Lawrence, whom he often visited at Mount Vernon, and who desired to place him in the service of the crown. In 1747, when George was in his fourteenth year, a midshipman's warrant was obtained for him by his brother Lawrence, and he embraced with boyish ardor the idea of going to sea.
While the matter was in doubt, however, his English uncle, Joseph Ball, wrote to his sister: "I understand that you have been advised to put your son George to sea. I think he had better be apprentice to a tinker; for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the liberty of a subject; for they will cut and slash him and use him like a negro, or rather like a dog. He must not be too hasty to be rich, but go on gently with patience as things will naturally go, without aiming to be a fine gentleman before his time," etc. The ship that was to carry him into the service of his most Gracious Majesty, George the Second, was riding at anchor in the Potomac with the young midshipman's luggage on board, but when the hour came for him to sail his mother braved the chance of Lawrence's displeasure, and forbade him to go!
The great trials of her life were henceforth to come through her crowning glory and pride. Her splendid boy, only fifteen years old, entered, as surveyor to Lord Fairfax, a life of hardship and peril, exposed to hourly danger from the Indians, and to the rigors of inclement winters. The eaglet had flown from the nest, never to return. Henceforth her straining eyes might strive to follow—they could never recall him.
Mrs. Washington persuades George not to go to Sea.
The lands to be surveyed lay in the wilderness beyond the Blue Ridge. There the boy of sixteen matched himself against fatigue, danger, and privations of every kind, and found himself equal to them all. He became familiar with the frontier people—the Indians and settlers. There he unconsciously trained himself for his future career.
Just at this time, when Fate sent him into the wilderness as preparation for the stern life ordained for him, the gentle god of Love was experimenting with his virgin heart. Among the yellow papers, which were tied in bundles and preserved in the deep drawers of the old secretary at "Pine Grove," behold the following acrostic, dated 1747, when the lad was fifteen:—
"From your bright sparkling eyes I was undone.
Rays you have—more transparent than ye Sun
Amidst its Glory in ye Rising Day.
None can you equal in yr bright array.
Constant in yr Calm, Unspotted Mind—
Equal toe all, will toe none Prove kind.
Soe knowing, seldom One soe young you'll find."
Who was Frances? Was she responsible for the "hurt of the heart uncurable," of which he wrote a few months later? Alas, we shall never know! Her Rays were all dimmed before Parson Weems appeared to take notes and print them.
At least we have this fragment of boyhood love, and can enrol her name as the first of his five sweethearts.
There is also a relic of his work for Lord Fairfax. Underneath the veranda at Capon Springs in West Virginia lies the trunk of one of the trees that the young surveyor marked with his hatchet. At least, it was there ten years ago!