MADAM WASHINGTON
Augustine Washington had left his wife, Mary: "the current crops on three plantations and the right of working Bridges Creek Quarter for five years, during which time she could establish a quarter on Deep Run."
Mary stayed on at Ferry Farm for twenty-nine years after her husband's death. It is possible that she spent part of this time on some of her adjoining property. Meanwhile her children had married—Betty Washington Lewis was living in Fredericksburg, and George was established at Mount Vernon, which he had inherited after Lawrence's death.
By 1772 George had persuaded his mother to move to a house which he owned in Fredericksburg where she would be close to Betty, at Kenmore.
When Mary Ball Washington moved to Fredericksburg, her property in the Northern Neck included: "43 Hoggs, Shoats and Pigs, 16 sheep, 24 head of cattle, 2 horses; and at the Quarters (her dower land of 400 acres, some miles down the river), 4 horses, 6 oxen, 8 cows and calves, 39 hogs." On the two farms there were ten slaves. The "Quarters" was bringing her an income of 30 pounds per year.
After Mary was installed in Fredericksburg, she had her coachman, Stephen, drive her almost every day to Ferry Farm. Mary's favorite carriage in her old age was a light open phaeton. She was respectfully greeted by everyone she passed on the streets of Fredericksburg.
In her later years Mary is said to have worn a mobcap and kerchief. A mobcap was a frilly white cap introduced from France. In summer she probably waved a fan made from the bronze feathers of wild turkeys.
During these years George Washington frequently visited his mother, and other relatives in the Northern Neck. In August, 1768, he "hauled the Sein for sheepsheads" off Hollis Marsh in Westmoreland County. In 1771, he dined at the Glebe in Cople Parish, and "returned to my brother's in the evening." George enjoyed the social life in Fredericksburg. He liked to play cards, and he liked to dance—the minuet and cotillions and country-dances. It was said that he liked beautiful women, punch, horses and hunting, and that he could be gay or dignified, whenever the occasion demanded. During Revolutionary days Washington and the Northern Neck patriots often gathered at the Rising Sun Tavern in Fredericksburg.
In 1784, while visiting Mount Vernon, Marquis de Lafayette rode to Fredericksburg to pay a visit to Madam Washington before he returned to France. When he returned to Mount Vernon after calling upon Mary Ball Washington he made this comment about her: "I have seen the only Roman Matron living at this day."
George Washington traveled to Fredericksburg in March, 1789, to tell his mother good-bye before leaving Mount Vernon to go to New York for his first inauguration. She did not live to see him again.