In 1793, although he had one hundred and one cows on his farms, Washington writes that he was obliged to buy butter for the use of his family. Another time, he says that one hundred and fifteen hogsheads of "sweetly scented and neatly managed Tobacco" were raised, and that in a single year he sold eighty-five thousand herring, taken from the Potomac.
For his services in the French and Indian Wars, Washington received as a bounty fifteen thousand acres of Western lands. By buying the claims of his fellow officers who needed money, he secured nearly as much more. After the Revolution, Washington and General Clinton bought six thousand acres "amazingly cheap," in the Mohawk valley. No wonder Washington was spoken of as "perhaps the greatest landholder in America."
Like many other Southern proprietors, Washington had no end of bother with his slaves. He bought and sold negroes as he did his cattle and his horses, but, as he said, "except on the richest of Soils they only add to the Expense." In 1791, the slaves on the Mount Vernon estate alone numbered three hundred. In this same year, the owner wrote one day in his diary that he would never buy another slave; but the next night his cook ran away, and not being able to hire one, "white or black," he had to buy one. "Something must be done," he said, "or I shall be ruined. It would be for my Interest to set them free, rather than give them Victuals and Clooths."
Washington was too kind-hearted ever to flog his slaves, and yet his kindness was often abused. Fat and lazy, they made believe to be sick, or they ran away, and they played all kinds of pranks. In his diary, we read the tale of woe. We are told that his slaves would steal his sheep and his potatoes; would burn their tools; and wasted six thousand twelvepenny nails in building a corn-house.
Like other rich Virginians of his time, Washington kept open house. He once said that his home had become "a well resorted tavern." Indeed it was, for guests of all sorts and conditions were dined and wined to their hearts' content. According to the diary, it seemed to matter little whether it was a real nobleman, or a tramp "who called himself a French Nobleman," a sick or a wounded soldier, or "a Farmer who came to see the new drill Plow," all "were desired to tarry," to help eat the hot roasts and drink the choice wines.
There seems to have been almost no end to the sums of money, both large and small, which Washington gave away. Through the pages of his ledgers, we find hundreds of items of cash paid in charity. Here are a few entries which are typical of the whole: "10 Shillings for a wounded Soldier"; "gave a poor Man $2.00"; "two deserving French Women, $25"; "a poor blind Man, $1.50"; "a Lady in Distress, $50"; "the poor in Alexandria, $100"; "Sufferers by Fire, $300"; "School in Kentucky, $100." His lavish hospitality and his unceasing charity were a constant drain on his income. Had he not been so thorough in business, he surely would have been brought to financial ruin.
| General Washington and Staff riding through a Country Village |
After the war of the Revolution was over, Congress having failed to pay certain prominent officers of the army, an outbreak was threatened. A meeting was held at Newburgh, New York. Washington was there. Everybody present knew that he had served without pay and had advanced large sums from his private fortune, to pay the army expenses. There was a deathlike stillness when the commander in chief rose to read his address. His eyesight had become so poor that he was now using glasses. He had never worn these in public, but, finding his sight dim, he stopped reading, took his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on, saying quietly, "You will permit me to put on my spectacles. I have grown gray in the service of my country, and now find myself growing blind." It was not merely what the beloved general said, but the way he spoke the few, simple words. The pathos of this act, and the solemn address of this majestic man touched every heart. No wonder that some of the veterans were moved to tears.
One day a schoolboy stood on the stone steps before the old State House, in Philadelphia, as the first President of the United States was driven up to make his formal visit to Congress. This small boy glided into the hall, under the cover of the long coats of the finely dressed escort. Boylike he climbed to a hiding place, from which he watched the proceedings with the deepest awe. The boy lived to write fifty years afterwards a pleasing description of the affair. He tells us that while Washington entered, and walked up the broad aisle, and ascended the steps leading to the speaker's chair, the large and crowded chamber "was as profoundly still as a house of worship in the most solemn pauses of devotion."