T THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF COMMODORE BYRON MCCANDLESS 1 1 1 MOUNT VEKNON ITS ASSOCIATIONS, BY BENSON J. LOSSING. ILLUSTRATED BY XUMP]ROUS EXGRAVIXGS, CHIKPLY FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR, ENGRAVED BY LOSSING * BARRITT. X K \\ r Y R K : . A . T O AV 1ST S K N I) to COMPANY, 46 WALKER 8 T U K E T . 1859. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by BENSON J. L03SING. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. C. A. ALVOK1I, PK1NTKR, XKW YORK. TO HIS PATRIOTIC COUNT BY WHOSE EFFORTS '-*!>-, " WASHINGTON) and the date, "1664," cast upon it. That mortar is in In- dependence Hall, in Philadelphia. The Northamptonshire family, from whom George Wash- ington was descended, w T ore the motto seen upon his book- plate EXITUS ACTAPKOBAT: "The end justifies the means;" and it was borne and heeded by the line from generation to generation, until the most illustrious of them all had achieved the greatest ends by the most justifiable means. WASHINGTON MORTAR. AXD ITS ASSOCIATIONS. WASHINGTON S SEAL. The annexed engraving is from an impression of General Washington's seal, bearing his family arms, attached to the death-warrant of a soldier executed at Morristown, in 1780. Below it is an engraving of the face of his seal-ring, which also bears his arms and motto ; and also of two watch-seals which he wore together in early life. Upon each of the last two is engraved his mono- gram, one of them being a fac-simile of his written initials. One of these was lost by Washington himself on the bloody field of Monongahela, where Braddock was defeated in 1755 ; and the other by his nephew, in Virginia, more than twenty-five years ago. Both were found in the year 1854, and restored to the Washington family.* Of all the volumes in the Mount Vernon library which contain Washington's book- plate none appears more interesting than Sir Matthew Ilale's Contemplations, Moral and Divine, printed at the beginning of the last century. It is well worn by frequent use ; for it was from that volume that Washington's mother drew many of those great maxims which she instilled into the mind of her WASHINGTON'S son, and wdiicli had a powerful influence in SKAL-K1KG. WATCH-SEALS. * This statement is made on tlie authority of Charles J. Bushnell, Esq., of New York, whose investigations in numismatic science and kindred subjects have been careful and extensive. The engravings of the seals are copied, by his permission, from a work ol his now in preparation for the press. 2 18 MOUNT V E R N X moulding his moral character. Upon a fly-leaf of the volume are written, in bold characters, the names of the two wives of Augustine Washington, the father of our be- loved Friend. These were JANE BUTLER and MAEY BALL. Their names were written by themselves, the first with ink that retains its original blackness, and the second with a color that has faded to the tint of warm sepia. FAC-SIMILE OF SIGNATURES. These signatures send the thoughts on busy retrospective errands to the pleasant mansions and broad and fertile plant- ations of Virginia, when the Old Dominion was as loyal to the second King George of England as to the second King Charles in the days of Berkeley, almost a hundred years before ; or when royal governors held vice-regal courts at Williamsburg, the capital of the Commonwealth twenty years after repub- lican Bacon's torch had laid old Jamestown in ashes. Espe- cially do they send the thoughts to the beautiful spot near the Potomac, half way between Pope's and Bridge's Creek, in Westmoreland, where stood a modest mansion, surrounded by the holly and more stately trees of the forest, in which lived Mary, the mother of the great Washington. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 19 In the possession of an old Virginian family may be seen a picture, in which is represented a rampant lion holding a globe in his paw, a helmet and shield, a vizor strong, and coat of mail and other emblems of strength and courage; and for a motto the words, from Ovid, Ccelumque tueri. On the back of the picture is written : " The coat of arms of Colonel "William Ball, who came from England with his family about the year 1650, and settled at the mouth of Corotoman River, in Lancaster county, Vir- ginia, and died in 1669, leaving two sons, "William and Joseph, and one daughter, Hannah, who married Daniel Fox. William left eight sons (and one daughter), five of whom have now (Anno Domini 1779) male issue. Joseph's male issue is extinct. General George Washington is his grandson, by his youngest daughter, Mary." Here we have the Amer- ican pedigree of the mother of "Washington. In that modest mansion near the Potomac, of which we have just spoken, a great patriot was born of a mother eight- and-twenty years of age, when the popular "William Gooch was royal governor of Virginia ; and in an old family Bible, in Hanover county, of quarto form, dilapidated by use and age, and covered with striped Virginia cloth, might have been seen, a few years ago, the following record, in the handwriting of the father of that Patriot : " George Washington, son to Augustine and Mary his wife, was born y" llth day of February, 1731-2, about ten in the morning, and was baptized the 3d of April following; Mr, Beverly Whiting and Captain Christopher Brooks, godfathers, and Mrs. Mildred Gregory godmother." Almost three hundred years ago Pope Gregory the Thir- 20 MOUNT VERNON teenth ordained that ten days should be added to the tally of all past time since the birth of Jesus, to make up some frac- tional deficiencies in the calendar ; and twenty years after the above record was made, the British government ordered the Gregorian calendar, or new style, as it was called, to be adopted. The deficiency was then eleven days, and these were added. So we date the birth of Washington, and cele- brate its anniversary, on the twenty-second instead of the eleventh of February. Washington's birth-place was a " four-roomed house, with a chimney at each end," perfectly plain outside and in. The DUTCH TILE. HALF THE SIZE OF THE ORIGINAL. only approach to ornament was a Dutch-tiled chimney-piece in the best room, covered with rude pictures of Scriptural scenes ; but around the mansion there were thrift and abun- dance. George was the eldest of his mother's six children, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 21 and only his infant years were passed under the roof where he first saw the light ; for fire destroyed the house, and his father removed to an estate in Stafford county, near Fredericksburg, and dwelt in an equally plain mansion, pleasantly seated near the north bank of the Rappahannock River. RESIDENCE OF THB WASHINGTON FAMILY. Of the birth-place of Washington nothing now remains but a chimney and a few scattered bricks and stones ; and around it, where the smiles of highest culture were once seen, there is an aspect of desolation that makes the heart feel sad. Some decayed fig-trees and tangled shrubs and vines, with here and there a pine and cedar sapling, tell, with silent eloquence, of neglect and ruin, and that decay has laid its blighting fingers 22 MOUNT VERNON upon every work of man there. The vault of the Washington family, wherein many were buried, is so neglected that some of the remains exposed to view have been carried away by plunderers. All around it are stunted trees, shrubs, and briers ; and near it may be seen fragments of slabs once set up in commemoration of some of that honored family. WASHINGTON S BIRTH-PLACE. On the spot where Washington was born, the late George Washington Parke Custis, a grandson of Mrs. Washington, placed a piece of freestone in 1S15, with the simple, inscrip- tion: HEKE, ON THE UTII OF FEBRUARY, 1732, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS BORN "We gathered together," says Mr. Custis, in a published account, " the bricks of the ancient chimney that once formed the hearth around which Washington, in his infancy, had played, and constructed a rude kind of pedestal, on which we AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 23 reverently placed the FIRST STONE, commending it to the re- spect and protection of the American people in general, and the citizens of Westmoreland in particular." But such re- spect and protection have been withheld, and that stone is now in fragments and overgrown with brambles. In this vicinity lived some of the Lees, always a distin- guished family in Virginia ; and one of the most intimate of Washington's friends, in his earliest childhood, was Richard Henry Lee,' afterward the eminent statesman and patriot. They were very nearly of the same age, Lee being one month the oldest. I have before me a copy of a letter written by each when they were nine years old, and which are supposed to be among the earliest, perhaps the very first, epistles penned by these illustrious men. They were sent to me a few years ago, by a son of Richard Henry Lee (who then possessed the originals), and are as follows : KICHAKD HENRY LEE TO GEOEGE WASHINGTON. " Pa brought me two pretty books full of pictures he got them in Alexandria they have pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and elefants and ever so .many pretty things cousin bids < me send you one of them it has a picture of an elefant and a little indian boy on his back like uncle jo's sam pa says if I learn my tasks good he will let uncle jo bring me to sep you will you ask your ma to let you come to see me. " Richard henry Lee." GEORGE WASHINGTON'S REPLY. " Dear Dickey I thank you very much for the pretty pic- ture book you gave me. Sam asked me to show him the 24: MOUNT VERNON pictures and I showed him all the pictures in it ; and I read to him how the tame Elephant took care of the master's little boy, and put him on his back and would not let any body touch his master's little son. I can read three or four pages sometimes without missing a word. Ma says I may go to see you and stay all day with you next week if it be not rainy. She says I may ride my pony Hero if Uncle Ben will go with me and lead Hero. I have a little piece of poetry about the picture book you gave me, but I mustnt tell you w r ho wrote the poetry.* " G. W.'s compliments to E. H. L., And likes his book full well, Henceforth will count him his friend, And hopes many happy days he may spend. "Your good friend, " George Washington. " I am going to get a whip top soon, and you may see it and whip it." Augustine Washington died in the spring of 1743, when his son George was eleven years of age, and by his last will and testament bequeathed his estate of Hunting Creek, upon a bay and stream of that name, near Alexandria, to Lawrence Washington, a son by his first wife, Jane Butler. It was a * In a letter to me, accompanying the two juvenile epistles, Mr. Lee writes : "The letter of Richard Henry Lee was written by himself, and, uncorrected, was sent by him to his boy-friend, George Washington. The poetical effusion was, I have heard, written by a Mr. Howard, a gentleman who used to visit at the house of Mr. Washington." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 25 noble domain of many hundred acres, stretching for miles along the Potomac, and bordering the estates of the Fairfaxes, Masons, and other distinguished families. LAWRENCE WASHINGTON. Lawrence, who seems to have inherited the military spirit of his family, had lately been to the wars. Admiral Vernon, commander-in-chief of England's navy in the West Indies, had lately chastised the Spaniards for their depredations upon British commerce, by capturing Porto Bello, on the isthmus of Darien. The Spaniards prepared to strike an avenging blow, and the French determined to help them. England and her colonies were aroused. Four regiments, for service in the West Indies, were to be raised in the American col- MOUNT V K R N X onies ; and from Massachusetts to the Carolines, the fife and drum of the recruiting sergeant were lieard. Lawrence, then a spirited young man of twenty-two, was among the thou- sands who caught the infection, and obtaining a captain's \ ADMIKAL VERNON. commission, he embarked for the West Indies in 1741, with between three and four thousand men under General Went- worth. That officer and Admiral Vernon commanded a joint expedition against Carthagena, in South America, which re- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 27 suited iii disaster. According to the best authorities not less than twenty thousand British soldiers and seamen perished, chiefly from a fatal sickness that prevailed, especially among the troops who were commanded by General Wentworth. To that scourge Thompson, in his " Summer," thus touchingly alludes : ' You, gallant Yernon, saw The miserable scene ; you, pitying, saw To infant weakness sunk the warrior's arm ; Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form. The lip pale-quivering, and the beamlcss eye No more with ardor bright ; you heard the groans Of agonizing ships, from shore to shore ; Heard, nightly plung'd amid the sullen waves, The frequent corse while on each other fixed, In sad presage, the blank assistants seemed, Silent, to ask, whom fate would next demand." In the midst of that terrible pestilence the system of Law- rence Washington received those seeds of fatal disease against whose growth it struggled manfully for ten years, and then yielded. Lawrence returned home in the autumn of 1742, the provincial army in which he had served having been dis- banded, and Admiral Yernon and General Wentworth re- called to England. He had acquired the friendship and confidence of both those officers. For several years he kept up a correspondence with the former, and received from him a copy of a medal struck in commemoration of the capture of Porto Bello by Admiral Yernon. This was preserved at Mount Yernon until Washington's death, and is probably in possession of some member of the family. The only speci- 28 MOUNT VERNON men of the medal I have ever seen is in my own possession, from which the engraving \vas made. TUK VEE.VON MEDAL. Lawrence intended to go to England, join the regular army, and seek preferment therein ; but love changed his resolution and the current of his life, for " Love rules the court the camp, the grove, And man below, and saints above.'' Beautiful Anne, the eldest daughter of the Honorable Wil- liam Fairfax, of Fairfax county, became the object of his warm attachment, and they were betrothed. Their nuptials were about to be celebrated in the spring of 1743, when a sudden attack of gout in the stomach deprived Lawrence of his father. But the marriage took place in July. All thoughts of military life as a profession passed from the mind of Lawrence, and, taking possession of his Hunting Creek estate, he erected a plain, substantial mansion upon the highest eminence along the Potomac front of his domain, and named the spot MOUNT YERNON, in honor of the gallant admiral. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 29 In that mansion Lawrence resided until his death, and but little change was made in its appearance from the time when it came into the possession of his brother George by inheri- tance, until the close of the Old War for Independence. It has been described as a house of the first class then occupied by thrifty Virginia planters; two stories in height, with a porch in front, and a chimney built inside, at each end, con- trary to the prevailing style. It stood upon a most lovely spot, on the brow of a gentle slope which ended at a thickly- wooded precipitous river bank, its summit nearly one hundred feet above the water. Before it swept the Potomac with a magnificent curve, its broad bosom swarming with the grace- ful swan, the gull, the wild duck, and smaller water-fowl; and beyond lay the green fields and shadowy forests of Mary- land. When Lawrence was fairly settled, with his bride, in this new and pleasant home, little George was a frequent and much-petted visitor at Mount Vernon. His half-brother loved him tenderly, and after their father's death he took a paternal interest in all his concerns. The social influences to which lie was subjected were of the highest order. The Fair- faxes held the first rank in wealth and social position, both in England and in Virginia; and the father-in-law of Law- rence, who occupied a beautiful country seat not far from Mount Vernon, called Belvoir, was a man of distinction, having served as an officer of the British army in the East and West Indies, and officiated as governor of New Provi- dence, one of the Bermudas. He now managed an immense landed estate belonging to his cousin, Lord Fairfax, a tall, gaunt, rawboned, near-sighted man, upon whom had fallen 30 MOUNT VERNON the snows of sixty winters, and who, made shy and eccentric by disappointed love in early life, was now in Yirginia, and living at Belvoir, but secretly resolving to go over the Blue Mountains of the "West, and make his home in the deep wilderness, away from the haunts of men. Thither he went a few years later, and in the great valley of Yirginia took up his abode in a lodge at a spot where he resolved to build a manor-house, in the midst of ten thousand acres of arable and grazing land, call it Greenway Court, and live, a solitary lord over a vast domain. But the mansion was never built, and in that lodge (which remained until a few years ago) the lord of the manor lived during all the stormy days of the French and Indian war, and as a stanch loyalist throughout the struggles of the Americans for independence, until the news came one day that his young friend Washington had captured Corn- wallis and all his army. Then, says tradition, he called to his servant and said, " Come, Joe, carry me to my bed, for I'm sure it's high time for me to die ! " " Then up rose Joe, all at the word, And took his master's arm, And to his bed he softly led The lord of Greenway farm. Then thrice he called on Britain's name, And thrice he wept full sore, Then sighed '0 Lord, thy will be done!' And word spake never more." It was early in 1782, at the age of ninety-two years, that Lord Fairfax died at Greenway Court, loved by many for his generosity and benevolence. Lawrence Washington M T as also distinguished for his wealth AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 31 and intelligence. He was adjutant-general of his district, with the rank and pay of major, and at this time was a popu- lar member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. At Mount Vernon and at Belvoir the sprightly boy George, who was a favorite everywhere, became accustomed to the refinements and amenities of English social life, in its best phases, and this had a marked influence upon his future character. There were other influences there which made a deep im- pression upon the mind of the thoughtful boy. Sometimes the companions-in-arms of his brother, or officers from some naval vessel that came into the Potomac, would be guests at Mount Yernon, and perils by field and flood would be related. In these narratives Sir William Fairfax often joined, and related his experience in the far-off Indies, in marches, battles, sieges, and retreats. These fired the soul of young Wash- ington with longings for adventure, and accordingly, we find him, at the age of fourteen years, preparing to enter the English navy as a midshipman, a warrant having been pro- cured. His brother and Mr. Fairfax encouraged his inclina- tion, and his mother's reluctant consent was obtained. A vessel-of-war was lying in the Potomac, and the lad's luggage was on board, when his mother received the following letter from her brother, in England, dated Stratford-by-Bow, 19th May, 1747 : " I understand that you are advised and have some thoughts of putting your son George to sea. I think he had better be put apprentice to a tinker, for a common sailor before the mast has by no means the common liberty of the subject ; for they will press him from a ship where he has fifty shillings a 32 MOUNT VERNON month and make him take twenty-three, and cut, and slash, arid use him like a negro, or rather like a dog. And, as to any considerable preferment in the navy, it is not to be ex- pected, as there are always so many gaping for it here who have interest, and he has none. And if he should get to be master of a Virginia ship (which it is very difficult to do), a planter that has three or four hundred acres of land and three or four slaves, if he be industrious, may live more comfort- ably, and leave his family in better bread, than such a master of a ship can. He must not be too hasty to be rich, but go on gently and with patience, as things will naturally go. This method, without aiming at being a fine gentleman before his time, will carry a man more com- fortably and surely through the world than going to sea, unless it be a great chance indeed. I pray God keep you and yours. " Your loving brother, " JOSEPH BALL." This letter, without doubt, made the mother decide to act according to the desire of her heart, for already a friend had written to Lawrence, " I am afraid Mrs. Washington will not keep up to her first resolution. * * I find that one word against his going has more weight than ten for it." She could not expose her son to the hardships and perils of the British navy, so vividly portrayed by his uncle. Her consent was withdrawn, and George Washington, with dis- appointed ambition, returned to school, fell desperately in love with a " lowland beauty" (who reciprocated not his pas- sion, but became the mother of General Henry Lee), indited AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 33 sentimental verses, as young lovers are apt to do, sighed for a time in aieat unhappiness, and then went to live with his brother at Mount Yeinon, in partial forgetf illness that he had once dreamed that " She was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts, "Which terminated all." Xow it was that young Washington's real intimacy with the Fairfax family commenced, and an attachment was formed between himself and George William Fairfax, his senior by six or seven years, who had just brought his bride and her sister to Belvoir. Young Washington's heart was tender and susceptible, and that bride's beautiful sister tried its constancy to his first love very sorely. To his young friend " Robin," he wrote : " My residence is at present at his lordship's, where I might, was my beart disengaged, pass my time very pleasantly, as there is a very agreeable young lady lives in the same house (Colonel George Fairfax's wife's sister) ; but as that is only adding fuel to fire, it makes me the more uneasy, for by often and un- avoidably being in company with her, revives my former passion for your Lowland Beauty; whereas, was I to live more retired from young women, I might in some measure alleviate my sorrows, by burying that chaste and troublesome passion in the grave of oblivion." Thus wrote George Wash- ington before he was sixteen years of age. He was soon taken from these temptations. He was a tall, finely-formed, athletic youth, and Lord Fairfax, who was a passionate fox-hunter, though old in years, iavited him one day 3 34 MOUNT VERNON to join him in the chase. His lordship was so charmed with his young friend's boldness in the saddle and enthusiastic pursuit of the hounds and game, that he took him to his bosom as a companion ; and many a hard day's ride this roung and old man had together after that, in the forests of Virginia. T But a more noble, because a more useful pursuit than the mere pleasures of the chase, now offered its attractions to the lad. Master Williams had taught him the mysteries of sur- veying, and the old Lord Fairfax, having observed his prac- tice of the art at Mount Vernon, and his extreme care and accuracy, proposed to him to go to his broad possessions beyond the Blue Kidge, where lawless intruders were seated, and prepare his domain for settlement, by running boundary lines between large sections. The lad gladly acceded to the proposition, and just a month from the time he was sixteen years of age, he set off upon the arduous and responsible enterprise. And to this day a little log-house, near Battle Town, in Clarke county, is pointed out to the traveller, wherein the young surveyor lodged;; and in the same county, not far from Winchester, stood, a few years ago, the lodge of Green- way Court. In the wilderness, around the south branch of the Potomac, the future Leader received those lessons in wood-craft that personal knowledge of the country and its dusky inhabitants, and, above all, that spirit of self-reliance which was ever a most marked and important trait in his character which fitted him for the great duties of a commander. So satisfactory were young Washington's services on that occasion, that he received, soon after his return, the appoint- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 35 inent of public surveyor, and upon the records of Culpepper county may be read, under date of July 20th, 1749 (O. S.), that " GEORGE WASHINGTON, Gent., produced a commission from the President and Master of William and Mary College, ap- pointing him to be surveyor of this county, which was read, and thereupon he took the usual oaths to his Majesty's person and government, and took and subscribed the abjuration oath and test, and then took the oath of a surveyor, according to law." Part of each year he was beyond the Alleghanies, with no other instruments than compass and chain, acquiring strength of limb and purpose for future great achievements, and put- ting money in his purse at the rate of a doubloon and some- times six pistoles a day. These expeditions he always remem- bered as the greatest pleasures of his youth. ")(, After Washington's death, more than fifty years later, the simple compass and chain and other mathematical instru- ments of his earlier and later years, were distributed among his family connections, but only one of them, a small library instrument, was mentioned in his will, as follows : " To David Stuart I give my large shaving and dressing table, and my telescope" Dr. Stuart married the widow of John Parke Custis, the son of Mrs. Washington. The telescope is now in possession of his granddaughter, wife of the Reverend A. B. Atkinson, of Germantown, Pennsylvania. And now another and more extended field of action opened before the young resident at Mount Vernon. Beneath the roof of that pleasant mansion, toward the spring of 1751, he received- from acting Governor Burwell the commission of adjutant of his military district, with the rank and pay of 36 MOUNT VEBNON major. It was an acceptable honor. His military spirit was kindling; for it had been fanned by old Major Muse, a fellow-soldier with Lawrence at Carthagena, who was a fre- WASHINGTON'S TELESCOPE. quent and welcome guest at Mount Vernon, and by the stout Dutchman, Yan Braam (who afterward figured ingloriously in history), who had taught him the art of fencing. Young Washington had scarcely taken his initial steps in the performance of his new duties when he was drawn from public life. Dark and ominous shadows were alternating with the sweet domestic sunlight that smiled so pleasantly around Mount Ycrnon. They were cast by the raven wing of the angel of disease. A hectic glow was upon the cheeks AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 37 of Lawrence Washington, and his physicians advised him to go to the more genial climate of Barbadoes in search of health. George went with him. It was in bright September, 1751, when they sailed, and in dark and stormy January he returned to tell the anxious wife of his brother that her loved one must go to Bermuda in the spring ; for the hectic glow was growing brighter and his manly strength less. She was preparing to join him there, when word came that hope's promises had faded forever, and that her husband was coming home to die. He came when the bloom of May was upon the land, and before the close of July he was laid in the grave, at the early age of thirty-four years, leaving a wife and infant child. And now George "Washington, a noble youth of twenty, his fine manly face a little scarred by the smallpox, that seized him while he was in Barbadoes, was at Mount Yernon as the faithful executor of the last will and testament of his brother. He was also prospective heir of that whole beau- tiful domain, Lawrence having left it to his daughter, with the proviso that in the event of her death that and other lands should become the property of George. That contingency soon occurred. Little Jenny died, and George "Washington became the owner of Mount Vernon. Already, by the will of his father, he was the proprietor of the paternal estate on the Rappahannock. Now he ranked among the wealthier of the planters of the Old Dominion. The development of great and stirring events soon called Washington to the forests, not with compass and chain, and rield-book, but with sword and pistol, and diplomatic com- mission. Then his hero-life began. 38 MOUNT VERNON For a thousand years a national feud had existed between Gauls and Britons French and English ; and their colonists, seated a little way apart in the New World, cherished this sentiment of utter dislike. It was intensified by jealousy ; for they were competitors for a prize no less than that of supreme dominion in America. The English were planters the French were traders ; and while the stations of the latter were several hundred miles in the interior, away from the settlements of the former, on the seaboard, the equanimity of both parties was quite undis- turbed. But when, after the capture of Louisburg by the English, in 174:5, the French adopted vigorous measures for opposing the extension of British power in America; when they built strong vessels at the foot of Lake Ontario ; made treaties of friendship and alliance with the Delaware and Shawnee tribes of Indians ; strengthened their fortress at the mouth of the Niagara River, and commenced the erection of a cordon of fortifications, more than sixty in number, between Montreal and New Orleans, the English were aroused to immediate and effective action, in defence of the territorial rights conceded to them in their ancient charters. By virtue of these, they claimed absolute dominion westward to the Pacific Ocean, south of the latitude of the north shore of Lake Erie; while the French' claimed a title to all the territory watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries, because they had made the first explorations and settlements in that region. The claims of the real owner the Indian were not consid- ered. It was a significant question, asked by a messenger sent by sachems to Mr. Gist, agent of the English Ohio Com pany "Where is the Indian's land? The English claim it AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 39 all on one side, of the river, the French on the other. Where does the Indian's land lie ? " At length English traders who went to the Ohio region were driven away or imprisoned by the French, and the latter commenced building forts south of Lake Erie. Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, thought these proceedings rather in- solent, arid he sent Major Washington, then less than twenty- two years of age, to carry a letter of remonstrance to the French commander in that region. Seven persons besides Major "Washington composed the expedition, and among them was Van Braam, "Washington's Dutch fencing-master, who could speak French fluently, and went as interpreter. They assembled at Williamsburg, and made every preparation for a journey of several hundred miles on horseback, through an unbroken wilderness. They were furnished by the governor with horses, pack-saddles, tent, arms, ammunition, a leathern camp-chest, provisions, PACK-SADDLE. LEATHERN CAMP-CHESP. and every other necessary, and on the 31st of October, 1753, departed for the head-waters of the Ohio. They made a most ttO MOUNT VERNON perilous journey, and, after an absence of seven weeks, Major "Washington again stood in the presence of Governor Din- widdie, his mission fulfilled to the satisfaction of all. Two days afterward he returned, first to his mother's home, near Fredericksburg, then to Belvoir, and finally to Mount Vernon, where he spent a greater portion of the winter and spring of 1754:. But Major Washington was not allowed to remain long in seclusion. In the late expedition he had exhibited qualities too great and useful to be suffered to repose. War with the French appeared inevitable. The latter continued their hos- tile preparations in the Ohio region, and a colonial military force, to be sent thither, was organized in the spring of 1754:. Colonel Joshua Fry was appointed its commander, and Major Washington his lieutenant. For a while Mount Yernon appeared like a recruiting station. At length all preparations were completed, and on the 2d of April, Major Washington, with the advanced corps, marched from Alexandria toward the Ohio. After a toilsome journey of eighteen days, over the Blue Ridge, they reached the mouth of Wills' Creek (now Cumberland), where Wash- ington, for the first time, occupied a house for his head- quarters as a military commander. It was the dwelling of a pioneer. It has long since passed away, but the pencil has preserved its features, and now, at the distance of time of more than a hundred years, we may look upon the portrait of WASHINGTON'S FIRST HEAD-QUARTERS. It is not our purpose to trace the events of Washington's life in their consecutive order. We propose to give delinea- tions of only such as held intimate relations with his beautiful AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 41 WASHINGTON S FIRST IIEAD-Q0ARTEUS. home on the Potomac, which, for more than forty years, was to him the dearest spot on the earth. During the war between the French and English, that com- menced in earnest in 1755, when Braddock came to America as commander-in-chief of the British forces, until the close of the campaign of 1758, when the French and their dusky allies were driven from the forks of the Ohio, Washington was almost continually in the public service, and spent but little time at Mount Yernon. lie had been promoted to Colonel in 175-i, but, on account of new military arrange- ments by the blundering, wrong-headed, narrow-minded Gov- ernor Dinwiddie, he had left the service with disgust, and retired to the quiet of private life at Mount Vernon, with a determination to spend his life there in the pursuits of agricul- ture pursuits which he always passionately loved, and longed for most earnestly when away from them. General Braddock, an. Irish officer of forty years' experience MOUNT V E R N X in the army, came to America with two regiments early in 1758, and called a council of royal governors at Alexandria, to arrange a regular campaign against the French. Brad- dock soon heard, from every lip, encomiums of the character of Colonel Washington, and he invited him to Alexandria. Mount Yerrion was only a little more than an hour's ride distant, and Washington, whose military ardor was again aroused by preparations for conflict, was swift to obey the summons. Prom Mount Yernon he had looked upon the ships-of-war and transports upon the bosom of the Potomac that bore Braddock and his troops, and the thought that only a few miles from his dwelling, preparations were in progress for a brilliant campaign, under the command of one of the most ex- perienced generals of the British army, stirred the very depths of his soul, and made him yearn to go again to the field. At the residence of Jonathan Carey, where Braddock made his head-quarters, the young provin- cial colonel and the veteran gen- eral first met, at the close of March. Carey's was then the finest house in Alexandria, sur- THE CAKKT HOUSB IN 1859- rounded by a noble lawn that was shaded by lofty forest trees, and its gardens extending down a gentle slope to the shore of the Potomac. Now it AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 43 stands within the city, hemmed in by buildings and paved streets, and forms a part of Newton's Hotel. The convention of governors met in it in April, and there the ensuing cam- paign was planned. Braddock invited Washington to join his military family, as aid, with the rank he had lately borne. The mother of the young colonel hastened to Mount Yernon to persuade him not to accept it. She urged the claims of his and her own affairs upon his attention, as strong reasons for him not to enter the army again, and for two days she held his decision in abey- ance, for filial obedience was one of the strongest sentiments of Washington's nature. But it was not strong enough to restrain him on this occasion or, rather, God's will must be obeyed and he left Mount Yernon for Alexandria, after her departure for the Rappahannoek, and was welcomed into Braddock's family with joy by Captains Orme and Morris. On the 9th of July following we behold him upon the bloody field of the Monongahela, shielded by God's provi- dence, untouched by ball or bayonet, arrow or javelin, while carnage was laying its scores of victims around him, and his commander was borne mortally wounded from the field we behold him riding from point to point, bringing order out of confusion, and leading away from that accldama the shattered battalions of the proud army of the morning to a place of safety and repose. Then he returned to Mount Yernon, weak from recent sickness and exposure in the field. In his little library there he wrote to his brother, then a member of the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg, and thus summed up his military career : " I was employed to go a journey in the winter, when 1 4:4 MOUNT VERNON believe few or none would have undertaken it, and what did I get by it? My expenses borne! I was then appointed, with trifling pay, to conduct a handful of men to the Ohio. What did I get by that? Why, after putting myself to a considerable expense in equipping and providing necessaries for the campaign, I went out, was soundly beaten, and lost all ! Came in, and had my commission taken from me ; or, in other words, my command reduced, under pretence of an order from home. I then went out a volunteer with General Braddock, and lost all my horses, and many other things. But this being a voluntary act, I ought not to have mentioned it ; nor should I have done it, were it not to show that I have been on the losing order ever since I entered the service, which is now nearly two years." But what wonderful and necessary lessons for the future had Washington learned during that time ! Mount Vernon saw but little of its master during the next four years ; for the flame of war lighted up the land from Acadia, and along the St. Lawrence, away down to the beau- tiful Cherokee country, in Western Georgia and Carolina, and Washington was most of the time in camp, except from December, 1757, until March, 1758, when he was an invalid at home. In February, 1756, we find him, accompanied by two aides, journeying to Boston, to confer with General Shirley con- cerning military rank in Virginia. Little did he then think that twenty years later he would again be there directing a siege against the New England capital, in command of rebels against the crown he was then serving ! We find him lingering in ]STew York, on his return. The AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 45 young soldier, apparently invincible to the mortal weapons of war, was sorely smitten there by the " sly archer" concealed in the bright eyes, blooming cheeks, and winning ways of Mary Phillipse, the heiress of a broad domain, stretching many a mile along the Hudson. The young soldier lingered MARY PHILLIPSK. in her presence as long as duty would permit, and he would fain have carried her with him to Virginia as a bride, but his natural diffidence kept the momentous question unspoken in his heart, and his fellow aide-de-camp in Braddock's family, Roger Morris, bore away the prize. Mary Phillipse did not become the mistress of Mount Yernon, but reigned, as beau- teous queen, in a more stately mansion on the bank of the 46 MOUNT VERNON Harlem River, where, twenty years later, Washington, as leader of a host of Americans, in arms against the king, held his head-quarters, the master and mistress of the mansion being proscribed as " enemies to their country ! " MORRIS S HOUSE. But, three years later, there was a presiding angel over the mansion on Mount Yernon. Meanwhile the tramp of steeds, the clangor of arms, and every sound betokening warlike prep- arations, were heard there, and the decisive campaign of 1758 was opened. "Washington went to the camp as soon as his health would permit ; and toward Fort du Quesne, at the confluence of the forks of the Ohio, quite a large army made its way. Wasting delays and. weary marches consumed the summer time; and late in autumn, having traversed deep forests and rugged mountains, the invading army found rest, beyond the Alle- ghanies. Colonel Washington, with an advanced guard, took possession of all that was left of Fort du Quesne, where Pitts- burg now stands. It had been the prize for which Braddock contended the nest from which came the vultures that AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 47 preyed upon the frontier settlements. Over its smoking ruins the red cross of St. George was unfurled, where for four years had waved the lilies of France. Then French dominion ceased southward of Lake Erie ; and the young hero, whose wisdom, skill, and valor had contributed so largely toward the accomplishment of that result, returned to Mount Vernon sick and wearied, fully resolved to leave the army forever, and seek repose and happiness, usefulness and fair fame, in do- mestic and civil life. For these Washington was now prepared. During the previous spring, while on his way to Williamsburg, from his camp at Winchester, he had been taught to love one of the best of Virginia's daughters ; and in the autumn, while he was making his toilsome march toward Fort du Quesne, he had been elected a delegate to the Virginia House of Burgesses. The story of Washington's love and courtship is simple, yet full of the elements of romance. No words can better tell that story than those used for the purpose, in after years, by a grandson of the lady.* " It was in 1758," he says, " that Washington, attired in military undress, and attended by a body servant, tall and militaire as his chief, was crossing William's Ferry over the Pamunkey River, a branch of the York River. On the boat touching the southern or New Kent side, the soldier's progress was arrested by one of those personages who give the beau ideal of the Virginia gentleman of the old regime the very soul of kindliness and hospitality. * The late George "Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of "Washington. See Custis's Recollections of Washington. New York, 1859. 48 MOUNT VERNON It was in vain the soldier urged his business at Williamsburg, important communications to the governor, etc. Mr. Cham- berlayne, on whose domain the militaire had just landed, would hear of no excuse. Colonel Washington's was a name and character so dear to all the Virginians that his passing by one of the old castles of the Dominion without calling and partaking of the hospitalities of the host was entirely out of the question. "The colonel, however, did not surrender at discretion, but stoutly maintained his ground, till Chamberlayne bringing up his reserve, in the intimation that he would introduce his Mend to a young and charming widow, then beneath his roof, the soldier capitulated, on condition that he should dine only dine and then, by pressing his charger and borrowing of the night, he would reach Williamsburg before his Excel- lency could shake off his morning slumbers. Orders were accordingly issued to Bishop, the Colonel's body -servant and faithful follower, who, together with the fine English charger, had been bequeathed by the dying Braddock to Major Wash- ington, on the famed and fatal field of the Monongahela. Bishop, bred in the school of European discipline, raised his hand to his cap, as much as to say, ' Your honor's orders shall be obeyed.' "The colonel now proceeded to the mansion, and was intro- duced to various guests (for when was a Virginian domicile of the olden time without guests?) and, above all, to the charming widow. Tradition relates that they were mutually pleased on this their first interview. Nor is it remarkable. They were of an age when impressions are strongest. The lady was fair to behold, of fascinating manners, and splen- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 49 didly endowed with worldly benefits. The hero, fresh from his early fields, redolent of fame, and with a form on which " ' Every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man.' u The morning passed pleasantly away ; evening came, with Bishop, true to his orders and firm at his post, holding the favorite charger with one hand, while the other was waiting to offer the ready stirrup. " The sun sank in the horizon, and yet the colonel appeared not. And then the old soldier marvelled at his chief's delay. k 'Twas strange, 'twas passing strange surely he was not wont to be a single moment behind his appointments, for he was the most punctual of all punctual men.' Meantime, the host enjoyed the scene of the veteran on duty at the gate, while the colonel was so agreeably employed in the parlor, and proclaiming that no guest ever left his house after sunset, his military visitor was, without much difficulty, persuaded to order Bishop to put up the horses for the night. " The sun rode high in the heavens the ensuing day, when the enamored soldier pressed with his spur his charger's side, and speeded on his way to the seat of government, where, having dispatched his public business, he retraced his steps, and, at the White House, a marriage engagement took place." That " charming widow" was Martha Custis, daughter of John Dandridge, whose husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had been dead between two and three years. He had left her with two young children and a very large fortune in lands and money, the legal evidence of which, in the form of deeds, mortgages, bonds, and certificates of deposit in the Bank of 50 MOUNT VERNON DANIEL PARKS CUSTIS. England, were contained in a strong iron box, which is care- fully preserved by her de- scendants, at their beau- tiful seat at Arlington, on the Potomac, opposite Washington City. "And much," continues the writer we have quoted, "hath the biographer heard of that marriage of Washington, from the gray haired domestics who waited at the board where love made the feast and the Virginia colonel was the guest. MRS. COSTIS S IRON CHEST. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. M " ' And so you remember,' I said to old Cully, my grand- mother's servant, when in his hundredth year ' and so you remember when Colonel Washington came a-courting your young mistress?' '"Ay, master, that I do,' said Cully. 'Great times, sir, great times shall never see the like again.' " ' And Washington looked something like a man a proper man, hej r , Cully?' " ' Never seed the like, sir never the like of him, though 1 have seen many in my day so tall, so straight, and then he sat on a horse and rode with such an air ! Ah, sir, he was like no one else ! Many of the grandest gentlemen, in the gold lace, were at the wedding ; but none looked like the man himself.' " The marriage of Washington occurred on the 17th of January, (6th Old Style), 1759, at the "White House," the residence of his bride, in New Kent county, not far from Williamsburg. The officiating clergyman was the Reverend David Mossom, who, for forty years was rector of the neigh- boring parish of St. Peter's. Washington was then an attend- ant member of the House of Burgesses, and for three months, while official duties detained him at Williamsburg, he resided at the " White House." When the session had ended, lie returned to Mount Yernon, taking with him the future mis- tress of the mansion, and her two children, John Parke and Martha Parke Custis. Then commenced that sweet domestic life at Mount Vernon, which always possessed a powerful charm for its illustrious owner. He early wrote to his friend, Richard Washington, in London : MOUNT V K R N N MES. WASHINGTON S CHILDREN. " I am now, 1 believe, fixed in this seat with an agreeable partner for life, and I hope to find more happiness in retire- ment than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world." He was then seven-and-twenty years of age, and over six feet two inches in height, and admirably proportioned. His hair was a rich dark-brown ; his eyes grayish-blue and expressive of deep thought ; his complexion florid, and his features regular and rather heavy. Washington's wife was three months younger than himself. She was a small, plump, elegantly formed woman. Her eyes were dark and expressive of the most kindly good nature ; her complexion fair ; her features beautiful ; and her whole face AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. beamed with intelligence. Her temper, though quick, was sweet and placable, and her manners were extremely winning. She was full of life, loved the society of her friends, always MIIS. WASHINGTON AT THE TIME OP HER MARRIAGE. dressed with a scrupulous regard to the requirements of the best fashions of the day, and was, in every respect, a brilliant member of the social circles which, before the revolution, composed the vice-regal court at the old Virginia capital. Washington, at this time, possessed an ample fortune, in- dependent of that of his wife. His estate of Mount Vernon he described as most pleasantly situated in " a high, healthy country ; in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold, on one of the finest rivers in the' world a river well stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year, and in 54 MOUNT VKRNOX the spring with shad, herrings, bass, carp, sturgeon, etc., in abundance. The borders of the estate," he continued, " are washed by more than ten miles of tide- water ; several valuable fisheries appertain to it ; the whole shore, in fact, is one entire fishery." Such was the delightful home to which Washington took his bride in the spring of 1759. At that time, almost every manufactured article for domestic use, was imported from England. It is amusing and interest- ing to observe the difference in the items of orders sent out to London from Mount Yernon within the space of two years. First, as a bachelor, Washington orders : "Five pieces of Irish Linnen. 1 piece finest Cambric. 2 pr. fine worked ruffles, at 20*. a pr. 2 setts compleat shoe brushes. ^ doz. pr. thread hose, at 5*. 1 compleat Saddle and Bridle, and 1 sett Holster caps, and Housing of fine Blue Cloth with a small edging of Em- broidering round them. As much of the best superfine blue Cotton Velvet as will make a Coat, Waistcoat, and Breeches for a Tall Man, with a fine silk button to suit it, and all other neces- sary trimmings and linings, together with garters for the Breeches. t 6 prs. of the very neatest shoes, viz : 2 pr. double channelled pumps ; two pr. turned ditto, and two pair stitched shoes, to be made by one Didsbury over Colonel Boiler's last, but to be a little wider over the instep. C prs. gloves, 3 pairs of which to be proper for riding, and AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 5o to have slit tops ; the whole larger than the middle size." A little later, in apparent expectation of a wife at some future day, the careful bachelor prepares the mansion for her reception. In September, 1757, he wrote to Richard Wash- ington, saying: " Be pleased, over and above what I have wrote for in a letter of the 13th of April, to send me 1 doz. Strong Chairs, of CHAIKS ONCIS AT MOUNT VKKNON, about 15 shillings a piece, the bottoms to be exactly made by the enclosed dimensions, and of three different colors to suit the paper of three of the bed-chambers, also wrote for in my last. I must acquaint you, sir, with the reason of this request. 1 have one dozen chairs that were made in the country ; neat, 56 MOUNT VERNON but too weak for common sitting. I therefore propose to take the bottoms out of those and put them into these now ordered, while the bottoms which you send will do for the former, and furnish the chambers. For this reason the workmen must be very exact, neither making the bottoms larger nor smaller than the dimensions, otherwise the change can't be made. Be kind enough to give directions that these chairs, equally with the others and 'the tables, be carefully packed and stowed. "With- out this caution, they are liable to infinite damage." In 1759 (the year of Washington's marriage), we have the order of a husband instead of that of a bachelor. The items are quite different, and were evidently dictated by the sweet little wife, leaning lovingly, perhaps, upon the broad shoulder of her noble lord. He directs his friend in London to send him : u 1 Salmon-colored Tabby [velvet] of the enclosed pattern, with Sattin flowers ; to be made in a sack and coat. 1 Cap, Handkerchief, and Tucker [a piece of lace or linen pinned to the top of women's stays] and Euffles, to be made of Brussells lace or Point, proper to be worn with the above negligee ; to cost 20. 1 piece Bag Holland, at 6*. a yard. 2 fine flowered Lawn Aprons. 2 double handkerchiefs. 2 prs. women's white silk hose. 6 pr. fine cotton do. 4 pr Thread do. four threaded. 1 p. black and 1 pr. white Sattin Shoes of the smallest fives. 4 pr Callimanco do. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 57 1 fashionable Hat or Bonnet, 6 p. Women's best Kid Gloves. pr. ditto mitts. doz. Knots and Breast Knots. 1 doz. round Silk stay laces. 1 black Mask. 1 doz most fashionable Cambrick Pocket Handkerchiefs. 2 pr. neat Small Scissors. 1 Ib Sewing Silk, shaded. Real Miniken pins and hair pins, and 4 pieces Binding Tape. Six Ibs perfumed powder. 3 Ibs best Scotch Snuff. 3 Ibs best Yiolette Strasbourg Snuff. 1 pr narrow white Sattin ribbon, pearl e Ige. A puckered petticoat of a fashionable color. A silver Tabby velvet petticoat. 2 handsome breast flowers. Hair pins sugar candy. 2 pr. small silver Ear-rings for servants. 8 Ibs Starch. 2 Ibs Powdered Blue. 2 oz. Coventry Thread, one of which to be very fine. 1 case of Pickles to consist of Anchovies, Capers, Olives. Salad Oil, and one bottle Ind'an Mangoes. 1 Large Cheshire Cheese. 4 Ibs Green Tea. 10 gross best Corks. 25 Ibs best jar Raisins. 25 Ibs Almonds, in the Shell. 58 MOUNT VERNON 1 hhd best Porter. 10 loaves double and 10 single refined Sugar. 12 Ibs best mustard. 2 doz. Jack's best playing cards. 3 gallons of Rhenish in bottles. 100 Ibs white Biscuit. 1 doz. Bell glasses for Garden. 1 more Window Curtain and Cornice. 2 more Chair bottoms, such as were written for in a former invoice." Such were Washington's orders for his house at that time. These items were followed by others pertaining to his farming operations and the servants upon his estate ; and also medi- cines for family use. And now, the mansion at Mount Vernon having an accom- plished mistress to preside over its hospitalities, and to receive and entertain some of the best society of Virginia, articles of taste were introduced to embellish it. In the handwriting of the master we find the duplicate of an order, as follows : " DIRECTIONS FOR THE BUSTS. One of Alexander the Great ; another of Julius Caesar ; another of Charles XII. of Sweden ; and a fourth of the King of Prussia. " N. B. These are not to exceed fifteen inches in height, nor ten in width. "2 other Busts of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marl- borough, somewhat smaller. " 2 Wild Beasts, not to exceed twelve inches in height^ nor eighteen in length. " Sundry ornaments for Chimney-piece." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 59 These items indicate the military taste of Washington at that time, and show his reverence for the great military leaders of whom history had made her enduring records. Many years later, when Washington had become as renowned as they, the Great Frederick sent him a portrait of himself, accompanied by the remarkable words " From the Oldest General in Eu- rope to the Greatest General in the World !" Two years after his marriage, Washington sent the following order to Robert Carey, Esq., in London : "FoK MASTER CUSTIS, 8 YEARS OLD. " 1 handsome suit of Winter Cloathes. A suit of Summer ditto, very light. 2 pieces Nankeens with trimmings. 1 silver laced hat. 6 pair fine Cotton Stockings. 1 pr fine worsted ditto. 4 pr. Strong Shoes. 1 pr. neat Pumps. 1 p. gloves. 2 hair bags. 1 piece ribbon for ditto. 1 p. silver Shoe and Knee buckles. 1 p. Sleeve buttons. A Small Bible neatly bound in Turkey, and John Parke Custis wrote in gilt letters on the inside of the cover. A neat Small Prayer Book bound as above, with John Parke Custis, as above. 1 piece Irish linen, at ~L#. 3 pr shoes for a boy 14 y'rs old. MOUNT VERNON CDSTIS 8 ARMS. 3 p. Coarse Stockings for do. 2 pr "Women's Strong Shoes, size 8. 2 p'r Stockings for do. 50 ells Osnaburgs. A suit of livery Cloathes for the above boy of 14. A hat for do. "XoTK. Let the livery be suited to the arms of the Custis family." " FOR Miss CUSTIS, 6 YEARS OLD. " A coat made of fashionable Silk. A fashionable Cap or Fillet with bib apron. Ruffles and Tucker to be laced. 4 fashionable dresses to be made of Long lawn. 2 fine Cambric frocks. A Sattin Capuchin hat and neckatees. A Persian quilted coat. 1 pr. pack thread Stays. 4 p. Calamanco Shoes, 6 pr leather ditto and 2 p'r Sattin do. with flat ties. 6 pr fine Cotton Stockings, 4 pr White Wors'd Do. 12 p'r Mitts. 6 p'r Gloves, white Kids. 1 p'r Silver Shoe buckles. 1 pr. neat sleeve buttons. 6 handsome Egrets* different sorts. 6 yds Ribbon Do. * An Egrette or Aigrette was an ornament for the head then much used by people of fashion. They were sometimes made of tufts of feathers, diamonds, etc., but more frequently of ribbons. In the above invoice both kinds were ordered. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 61 1 pr. little Scissors. 3 M (thousand) large pins. 3 M short whites. 3 M Minikens. . L Fashionable dressed Doll to cost a guinea. 1 Do. at 5*. A box Gingerbread, Toys & Sugar Images and Comfits. A neat Small Bible, bound in Turkey, and Martha Parke Custis wrote on the inside in gilt letters. A Small Prayer Book, neat and in the same manner. 12 yards coarse green Callimanco. The above things to be put into a Strong Trunk separate from J. P. Custis's, whose will likewise be put into a Trunk, each having their names. 1 very good Spinet [a small harpsichord], to be made by Mr. Plinius, Harpsichord Maker, in South Audley Street, Grosvenor Square. " It is begged as a favor that Mr. Carey would bespeak this instrument as for himself or a friend, and not let it be known y 1 is intended for exportation. "Send a good assortment of spare strings to it. "Books according to the enclosed List to be charged equally to both John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis likewise one Ream of Writing paper." These specimens of orders which were sent out annually to England, are given as glimpses of the domestic arrangements at Mount Vernon, and the style in which the wealthier Vir- ginia families, of cultivated tastes, lived before the Revolution. It is evident that Washington and his family indulged in all the fashionable luxuries (not extravagances) of the day, per- taining to the table and the wardrobe ; and in the absence of positive proof, these invoices would afford the strongest infer- 62 MOUNT VERNON ential evidences that they spent much of their earlier years in the enjoyment of social pleasures. Washington's Diaries bear still stronger, because positive testimony to the fact During some months, two or three times a week he records the result of a day's sport thus: " Went a hunting with Jacky Custis, and catched a fox, after three hours chase. Found it in the creek :" or, " Mr. Brvar Fairfax, Mr. Grayson and Phil. Alexander came home by sun- rise. Hunted and catched a fox with these, Lord Fairfax, his brother, and Colonel Fairfax all of whom with Mr. Fairfax and Mr. Wilson of England, dined here." Afterward, two days in succession : " Hunted again with the same com- pany." Still more frequently he noted the arrival and departure of guests. One day the Fairfaxes, or Masons, or Thurstons, or Lees would be there ; and the next day he and " Mrs. Wash- ington, Mr. and Miss Custis " would " dine at Belvoir." And so the round of visiting went on. Mount Yernon was seldom without a guest. The hunting day, which occurred so fre- quently, generally ended in a dinner there or at Belvoir, a little lower on the Potomac more frequently at the former ; and* the hospitalities of the house were kept up in a style which none but a wealthy planter could afford. " Would any one believe," Washington says in his diary of 1768, "that with a hundred and one cows, actually reported at a late enumera- tion of the cattle, I should still be obliged to buy butter for my family 2-" For Mrs. Washington and her lady visitors he kept a chariot and four horses, with black postillions in livery ; and these were frequently seen and admired upon the road between ANI' ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 63 Mount Vernon and Alexandria, or the neighboring estates. He took great delight in horses. Those of his own stable were of the best blood, and their names, as well as those of his dogs, were registered in his household books. When abroad, he always appeared on horseback ; and as he was one of the most superb men and skilful horsemen in Virginia, he must have made an imposing appearance, especially when fully equipped for the road, with the following articles, which were ordered by him from London, in one of his annual invoices : " 1 Man's Riding-Saddle, hogskin seat, large plated stirrups, and everything complete. Double-reined bridle and Pel- ham Bit, plated. A very neat and fashionable Newmarket Saddle-Cloth. A large and best Portmanteau, Saddle, Bridle and Pillion. Cloak -Bag Surcingle ; checked Saddle-cloth, holsters, &c. A Riding Frock of handsome drab-colored Broadcloth, with plain double-gilt Buttons. A Riding Waistcoat of superfine scarlet cloth and gold Lace, with Buttons like those of the Coat. A blue Surtout Coat. A neat Switch Whip, silver cap. Black Velvet Cap for Servant." Thus attired, and accompanied by Bishop, his favorite body servaiit, in scarlet livery, Washington was frequently seen upon the road, except on Sunday morning, when he always rode in the chaise, with his family, to the church at Pohick or at Alexandria. Like other gentlemen living near the Potomac, Washington was fond of aquatic sports. He kept a handsome barge, which, 64 MOUNT VERNON on special occasions, was manned by black oarsmen in livery. Pleasant sailing-boats were frequently seen sweeping along the surface of the river, freighted with ladies and gentlemen going from mansion to mansion on its banks Mount Vernon, Gun- ston Hall, Belvoir, and other places on social visits. Washington and his wife frequently visited Annapolis and Williamsburg, the respective capitals of Maryland and Vir- ginia. For fifteen consecutive years he was a member of the \ Virginia House of Burgesses, and Mrs. Washington spent much of her time with him at Williamsburg during the sessions. Both fond of amusements, they frequently attended the theat- rical representations there and at Annapolis, that entertainment being then a recent importation from England, the first com- pany of actors, under the direction of Lewis Hallam, having first performed in the Maryland capital in 1752. They also attended balls and parties given by the fashionable people of Williamsburg and Annapolis, and frequently joined in the dance. But after the Revolution Washington was never known to dance, his last performance being in a minuet, of which he was very fond, on the occasion of a ball given at Fredericksburg in honor of the French and American officers then there, on their way north, after the capture of Cornwallis, toward the close of 1781. But it must not be supposed, that during these years of his earlier married life, Washington's time was wholly, or even chiefly, occupied in the pleasures of the chase and of social intercourse. Far from it. He was a man of great industry and method, and managed his large estates with signal indus- try and ability. He did not leave his farms to the entire care of his overseers. He -was very active, and continually, even AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 65 when absent on public business, exercised a general supervision of his affairs, requiring a carefully prepared report of all oper- ations to be transmitted to him weekly, for his inspection and suggestions. He was very abstemious, and while his table always fur- nished his guests with ample and varied supplies for their appetites, he never indulged in the least excess, either in eating or drinking. He was an early riser, and might be found in his library from one to two hours before daylight in winter, and at dawn in summer. His toilet, plain and simple, was soon made. A single servant prepared his clothes, and laid them in a proper place at night for use in the morning. He also combed and tied his master's hair. Washington always dressed and shaved himself. The im- plements he then used have been preserved, as interesting relics, in the family of Doctor Stuart, who, as we have ob- served, married the widow of John Parke Custis, the son of Mrs. Washington. Though neat in his dress and appearance, lie never wasted precious moments upon his toilet, for he always regarded time, not as a gift but as a loan, for which he must account to the great Master. Washington kept his own accounts most carefully and me- thodically, in handwriting remarkable for its extreme neatness and uniformity of stroke. This was produced by the constant use of a gold pen. One of these, with a silver case, used by Washington during a part of the old war for independence, he presented to his warm personal friend, General Anthony Wal- ton White, of New Jersey, one of the most distinguished and patriotic of the cavalry officers of that war in the southern campaigns. It is now in the possession of Mrs. Eliza M. 5 -66 MOUNT VERNON Evans, near Brunswick, Xew Jersey, the only surviving child of General White. In OTIC end of the silver pen-case is a sliding tube for a common black-lead pencil, the convenient "' ever-pointed" pencil being unknown in Washington's time. That was invented by Isaac Hawkins, and patented by him, in London, in 1802. WASHINGTON'S GOLD PEN WITH SILVER CASE. From his youth Washington kept a diary. For many years these records of his daily experience were made on the blank leaves of the Virginia Almanac, " Printed and sold by Purdie KAC-SIMILK OF PAKB-HEADI.NO* IN WASHINGTON'S DIARY. and Dixon, Williamsburg." They are headed respectively, as seen in the engraving, which is a fac-simile from one of his early diaries after his marriage. Under similar headings in these al- manacs, and in small blank pocket-books, this man of mighty labors kept such records, from day to day, for more than forty years ; and he frequently noted therein minute particulars con- cerning his agricultural operations, in the style of the sentence on the next page, which was copied from his diary for March, 1771. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. Thus minutely journalizing his agricultural proceedings, keeping his own accounts, making all his own surveys, and, even before the Revolution, having an extensive correspond- ed there, while clergymen, in sur- plice and gown, performed the solemn and impressive ritual of the Church of England. Now, a young man, with nothing to distinguish him from other men but a white cravat, stood as AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. teacher within the old chancel by the side of the ancient com- munion-table, lie talked sweetly of Christian charity : " Oh, the rarity Of Christian charity." and asked the little company to join with him in singing the hymn "Come, Holy Spirit! Heavenly Dove!" When the service was over, I made note, with pen and pencil, of all within. It was a melancholy task, for decay with its busy fingers was at work all around me, making sure prophe- cies of the speeedy desolation of a building hallowed by associ- ations with the beloved Washington. Upon the wall, back of the chancel, were still inscribed, the Law, the Creed, and the Lord} s Prayer, upon which the eyes of Washington and his friends had rested a thousand times. A large proportion of the panes of glass were broken from the windoAvs, admitting freely the wind and the rain, the bats and the birds. The elaborately wrought pulpit, placed by itself on one side of the church, was sadly marred by desecrating hands. Under its sounding-board, a swallow had built her nest ; and upon the book ledge the fowls of the air had evidently perched. These things brought to memory the words of the "sweet singer of Israel"- " Yea, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altar, O Lord of Hosts !" PULPIT I\ POniCJC CHURCH. 80 M U N T V E It N X In the spring of 1772 there was a stranger at Mount Vernon, in errand and person. He was one-and-thirty years of age, slender in form, with a sweet and thoughtful face. He was a native of Maryland, and had been a saddler's apprentice at Annapolis, the capital of the province. In boyhood he had been as beautiful as a girl, and at twenty he was a handsome young man. At that age he felt spiritual aspirations for the life of an artist ; and when, two or three years later, he said to a retired painter who resided a few miles from Annapolis, " Show me, Mr. Hesselins, how you mix such beautiful tints for your canvas, and I will give you, the best saddle that I can make," a new world was opening to his enraptured vision. At that moment his true artist life began, for the generous painter revealed to him the coveted secret. Then the occupa- tions of watchmaker, silversmith, carver, and saddler, in which he had severally engaged, were abandoned for the pursuit of art, except when stern necessity compelled him to employ them in earning his daily food. Thus he worked on until a way was opened for him to go to England and place himself under the instruction of Benjamin West, the great American painter, then the loved companion of the king. Two years he remained with West, and in 1769, Charles Willson Peale, the young artist referred to, returned to his native country and set up his easel as a portrait painter at Annapolis and Baltimore with wonderful success. The fame of the young painter soon reached Mount Vernon, and he was invited there to delineate, for the first time, the form and features of the noble " lord of the manor." lie executed the commission admirably, and produced a fine portrait of Washington at the age of forty years, life size, a AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 81 little more than half-length, and in the costume of a colonel of the twenty-second regiment of the Virginia Militia. The coat is blue, with red facings, and bright metal buttons, having the CHAKLKS WIIiLSON PEALE. number of the regiment ("22") cast upon them. The waist- coat and breeches are also red, and the sash, a faded purple. "When, in 1797 or '98, Field, an English miniature painter and engraver of some eminence, visited Mount Yernon, he slept in a room in which hung Washington's old military coat. The painter cut off one of the buttons, and brought it away with him, regarding the transaction as a pious theft, no doubt, be- cause prompted by veneration for the owner. That button is now in the possession of John F. Watson, Esq.. 6 WASHINGTON S MILITARY BUTTON'. MOUNT VKRXON the venerable annalist of Philadelphia and New York, and at his house in Germantown the r.nnexod sketch of it was made. WASHINGTON AS A VIRGINIA COLONEL AT THE AGE OF FORTY. Field had a pleasant countenance and fine portly figure. He was, on the whole, rather fat, and loved his ease. "When at Centreville, on the eastern shore of Maryland, in 1798," says Rembrandt Peale, in a recent letter to a friend, " Field and I took a walk into the country, after a rain. A wide puddle of water covered the road beyond the fence on both sides. I climbed the fence and walked round, but Field, fat and lazy, in good humor paid an old negro to carry him on his shoulders over the water. In the middle of it, Field became so convuls- ed with laughter, that lie nearly shook himself off the old man's back." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS 83 Field went to Canada, studied theology a little, was ordain- ed a priest of the Estab- lished Church, and be- came a bishop. The portrait painted by young Peale, at that time, was the first that was ever made of Washing- ton. From the study he then made, lie painted the fine picture which hung at Mount Vernon until the owner's death, and since that time has graced the walls of Arlington House, the home of the late George Washington Parke Custis. The study the really first portrait, was afterward dressed in the continental costume. This remained in posses- sion of the artist and his family until the Peale gallery, in Philadelphia, was sold a few years ago, when it was purchased by Charles S. Ogden, Esq., in whose possession it now rests. FAC-SIMILE OF PKALE S RECEIPT 84 MOUNT TBBNON While at Mount Yernon at that time, Peale painted a min- iature of Mrs. Washington, for her son, John Parke Custis, then a youth of eighteen, for which Washington, as his guardian, paid ten guineas, according to a receipt in the hand-writing of Washington, and signed by the artist, yet preserved in the family. JOHN" PARKE CUSTIS. Peale's miniatures were exquisitely painted, and very much sought after. A few years later he painted a portrait, in miniature, of young Custis, who w r as then General Washing- ton's aide ; also of his wife, the second daughter of Benedict Calvert, of Maryland, a descendant of Lord Baltimore. He also painted a portrait of that lady, life size, before her mar- riage, in which she is represented as a beautiful young girl in equestrian costume, the riding-jacket being open in front, and AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 85 on her head a riding-hat with a feather. The miniature of John Parke Custis, from which our engraving was copied, was in the possession of Mrs. Washington until her death, and is now the property of his granddaughter, the wife of Colonel Robert E. Lee, of Arlington House, Virginia.* A shadow fell upon Mount Yernon in the spring of 1773. No child had blessed the union of "Washington and his wife, and her two children received the most tender parental care and solicitude from their step-father. He appeared to love them as his own. Martha was a sweet girl, of gentle temper, graceful form, winning ways, and so much a brunette, that she was called " the dark lady." Just as she was blooming into womanhood, pulmonary consumption laid its withering hand upon her. For several months her strength had been failing, and letters filled with expressions of anxiety went frequently from her mother to Washington, who was engaged in his duties in the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg. At length a most alarming letter reached him. He had just made arrangements to accompany Lord Dunmore, the governor, on a long tour of observation west of the mountains, but he hastened to Mount Vernon. He found the dear child in the last moments of earthly life. His manly spirit was bowed with grief, and with deep feeling he knelt at the side of her bed and prayed most earnestly for her recovery. Upon the wings of that holy prayer her spirit ascended, and when he arose and looked upon her pale and placid face, Death had set its seal there. She expired on the nineteenth of June, * Mr. Peale painted many other portraits of Washington, life size and in minia- ture. For an account of these, see note to the chapter on Washington's Portraits, in Custis's Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington. 86 MOUNT VKRNON when in the seventeentli year of her age. Her departure left a great void in the heart of the mother, and Washington remained for some time at Mount Yernon, in seclusion, to con- sole his afflicted wife, instead of taking the contemplated journey with the governor. And now the flames of the Revolution were rapidly kind- ling all over the land. The representatives of royal authority had been buffeted in Boston, and acts of parliament had been set at naught, in such manner, that an indignant decree went forth from the throne, that the port of the New England capital should be shut, and the entire machinery of the colonial gov- ernment be clogged, until the people there should show prac- tical signs of penitence for their political sins. The people defied the ministerial power, and laughed at ministerial anathemas. Then a new governor, with armed soldiers, took possession of Boston, and, with iron heel, crushed its commerce and its prosperity. Hot was the indignation of the colonists over the length and breadth of the land, and to every stroke of resistance given by the people of Massachusetts, those of Virginia abetted and gave loud acclamations of applause. For ten long years the people, in separate communities, had petitioned and remon- strated in vain. Now there was a universal desire for unity of action, and a GENERAL CONGRESS was proposed, in accordance with a suggestion made by Doctor Franklin. It received a hearty response in every colony, and the 5th of September, 1774, was the time agreed upon for such congress to assemble, and Philadelphia the place. For a long time Washington had been much engaged in the discussion of the momentous political questions of the day. He AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 87 was firm in his opinion, but no enthusiast; and with cautious but unwavering step, lie had walked in the path of opposition to ministerial measures. He heartily approved of a General Congress; and when, after the Virginia Assembly, of which he was a member, had been dissolved by the governor, and met in informal convention, to consult upon the expedient of holding another council to elect representatives to a general congress, he was warmly in favor of the measure. And when that congress met, he was among the delegates chosen for the important business of conferring, in solemn earnestness, upon the destinies of a nation. Washington was now fairly embarked upon the stormy ocean of political life in troublous times u times," as Paine afterward said, ' that tried men's souls." Yast were the stakes that he pledged. Life, fortune, honor, and every social enjoy- ment were all imperilled ; and while his friend and neighbor of Gunston Hall as warmly espoused the same cause, those of Belvoir adhered to the crown. The sports of the chase, social visiting, and almost everj amusement of life now ceased at Mount Vernon. Grave men assembled there, and questions of mighty import were con- sidered thoughtfully and ] rayerfully, for Washington was u man of prayer from earliest manhood. At length the time arrived for the assembling of the national congress, and from all the colonies, except Georgia, the dele- gates began to make their way toward Philadelphia, some on horseback, others in coaches or chaises, but none by public conveyances, for there were few of these even in the most pop- ulous provinces. Some travelled alone, others in pairs ; and as they approached the Delaware or the Schuylkill, they found 88 M U N T V K R N X themselves in companies. What a glorious spectacle ! From twelve strong viceroyalties, containing an aggregate population of almost three millions of people, the best and the wisest among them, obedient to the public will, were on their way, through vast forests, and over rugged mountains, across broad rivers, and broader morasses, and through richly cultivated districts, cheerful villages, and expanding cities, to a common goal, there to meet, deliberate, and confederate, for the welfare, not only of a continent, but of the world ! It was a moral spectacle such as had been hitherto unrecorded by the pen of history. On Wednesday morning, the 31st of August, 1771, two men approached Mount Vernon on horseback. One of them was a slender man, very plainly dressed in a suit of ministers' gray, and about forty years of age. The other was his senior in years, likewise of slender form, and a face remarkable for its expression of unclouded intelligence. He was more carefully dressed, more polished in manners, and much more fluent in conversation than his companion. They reached Mount Ver- non at seven o'clock, and after an exchange of salutations with Washington and his family, and partaking of breakfast, the three retired to the library and were soon deeply absorbed in the discussion of the great questions then agitating the people of the colonies. The two travellers were Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton. A third, the silver-tongued Cicero of Virginia, Richard Henry Lee, was expected with them, but he had been detained at Chantilly, his seat in Westmoreland. All day long these three eminent Virginians were in council ; and early the next morning they set out on horseback for Phila- delphia, to meet the patriots from other colonies there. Will Lee, Washington's huntsman, and favorite body servant, now that AXD ITS ASSOCIATIONS 80 PATRICK I1EXRV. Bishop had become too old and infirm to be active, was the only attendant upon his master. They crossed the Potomac at the Falls (now Georgetown), and rode far on toward Balti- more, before the twilight. On the -ith of September, the day before the opening of the Congress, they breakfasted at Chris- tiana Ferry (now "Wilmington), and dined at Chester ; and that night Washington, according to his diary, " lodged at Doctor Shippen's, in Philadelphia, after supping at the New Tavern. ' v At that house of public entertainment he had lodged nearly two years before, while on his way to New York to place young Custis in King's (now Columbia) College. At ten o'clock on Monday morning, the 5th of September, 1774, the First Continental Congress commenced its sessions MOUNT VERNON in Carpenter's Hall, in Philadelphia. The members first assembled at the City Tavern, and marched in procession to the Hall. They organized the congress by choosing Peyton Ran- dolph a large, fleshy, good-looking Virginian, five-and-forty years of age as president ; and for secretary they appointed Charles Thomson, a lean man, with hollow, sparkling eyes, hair quite thin and gray, and a year younger than the president, though bearing marks of premature old age. Thomson was an accomplished Pennsylvanian ; and, notwithstanding he ap- peared so old at the age of forty -four, he lived fifty years longer, while the florid, healthful-looking Randolph died the very next year, within an hour after eating a hearty dinner at Richard Hill's country seat, near Philadelphia. The business of the congress was opened by Patrick Henry, and the session continued until the 26th of October, when they had laid the foundations of a new Republic, deep in the principles of Truth and Justice. They debated great questions with the dignity and wisdom of sages, and, by a large majority adopted the following resolution a resolution which reaffirmed all pre- vious resolves of the Americans to fight for freedom rather than submit to inglorious political servitude : " Resolved, THAT THIS CONGRESS APPROVE THE OPPOSITION OF THE INHABITANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY TO THE EXECUTION OF THE LATE ACTS OF PARLIAMENT ; AND IF THE SAME SHALL BE AT- TEMPTED TO BE CARRIED INTO EXECUTION BY FORCE, IN SUCH CASE, ALL AMERICA OUGHT TO SUPPORT THEM IN THEIR OPPOSITION. The Congress closed their important labors by putting forth some of the most remarkable state papers that ever appeared AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 91 ill the annals of the nations. The perusal of them drew from the Earl of Chatham the most enthusiastic encomiums, in a speech in the House of Lords. u When your lordships," he said, " look at the papers transmitted to us from America ; when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For my- self, I must declare and avow, that in all my reading and study of history (and it has been my favorite study I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master states of the world), that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusions, under such a complication of cir- cumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the Congress at Philadelphia." It was in a congress composed of such men that Washington distinguished himself. Although he did not engage in the public debates (for he had no talent for extempore speaking), and his name does not appear in the published proceedings of the Congress as a member of any committee during the session, liis diary shows that he was assiduous in his attendance at Carpenter's Hall ; and there is ample evidence that his mind had much to do in the general conduct of the business, and especially in the preparation of the state papers alluded to. When Patrick Henry was asked, on his return from Phila- delphia, whom he considered the greatest man in the congress, lie replied : u If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina is by far the greatest orator; but if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor." When the Congress adjourned, Washington returned to Mount Vernon, full of desires for a reconciliation with the 92 MOUNT VERN ON parent government, and for peacefnlness in the bosom of his family ; yet without any well-grounded hope. The hand of inexorable circumstances was then making many and great changes in and around his beautiful home. The sunshine upon the fields, the forests and the river were as bright as ever; and the flowers bloomed as beautifully, and the birds sang as sweetly as ever, when another spring came, like the angel of the resurrection, to call forth the sleepers in the bosom of mother earth. But in the mansion death had left the memorial footsteps of its recent visit ; and the discord of clashing opin- ions had almost hushed into silence the sweet voices of the social circle in which he had been accustomed to move. His friend of Belvoir was a loyalist and beyond the ocean ; and that fine mansion, wherein the Washingtons and Fairfaxes had held generous intercommunication for a quarter of a century, was soon afterward consumed by fire. Its owner never re- turned to America, and the social intercourse of two long-tried friends was closed forever. George Washington and George William Fairfax never met again on the earth. The Congress of 1774, doubtful concerning reconciliation with Great Britain upon terms to which the colonists could accede, adjourned, to meet again at the same place on the tenth of May following, unless the desired redress of grievances should speedily take place, and render another national coun- cil unnecessary. But the people, taught by long and bitter experience, expected no justice from a blinded ministry, and prepared for inevitable war. They aroused themselves, and organized into military companies for the purpose of discipline. Suddenly, as if by magic, a vast army was formed. It was, as we have elsewhere observed, "strong, determined, generous. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 93 and panting for action, yet invisible to the superficial observer. It was not seen in the camp, the field, nor the garrison. No drum was heard calling it to action ; no trumpet was sounded for battle. It was like electricity, harmless when latent, but terrible when aroused. It was all over the land. It was at the plough, in the workshop, and in the counting-room. Almost every household was its head-quarters, and every roof its tent. It bivouacked in every chamber ; and mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts made cartridges for its muskets, and supplied its commissariat. It was the old story of Cadmus repeated in modern history. British oppression had sown dragon's teeth all over the land, and a crop of armed men were ready to spring up, but not to destroy each other." * Washington, always covetous of rural pursuits and the quiet of domestic life, returned from Philadelphia with the intention of resuming them. But urgent calls to public duty drew him from them. The volunteer companies of his state sought his counsel, and offered him the general leadership ; and he went from place to place, reviewing the assembled troops, and imparting wisdom w r hich he had learned from his military experience. Meanwhile, his old companions in arms came frequently to Mount Yernon, for they snuffed the smoke of war from afar. Among these, Doctors Hugh Mercer, of Fred- ricksburgh, and James Craik, of Alexandria, were the most welcome, for these Washington loved much. Other men more distinguished also made frequent visits to Mount Vernon. Among the most famous of these were Gen- eral Charles Lee and Major Horatio Gates, both of whom had * Lossing's Life of Washington, i. 470. MOUNT VKRNON been officers of distinction in the British army, and were tnen residents in Virginia. These frequently accompanied Wash- ington in his military excursions ; and during the spring of 1775, they spent much time under his roof. UKNKBAL CHARLES LKE. Lee was a Welshman, and a year younger than Washington. He possessed fine manly physical proportions, and a fiery spirit which nothing, at times, could control. He had been engaged in the war with the French and Indians in America, in 1756 and a few succeeding years; and the Mohawks, who created him a chief among themselves, gave him the signifi- cant name of Soiling Water. Restless and ambitious, he engaged in the continental wars of Europe, wherever he could find employment. At one time we find him an aide to the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 95 king of Poland, and then a companion of that king's ambas- sador to Constantinople. Then we see him in England assail- ing the British ministry with his sarcastic pen, and by his ill nature arid perverse judgment, shutting every door to his own advancement. Disappointed and still restless, he came to America in 1773, and travelled through most of the English provinces. In Virginia he met Major Gates, and was induced by that gentleman to purchase an estate near him, in Berkeley county. There he was residing when the war for independence was fairly kindling, and he espoused the cause of the patriots with a zeal that commanded their greatest admiration. He entered the army as the first major-general under Washington, became very popular with the great body of the people, and for awhile disputed a place in their attachment with Washing- ton himself. His ambition soon conquered his prudence, and he became insolent and insubordinate toward his superiors. With apparent collusion with the enemy, he became a prisoner; endeavored, while a captive, to betray his adopted country ; was restored to the army by exchange, but soon afterward was suspended from command because of bad conduct on the field of Monmouth ; and died in Philadelphia in comparative poverty, in the autumn of 1782, at the age of fifty-one years. He was a brilliant man in many things, but his life exhibited few commendable traits of character. He was bad in morals and manners; profane and extravagant in language, and feared and loved neither God nor man. In his will he bequeathed his soul to the Almighty and his body to the earth, saying: " I desire most earnestly that I may not be buried in any church or churchyard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist meeting-house; for, since I have resided in this DC MOUNT YERNOX country, I have kept so much bad company when living, that I do not choose to continue it when dead.' 1 Major Gates was three years the senior of Washington, and is supposed to have been a natural son of Horace Walpole. He was an officer in the British army during the French and Indian war, and was with Braddock in the battle of the Monongahela, where he was severely wounded, lie accom- GSXERAL HOHATIO GATES. panied General Mockton to the West Indies as his aide-de- camp, and expected great preferment after the campaign was over, as he was the bearer to the king of the tidings of the English victory at Martinico. He was disappointed, and, in 1772, he sold his commission of major, came to America, and purchased an estate in Berkeley county, Virginia, beyond the Blue Ridge. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 97 Gates was the opposite of Lee in his social qualities, being a perfect gentleman in his deportment. He, also, espoused the republican cause at the kindling of the war, was appointed the first adjutant-general of the continental army, and arose to the rank of major-general. He was ambitious and vain ; and, during the first half of the war, was seeking to take the place of Washington as supreme commander of the American armies. His last active military command was in South Carolina, in the summer of 1780, where he lost his whole army. He returned to his estate in Virginia, where he lived until 1790, and then removed to a farm on Manhattan Island, near the city of New York. He was a member of the New York legislature one term, and died in the spring of 1806, at the age of seventy-eight years. Washington was at Mount Vernon only a few weeks at a time, from the summer of 1774 until his retirement from the army in 1783. He was in the first continental Congress, as we have observed, during the autumn of 1774; was absent upon military services much of the time during the winter of 1775, and was a member of the Virginia Assembly in the spring, when Patrick Henry made his famous war speech, which was closed with the burning words : " What is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH !" With these words of Henry ringing in his ears, Washington returned to Mount Vernon. and prepared for a journey to Philadelphia, there to take his seat as a member of the Second 98 M U N T V K R N N Continental Congress. Just at the close of a mild April day, while he and his neighbor, Bryan Fairfax, with Major Gates, were discussing the stirring events at Williamsburg, connected with the seizure of powder belonging to the colony, by the royal governor, and the bold stand taken by Patrick Henry- events which were then arousing every republican heart in Virginia to action a messenger came in haste from Alex- andria, bearing intelligence of bloodshed at Lexington and Concord. That intelligence made a deep but widely different impression upon the minds of the three friends. The gentle Fairfax, even then inclined to enter the gospel ministry, which he afterward adorned, was drawn, by the ties of consanguinity and ancestral reverence, to the side of the parent country. He was much distressed by the tidings from the east, for he per- ceived the gathering of a cloud of miseries for his country, and the peril of all pleasant social relations. Gates, ambitious of military glory, and eagerly looking for the honors and emoluments of office, for which lie had long played the sycophant in London, w r as delighted by this opening of an avenue to a field of action wherein they might be won ; while Washington, communing with the intuitions of his loftier spirit, became thoughtful and reserved, and talked little, but wisely, on the subject. But he resolved nobly and firmly to go zealously into whatever conflicts might arise for the defence of the liberties of his country. All regarded the event as the casting away of the scabbard, as the severing blow to colonial allegiance. These friends parted company on the following day, and to- ward the evening of the 4th of May, Benjamin Harrison, one of the immortal fiftv-six who afterward signed the Declaration ANI- ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 99 of Independence, came to Mount Vernon, supped, lodged, and breakfasted, and departed with AVashington, early in the morn- ing of the 5th, for Philadelphia. They arrived at Chester on the 9th, and, while riding toward Philadelphia, with other southern delegates, were met, five or six miles from the city, by a cavalcade of five hundred gentlemen. Nearer the city, they were met by military companies, and by these, with bands of music, were escorted into and through the city " with great parade." On the following day, the new England delegates were received in a similar manner ; and thus, in the midst of the homage and acclamations of the people, the representatives of thirteen viceroyalties assembled to confederate in the great work of constructing a new republic. With the sword of defence in one hand, and the olive-branch of reconciliation in the other, the Congress went on in their solemn labors. The military genius and experience of Wash- ington were continually acknowledged by his being placed as chairman of all the committees appointed for the conduct of military affairs ; and to him was entrusted the important task of preparing rules and regulations for an army, and devising measures for the general defence. Meanwhile, a large, but crude and ill-regulated army, had gathered around Boston, and was keeping the British regulars in close confinement upon that little peninsula. It possessed no other cohesion than that derived from a sense of mutual danger. The Congress perceived this, and resolved to con- solidate and organize it by adopting it as a Continental army, with a commander-in-chief and assistant general officers. That adoption was formally made ; and on Thursday, the 15th of June, two days before the battle of Bunker's Hill, George 100 MOUNT VERNON Washington was chosen commander-in-chief of " all the con- tinental forces raised or to be raised, for the defence of Amer- ican liberty." The appointment was officially anncwnced to him on the following day, and modestly accepted ; and on the 18th he wrote a touching letter to his wife on the subject, tell- ing her he must depart immediately for the camp ; begging her to summon all her fortitude, and to pass her time as agree- ably as possible ; and expressing a firm reliance upon thai Providence which had ever been bountiful to him, not doubt- ing that he should return safe to her in the fall. But he did not so return. Darker and darker grew the clouds of war; and, during more than seven years, Washington visited his pleasant home upon the Potomac but once, and then only for three days and nights. Mrs. Washington spent the winter in camp with her husband ; and many are the traditions concerning he" beauty, gentleness, simplicity, and industry, which yet linger around the winter-quarters of the venerated commander-in-chief of the armies of the Revolution. For many long years she was remembered with affection by the dwellers at Cambridge, Morristown, Valley Forge, Newburgh, and New Windsor. When, on each returning spring, she departed for her home on the Potomac, the blessings of thou- sands soldiers and citizens went with her, for she was truly loved by all. . Pleasant would it be to read the scores of letters written by Washington to his charming wife during all that campaigning period, and his subsequent services in civil life. That pleasure can never be enjoyed. Only one letter to her the message informing her of his appointment to the command of the army - is known to be in existence, and that, with one to her son on AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 101 the same subject, written on the following day, is carefully preserved at Arlington House, by her great-granddaughter, Mrs. Mary Custis Lee. Mrs. Washington destroyed all of her husband's other letters to herself, a short time before her death. It is not our design to follow Washington in his career as a soldier, or even as a statesman, for in these his field of action was far away from Mount Vernon the object of our illustra- tions. His career in each was noble ; and even in his defeats in battle, he never lost a particle of the dignity of his char- acter, nor the esteem of his countrymen. His caution and prudence were sometimes misunderstood, but they were always found to be the guaranties of success. For nearly nine months he cautiously watched the British army in Boston, and waited for strength sufficient to attack it w r ith success, while the people, and even the Congress, became impatient and clamored for battle. At length the proper time came, and with skill and energy he prepared to strike an annihilating blow. The enemy saw their peril, fled to their ships, and escaped to Halifax, while the whole continent rang with the praises of Washington. The Congress d-ecreed a gold medal to the victor. Duvivier, of Paris, cut the die ; and to Mount Vernon the glittering testimonial of a nation's gratitude was afterward borne, upon which was inscribed : " THE AMERICAN CONGRESS TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF ITS ARMIES, THE ASSERTORS OF FREEDOM : TlIE ENEMY FOR THE FIRST TIMK PUT TO FLIGHT BOSTON RECOVERED, ITlTI MARCH, 1776." Although excessively prudent, Washington was ever ready to strike a blow in the presence of greatest peril, when his judgment and inclination coalesced in recommending, the per- 102 MOUNT VEKNON GOLD MEDAL AWARDED TO WASHINGTON FOR THE DELIVERANCE OF BOSTON. formance of the act. We see him with a handful of ill-dis- ciplined, ill-fed, ill-clad soldiers, after a prudent flight of three weeks before a strong pursuing enemy, crossing a rapid river in the midst of floating ice, and darkness, and driving storm, and smiting a band of mercenary Germans at Trenton, who had been hired out by their avaricious princes to aid the British soldiery in butchering their fellow subjects. Victory followed the blow, and a few days afterward that victory was repeated at Princeton. Again thp praises of Washington were upon every lip. The great Frederick of Prussia declared that the achievements of the American leader and his compatriots, between- the twenty-fifth of December 1776, and the fourth of January, 1777 a space of ten days were the most brilliant of any recorded in the annals of military action. A splendid flag, taken from the Hessians at Trenton, composed of two pieces of heavy white damask silk, bearing devices embroid- ered witli gold thread, and the words FOE OUR PRINCE AND COUNTRY, in Latin, exquisitely wrought in needlework, was AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 103 presented to "Washington. It was afterward hung up in the great hall at Mount Vernon, but only on one occasion, for Washington was careful never to make even the most trivial display of me- mentos of his own valor. This flag was his first trophy of the kind in the war for independence. And all through the war, prudence, sagacity, skill, energy, and great wisdom, marked the acts of Wash- ington. His last battle was at Yorktown, where another trophy, similar to that at Trenton, was se- cured. It was the flag of the seventh British regiment, made of heavy twilled silk, six feet in length and five feet four inches in width. The ground was blue; the cen- tral stripe of the cross red; the marginal ones white. In the centre was a crown, and beneath it a garter, with the usual inscription in Norman French Evil be to him who evil thinketh enclosing a full-blown rose, the floral emblem of England. This flag, with another, was presented to Washing- ton by a resolution of the Congress, passed ten days after the victory, and was hung in the hall at Mount Vernon on the single occasion referred to. It had been sadly tattered during DESSIAN FLAU TAKEN AT TBENTON. 104 M O IT N T V K II N O N the conflict. Until lately it occupied a place near the Hessian flag, in the Museum at Alexandria, where they were de- posited by the late George Washington Parke Custis, and BRITISH FLAG TAKKN A I' VOKKTOWX. appropriately labeled Alpha and Omega the first and the last of the trophies won by Washington. Lonely was the mansion at Mount Vernon without the master during the seven years and more that the war lasted. Yet it was by no means deserted. T^he only child of Mrs. Washington. John Parke Custis, with his wife and growing family, were there much of the time, for Washington had written to him a few days after his appoint- ment to the command of the army : "At any time, I hope it is unnecessary for me to say, that I am always pleased with your and Nelly's abidance at Mount Vernon, much less upon this occasion, when I think it absolutely necessary for the peace and satisfaction of your mother ; a consideration which I have no doubt will have due weight with you both, and require no arguments to enforce." Neighbors and friends also came frequently to cheer the temporary widowhood of the mistress. Lund Washington, the master's relative and friend, was the faithful manager of the estate, and he scrupulously obeyed the injunction of the owner, who said : " Let the hospitality of the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 105 house, with respect to the poor, be kept up. Let no one go away hungry. If any of this kind of people should be in want of corn, supply their necessities, provided it does not encourage them in idleness." Nothing of Importance, aside from the routine of plantation life, occurred at Mount Vernon after the summer of 1775, until 1781. At the former period, Lord Dunmore and his marauding followers, ascended the Potomac as far as Oceo- quan Falls, with the intention of making Mrs. Washington a prisoner, and desolating the estates of Gunston Hall and Mount Vernon. The Prince William militia gathered in larg^ numbers to oppose him, and these, aided by a heavy storm, frustrated his lordship's designs, and he sailed down the river, after destroying some mills and other property. Early in September, 1781, there was great commotion at Mount Vernon, greater than when, a few months before, small British armed vessels had come up the Potomac, plundering and destroying on every hand. One of these, on that occasion, had approached Mount Vernon with fire and sword, and Lund Washington had purchased the safety of the estate by giving the commander refreshments and supplies. For this the mas- ter of Mount Vernon rebuked him, saying, "It would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard that, in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burned my house and laid my plantation in ruins." On the 9th of September, 1781, there was an arrival more startling to the dwellers upon the Mount Vernon estate than that of an armed enemy upon the neighboring waters. It was the unexpected arrival of the master himself. The allied French and American armies were then on their march toward 106 MOUNT VERNON Virginia, to assist Lafayette and his compatriots in driving the invading Cornwallis from that state. Washington came from Baltimore late at night, attended only by Colonel Humphreys (one of his aides) and faithful Billy. They Lad left the Count de Rochambeau and the Marquis de Chastellux one at Alex- andria, and the other at Georgetown to follow them in the morning. Yery soon the whole household was astir, and the news flew quickly over the estate that the master had arrived. At early dawn the servants came from every cabin to greet him, and many looked sorrowfully upon a face so changed by the storms of successive campaigns, during more than six years that he had been absent. None came earlier than Bishop, the venerable body-servant of the master in the old French war, who was now too old to go to the camp. He lived near the mansion, the Nestor of the plantations, and was overseer of one of the farms. No doubt he came, as was his custom on great occasions, fully equipped in his regimentals, made after the fashion of George the Second's time, to greet the man he so much loved. Bishop was then almost eighty years of age, with deep furrows upon his cheeks, a few gray locks upon his temples, and his once manly form bent gently by the weight of years, and shrunken by the suns of nearly fourscore summers. On the morrow, the French noblemen, with their suites, ar- rived Rochambeau first, and De Chastellux afterward and all but the chief made it a day of rest. For him there was no repose. He was not permitted to pass even an hour alone with his wife. Public and private cares were pressing heavily upon him. He was on his way to measure strength with a powerful enemy, and his words of affection were tew and hurried. All AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 107 COL'M' I>K HOCUAMBKAII. the morning of the 10th he was closeted with his manager, and before dinner he wrote to Lafayette the first letter that he had dated at Mount Vernon sinee early in May, 1775, saying, '* Wo are thus far on our way to you. The Count de Rochambeau has just arrived. General Chastellux will be here, and we pro- pose, after resting to-morrow, to be at Fredericksburg on the night of the 12th. The 13th we shall reaeh Xew Castle ; and, the next day, we expect to have the pleasure of seeing you at your encampment." These calculations were correct ; they arrived at the camp of Lafayette, at Williamsburg, on the evening of the 14th. Rochambeau and Chastellux were guests worthy of such a host. The former was of a noble Vendome family. He was 108 MOUNT VERNON of medium height, slender in form, and then fifty-six years of age. He had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Orleans, five- and-thirty years be/ore, and had gained many laurels on the fields of battle, especially on that of Minden, which occurred a few months after Washington had taken his bride to Mount Yernon. A fine picture of that battle hung upon the walls at Mount Vernbn for many years, and is now at Arlington House. Whether it was there to delight the eyes of Rochambeau on this occasion is a question that may not now be solved. Rochambeau had come to America at the head of a large army, to assist, the struggling colonists to cast off the British yoke. He came with the title of lieutenant-general, but, according to previous arrangement by the French court, he was to be second to Washington in command. He assisted nobly at the siege of Yorktown, where, little more than a month after this visit at Mount Vernon, Cornwallis and a large army surrendered to the allied forces. He returned to France, was made a field-marshal by the king, but w r as called to much suffering during the French Revolution. Bonaparte granted him a pension and the cross of grand officer of the legion of honor, in 1803. Four years afterward he died at the age of eighty-two. De Cliastellux was a much younger man than Rochambeau, heavier in person, very vivacious, fond of company, and exhib- ited all the elegances of manner of the older French nobility, to which class he belonged. He came to America with Roch- ambeau, but seems not to have been confined to the army, though bearing the title of major-general ; for during the two years he was here, he travelled very extensively, and made notes and observations. These he printed on board the French AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 109 fleet only twenty-four copies for distribution among liia friends ; but a few years afterward they were translated and published in two volumes, by an English traveller. MAKCjriS UK ClIASTKLI.lrX. De Chastellux was the life of every company into which he was introduced, while in this country, and he left a very pleasant impression at Mount Vernon. In the library there, where he was entertained in the autumn of 1781, Washington wrote to him a playful letter in the spring of 1787, after receiving from the marquis an account of his marriage to an accomplished lady, a relative of the Duke of Orleans. " I saw," wrote Washington, "by the eulogium you often made 110 MOUNT VERNON on the happiness of domestic life in America, that you had swallowed the bait, and that you would as surely be taken, one day or another, as that you were a philosopher and soldier. So your day has at length come. 1 am glad of it, with all my heart and soul. It is quite good enough for you. Now you are well served for coming to fight in favor of the American rebels, all the way across the Atlantic ocean, by catching that, terrible contagion domestic felicity which, like the smallpox or plague, a man can have only once in his life." De Chastellux died in 1793, in the midst of the terrible storm of the French Revolution, and by it the fortunes of himself and wife seem to have been swept away, for his widow applied to Washington, two years afterward, for an allowance from our government, on account of the services of her husband, who was in active military duty near New York, and was in the siege at Yorktown. Her application was unsuccessful. On the second day after Washington's arrival at Mount Vernon the eleventh of September the fourth anniversary of the battle of Brandy wine the mansion, then not nearly so large as now, was crowded with guests ; and at dinner were met gentlemen and ladies from the country for miles around, who had not been at the festive board with the master of the feast since the war broke out. And there were children, too tiny children, whom the master loved as his own, for they \vere the grandchildren of his wife. There were four of these. The eldest was a beautiful girl, five years old, who afterward married a nephew of Lord Ellenborongh ; and the youngest was a boy-baby, only six months old, who was afterward adopted as the child of Washington, became one of the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. Ill executors of his will, and lived until 1857. These were the children of John Parke Custis and his fair young wife, Eleanor Calvert, and had all been born during the absence of the master from his home at Mount Yernon. Here let us pause a moment and look with the eye of faith in the words of a fellow man, upon the person of the great patriot who sat at the head of the feast on that day. The year before, a writer in the London Chronicle (an anti-ministerial paper), who had seen Washington, thus vividly described him : " General Washington is now in the forty-seventh year of his age. He is a tall, well-made man, rather large-boned, and has a genteel address. His features are manly and bold ; his eyes of a bluish cast and very lively ; his hair a deep brown ; his face rather long, and marked with the smallpox ; his com- plexion sunburnt, and without much color. His countenance sensible, composed, and thoughtful. There is a remarkable air of dignity about him, with a striking degree of gracefulness. He has. an excellent understanding, without much quickness; is strictly just, vigilant, and generous; an affectionate husband, a faithful friend, a father to the deserving soldier; gentle in his manners, in temper reserved ; a total stranger to relig- ious prejudices ; in morals irreproachable ; and never known to exceed the bounds of the most rigid temperance. In a word, all his friends and acquaintances allow that no man ever united in his own person a more perfect alliance of the virtues of a philosopher with the talents of a general. Candor, sin- cerity, affability, and simplicity seem to be the striking features of his character; and, when occasion offers, the power of display- ing the most determined bravery and independence of spirit." Domestic felicity and social enjoyment were, at that time, 112 MOUNT VERNON secondary considerations with Washington, and, on the morn- ing of the 12th of September, lie departed, witli all his mili- tary guests, from his delightful dwelling-place, journeyed to Fredericksburg to embrace his aged mother and receive her blessing, and then hastened on toward Yorktown, where Corn- wallis hud intrenched himself with a view of overrunning Virginia. There was great sorrow at Mount Yernon on the morning of the departure of the master. It was a grief to the devoted wife to part so soon from her husband, who was on his way to battle, perhaps to death ; but more poignant was her grief as a mother, for John Parke Custis, her only surviving child, in whom her fondest earthly affections were centred, followed Washington to the field as his aide-de-camp. He was then in the flush of manhood, eight-and-twenty years of age, and full of promise. He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and very popular wherever known. He now went out to battle, for the first time, leaving his wife and children and his fond mother in the pleasant home at Mount Vernon, with every material comfort around them, but with hearts filled with sadness, and spirits agitated with anxiety and apprehension. Oh, how eagerly did those wives and mothers at Mount Ver- non watch for the courier who daily brought intelligence from the camp! At length there came a messenger with tidings which produced mingled joy and alarm. He came to tell of a triumph at Yorktown, and of mortal sickness at Eltham, thirty miles from the field where victory had been won. At Yorktown, the allied armies, after a siege of tw r elve days, had compelled Cornwall is to surrender, with all his army, seven thousand strong. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 113 Joy was awakened all over the land as intelligence of this glorious event was spread, by swift couriers, from hamlet to hamlet, from village to village, from city to city. The name of Washington was upon every lip, as the Benefactor, the Lib- erator, the Saviour of his country. And there was peculiar joy and pride at Mount Yernon, when, at early dawn on a frosty morning, a messenger brought the intelligence that prophesied of peace and the speedy return of the loved ones to the safety and repose of domestic life. But, as we have said, the same messenger brought intelligence that produced serious alarm, and preparations were immediately made at Mount Yernon, for a journey. Young Custis was very sick with camp fever at the house of Colonel Bassett, the husband of his mother's sister, at Eltham. His mother and wife were soon upon the road ; and, in an agony of suspense, they urged the postillion to increase the speed of his horses. When they arrived at Eltham, all hope for the loved one's recovery had vanished. Washington had sent his old and faithful friend, Doctor Craik, to attend the sufferer, and as soon as his arrangements at Yorktown could be completed, the chief followed. He arrived at Eltham " time enough" he w r rote to Lafayette, " to see poor Mr. Custis breathe his last." In that hour the young wife was made a widow, and the mistress of Mount Yernon a childless woman. The great man bowed his head in deep sor- row, while his tears flowed freely. Then he spoke soothing words to the widowed mother, and said, " Your two younger children I adopt as iny own." These were Eleanor Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis, the former two years and six months of age, and the latter only six months. 8 114 MOUNT VERNON They both lived beyond the age of threescore and ten, arid Eleanor was considered one of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her day. She married Lawrence Lewis, the favorite nephew of Washington. The nuptials were celebrated on the KLKA.NOK I'AIIKIv CUSI'IS. chiefs birthday, 1799. Three days before, "Washington, as her foster-father, wrote from Mount Vernon to the clerk of Fairfax county court, saying : " SIR : You will please to grant a license for the marriage of Eleanor Parke Custis with Lawrence Lewis, and this shall be your authority for so doing." The portrait of this beautiful lady, from which our engraving AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 115 is copied, was painted at Philadelphia by Gilbert Stuart. It adorned the mansion at Mount Yernon for several years, and is preserved with care among the Washington treasures of Arlington House. Late in the autumn of 1781, Washington again visited Mount Vernon for a brief season. It was when he was on his journey to Philadelphia, in November, bearing the laurels of a victor. He \vas accompanied as far as Fredericksburg by a large retinue of American and French officers ; and there, after an interview with his mother, he attended a ball given in honor of the occasion. The aged matron went with him to the assembly, and astonished the French officers by the plainness of her apparel and the quiet simplicity of her manners, for they expected to see the mother of the great chief distinguished by a personal display such as they had been accustomed to be- hold among the families of the great in their own country. They thought of the Dowager Queen of France, of the brilliant Marie Antoinette, and the high-born dames of the court of Louis the Sixteenth, and could not comprehend the vision. Washington retired with his mother from the gay scene at an early hour, for there was grief in his heart because of the death of his beloved Custis ; and, the next morning, attended by two aides and Billy, he rode to Mount Vernon. His stay there was brief. Public duties beckoned him forward. " I shall remain but a few days here," he wrote to General Greene, " and shall proceed to Philadelphia, when I shall attempt to stimulate Congress to the best improvement of our late success, by taking the most vigorous and effectual measures to be ready for an early and decisive campaign the next year." Happily for the country, no other campaign of active mili- 116 MOUNT VERNON tary operations was needed ; and, in the course of a few months, the war was virtually at an end. The desire for peace, which had long burned in the bosom of the British people, now found such potential expression, as to be heeded by the British ministry. The intelligence of the fate of Cornwallis and his army had fallen with all the destructive energy of a bomb- shell in the midst of the war party in parliament/ When Lord North, the premier, heard of it, he paced the room violently, and, throwing his arms wildly about, exclaimed, u O God ! it is all over ! it is all over !" The stoutest declaimer in favor of bayonets and gunpowder, Indian and German mercenaries, as fit instruments for enslaving a free people, began to talk of the expediency of peace ; and at length, by mutual consent, com- missioners were appointed by the contending parties to treat for peace on the basis of the independence of the United States. They were successful; and, early in the spring of 1783, the joyful news, that a treaty had been signed at Paris, reached America, by the French ship Triomphe, sent for the purpose, by Count d'Estaing, at the request of Lafayette. Washington was then, with hie wife, at Newburgh, the head- quarters of the continental army, happy in having just frus- trated a scheme of some officers to produce a general mutiny among the discontented soldiers. The intelligence- came to him in dispatches from Robert R. Livingston, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and also in a letter from Alexander Hamilton, and other New York delegates in Congress. It was hailed by the chief with joy, and he immediately wrote the fol- lowing letter to Governor Clinton, which is copied from the original manuscript, now in the archives of the state of New York: AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 117 "HEAD-QUARTERS, March 27, 1783. " DEAK SIR : I take the first moment of forwarding to your Excellency the dispatches from the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, which accompany this. They contain, I presume, all the intelligence respecting Peace, on which great and glorious event permit me to congratulate you with the greatest sincerity." Upon the envelope bearing the superscription, Washing ton w r rote' in large letters, with a broad dash under it PEACE. What a glorious word ! What joy must have filled the heart of the commander-in-chief when he wrote that word ! What dreams of repose upon the Potomac, in the quiet shades of his beautiful home must have been presented to his vision at that time ! But many weary months were yet to intervene before he could see his beloved Mount Vernon. It was not until the 1st of November following that all ar- rangements for the departure of the British army from our shores were completed. The American army, by a general order of Congress, on the 3d of November, was disbanded, except a small force retained under a definite enlistment, until a peace establish- ment should be organized ; and, on the 25th of that month, the British evacuated the city of New York their last resting-place upon the soil of the United States went on board their ships, and sailed for Nova Scotia and Europe, with a large number of loyalists. On the 4th of December Washington parted with his officers at Fraunces' tavern in New York, and then proceeded 118 MOUNT VERNOtf toward Annapolis, where Congress was sitting, to resign into their hands his commission as commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States, which had been given him eight years and six months before. He stopped at Philadelphia, and presented his accounts to the proper fiscal officers, and arrived at Annapolis on Friday, the 19th, where he was (joined by Mrs. Washington and many warm personal friends. On Monday he was present at a dinner ordered by the Con- gress, at which more than two hundred persons were seated ; and that evening he opened a grand ball given in his honor, with Mrs. James Macubbin, one of the most beautiful women of her time. At twelve o'clock on the 23d Washington entered the hall of Congress in the old State House at Annapolis, ac- cording to previous arrangement, and, in the presence of a great concourse of people, presented his resignation to General Thomas Mifflin, the president of that body, accompanying the act by a brief speech. This was responded to by Mifflin. The great Leader of the Continental Armies, now a private citizen, retired, followed by the audience ; and the curtain fell upon the last solemn act in the great drama of the war for independ- ence. Washington now hastened to Mount Vernon, accompanied by many friends, as an escort of honor, among whom was Colonel Walker, one of the aides of the Baron Steuben, by whose hand he sent a letter to Governor Clinton, the first which he wrote at his home after his retirement. In it he said : " The scene is at last closed. I am now a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac. I feel myself eased of a load of public care. I hope to spend the remainder of my days in AND 'ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 119 cultivating the affections of good men, and in the practice of the domestic virtues." It was on Christmas eve, 1783, that Washington, a private citizen, arrived at Mount Yernon, and laid aside forever the WASHINGTON S MILITARY CLOTHES. military clothes which he had worn perhaps through more than half the campaigns of the war just ended. Around them clus- tered many interesting associations, and they were preserved with care during the remaining sixteen years of his life. And they are still preserved, in a condition almost as perfect as when the illustrious owner hung them in his wardrobe for the 120 MOUNT V 15 UN ON last time. They are in a glass case, with other mementos of the FATHER OF ms COUNTRY, in the great model hall of the Patent Office at Washington city. The coat is made of deep blue cloth, faced with buff, with large plain gilt buttons. The waistcoat and breeches aie made of the same kind of buff cloth as the facings of the coat. On the same occasion, Washington laid aside his battle- sword which he had worn throughout all the later years of the war. It, too, hung at Mount Vernon for almost twenty years, and is carefully preserved in the same glass case in the Patent Office. It is a kind of hanger, incased in a black leather scabbard, with silver mountings. The handle is ivory, colored a pale green, and wound in spiral grooves with thin silver wire. It was manufactured by J. Bailey, in Fishkill, Dutchess county, New York, and has the maker's name engraved upon the blade. The belt is of white leather, mounted with silver, and was doubtless used by Washington in the old French war, for upon a silver plate attached to it is engraved " 1757." With this sword is a long, knotty, black cane, with a golden head, which was bequeathed to Washington by Doctor Frank- lin, in the following clause in the codicil to his will : " My fine crab-tree walking-stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of a cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it. It was a present to me from that excellent woman, Madame de For- bach, the dowager Duchess of Deuxponts, connected with some verses which should go with it." These "verses" have been lost, and for them we will substi- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 121 tute the beautiful ode, by Morris, alluding to these precious relics, entitled "THE SWORD AND THE STAFF. THE SWORD ANL> TUB STAFF. " The sword of the Hero ! The staff of the Sage ! "Whose valor and wisdom Are stamp'd on the age ! Time-hallowed mementos Of those who have riven The sceptre from tyrants, ' The lightning from heaven.' n. "This weapon, Freedom! Was drawn, by thy son, And it never was sheath'd Till the battle was won I No stain of dishonor Upon it we see I 'Twas never surrerider'd Except to the free 1 in. ' While Fame claims the hero And patriot sage, Their names to emblazon On History's page, No holier relics Will Liberty hoard, Than FRANKLIN'S staff, guarded By WASHINGTON'S sword." In the same glass case are other interesting relics of Wash- ington, the most conspicuous of which is his camp-chest, an old-fashioned hair trunk, twenty-one inches in length, fifteen in width, and ten in depth, filled with the table furniture used by the commander-iii-chief during the war. The compart- MOUNT VBRKOX nients are so ingeniously arranged, that they contain a great number of articles in a small space. These consist of a gridiron ; a tea and coffee pot ; three tin saucepans (one WASHINGTON'S CAMP-CHEST. movable handle being used for all) ; five small glass flasks, used for honey, salt, coffee, port-wine, and vinegar ; three large tin meat dishes ; sixteen plates ; two knives and five forks ; a candlestick and tinder-box ; tin boxes for tea and sugar, and five small bottles for pepper and other materials for making soup. Washington alluded to the tin plates in this camp-chest, in the following letter to Doctor John Cochran, surgeon-general of the northern department of the continental army, written at West Point on the 16th of August, 1779 : AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 123 " DKAK DOCTOR : I have asked Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow ; but am I not in honor bound to apprise them of their fare? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned, I will. It is needless to premise that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered is rather more essential ; and this shall be the purport of my letter. "Since our arrival at this happy spot, we have had a ham, sometimes a shoulder of bacon, to grace the head of the table ; a piece of roast beef adorns the foot ; and a dish of beans, or greens, almost imperceptible, decorates the centre. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure, which I presume will be the case to-morrow, we have two beef-steak pies, or dishes of crabs, in addition, one on each side of the centre dish, dividing the space and reducing the distance between disli and dish to about six feet, which, without them, would be nearly twelve feet apart. Of late he has had the surprising sagacity to dis- cover that apples will make pies ; and it is a question if, in the violence of his efforts, we do not get one of apples, instead of having both of beef-steaks. If the ladies can put up with such entertainment, and will submit to partake of it on plates once tin but now iron (not become so by the labor of scouring), I shall be happy to see them ; and am, dear doctor, vours, &c., " GEO. WASHINGTON." Later in the war, Washington had a pair of plain silver goblets, with his crest engraven upon them, which he used in his tent. These were the only examples of a departure from that rigid economy which he exhibited in all his personal 124 MOUNT VERNON SILVER CAMP-GOBLKT. arrangements while in the army, not because lie was parsimo- nious, but because he wished to set an example of plainness and self-denial to all around him. These goblets are now used in the family of Colonel Lee at Arlington House. What a contrast do these simple table arrangements, and, indeed, all the movements and appointments of the great Re- publican Leader, present to those of the generals of the old world, and of those of antiquity in particular, whose achieve- ments for the benefit of mankind, placed in the scale of just appreciation, are small compared with his. After the victory at Yorktown, the marquee and tent used by Washington were folded up and placed in the leathern portmanteau in which they were carried, and were never again spread upon the field in camp, siege, or battle. They wen made by Captain Moulder, of Philadelphia, who commanded a corps of artillery in the battle at Princeton. The marquee was used for general purposes for the reception of visitors, consultations of officers, dining, et cetera and the smaller tent was for more private uses. In the latter Washington retired for meditation, and wrote his letters and dispatches for his secretaries to copy ; and in one part of it was a dormitory, wherein he slept. It composed the private apartment of his canvas dwelling upon the field, and few were allowed to enter it. What a history is involved in the experience of that tent! AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 125 How many important dispatches were written within it, upon the little writing-case, or portfolio, that was presented to President Taylor by Washington's adopted son, and by him deposited, with other mementos of the great Leader, in the WASHINGTON S TRAVELLING WRITING-CASE Patent Office, where it is well preserved ! How many anxious hours did that great Leader pass beneath the narrow canopy of that tent? How often, during that long war, did the forms of Heed, and Harrison, and Hamilton, and Tilghman, and Meade, and Humphreys darken the door of that tent as they passed in and out with messages and dispatches to and from the illustrious chief ! And in the large marquee, what a noble band of mighty men mighty in moral force among the noblest the world ever saw were gathered in council from time to time, and determined those movements which achieved the independence of these states ! In it, too, many distinguished men sat at the table of thq- chief members of the old congresses ; foreigners of note in diplomacy and war ; and last, Cornwallis as captive and guest, after his humiliation at Yorktown. It was quite spacious, and, when fully spread, one hundred guests might conveniently dine beneath its ample roof. That marquee and tent, wrapped in the old portmanteau, with the poles and cords as they were taken from the battle- 126 MOUNT VERNON field, are at Arlington House. The former has been spread occasionally for peaceful purposes. For several years Mr. Oustis, who was much interested in the improvement of the breeds of sheep, had annual gatherings of the friends of agriculture and manufactures at a fine spring on his estate, near the banks of the Potomac, in the early days of May. On WASHINGTON'S TKNTS IN THEIR PORTMANTEAUX. these occasions the old marquee would be erected, and some- times nearly two hundred guests would assemble under it to partake of refreshments. These " sheep-shearings at Arlington Spring " are remembered with pleasure by the surviving parti- cipants. When Lafayette was in this country, in 1824 and '25, as the guest of the nation, that marquee was used at Baltimore by the Society of the Cincinnati, for the purpose of receiving the Illustrious Friend as the guest of that fraternity a fraternity of which he had been a member ever since its formation on the banks of the Hudson, more than forty years before. On that occasion Colonel John Eager Howard, one of the heroes of the Cowpens, presided ; and Charles Carroll, who soon after- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 127 waid had the proud distinction of being the last survivor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a guest. And twice since that memorable reception, that war-tent, so often spread upon the line of march and on the battle-field, has been used in the service of the Prince of Peace. On these occasions it was pitched in green fields in the midst of beauty and repose, and thousands came and willingly paid liberal tribute for the privilege of sitting under the TENT OF WASHING- TON. Two churches were erected with the proceeds. We have just alluded to the Society of the Cincinnati. It is a fraternity originally composed of officers of the Revolution, and was formed a little while before the disbanding and dis- persion of the Continental Army. Its chief object was the perpetuation and occasional renewal of the long-cherished friendship and social intercourse which had existed between the officers of the army. The idea originated with General Knox. He communicated it to Washington, who not only approved of it, but gave the efforts to form a society upon such a basis of feeling, his cordial co-operation. It was in the spring of 1783 that the Society of the Cincin- nati \vas formed. The head-quarters of the army were then at Newburgh. A committee, composed of Generals Knox, Hand, and Huntington, and the accomplished Captain Shaw, was appointed to arrange a plan ; and, on the 13th of May, at the quarters of the Baron Steuben, in Fishkill, nearly opposite Newburgh, they reported a form which was adopted as the constitutional organization of the society. After referring to the war for independence, and the separation of the colonies from Great Britain, the objects of the society were stated in the fol' owing words: 128 MOUNT VP:RNON " To perpetuate, therefore, as well the remembrance of this vast event, as the mutual friendships which have been formed under the pressure of common danger, and in many instances cemented by the blood of the parties, the officers of the Amer- ican army do hereby, in the most solemn manner, associate, constitute, and combine themselves into one society of friends, to endure so long as they shall endure, or any of their eldest male posterity, and in failure thereof, the collateral branches, who may be judged worthy of becoming its supporters and members." As the officers of the army were chiefly Americans, and were about to return to their citizenship, they appropriately named the society, in honor of the illustrious Roman, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, whose example they were about to imitate. They resolved that the following principles should form the basis of the society : 1. "An incessant attention to preserve inviolate those ex- alted rights and liberties of human nature for which they have fought and bled, and without which the high rank of a rational being is a curse instead of a blessing. 2. " An unalterable determination to promote and cherish, between the respective states, that unison and national honor so essentially necessary to their happiness and the future dig- nity of the American empire. 3. " To render permanent the cordial affection subsisting among the officers, this spirit will dictate brotherly kindness in all things, and particularly extend to the most substantial acts of "beneficence, according to the ability of the society, toward those officers and their families who unfortunately may be under the necessity of receiving it." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 129 For the sake of frequent communication, the association was divided into state societies, to meet annually on the 4th of July, or often er if they should find it expedient. The society also adopted an Order by which its members should be known and distinguished. It is composed of a medal of gold with proper em- blems, " suspended by a deep-blue ribbon two inches wide, edged with white, descriptive of the union of America with France." A representation of the Order, full size, is seen in the engraving. The leaves of the olive branches are of gold and green enamel ; the head and tail of the eagle gold and white enamel ; and the sky in the centre device (which is a fac- simile of one of the medallions on the certificate of membership), is blue enamel. The French officers who served in the continental army presented to Washington an elegant Order, studded with precious stones, about two hundred in number. The leaves of the olive branches and ORDER OF THE CINCINNATI. wreath are composed of emeralds, the berries of ruby, and the beak of the eagle amethyst. Above the eagle is a group of military emblems flags, drums, and cannon surrounding a 9 130 MOUNT VERNON ribbon, upon which are inscribed the words : " PRESENTED, IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH SOLDI K RS, TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE GENERAL WASHINGTON." This also is studded with precious stones. Above it is a bow of moire antique ribbon, of light-blue color, with white edges. This jewel is at present [1859J in the possession of the Honorable Hamilton Fish, of New York, president of the Society of the Cincinnati. The Society had a certifi- cate of membership engraved in France, by J. J. Le Yeau, from a drawing by Aug. Le Belle. It occupies a space thirteen and a half inches in width and twenty inches in length, and was printed on line vellum. The engraving upon the next page is a fac- simile on a reduced scale. The design represents Amer- ican liberty as a strong man arme'd, bearing in one hand the Union flag, and in the other a naked sword. Beneath his feet are British flags, and a broken spear, shield, and chain. Hovering by his side is the eagle, our national emblem, from whose talons the lightning of destruction is flashing upon the British lion. Britannia, with the crown falling from her head, is hastening toward a boat to escape to a fleet, which denotes the departure of British ORDER PRESENTtU BY FRfcNCH OFFICERS. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 131 nil tori -?[!* ."N & X 5^N ^W BrlM mrta i) g& Vat ft) I* ; ^o ; T ^> i x Pj. d E? i io ; . IPIiMs e> X < -V 1 iSr\ IP' I- ^T sL&s * s i ^ i ^"?g^N ^ 18^ * J M f?x ^f it *TTw i I. ^ "' y ; j "j xK ta 8 | M fCLS \ A 132 MOUNT VKRNON power from our shores. Upon a cloud, on the right, is an angel blowing a trumpet, from which flutters a loose scroll. Upon the scroll are the sentences : Palam nuntiata libertas, A. D. 1776. Fcedus sociale oum Gallia, A. D. 1778. Pax: libertas parta, A. D. 1783 " Independence declared, A. D. 1776. Treaty of alliance with France declared, A. D. 1778. Peace ! independence obtained, A. D. 1783." Upon the medallion on the right is a device representing Cincinnatus at his plow, a ship on the sea, and a walled town in the distance. Over his head is a flying angel, holding a ribbon inscribed: Virtutis piwmium ; "Reward of virtue." Below is a heart, with the words: Esto perpetua; "Be thou perpetual." Upon the rim is the legend : Societas Cincinna- torum Instituta A. D. MDCCLXXXIIL; "Society of the Cincinnati, instituted 1783." The device upon the medallion on the left is Cincinnatus, with his family, near his house. He is receiving a sword and shield from three senators : an army is seen in the distance. Upon the rim are the words : Omnia relinqui tservare rempublicam " He abandons every thing to serve his country" (referring to Cincinnatus). "Washington was chosen the first president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati, and General Henry Knox the secre- tary. The former remained in office until his death, a period of sixteen years, and was succeeded by General Alexander Hamilton. All of the certificates given to the original mem- bers, like the one delineated in the engraving, were filled up and signed by Washington, at Mount Yernon. We have observed that it w r as Christmas eve when Wash- ington arrived at Mount Yernon from Annapolis, once more a private citizen. What a glad Christmas was that for all in AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 133 that pleasant home on the banks of the Potomac ! It was a Christmas to be specially remembered by the retired soldier. It was a day long hoped for by him when engaged in the mighty labors of his official station. Rest, rest he often sighed for, and now the elements seemed to sympathize in his great desire. An intensely severe winter closed almost every avenue to Mount Vernon, and even neighborly intercourse was sus- pended. Washington had rest in abundance. To Lafayette he wrote on the first of February following his retirement: " On the eve of Christmas I entered these doors an older man by near nine years, than when I left them. Since that period, we have been fast locked up in frost and snow, and excluded in a manner from all kinds of intercourse." " I have not only retired from all public employments," he added, " but I am retiring within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walks, and tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all ; and this, my dear friend, being the order of my march, I will move gently down the stream of life, until I sleep with my fathers." And yet, even in that perfect retirement, it was several weeks before Washington could entirely divest his mind of the burden of solicitude for public aifairs. To General Knox he wrote on the 20th of February : " I am just beginning to experience that ease and freedom from public cares, which, however desirable, takes some time to realize ; for strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that it was not till lately I could get the better of my usual custom of ruminating, as soon as I waked in the morning, on the business of the ensuing day ; and of my surprise at finding, after revolving many things in 134 MOUNT VERNON my mind, that I was no longer a public man, nor had any thing to do with public transactions. "I feel now, however, as I conceive a wearied traveller must do, who, after treading many a painful step with a heavy burden on his shoulders, is eased of the latter, having reached the haven to which all the former were directed ; and from his house-top is looking back, and tracing with an eager eye the meanders by which he escaped the quicksands and mires which lay in his way ; and into which none but the all-power- ful Guide and Dispenser of human events could have prevent- ed his falling." Never had a traveller more cause for serenity of mind and perfect gratitude, in the hour of calm retrospection, than George Washington at that time ; and also twelve years later, when he resigned the helm of the vessel of state into other hands, and sought repose for the last time in the shades of Mount Yernon. And when he fully realized his relief, his social desires, so long repressed, came into full play, and renewals of old acquaintance and friendly correspondence took place. "Freed from the clangor of arms and the bustle of a camp," he wrote to the wife of Lafayette, in April, after receiving information that the marquis intended to visit America soon " Freed from the cares of public employment and the responsibility of office, I am now enjoying domestic- ease under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree ; and in a small villa, with the implements of husbandry and lambkins around me, I expect to glide gently down the stream of life, till I am entombed in the mansion of my fathers, * * * Come, then, let me entreat you, and call my cottage your home ; for your own doors do not open to you with more AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 135 readiness than mine would. You will see the plain manner in which we live, and meet with rustic civility ; and you shall taste the simplicity of rural life. It will diversify the scene, and may give you a higher relish for the gaieties of the court, when you return to Versailles." " My manner of living is plain," he wrote to a friend, " and I do not mean to be put out by it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready, and such as will be content to partake of them are always welcome. Those who expect more will be disappointed." But this modest dream of quietude and simplicity of life was not realized. Washington w^as the central figure of the group of great men who had laid the foundations of the republic. To- him the eyes of the nation were speedily turned for counsel and action, for that republic and all its dependent interests- were soon in peril. He was too great to remain an isolated citizen, and men of every degree, his own countrymen and strangers, were soon seen upon pilgrimages to Mount Vernon ; and the little " villa" was too small to shelter in comfort the many guests that often assembled under its roof. Washington now took a general survey of all his affairs, and turned his thoughts to the improvement of his farms, the en- largement of his mansion, and the adornment of the grounds around it. These improvements were commenced in the spring of 1784, and then the construction of the house, in its present form was resolved upon. The mansion built by Lawrence Washington, and called a " villa" by the general, was of the old gable-roofed style, with only four rooms upon each floor, as we have observed. It was about one-third the size of the pres- ent building, and in the alteration, it was made to occupy the 13(5 MOUNT VERNON .central portion, the two ends having been built at the same time. The mansion, when completed by General Washington, i(and as it now appears) was of the most substantial frame- work, two stories in height, ninety-six feet in length, thirty feet in depth, with a piazza fifteen feet in width, extending Along the entire eastern or river front, supported by sixteen square columns, twenty-five feet in height. Over this piazza is a balustrade of a light and pleasing design ; and in the centre of the roof is an observatory with a small spire. There ,are ^even dormer windows in the roof, three on the eastern side, one on each end, and two on the western or lawn side. The ground floor of the house contains six rooms, with a spacious passage in the centre of the building, extending through it from east to west. From it a massive staircase ascends to the chambers. The rooms and the passage are all wainscoted, and have large worked cornices; and they present to the eye the appearance of great solidity. On the south side of the passage is a parlor, and the library and break- fast-room of Washington, from which a narrow staircase ascends to his private study on the second floor. On the north side of the passage are a reception-room and parlor, and a large drawing-room, in which, when there was much company, the guests were sometimes entertained at table. These apartments and their present appearance and uses we will consider else- where. Near the mansion, a substantial kitchen on one side, and store-room and laundry on the other, were built, and these were connected with the dwelling by very neat open colon- nades, each with roof and pavement ; and, at a little distance from them, two other strong buildings were erected for house- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 137 WESTEKN FRONT OF MODNT VERNON, AS IT APPEARED IN 1858. servants' quarters. The mansion, the kitchen and store-house, with the connecting colonnades, and the servants' quarters, all remain, and exhibit the same external appearance which they bore when Washington left them. These may be best seen from the lawn that spreads out before the western front of the mansion, which is first approached by visitors in carriages, there being no road for horses upon the grounds before the river-front. In the prosecution of these improvements Washington was his own architect, and drew every plan and specification for the workmen with his own hand. Every measurement 138 MOUNT VERIZON was calculated and indicated with exactness : and in every arrangement for his home, he appears to have made convenience and durability the prime objects of his care. The following letter to Mr. William Rumney, of Alexandria (who had been an aide to General Charles Lee at one time during the Revolu- tion), will give an idea of the carefulness and forethought of Washington in the management of his aifairs. Mr. Rumney was then about to leave for England : "General Washington .presents his compliments to Mr. Rurn- ney would esteem it as a particular favor if Mr. Rumney would make the following enquiries as soon as convenient after his arrival in England, and communicate the result of them by the Packet, or any other safe and expeditious conveyance to this country. " 1st. The terms upon which the best kind of Whitehaven flag-stone black and white in equal quantities could be delivered at the Port of Alexandria, by the superficial foot, workmanship, freight, and every other incidental charge included. The stone to be 2 Inches, or there- abouts, thick ; and exactly a foot square each kind. To have a rich polished face, and good joints so as that a neat floor may be made therewith. " 2nd. Upon what terms the common Irish Marble (black and white if to be had) same dimensions, could be delivered as above. " 3rd. As the General has been informed of a very cheap kind of Marble, good in quality, at or in the neighborhood of Ostend, he would thank Mr. Rumney, if it should fall in his way, to institute an enquiry into this also. " On the Report of Mr. Rumney, the General will take his AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 139 ultimate determination ; for which reason he prays him to be precise and exact. The Piazza or Colonnade, for which this is wanted as a floor, is ninety-two feet eight inches, by twelve feet eight inches within ths margin, or border that surrounds it. Over and above the quantity here mentioned, if the above Flags are cheap or a cheaper kind of hard Stone could be had, he would get as much as would lay floors in the Circular Colonnades, or covered ways at the wings of the House each of which at the outer curve, is 38 feet in length by 7 feet 2 Inches in breadth, within the margin or border as aforesaid. " The General being in want of a House Joiner & Bricklayer who understand their respective trades perfectly, would thank Mr. Rumney for enquiring into the terms upon which such workmen might be engaged for two or three years (the time of service to commence upon the ship's arrival at Alexandria); a shorter term than two years would not answer, because foreigners generally have a seasoning, which with other inter- ruptions too frequently waste the greater part of the first year more to the disadvantage of the employer than the Em- ployed. Bed, board & Tools to be found by the former, cloth- ing by the latter. " If two men of the above Trades and of orderly and quiet deportment could be obtained for twenty-five or even thirty pounds sterling per annum each (estimating the dollar at 4s. 6d.), the General, rather than sustain the loss of Time neces- sary for communication would be obliged to Mr. Rurnney for entering into proper obligatory articles of agreement on his behalf with them and sending them by the first vessel bound to this Port. " GEO. WASHINGTON. "MOUNT VERNON r July 5 r 1784." 140 MOUNT V K R N N The pavement-stone procured ,/ w. -UM. " '. 5 POPLAR! -ID H.CHE: HOLLYl SECTION OF SHADED C.VRRIAGE-WAT. through Mr. Rumney, in ac- cordance with the foregoing order, still exists beneath the grand piazza and the colon- nades, but in a dilapidated state. Many of the blocks are gone, others are broken, and all show abrasion by footsteps and the elements. Many of the carpenter's tools, imported from Eng- land at that time by Wash- ington, for the use of his workmen, are preserved. Washington was very fond of planting trees and shrub- bery ; and his diaries show that he was much engaged in that business in 1784 and 1785. He went to the woods almost every day to select and mark young trees for transplanting to the grounds around the mansion, and he generally superintended their removal. In the rear of the man- sion, Washington laid out a fine lawn, upon a level sur- face, which comprises about AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 141 GENERAL PLAN OP THE MANSION AND GROUNDS AT MOUNT VERNON. A The Mansion. B Oval Grass-plot. C The Lawn I) D Flower-garden. E E Vegetable Garden. P F Kitchen and Laundry G G House-servants' Quarters. II H Circular Colonnades. I I Water closets. J J Seed -houses. K Carriapp-way as finally laid out L Outside Koad. 142 MOUNT VERNON twenty acres. Around it he made a serpentine carriage-way ; and he planted a great variety of shade trees upon each side of it. Upon one side of the lawn he formed a spacious flower- garden, and upon the other an equally spacious vegetable gar- den, and these were planted with the greatest care, according to the minute directions of the master. I have before me the original plan of these grounds, made by Washington's own hands. It is very carefully drawn. The exact position and the name of every tree to be planted, are laid down. With it is a section-drawing, on a larger scale, showing the proposed car- riage-way around the lawn, the names of a large number of trees that were to adorn it, and the places of others indicated by letters and numerals, which are explained by a memorandum. Directly before the western front an oval grass-plot was designed, with a dial-post in the centre, and a carriage-way around it. The lawn, the oval grass-plot, and the gardens were laid out according to the plan drawn by Washington, and remain unchanged in form. Quite a large number of trees, planted along the margins of the carriage-way, at that time, are yet there, and are noble specimens of their kind. Many others have decayed and passed aw r ay ; and, in some instances, quite large trees now stand where others were planted by the hand of Washington three-quarters of a century ago. In each garden Washington erected small houses, of octag- onal form, for the storage of seeds and implements of hor- ticulture. These are yet standing. The lower portion of each is of brick, and the remainder of plank, wrought so as to resemble blocks of stone. These garden-houses, and water- closets of similar form and dimensions, standing on the borders of the garden near the mansion, are now [1859] fallen into AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 143 almost hopeless decay. The massive brick walls around both gardens remain in perfect preservation. On the north side of the flower-garden Washington erected quite an extensive conservatory for plants, into which he col- lected many rare exotics. Some of them were presented to him as testimonials of esteem, and others were purchased at the garden of John Bartram, near Philadelphia. Bartram was a member of the Society of Friends, and an eminent botanist. He had died during the Revolution, leaving his business in the able hands of his son "William, who, in 1791, published a most interesting account of his botanical explora- tions through the Southern states of our Union. 144 MOUNT VERNON A few tropical plants found their way to the Potomac oc- casionally, upon vessels from the West Indies. Among the latter, on one occasion, were some fine lemon-trees of large CKNTURY PLANT AND LBHOM-TEKX. growth, and from them Washington selected two or three. Others were propagated from these by cuttings, until, at the time of his death, they had become quite a grove in one end of the conservatory. Only one of these now remains. It was standing in the flower-garden when I was there in 1S58, by the side of a fine century-plant, which was sent to Washington by a gentleman at Porto Rico, in 1798. The tree is about fifteen feet in height ; and, though bearing fruit in abundance, shows signs of decay. At the junction of two of the principal avenues in the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 14:5 VIEW IN THE FLOVVtK-GABDEN AT MOL'XT VBRNON THK SAGO PALM. flower-garden, I saw one other plant and only one that had experienced the fostering care of Washington. It was a Sago Palm, an East India production, from which is obtained the article of domestic use known as pearl sago, a species of fecula or starch. It stands in a large tub in which flowers were blooming; and its tufted leaves, like immense feathers, growing from the heavy stem seven feet from the ground, were fresh and beautiful. The Lemon Tree, the Century Plant, and the Sago Palm, are all that remain of the movable plants which belonged to Washington, and were taken from the green-house when it 10 146 MOUNT .VERNON was destroyed by fire in December, 1835, the same night when the destructive element consumed more than five hun- dred buildings and other property valued at more than twenty millions of dollars, in the city of New York. The fire origi- nated in a defective flue connected with the conservatory, and KUJ.NS OF TUB CONSERVATORY AT MOUNT VEHA'ON. that building, with the servants' quarters adjoining it, was laid in ashes in the course of a few hours. What plants were saved from the flames were mostly destroyed by the frost, for it was one of the coldest nights on record. The conservatory was never rebuilt nor the ruins removed. These, now overgrown with vines and shrubs, form a pict- uresque garden wall, but lose some of their attractiveness to the eye of taste, by the presence of two tall, perpendicular chimneys, which are seen above the shrubbery from every point of view in the garden. These broken walls, too, strike the visitor unpleasantly. They are at the modern carriage AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 147 entrance to Mount Vernon, and are the first objects associated with "Washington that meet the eye on approaching the man- sion from the public road. ICE-HODSE A.T MOUNT VEKNON. Eastward of the flower-garden, and on the opposite side of the present entrance to Mount Vernon, Washington con- structed an ice-house, after his retirement from public life, at the close of his presidency. It was something new in Vir- ginia ; indeed, ice-houses were not in very common use else- where at that time. It is well preserved, and is finely shaded by tall trees, which form a beautiful grove on the north side of the mansion. Previous to the erection of this ice-house, Washington had used, for the purpose of keeping meat, butter, and vegetables cool in summer, a large dry-well at the south-east corner of the lawn in front of the mansion, just on the brink of the high precipitous bank of the river. Into this a descent was made 148 MOUNT VKRNON by a flight of steps, and over it he erected an elegant summer- house, with a spire and iron vane in the form of a crescent. The well and the summer-house are there, but a part of the walls of the former have fallen in. From the summer-house fine views AT Morxr TERNO.V. of the Potomac may be obtained, but as the staircase leading to it has nearly rotted away, there is difficulty and some danger in climbing up into it over the chasm formed by the caving in of the side of the well. It was from that summer-house that the sketch was made of the mansion, out-buildings, and lawn, with the visitors, as they appear in the frontispiece to this volume. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 149 I have before me a manuscript memorandum from the hand of Washington, in which he notes, in minute detail, the dis- tances and directions in feet and inches, and by points of compass, of various objects, such as the garden-houses, the dial-post, and the dry-well, from the " front door of the man- sion." It is interesting, as showing the extreme minuteness and accuracy with which Washington kept a record of all his operations, and might serve those who are about to restore Mount Vernon to its original form and perfection, as an indi- cator of points now lost through neglect and decay. During the spring and summer of 1784, visitors flocked to Mount Vernon in great numbers. Many of the companions in arms of the beloved chief, of all grades, from general officers to private soldiers, went there to pay their respects, and enjoy once again sweet intercourse with him under whom they had always delighted to serve. At length one came who was specially a man after Wash- ington's own heart a young man whom he loved as a son or a younger brother. He had been a friend to the Americans in their struggle for freedom, and was a friend of mankind. That visitor was the Marquis de Lafayette, a distinguished scion of an ancient noble family, who, in the summer of 1776, while at the table of the commandant of Mentz, in Ger- many, with other French officers, heard the Duke of Glouces- ter, brother to the King of England, speak of the Declaration of Independence just put forth by the Anglo-American colo- nies, and of the strong measures adopted by the British ministry to crush the rising rebellion. The marquis was then just past eighteen years of age, slender in form, and a boy in personal appearance. But the heart of a patriot and hero beat 150 MOUNT VERNON beneath his coat of green, and his imagination and zeal were fired by the recital of the story of a people fighting for liberty. He returned to Paris full of high resolves, and leaving there an equally enthusiastic and a cheerfully consenting young wife the lich and beautiful daughter of the Duke de Noailles he came to America, volunteered to fight in the cause of colo- nial emancipation, and, throughout the war, performed services in the field here, and at the court of France, of inestimable benefit to the country. Life, youth, fortune, the endearments of home, were all freely devoted to the cause, and he made the aspirations of the Americans emphatically his own, with an en- thusiasm that scorned all obstacles. "It is fortunate for the king," said the old Count Maurepas, " that Lafayette does not take it into his head to strip Versailles of its furniture to send to his dear Americans, as his majesty would be unable to refuse it." Washington, governed by his intuitive perception of char- acter, which never deceived him, took Lafayette to his bosom on his first arrival at Philadelphia, in 1777; and from that hour until death severed the bond, they were friends of truest character. And now, the intelligence that this dear friend was about to visit him in his quiet home at Mount Ver- non gave Washington a most exquisite pleasure. The portrait of the marquis, painted by Charles Willson Peale, in 1778, was then hanging upon the wall of his parlor : it now occupies a prominent place among the works of art at Arlington House. Lafayette arrived at New York on the 4th of August, 1784, after a passage of thirty-four days from France. There he received the congratulations of the citizens for a few days, and then hastened toward Mount Yernon. He was detained in Philadelphia two or three days, and there wrote as follows : AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 151 "PHILADELPHIA, Tuesday Evening. " Mr DEAR GENERAL : I have already had the pleasure to acquaint you with my arrival in America, and am endeavor- ing to reach Mount Yernon as soon as possible. My first plan was only to stay here two days, but the affectionate reception I have met with in this city, and the returning some compli- ments to the Assembly, render it necessary for me to stay one day longer. On Friday I will be at the head of Elk, the next clay at Baltimore, and by Sunday or Monday I hope at last to be blessed with a sight of my dear General. There is no rest for me until I go to Mount Yernon. I long for the pleasure to embrace you, my dear General, and the happiness of being once more with you will be so great that no words can ever express it. In a few days I will be at Mount Yernon, and I do already feel delighted with so charming a prospect. My best respects wait upon Mrs. "Washington, and not long after you receive this I shall tell you myself how respectfully and affectionately I have the honor to be, my dear General, " Your most obedient, humble servant, " LAFAYETTE. " In case your affairs call you to the Springs, I beg leave either to go there after you, or to accompany you in your jour- ney." Lafayette arrived at Mount Yernon on the 17th, and re- mained twelve days in the enjoyment of the most sincere friendship and genuine hospitality. During that time Mount Yernon was crowded with other guests, who came to meet the great benefactor of America ; and when he departed for Balti- 152 MOUNT VKRNOX *~ \( LAKAYKTTE PAINTED BY C. \V. PEALE, IX 1778. more, quite a cavalcade of gentlemen accompanied him far on his way. There was a bond of union, of peculiar strength, between Washington and Lafayette other than that of mere personal friendship. They were members of the fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, and both loved the mystic brotherhood sin- cerely. Madame Lafayette was deeply interested in every- thing that engaged the attention of her husband ; and she had learned to reverence Washington with a feeling closely allied to that of devotion. She had corresponded with him, and received from him cordial invitations to the simple delights of rural life at Mount Vernon. She had, no doubt, earnestly desired to present some visible testimonial of her regard to the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 153 great patriot of the New World; and when her husband resolved to visit him in his retirement at Mount Vernon, she prepared, with her own hands, an apron of white satin, upon MASOiNIC APRON, WROUGHT BY MAUAXB THE MARCHIONESS LAFAYETTE. which she wrought, in needlework, the various emblems qf the Masonic order. This apron Lafayette brought with him, and presented to his distinguished brother at Mount Vernon. It was kept by Washington as a cherished memorial of a noble woman ; and, after his death, his legatees formally presented 154: MOUNT VERNON it to the Washington Benevolent Society of Philadelphia, in the following words : "To THE WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. " The legatees of General Washington, impressed with the most profound sentiments of respect for the noble institution which they have the honor to address, beg leave to present to them the enclosed relic of the revered and lamented Father of his Country. They are persuaded that the apron, which was once possessed by the man whom Philadelphians always delighted to honor, will be considered most precious to the society distinguished by his name, and by the benevolent and grateful feelings to which it owes its foundation. That this perishable memento of a hero, whose fame is more durable than brass, may confer as much pleasure upon those to whom it is presented as is experienced by the donors, is the sincere wish of the legatees. "October 2Gth, 1816." When the society to which this apron was presented was dissolved, the precious memento of Washington and his fair friend was presented to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and now occupies a conspicuous place upon the walls of the Grand Master's room in Masonic Hall, Philadelphia, carefully pre- served under glass, in a frame. More than two years previous to the visit of Lafayette, Washington received from the late Elkanah Watson, and his business partner, M. Cossoul, several Masonic ornaments, ac- companied by the following letter : AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. loo "To HIS EXCELLENCY, GENEKAL WASHINGTON, AMERICA. " Most Illustrious and Respected Brother : " In the moment when all Europe admire and feel the effects of your glorious efforts in support of American liberty, we hasten to offer for your acceptance a small pledge of our homage. Zealous lovers of liberty and its institutions, we have experienced the most refined joy in seeing our chief and brother stand forth in defence of a new-bom nation of repub- licans. " Your glorious career will not be confined to the protection of American liberty, but its ultimate effect will extend to the whole human family, since Providence has evidently selected you as an instrument in His hands to fulfil His eternal decrees. "It is to you, therefore, the glorious orb of America, we presume to offer Masonic ornaments, as an emblem of your virtues. May the Grand Architect of the universe be the guardian of your precious days, for the glory of the western hemisphere and the entire universe. Such are the vows of those who have the favor to be by all the known numbers, " Your affectionate brothers, "WATSON & COSSOUL. "EAST OF NANTES, 23d 1st Month, 5782." Washington replied as follows, from his head-quarters at Newburgh : "STATE OF NEW YORK, August IQth, 1782. " GENTLEMEN : The Masonic ornaments which accompanied your brotherly address of the 23d of January last, though 156 MOUNT VERNON elegant in themselves, were rendered more valuable by the flattering sentiments and affectionate manner in which they were presented. " If my endeavors to avert the evil with which the country was threatened, by a deliberate plan of tyranny, should be crowned with the success that is wished, the praise is due to the Grand Architect of the universe, who did not see fit to suffer His superstructure of justice to be subjected to the ambition of the princes of this world, or to the rod of oppres- sion in the hands of any power upon earth. " For your affectionate vows permit me to be grateful, and offer mine for true brothers in all parts of the world, and to assure you of the sincerity with which I am, " Yours, " GEO. WASHINGTON. ' Messrs. WATSON & COSSOUL, East of Nantes." Watson says, in relation to this gift : " Wishing to pay some mark of respect to our beloved Washington, I employed, in conjunction with my friend M. Cossoul, nuns in one of the convents at Nantes, to prepare some elegant Masonic orna- ments, and gave them a plan for combining the American and French flags on the apron designed for his use." They were executed in a superior and expensive style, being wrought in gold and silver tissue. This regalia was sent by Washington to Mount Vernon, and was afterw r ard worn by him when he met his brethren in the lodge at Alexandria. The apron and collar are now in possession of Washington Lodge, Alexandria, to which they were presented by the late George Washington Parke Custis. AND ITS ASSOCIATION'S. 157 The reverence which was felt for the person of Washington by individuals was expressed by public bodies, even, as in the example just given, before the close of the struggle which he conducted so nobly. The Federal Congress took the initiative in voting him honors, such as the senate of old Rome was wont to decree for their heroes and sages. That body was in session at Princeton, in the summer of 1783, when arrange- ments for the consummation of the declared peace with Great Britain was in progress, and "Washington, having been requested to make his head-quarters near, took post at Rocky Hill, a few miles off. Before his arrival, the Congress, on the 7th of August, " Resolved (unanimously, ten states being present), That an equestrian statue of General Washington be erected at the place where the residence of Congress shall be established ;" and appointed Arthur Lee, Oliver Ellsworth, and Thomas Mifflin, a committee to propose a plan for the same. The committee recommended a statue of bronze, the general to be represented in a Roman dress, holding a truncheon in his right hand, and his head encircled with a laurel wreath. The statue was to be supported by a marble pedestal, on which were to be represented the evacuation of Boston, the cap- ture of the Hessians at Trenton, the battle of Princeton, the action of Monmouth, and the surrender of York. On the upper part of the pedestal was to be the following inscrip- tion : "The United States, in Congress assembled, ordered this statue to be erected in the year of our Lord, 1783, in honor of GEORGE WASHINGTON, the illustrious commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States of America, during the war which 158 MOUNT VERNON vindicated and secured their liberty, sovereignty, and inde- pendence." It was resolved that this statue should be executed by the best artist in Europe, under the superintendence of the min- ister of the United States at Versailles (Doctor Franklin), at the expense of the government, and that Congress should transmit to the minister the best likeness of Washington that could be procured. A few months after the passage of these resolutions, two young artists arrived at Rocky Hill. These were Joseph Wright and William Dunlap. The former bore a letter from Dr. Franklin to Washington, and he was permitted to paint the portraits of the general and his wife. Dunlap, then a mere lad, also painted a portrait of the chief. Young Wright was a son of Mrs. Patience Wright, who had then acquired much eminence in Europe and America for her models in wax of living men, and he inherited some of his mother's peculiar faculty. Some members of the Congress, aware of this, conceived the idea of having him make a plaster cast from the face of Washington, to be sent to Europe for the use of the sculptor who should execute the bronze statue. It was proposed, and Washington consented to submit to the unpleasant operation of lying upon his back and having the wet plaster laid upon his face. What a spectacle did the great Republican leader present at that moment ! The operation was a most disagreeable one, for the manipu- lator was inexperienced and unskilful. He was very anxious, too, to relieve Washington from his position, and, in his haste and trepidation, an accident occurred which made his labor fruitless. After the plaster had sufficiently hardened, the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 159 artist proceeded, as quickly as possible, to remove it, when he let it fall upon the floor, and it was dashed in pieces. The desires of Congress, strongly expressed, to have another trial, were of no avail. Washington would not consent, and the statue voted by that body was never made. Young Wright appears to have been unfortunate in his efforts to acquire fame and fortune in connection with the likeness of Washington. He afterward cut a die for a medal- lion profile of the chief, which was declared by all to be an exceedingly faithful picture. After striking a few impressions the die was broken, and the artist's labor was lost. An engraving on copper, of larger size, was afterward made from one of these impressions. A broadside edition of Washing- ton's Farewell Address, printed in 1796, in possession of the writer, is embellished with an impression from that engraving. When Washington had become a private citizen a plain farmer on the banks of the Potomac neither desiring nor expecting further public employment, the hearts of his coun- trymen, beating warmly with gratitude for his services, yearn- ed to honor him with some testimonial of their profound regard. Virginia, his native state, proud to own him as her son, took the lead in the manifestation of this sentiment. On the 22d of June, 1784, the legislature of Virginia "Resolved, That the Executive be requested to take meas- ures for procuring a statue of General Washington, to be of the finest marble and best workmanship, with the following inscription on its pedestal : " 'The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia have caused this Statue to be erected as a Monument of Affec- tion and Gratitude to GEORGE WASHINGTON, who, uniting to 160 MOUNT VERNON the Endowments of the Hero the Virtues of the Patriot, and exerting both in establishing the Liberties of his Country, has rendered his Name dear to his Fellow Citizens, and given the World an immortal Example of true Glory." 1 This inscription was written by James Madison. On the day when this resolution was adopted, the General Assembly also voted an address to General Washington, and a joint com- mittee of the two houses was appointed to prepare one and present it. The committee, with Mr. Madison at the head, waited upon Washington, at Mount Yernon, a few days after- ward, presented the address, and received the following reply : " GENTLEMEN : Witli feelings which are more easy to be conceived than expressed, I meet and reciprocate the congrat- ulations of the representatives of this commonwealth on the final establishment of peace. " Nothing can add more to the pleasure which arises from a conscious discharge of public trust, than the approbation of one's country. To have been so happy, under a vicissitude of fortune, amidst the difficult and trying scenes of an arduous conflict, as to meet this, is, in my mind, to have attained the highest honor; and the consideration of it, in my present peaceful retirement, will heighten all my domestic joys, and constitute my greatest felicity. " I should have been truly wanting in duty, and must have frustrated the great and important object for which we re- sorted to arms, if, seduced by a temporary regard for fame, I had suffered the paltrj- love of it to interfere with my country's welfare: the interest of which was the only inducement which ^ carried me into the field, or permitted the sacred rights of civil AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 161 authority, though but for a moment, to be violated and in- fringed by a power meant originally to rescue and confirm them. " For those rewards and blessings which you have invoked for me in this world, and for the fruition of that happiness- which you pray for in that which is to come, you have, gen- tlemen, all my thanks and all my gratitude. I wish I eoul(J insure them to you, and the state you represent, a hundred- fold." Benjamin Harrison was governor of Virginia when the General Assembly requested the executive to take measures for procuring a statue of Washington ; and a little more than a month after the date of that resolution, he wrote to Doctor Franklin and Mr. Jefferson, then in Paris, on the subject, requesting them to attend to the matter, and acquainting them that he had ordered Mr. Peale to send them a full-length portrait of the general, to be used as a model for the sculptor. The only method by which a perfect likeness of the great patriot might be secured, was to have the artist make a model from the living face ; and Messrs. Franklin and Jefferson ac- cordingly engaged Houdon, a portrait sculptor, then without a rival in the world, to go to America for the purpose. Houdon was a small, active, and exceedingly industrious Frenchman ; careful and prudent, and disposed to make an excellent bar- gain for himself. " The terms," Mr. Jefferson wrote, " are twenty-five thousand livres [about $4,620], one thousand Eng- lish guineas (the English guinea being worth twenty-five livres), for the statue and pedestal. Besides this, we pay his expenses going and returning, which we expect will be 11 162 MOUNT VERNON between four and five thousand livres ; and if lie dies on the voyage, we pay his family ten thousand livres. This latter proposition was disagreeable to us ; but he has a father, mother, and sisters, who have no resource but in his labor ; and he is himself one of the best men in the world." To insure the state against loss in case of his death, Mr. Jeiferson, through Mr. Adams, procured an insurance upon Houdon's life, in London, at an additional expense of five hundred livres, or about ninety-two dollars. It was more than a year after the order for the statue was given before Houdon arrived. He came over in the same vessel that brought Doctor Franklin home. On the 20th of o September, 1785, the Doctor gave Houdon a letter of intro- duction to Washington, and, at the same time, he wrote to the general to apprise him of the sculptor's arrival. Washington immediately wrote to Houdon, saying, " It will give me pleas- ure, sir, to welcome you to this seat of my retirement; and whatever I have or can procure that is necessary to your pur- poses, or convenient and agreeable to your wishes, you must freely command, as inclination to oblige you will be among the last things in which I shall be deficient, either on your arrival or during your stay." Houdon arrived at Mount Vernon on the 3d of October, furnished with all necessary materials for making a bust of Washington. He remained there a fortnight, and made, on the living face of our illustrious Friend, a plaster mould, pre- paratory for the clay impression, which was then modelled into the form of a bust, and immediately, before it could shrink from drying, moulded and cast in plaster, to be afterward copied in marble, in Paris. That clay model was left at AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 163 HOCDON S BUST OF WASHINGTON. Mount Yernon, where it may be seen upon a bracket in the library, white-washed, so as to resemble marble or plaster of Paris. In the presence of Mr. Madison, Houdon made exact meas- urements of the person of Washington, and with ample mem- oranda concerning costume, et cetera, he returned to France. The statue was not completed until 1789, when to the inscrip- tion upon the pedestal were added the words : " Done in the year of CHRIST one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, and in the year of the commonwealth, twelve." Houdon's statue stands in the rotunda of the capitol at .Richmond. It is of fine Italian marble, size of life. The costume is the military dress of the Revolution. The right 164 MOUNT VERNON HOUDOJTS STATt:E OF WASHINGTON'. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 165 hand of the general rests upon a staff; the left is upon the folds of a military cloak thrown over the end of a bundle of fasces, with which are connected a sword and plough. Gouver- neur Morris, who was in Paris when the statue was executed, stood as a model for the person of Washington. " Of what use," says Dunlap, " his person could be to the artist I cannot conceive, as there was no likeness, in form or manner, between him and the hero, except that they were both tall men." Yet such was the fact. Morris, in his diary, under date of " June 5, 1789," says : " Go to M. Houdon's. He's been waiting for me a long time. I stand for his statue of General Washington, being the humble employment of a manikin. This is literally taking the advice of St. Paul, to be all things to all men." The foregoing facts are presented in contrast with the creations of fancy which an orator recently put forth as the forms of real history, in the following words : " Houdon, after taking a mould of Washington's face, persisted to make a cast of his entire person. * * * * The hero and the sage the man of supreme dignity, of spotless purity and the most veiled modesty, laid his sacred person bare and prone before the eyes of art and affection ! * * * * The cast of the body was left to the care of his workmen, but that of the head was reserved in his own hands." All this is utterly untrue. The workmen of Houdon, it is known, never joined him, and no such scene as above described ever occurred at Mount Vernon. Six months before Houdon's arrival at Mount Vernon, another artist was domiciled there. It was Eobert Edge Pine, a very small, morbidly irritable Englishman, who came to America in 1784, with the rare reputation of "king's painter," and with the lofty design of procuring portraits of 166 MOUNT VERNON the most distinguished men of the Revolution, as materials for a series of historical paintings of the war then just ended. His wife and daughters, who came with him, were as diminu- tive as himself, and the family appeared almost like pigmies. Pine had been a student of art under Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was highly esteemed by that artist, and w r as popular with a large number of influential men in England. He brought letters of introduction to Francis Hopkinson, of Philadelphia ; and the first portrait that he painted after his arrival in this country, was of that gentleman. It was finished early in 1785, and was first well engraved by Longacre, and published in the American Portrait Gallei^y. Robert Morris also pat- ronized him, and built a studio for him in Eighth street, in Philadelphia. Pine's republican proclivities made him unpopular with the ministerial party at home, and gave him corresponding sym- pathy in America. He found constant employment for his pencil in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Annapolis, and in several places in Yirginia. He went to Mount Vernon in May, 1785, with a letter of introduction to Washington from Francis Hop- kinson, in which the chief was requested to give the painter sittings, in furtherance of his grand design of composing scenes of the War for Independence. He was cordially re- ceived, and remained there three weeks. During that time Washington wrote as follows to Mr. Hopkinson, dated at Mount Yernon, May 16, 1785 : "DEAR SIR: 'In for a penny in for a pound,' is an old adage. I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit, like AND ITS ASSOCIATION'S. 167 Patience on a monument, whilst they are delineating the lines of my face. " It is a proof among many others of what habit and custom can effect. At first I was as impatient at the request, and as restive under the operation, as a colt is of the saddle. The next time I submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no dray moves more readily to the thill than I do to the painter's chair. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that I yielded a ready obedience to your request, and to the views of Mr. Pine. " Letters from England, recommendatory of this gentleman, came to my hand previous to his arrival in America, not only as an artist of acknowledged eminence, but as one who had discovered a friendly disposition toward this country, for which it seems he had been marked." While at Mount Vernon Pine painted the portraits of two of Mrs. Washington's grandchildren. These were Elizabeth Parke Custis, then about nine years of age, who afterward married Mr. Law, a wealthy English gentleman ; and George Washington Parke Custis, the last survivor of his family, who died at Arlington House, on the Potomac, in the autumn of 185T. The pictures are exquisitely painted, and, like all of Pine's productions, the colors retain their original vividness. Elizabeth is represented as a beautiful girl, with rich brown hair lying in careless curls, and in great profusion, upon her head and neck, her bosom covered with very light drapery, and having lying upon it the miniature of her father, John Parke Custis (printed on page 84 of this volume), suspended by a ribbon around her neck. 168 MOUNT VERNON ELIZABETH PARKE CUSTIS. The brother was then between four and five years of age. He is represented as a fair-haired child, with loose summer garments, and carrying in his hand a branch with two or three leaves upon it. These pictures now occupy a con- spicuous place upon the walls of the drawing-room at Arling- ton House. Pine's grand design was never carried' out. He died four or five years after his visit to Mount Vernon, and his family returned to England. The portraits which he had painted were sold and scattered. That of Washington was afterward found in Montreal, and purchased by the late Henry Brevoort, of Bedford, Long Island, and is now in possession of his son, J. Carson Brevoort. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 169 G. W. P. CUSTIS WHEN A CHILD. A few weeks after Pine left Mount Yernon, and while the plasterers were at work ornamenting the ceiling of the great drawing-room of the mansion, then just completed, there was an arrival at the home of Washington of an extraordinary character. It was a pack of French hounds, sent to him by Lafayette. On the 1st of September Washington wrote to the marquis, saying : " The hounds which you were so obliging as to send, arrived safe, and are of promising appearance. To Monsieur le Comte Doilliamson (if I miscall him, your hand- writing is to blame, and in honor you are bound to rectify the error), and in an especial manner to his fair Comtesse, my thanks are due for this favor. The enclosed letter, which I 170 MOUNT VERNON give you the trouble of forwarding, contains my acknowledg- ment of their obliging attention to me on this occasion." "While Washington thanked Lafayette and his friends for their kindly offices, he certainly did not feel specially thankful for the hounds., During the war, his hunting establishment, which had been perfect, had been almost broken up, and he felt no disposition to renew it. His kennel, which was situated very near the site of the present tomb of Washington, was quite dilapidated ; and the paling which enclosed it and a fine spring of water, had almost disappeared. Vulcan and True- love, Ringwood and Sweetlips, Singer and Forester, Music and Rockwood hounds of note on the master's register when he left Mount Vernon for the senate were missing or were too old for service when he returned, and for only about three years afterward did he keep any hounds at all. Those sent by Lafayette were of great size and strength. Because of their fierce disposition they were kept closely confined ; and, a few months after their arrival, Washington broke up his kennel, gave away his hounds, bade adieu to the chase forever, and, for his amusement, formed a fine deer-park below the mansion, upon a beautiful slope extending to the river. The late Mr. Custis has left on record the following anec- dote : " Of the French hounds, there was one named Vulcan, and we bear him the better in reminiscence, from having often bestrid his ample back in the days of our juvenility. It hap- pened that upon a large company sitting down to dinner at Mount Yernon one day, the lady of the mansion (my grand- mother) discovered that the ham, the pride of every Virginia housewife's table, was missing from its accustomed post of honor. Upon questioning Frank, the butler, this portly, and AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 1Y1 at the same time the most polite and accomplished of all butlers, observed that a ham, yes, a very fine ham, had been prepared, agreeably to the Madam's orders, but lo and behold ! who should come into the kitchen, while the savory ham was smoking in its dish, but old Vulcan the hound, and without more ado fastened his fangs into it ; and although they of the kitchen had stood to such arms as they could get, and had fought the old spoiler desperately, yet Vulcan had finally triumphed, and bore off the prize, aye, ' cleanly, under the keeper's nose.' The lady by no means relished the loss of a dish which formed the pride of her table, and uttered some remarks by no means favorable to old Vulcan, or indeed to dogs in general ; while the Chief, having heard the story, com- municated it to his guests, and, with them, laughed heartily at the exploit of the stag-hound" Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the French hounds, came a magnificent present from Samuel Yaughan, a wealthy resident of London, who had conceived a passionate admiration for the character of Washington. The object pre- sented was a very beautiful chimney-piece, wrought in Italy, from the finest white and Sienite marbles, for Mr. Yaughan's own use. At the time of its arrival in England that gentleman was informed of the improvements in the mansion then in progress at Mount Vernon, and, without unpacking it, he sent it directly to Washington. It is exquisitely wrought in every part. Upon three tablets of the frieze, under the highly orna- mented mantel, are sculptured, in very high relief, in white marble, pleasant domestic scenes in agricultural life. Upon the centre tablet, which is the largest, is an evening scene. A husbandman, with his wife and little child, is returning from the 172 MOUNT VKRNON ITALIAN CHIMNEY-PIECE. fields, driving a cow and a flock of sheep. Many of the latter are seen going into a fold for the night, and beyond the en- closure is seen the setting sun. On the left of -the central tablet is represented a boy, harnessing a span of horses, to be attached to a plough. On the right is a cottage. The house- wife, having just drawn a bucket of water from the well, is pouring it into a tub for the cleansing of vegetables, which are seen lying by the side of it. Her little girl has her apron full, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 173 TABLET OX THE LEFT. CENTRE TABLET. TABLET OX THE RIGHT. 174 MOUNT V E R Jf N and is eating a turnip, while a pig is coming out of a rickety sty near by. The fireplace is an enormous iron grate, capable of contain- ing several bushels of coal ; and the hearth is of white marble, inlaid with ornaments of polished maroon-colored marble, or encaustic tile. Upon the shelf are two small dark-blue vases, covered with flowers, delicately painted ; and between these are two bronze candelabra. The whole present a most pleas- ing picture to the eye; and the interest is increased by the associations which cluster around these objects, for they were there sixty ytars ago, when Washington received his guests in the spacious drawing-room, of which that chimney-piece is the greatest ornament. PUHCELAIN VASES. "With the elegant chimney-piece Mr. Yaughan sent three larger and more beautiful porcelain vases, than those which now stand AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 175 upon the shelf. They were made in India, and ornamented in London. The ground is a dark blue, with delicate gilt scroll and leaf ornaments, with landscapes painted upon one side and animals upon the other. These are now at Arlington House. Washington appears to have received other presents from Mr. Yaughan. On the 30th of November, 1785, he wrote to his London friend, saying : " I have lately received a letter from Mr. Yaughan (your son), of Jamaica, accompanied by a puncheon of rum, which he informs rne was sent by your order as a present for me. Indeed, my dear sir, you overwhelm me with your favors, and lay me under too many obligations to leave a hope remaining of discharging them." He had attempted to do so in a degree, for in the same letter, he says : " Hearing of the distress in which that island, with others in the West Indies, is involved by the late hurricane, I have taken the liberty of requesting Mr. Yaughan's acceptance, for his own use, of a few barrels of superfine flour of my own manufacturing." Two or three months later than the date of this letter, an- other present for Washington reached Mount Yernon, of more intrinsic value than all that he had received since his retire- ment from the army. It consisted of three asses, a jack and two jennies, selected from the royal stud at Madrid, and sent to him as a compliment from the king of Spain. His " Catholic Majesty" having been informed that Washington was endeav- oring to procure these animals of the best breed in Europe, for the purpose of rearing mules on his estates, made him this present, and sent over with them a person acquainted with the mode of treating them, who arrived at Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, and journeyed to Mount Yernon by land. 176 MOUNT VERNON According to a statement of the late Mr. Custis, the jack, called the Royal Gift, was sixteen hands high, of a gray color, heavily made, and of a sluggish disposition. " At the same time," says Mr. Custis, " the Marquis de Lafayette sent out a jack and jennies from the island of Malta. This jack, called the Knight of Malta, was a suberb animal, black color, with the form of a stag and the ferocity of a tiger. "Washington availed himself of the best qualities of the two jacks by cross- ing the breeds, and hence obtained a favorite jack, called Compound, which animal united the size and strength of the Gift with the high courage and activity of the Knight. The General bred some very superior mules from his coach mares. In a few years the estate of Mount Vernon became stocked with mules of a superior order, some of them rising to the height of sixteen hands, and of great power and usefulness. One wagon team of four mules sold at the sale of the Gen- eral's effects for eight hundred dollars." Washington, through Florida Bianca, the prime minister of Spain, most sincerely thanked his majesty for a present so truly valuable, in connection with his country's industrial operations ; and in answer, that functionary replied, " It will give pleasure to his majesty, that opportunities of a higher nature may offer, to prove the great esteem he entertains for your Excellency's personal merit, singular virtues, and char- acter." At the close of 1785, Washington had completed the enlarge- ment of his house, and was prepared for the accommodation of the increasing number of his visitors. He found his time so much occupied with these, and his equally increasing corre- spondence, that he resolved to employ a secretary, who should, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 177 at the same time, perform the duties of instructor of his adopted children. He addressed Genera-l Lincoln on the subject, who warmly recommended Tobias Lear, a young gentleman of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, who had recently graduated at Harvard University. In reply, Washington said: " Mr. Lear, or any other who may come into my family in the blended character of preceptor to the children and clerk or private secretary to me, will sit at my table, will live as I live, will mix with the company who resort to the house, and will be treated in every respect with civility and proper attention." A satisfactory arrangement was made, which proved a hap- py one. Mr. Lear went to Mount Yernon, and resided there much of the time afterward, until death removed the master. Washington became very fond of him. He married, and lost his wife there; and in his will, Washington wrote: "To Tobias Lear I give the use of the farm which he now holds, io virtue of a lease from me to him and his deceased wife (for and during their natural lives), free from rent during his life." We shall meet Mr. Lear again under solemn circumstances beneath the roof of Mount Vernon mansion. In his letter to General Lincoln respecting Mr. Lear, Wash- ington expressed his expectation that his correspondence would decline, for he had resolved to remain strictly a private citizen. On the contrary, circumstances which speedily arose, caused his correspondence to greatly increase, and the retired soldier soon found himself borne out upon the turbulent waves of political life. He was too patriotic to shrink from duty when his country demanded his services, and therefore events soon drew him from the coveted pleasures of his quiet home. Washington, with other sagacious men, had watched the 12 178 MOUNT VERNON course of public affairs since the close of the war with the deepest solicitude, for he perceived imminent dangers on every side. The country had become impoverished by the struggle, and was burdened with an enormous debt, domestic and foreign ; and the Congress possessed no executive powers adequate to a provision of means for the liquidation of those debts by direct taxation. For a long time it had been clearly perceived that, while the Articles of Confederation entered into by the respective states, formed a sufficient constitution of government during the progress of the war, they were not adapted to the public wants in the new condition of an independent sovereignty in which the people found themselves. There appeared abund- ant necessity for a greater centralization of power, by which the general government could act more efficiently for the pub- lic good. ' As early as the summer of 1782, the legislature of New York, on the suggestion of Alexander Hamilton, had recom- mended to each state " to adopt the measure of assembling a GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE STATES, specially authorized to revise and amend the Confederation y" and in the spring of 1786 a strong desire was felt in many parts of the country to have such convention. To a great extent the people had lost all regard for the authority of Congress, and the commercial affairs of the country had become wretchedly deranged. Every thing seemed to be tending toward utter chaos ; and many were the anxious councils held by "Washington and others under the roof of Mount Vernon, when the buds and the birds first appeared in Virginia in the spring of 1786. His correspond- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 179 ence with his compatriots in other states on the subject became quite extended ; and his letters at this time, full of the impor- tant topic, are remarkable for their words of wisdom and tone of caution. " I often think of our situation, and view it with concern," he wrote to John Jay in May. " From the high ground we stood upon, from the plain path which invited our footsteps, to be so fallen, so lost, is really mortifying." He saw the ten- dency toward ruin of the fair fabric which his wisdom and prowess had helped to raise, and his faith in public men had become \veakened. " My fear is," he said, " that the people are not sufficiently misled to retract from error. To be plainer, I think there is more wickedness than ignorance mixed in our councils. Under this impression I scarcely know what opinion to entertain of a general convention." Time and circumstances work out many changes in human opinions. Washington's were modified by the logic of events, and he soon favored a convention of the states. He received letters from all parts of the country upon the subject of public affairs, and his answers, widely circulated, had a commanding influence. In his quiet home at Mount Yernon he was silently wielding the powers of a statesman, and his opinions were eagerly sought. In 1785, commissioners appointed by Virginia and Mary- land, to form a compact relative to the navigation of the waters belonging to them in common, had visited Mount Vernon to consult with the retired soldier ; and suggestions were then made and discussed concerning a stronger federal government, which led to important results. It led, primarily, to a general discussion by the people of the subject of the inef- 180 MOUNT VKRXON ficiency of the federal government ; then to a convention of delegates from a few states at Annapolis, in Maryland, in September, 1786 ; and, finally, to a more important conven- tion the following year, on the recommendation of the Con- gress. The latter convention, composed of delegates from every state in the union except New Hampshire and Rhode Island, commenced its session in Philadelphia toward the close of May, 1787. Washington was put at the head of the Virginia delegation, but for some time he refused to accept the position, having solemnly declared that he would never appear in public life again. But on all occasions that great man yielded private considerations to the public good. After consultations with friends he consented to serve, and on the 9th of May he set out in his carriage from Mount Vernon on a journey to Phila- delphia. He was chosen president of the convention by unanimous vote, and for nearly four months he presided over the deliberations of that august assembly with great dignity. The convention adjourned on the 12th of September. On that day the present CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES was adopted, as a substitute for the ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. That constitution was submitted to the people for ratification. Toward the close of 1788 the majority of the states having signified their approval of it, the people proceeded to choose a chief magistrate of the republic. ' For more than two years "Washington kept- a vigilant and anxious eye upon the movements of the public mind in rela- tion to the federal constitution. Day by day his correspond- ence increased, and he found himself again upon the sea of political life. Meanwhile the hospitable mansion at Mount AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS . 181 Vernon was frequently filled with visitors; and one whom Washington loved, as a soldier and as a friend, was invited there as a guest, with a request that he should remain as long /** COLONKL DAY1D HUMPHREYS. as the house should be agreeable to him. That guest was David Humphreys, a native of Derby, Connecticut, and then about thirty five years of age. He had received the diploma of Bachelor of Arts at Yale College in 1771, when the eminent Doctor Daggett was president. His cotemporaries there were Dwight, Trumbull, and Barlow, a triad of poets, with whom he wj,s associated in paying court to the muse of song. Hum- phreys was a tutor in the family of the lord of Phillipse's manor, on the Hudson, for awhile, and then entered the con- tinental army as a captain. He rose to the rank of lieutenant- colonel during the war, and toward the close became one of Washington's favorite aides. He went abroad in 1784, as 182 MOUNT VERNON secretary to the commission for negotiating treaties of com- merce with foreign powers. He was abroad two years, and on his return made quite a protracted visit at Mount Yernon. That was in 1786 ; and one evening in August, while reclining on the bank of the river, in the shadows of its wooded slopes, he began the composition of an ode entitled "Mount Vernon" commencing with the following stanza : "By broad Potowmack's azure tide, Where Vernon's Mount, in sylvan pride, Displays its beauties far, Great WASHINGTON, to peaceful shades, Where no uuhallow'd wish invades, Retir'd from fields of war." Humphreys brought with him from France, at the special request of the king, a token of his "most Christian majesty's" regard for "Washington. It was an engraving of a full-length portrait of the king, Lotris XVI., in his state robes, enclosed in a superb gilt frame, made expressly for the occasion. At thv. top, surrounded by appropriate emblems, are the royal arms of France, and, at the bottom, the arms of the Washington family. In the corners are the monograms of the king and Washington" L. L. XVI." and " G. W." These the arms and the emblematic ornaments are in relief. The picture, in its original frame, is at Mount Vernon, dimmed and darkened by age and neglect. In 1788, Humphreys, as we have just observed, became a resident at Mount Vernon ; and there he wrote a Life of General Israel Putnam. Humphreys had been a member of that- officer's military family in the war for independence ; and AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 183 ENGRAVING OP LOUIS XVI. just before his departure for Mount Yernon, he visited the veteran at his home in Connecticut, and received from his own lips many of the stirring narratives recorded in that biography. At Mount Yernon Humphreys translated, from the French of M. Le Mierre, the tragedy of The Widow of Malabar, which was first brought out at the theatre in Philadelphia, by Hallam and Wignel (heads of the old American company of players), in May, 1790. The prologue, written by John Trum- 184 MOUNT VERNON bull, author of M'Fingall, was spoken ou tiiat occasion by Mr. Ilallain, and the epilogue, written by Humphreys, was spoken by Mrs. Henry. While Colonel Humphreys was at Mount Yernon in the autumn of 1788, distinguished visitors were entertained there for a few days. These were the Count de Moustier, the French minister, a handsome and polite man ; his sister, the Mar- chioness de Brienne who was illnaturedly described by Gen- eral Armstrong as a " little, singular, whimsical, hysterical old woman, whose delight is in playing with a negro child and caressing a monkey" and her son, M, Dupont. They had made a long journey from New Hampshire, by way of Fort Schuyler (now Utica) on the Mohawk River, where they en- joyed the spectacle of an Indian treaty. The Marchioness de Brienne was quite an accomplished writer and skilful amateur artist; and in the evening of the day when Washington was inaugurated the first President of the United States, the following year, the front of her brother's house was beautifully decorated with paintings by her own hand, suggestive of the past, the present, and the future in American history. These w r ere illuminated by borderings of lamps upon the doors and windows. In the autumn of th^t year the marchioness persuaded President Washington to sit to her for his portrait in minia- ture. In his diary, on Saturday, the 3d of October, he re- corded : " Walked in the afternoon, and sat about two o'clock for \ Madam de Brehan [Brienne] to complete a miniature profile of me, which she had begun from memory, and which she had made exceedingly like the original." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 185 The marchioness made several copies of this picture, one of which Washington presented to Mrs. Bingham, of Philadel- phia. From another, an engraving was afterward made in Paris, and several impressions were sent to Washington. She WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE. also painted on copper, in medallion form, the profiles of Wash- ington and Lafayette, in miniature, within the same circumfer- ence, and presented the picture to Washington. It is now at Arlington House. Another foreign lady, the wife of Peter J. Yon Berckel, of Rotterdam, the first embassador from Holland to the United States, was a great admirer of the character of Washington, and painted an allegorical picture in testimony of her reverence for the Liberator of his country. It was executed upon copper, eighteen by twenty inches in size. The design, intending to be complimentary to Washington, was well conceived. Upon the top of a short, fluted column, was a bust of Washington, crowned 186 MOUNT V E R N X WASHINGTON S DESTINY. with a military and civic wreatli. This stood near the entrance to a cave where the Parcse or Fates Clotho the Spinster, Lach- esis the Allotter, and Atropos the Unchangeable were seen, busy with the destinies of the patriot. Clotho was sitting with her distaff, spinning the thread of his life, and Lachesis was receiving it. Atropos was jnst stepping forward with open shears to cut it, w r hen Immortality, represented as a beautiful youth, seized the precious thread, and gave it to Fame, a winged female, with a trumpet, in the skies, who bore it on to future ages. The latter thought was beautifully expressed AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 187 by Thomas Moore, many years later, when he thus sang of a poet's immortality : " Even so, though thy memory should now die away, 'Twill be caught up again in some happier day, And the hearts and the voices of Erin prolong, Through the answering Future, thy name and thy song.' 1 This picture was presented to Washington by Mr. Von Berck- el, with the following lines, composed by the fair artist : "In vain the sisters ply their busy care, To reel off years from Glory's deathless heir: Frail things shall pass, his fame shall never die, Rescued from Fate by Immortality." After the death of Mrs. Washington, the painting became the property of the late G. W. P. Custis, who presented it to the venerable General C. C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, to whose military family he had belonged. While on a visit at Arling- ton House, a few years ago, Mr. Custis described the picture to the writer, at the same time illustrating his description by a rude pencil sketch, of which the accompanying engraving is a fac-simile on a smaller scale. Such was the impression of the picture upon the memory of that venerable man, after a lapse of fifty years. Soon after the departure of the French minister and his party from Mount Yernon, two other French gentlemen, with letters of introduction, visited Washington. These were M. de War- ville, and M. St. Frie, who, Washington said, were " intelligent, discreet, and disposed to receive favorable impressions of Amer- ica." Brissot de Warville was young, handsome, and full of enthusiasm. In his letter of introduction, Lafayette said, " He ' 188 MOUNT VERNON is very clever, and wishes much to be presented to you. He intends to write a history of America, and is, of course, desir- ous to have a peep into your papers, which appears to me a deserved condescension, as he is fond of America, writes pretty well, and will set matters in a proper light." Brissot de Warville did not write a history of America, but during the French revolution that soon followed this visit, he became quite a conspicuous object in the history of his own country. He was intensely democratic, and when he returned to France, he appeared in the streets of Paris in the garb of a Philadelphia Quaker, with which he was enamored. In the French revolution he became a Girondist leader. He finally made himself obnoxious to Robespierre and his party by refus ing to vote for the execution of the king, and was doomed to suffer death on the guillotine. He fell on the 30th of October, 1793, and the surviving Girondists were called Brissotins. In his letters, Brissot de Warville spoke with enthusiasm of America, and after his visit at Mount Yernon, he wrote of Mrs. Washington, saying, " Every thing about the house has an air of simplicity ; the table is good, but not ostentatious, and no deviation is seen from regularity and domestic economy. She superintends the whole, and joins to the qualities of an excel- lent housewife, the simple dignity which ought to characterize a woman whose husband has acted the greatest part on the theatre of human affairs, while possessing that amiability and manifesting that attention to strangers which makes hospitality so charming." As the year 1788 drew to a close, Washington felt well as- sured that he would be called by the voice of the nation to the important position of Chief Magistrate of the Republic. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 189 Earl} 7 in September it had been ascertained that a sufficient number of states had ratified the Federal Constitution, to make it the organic law of the land, and on the 1 3th, Congress passed an act, appointing the first Wednesday in January, 1789, for the people to choose electors of a President, according to the provisions of that constitution; the first Wednesday in Feb- ruary following for the electors to meet and make a choice ; and the first Wednesday in March for the new government to be organized in the city of New York. The hearts of all were now turned toward Washington as the man to whom the helm of state should be given, and his friends, well knowing his reluctance to re-enter public life, commenced writing persuasive letters to him. To all of them he expressed sentiments such as he wrote to Lafayette, when he said of the proffered office " It has no fascinating allure- ment for me. At my time of life and under my circumstances, the increasing infirmities of nature and the growing love of retirement do not permit me to entertain a wish beyond that of living and dying an honest man on my own farm. Let those follow the pursuits of ambition and fame who have a keener relish for them, or who may have more years in store for the enjoyment of them." The election was held at the appointed time, and Washington was chosen President of the United States for four years from the 4th of March ensuing. He now again yielded his own wishes to the claims of his country, and prepared to leave his beloved home. Meanwhile, office-seekers were sending him letters by scores, and sometimes they came in person to solicit favor for themselves or friends. He had already expressed his fixed determination to enter upon the duties of his office " not 190 MOUNT VERNON only unfettered by promises, but even uncliargeable with cre- ating or feeding the expectation of any man living" for his "assistance to office." By this declaration applicants soon learned the wisdom of silence. But there were men who sought the influence of his position, upon whom he not only looked with favor but with delight. These were they who had schemes which, though cherished by themselves for selfish purposes, would be of great advantage to the industrial interests of the country. One of these visited Mount Yernon at the close of March, 1789, to lay before the President elect some facts concerning the introduction of the manufacture of glass into America. A gentleman of Alex- andria, in a letter to a friend, thus describes the event : " I am just returned from Mount Vernon, where I was present at a scene which made every patriotic pulse vibrate with the most pleasurable sensations. " This, sir, was a tribute of a new citizen of the United States to their illustrious President. Mr. John F. Ameburg, a native of Germany, and an artist of considerable eminence, emigrated to this country with a large family and extensive fortune, and having contemplated the said commerce, etc., he selected, with great prudence, a central situation for the establishment of a manufactory of the first magnitude and importance, in which he has succeeded beyond all hope and expectation. Through his vast exertions he is now enabled to supply the United States with every species of glass, the quality of Avhich is equal, if not superior, to that imported, while he actually undersells all foreign traders in that article in our own markets. To the testimony of the ablest connois- seurs and characters of taste and respectability, it only remain- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 191 ed for Mr. Ameburg to court the patronage of the great patriot; and I had the good fortune to be present at an offering to his excellency of two capacious goblets of flint glass, exhibiting the general's coat-of-arms, etc. "The conversation naturally embraced and discussed our manufacturing interests, and was managed with such delicate address, as to pay a compliment to the ingenuity and labors of this celebrated artist, who has supported, without intermis- sion, three hundred hands these three years past, with the utmost order and character. New Bremen, which gives ap- pellation to this manufactory, is situated on Monococy, con- tiguous to the waters of the Potomac, by which he may in time supply the seaport towns of the eastern and southern states, and thus give domestic circulation to an immense quan- tity of specie remitted annually for this article alone to the foreign merchants." Washington had already been apprised of the existence of this establishment, for in a letter to Jefferson, in February preceding, he said : "A factory of glass is established upon a large scale on Monococy river, near Fredericktown, in Mary- land. I am informed it will this year produce glass of various kinds, nearly to the amount of ten thousand pounds value." So tardily did the members of the Federal Congress assem- ble, that a quorum was not present at the capital in New York until the beginning of April, when the votes of the electoral college were counted, and Washington was declared to be elected President of the United States by the unanimous voice of the people. That delay was a source of pleasure to him. In a letter to General Knox, he compared it to a reprieve ; " for," he said, " in confidence I tell you (with the 192 MOUNT VERNON world it would obtain little credit), that my movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution." " I am sensible," he continued, " that I am em- barking the voice of the people, and a good name of my own on this voyage, but what returns will be made for them heaven alone can foretell. Integrity and firmness are all I can promise. These, be the voyage long or short, shall never forsake me, although I may be deserted by all men ; for of the consolations which are to be derived from these, under any circumstances, the world cannot deprive me." The Senate of the United States was organized on the 6th of April, and John Langdon, a representative therein from New Hampshire, was chosen its president pro tempore. As soon as the votes of the electoral college were opened and counted, he wrote a letter to the illustrious farmer at Mount Yernon, notifying him of the fact of his election. This letter, with an official certificate, was conveyed to the chief magistrate elect by the venerable Secretary Thomson, who arrived at Mount Vernon on Tuesday, the 14th, between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning. Washington was making the usual tour of his farms, and the secretary was cordially received by Mrs. Washington, who had enjoyed his friendship and the hospitali- ties of his house at Philadelphia. On his return from the fields at a quarter before one, Wash- ington greeted Mr. Thomson with much warmth, for their friendship was most sincere. They had gone through a long struggle for their country's liberation hand in hand, one in the field, the other in the senate; and the bond of sympathy, strengthened by retrospection, was powerful. Thomson was AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 193 soon invited to the library, where he revealed the object of his visit, and delivered the letter of President Langdon. Public affairs at once became the topic of conversation, and long did CHAIiLES THOMSON. the two patriots linger at the table that day, after Mrs. Wash- ington, Colonel Humphreys, Mr. Lear, and two or three guests had withdrawn. Only for a few minutes were they separated,, when Washington, in his private study in an upper room, wrote the following letter to Mr. Langdon, and placed it in the hands of a servant to be conveyed to the post-office at Alexandria : "MOUNT VERNON, \Uh April, 1789. " SIR : I had the honor to receive your official communica- tion, by the hand of Mr. Secretary Thomson, about one o'clock this day. Having concluded to obey the important and flat- 13 194: MOUNT VERNON tering call of my country, and having been impressed with the idea of the expediency of my being with Congress at as early a period as possible, I propose to commence my journey on Thursday morning, which will be the day after to-morrow." Toward evening Washington left Mount Vernon on horse- back, accompanied by Billy, and rode rapidly toward Fred- .ericksburg, where his aged and invalid mother resided. He went to embrace her and bid her farewell before leaving for the distant seat of government. She was suffering from an acute disease, and the weight of more than fourscore years was upon her. The interview between the matron and her illustrious son was full of the most touching sublimity. " The people, madam," said Washington, " have been pleased, with the most flattering unanimity, to elect me to the chief magis- tracy of the United States; but before I can assume the func- tions of that office, I have come to bid you an affectionate farewell. So soon as the public business which must neces- sarily be encountered in arranging a new government can be disposed of, I shall hasten to Virginia, and " Here she interrupted him, saying, " You will see me no more. My great age, and the disease that is rapidly approaching my vitals, warn me that I shall not be long in this world. I trust in God I am somewhat prepared for a better. But go, George, fulfil the high destinies which Heaven appears to assign you ; go, my son, and may that Heaven's and your mother's blessing be with you always." The mother and son embraced for the last time, for before he could return to Virginia, she was laid in the grave. Washington returned to Mount Vernon on the evening of the 15th, and found every thing in preparation for the journey TRAVELLING BOOT-JACK. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 195 toward New York the following morning. Nothing essential to the master's comfort and convenience was fc omitted by the faithful Billy. There was a great stir at Mount Vemon on the morning of the 16th. Before sunrise a messenger had come from Alexandria, and departed ; and that evening Washington wrote in his diary : " About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Yernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity, and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York, in company with Mr. Thomson and Colonel Humphreys, with the best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations." Washington's neighbors and friends at Alexandria, had in- vited him to halt and partake of a public dinner on the way. This manifestation of friendship touched his heart ; but still deeper were his tenderest emotions awakened, when, as he and his travelling companions ascended a little hill about a mile from his home, arid came in view of the lodges at his gate, he saw a cavalcade of those friends, waiting to escort him to the town. The scene was one of marvellous interest. It was the first of a series of ovations that awaited him on his journey. The sun was shining with all the warmth and brightness of mid- April in Virginia, the smiles of cultivation were on every hand, and the song of birds and the perfume of early flowers fell gratefully upon the senses. Alas ! how changed is now the aspect of that ancient entrance 196 MOUNT VEKNON ANCIENT ENTRANCE TO MO0NT VKRNOK, IN 1858. to Mount Yernon ! Stately trees are near as in the days of old, but the voices of labor are no more heard. All is silence and desolation, except when the bird sings, the squirrel chirps, or the echo of the huntsman's gun startles the solitary pedestrian, for the road, lilled or gullied by the winds and rains, is scarcely passable for beast or vehicle. The old lodges, wherein once rang the merry laugh of children, are utterly deserted, and fast falling into hopeless decay ; and all around them a thick forest stands, where the wheat, the corn, and the tobacco once bloomed. "Washington was anxious to proceed to New York with as AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 197 little parade as possible, but the enthusiasm of the people could not be repressed. His journey was like a triumphal march. At Alexandria he partook of a public dinner, when the mayor said, "The first and best of our citizens must leave us; our aged must lose their ornament, our youth their model, our agri- culture its improver, our commerce its friend, our infant acad- emy its protector,* our poor their benefactor." ***** " Farewell !" he said, turning to Washington, " Go, and make a grateful people happy ; a people who will be doubly grate- ful when they contemplate this new sacrifice for their in- terests." Washington's feelings were deeply touched. He could say but little. " Words fail me," he said, " unutterable sensations must, then, be left to more expressive silence, while from an aching heart I bid all my affectionate friends and kind neigh- bors farewell." The president was greeted by the Marylanders at George- town ; and at Baltimore he was entertained by a large number of citizens at a public supper. When leaving the city the next morning, at half-past five, he was saluted by discharges of cannon, and attended by a cavalcade of gentlemen who rode seven miles with him. At the frontier of Pennsylvania, he was met early on the morning of the 19th, by two troops of cavalry, and a cavalcade of citizens, at the head of whom were Governor Mifflin and Judge Peters; and by them he was escorted to Philadelphia. Upon that frontier, Washington left his carriage, and mounting a superb white charger, he took * Washington had given funds for the establishment of an academy at Alexan- dria, and was its patron. 198 MOUNT VERNON position in the line of procession, with Secretary Thomson on one side, and Colonel Humphreys on the other. At Gray's Ferry, on the Schuylkill, they were joined by an immense number of citizens, led in order by General St. Glair. A triumphal arch \vas erected on both sides of the river covered with laurel branches, and approached through avenues of evergreens. As "Washington passed under the last arch, Angelica Peale, daughter of the eminent artist, and a child of rare beauty, who was concealed in, the foliage, let down a handsomely ornamented civic crown of laurel, which rested upon the head of the patriot. The incident caused a tumultuous shout. The procession moved on into the city, its volume increasing every moment. At least twenty thousand people lined its passage-way from the Schuylkill to the city ; and at every step the President was greeted with shouts of " Long live George Washington !" " Long live the Father of his country !" The President was entertained at a sumptuous banquet, given by the authorities, at the City Tavern, and the next morning the military were paraded, to form an escort for him to Trenton. But heavy rain frustrated their designs. Washington was com- pelled to ride in his carriage, and he would not allow an escort of friends to travel in the rain. When the President and suite approached Trenton in the afternoon, the clouds had disappeared, and in the warm sun- light, he crossed the Delaware amid the greetings of shouts, and cannon-peals, and the feu dejoie of musketry. His route lay across the same bridge over the little stream which flows through the town, where, twelve years before, he had been driven across by Cornwallis, on the evening previous to the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 199 battle at Princeton. Upon that bridge, where he was thus humiliated, was now a triumphal arch, twenty feet in height, supported by thirteen pillars twined with evergreens. It wa& the conception and work of the women of New Jersey,, under the general direction of Annis Stockton ; and upon the side of his approach, over the arch, were emblazoned the words : "THE DEFENDER OF THE MOTHERS WILL BE THE PROTECTOR OF THE DAUGHTERS." The arch was otherwise beautifully decorated, and as Wash- ington approached, many mothers with their daughters appeared on each side of it, all dressed in white. As he passed, thirteen young girls, their heads wreathed with flowers, and holding baskets of flowers in their hands, while they scattered some in his way, sang the following ode, written for the occasion by Governor Howell : ' Welcome, mighty chief, once more Welcome to this grateful shore ; Now no mercenary foe, Aims again the fatal blow, Aims at thee the fatal blow. " Virgins fair, and mothers grave, Those thy conquering arm did save, Build for thee triumphal bowers. Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers ! Strew your hero's way with flowers.' With joyous greetings at every step, Washington proceeded through New Jersey, over which he had once fled with a half 200 MOUNT VERNON starved, half-naked army, before a closely pursuing foe ; and at Elizabethtown Point, he was met, on the morning of the 23d, by a committee of both houses of Congress, and several civil and military officers. They had prepared a magnificent barge for his reception, which was manned by thirteen pilots, in white uniforms, commanded by Commodore Nicholson. In New York harbor, the vessels were all decked with flags, in honor of the President, and gayly dressed small boats swarmed upon the waters, filled with gentlemen and ladies. The Spanish ship-of-war Galveston, lying in the harbor, was the only vessel of all nations, that did not show signs of respect. The neglect was so marked, that many words of censure were heard, when, at a given signal, just as the barge containing Washington was abreast of her, she displayed, on every part of her rigging, every flag and signal known among the nations. At the same moment she discharged thirteen heavy guns, and these were answered by the grand battery on shore. In the midst of this cannonade, and the shouts of the multitude on land and water, the President debarked, and was conducted by a military and civic procession to the residence prepared for his use, at No. 10 Cherry-street, near Franklin Square. Such was the reception of the first President at the capital of the Union. The demonstrations of joy and loyalty were most sincere and universal, and yet the pen of wit and the pencil of caricature had been busy. As early as the 7th of April, John Armstrong wrote to General Gates, from New York, saying: " All the world here are busy in collecting flowers and sweets of every kind to amuse and delight the President in his ap- proach and on his arrival. Even Roger Sherman has set his AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 201 head at work to devise some style of address more novel and dignitied than ' Excellency.' Yet in the midst of this admira- tion, there are skeptics who doubt its propriety, and wits who amuse themselves at its extravagance. The first will grumble, and the last will laugh, and the President should be prepared to meet the attacks of both with firmness and good nature. A caricature has already appeared called ' THE ENTRY,' full of very disloyal and profane allusions. It represents the general mounted on an ass, and in the arms of his man Billy Hum- phreys leading the Jack, and chanting hosannahs and birth-day odes. The following couplet proceeds from the mouth of the devil : ' The glorious time has come to pass, When David shall conduct an ass.' " On Thursday, the 30th of April, 1789, "Washington was in- augurated the First President of the United States. The cere- monies were preceded by a national salute at Bowling Green, the assembling of the people in the churches to implore the blessings of Heaven on the nation and the President, and a grand procession. The august spectacle was exhibited upon the open gallery at the front of the old Federal Hall at the head of Broad-street, in the presence of a vast assemblage of people. Washington was dressed in a suit of dark-brown cloth, and white silk stockings, all of American manufacture, with silver buckles upon his shoes, and his hair powdered and dressed in the fashion of the time. Before him, when he arose to take the oath of office, stood Chancellor Livingston, in a suit of black broadcloth ; and near them were Yice-President Adams, Mr. Otis, the Secretary of the Senate, who held an open Bible upon 202 MOUNT VERNON a rich crimson cushion, Generals Knox, St. Clair, Steuben, and other officers of the army, and George Clinton, the Governor of the state of New York. BIBLE USED AT THE INACGCRATION OP WASHINGTON. Washington laid his hand upon the page containing the fif- tieth chapter of Genesis, opposite to which were two engrav- ings, one representing The Blessing of Zebulon, the other The Prophecy of Issachar. Chancellor Livingston then waved his hand for the multitude to be silent, and in a clear voice, read the prescribed oath. The President said "I swear," then bowed his head and kissed the sacred volume, and with closed eyes as he resumed his erect position, he continued with solemn voice and devotional attitude, " So help me God !" " It is done ! " exclaimed the Chancellor, and, with a loud voice, shouted, " Long live George Washington, President of the United States ! " The people echoed the shout again and again ; and as the President moved toward the door, the first congratulatory hand that grasped his was that of his early and life-long friend, Richard Henry Lee, to whom in childhood, almost fifty years before, he had written : " I am going to get a whip-top soon, and you may see it and whip it." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 203 How many human whip-tops had these stanch patriots managed since they wrote those childish epistles ! That Bible is now in the p( -session of St. John's Lodge, in New York. Upon each cover is a record, in gilt letters, con- cerning the Lodge ; and on the inside, beautifully written upon parchment, in ornamental style, by G. Thresher, surmounted by a portrait of Washington, engraved by Leney, of New York, is the following statement : " On this Sacred Volume, on the 30th day of April, 5789, in the city of New York, was administered to GEOKGE WASH- INGTON, the first President of the United States of America, the oath to support the Constitution of the United States. This important ceremony was performed by the Most Wor- shipful Grand Master of Free and Accepted Masons of the state of New York, the Honorable Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of the state. " Fame stretched her wings and with her trumpet blew, 1 Great Washington is near, what praise is due ? What title shall he have ?' She paused, and said, ' Not one his name alone strikes every title dead.' " Mrs. Washington did not journey to New York with her husband. Her reluctance to leave Mount Yernon and the quiet of domestic pursuits was quite equal to his. She loved her home, her family, and friends, and had no taste for the excite- ments of fashionable society and public life. She was, in every respect, a model Virginia housekeeper. She was a very early riser, leaving her pillow at dawn at every season of the year, and engaging at once in the active duties of her house- hold. Yet these duties never kept her from daily communion 204 MOUNT VERNON with God, in the solitude of her closet. After breakfast she invariably retired to her chamber, where she remained an hour reading the Scriptures and engaged in thanksgiving and prayer. For more than half a century she practised such devotions in secret ; and visitors often remarked that when she appeared after the hour of spiritual exercises, her countenance beamed with ineffable sweetness. All day long that careful, bustling, industrious little house- wife kept her hands in motion. "Let us repair to the old lady's room," wrote the wife of Colonel Edward Carrington to her sister, a short time before Washington's death, while on a visit to Mount Vernon "Let us repair to the old lady's room, which is precisely in the style of our good old aunt's that is to say, nicely fixed for all sorts of work. On one side sits the chambermaid, with her knitting ; on the other a little colored pet, learning to sew. An old decent woman is there, with her table and shears, cutting out the negroes' winter clothes, while the good old lady directs them all, incessantly knitting herself. She points out to me several pair of nice colored stockings and gloves she had just finished, and presents me with a pair, half done, which she begs I will finish and wear for her sake. It is wonderful, after a life spent as these good people have necessarily spent theirs, to see them, in retirement, assume those domestic habits that prevail in our country." Mrs. "Washington always spoke of the time when she was in public life, as wife of the President of the United States, as her " lost days." She was compelled to be governed by the etiquette prescribed for her, and she was very restive under it. To the wife of George A. Washington, the General's nephew, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. * 205 who had married her niece, and who was left in charge of domestic affairs at Mount Vernon when her husband assumed the presidency, she wrote from New York, saying : " Mrs. Sims will give you a better account of the fashions than I can. I live a very dull life here, and know nothing that passes in the town. I never go to any public place indeed I think I am more like a state prisoner than any thing else. There are certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from ; and, as I caim'ot do as I like, I am obstinate and stay at home a great deal." At that time the etiquette of the President's household was not 'fully determined on. In his diary, on the 15th of Novem- ber, Washington wrote : " Eeceived an invitation to attend the funeral of Mrs. Roosevelt (the wife of a senator of this state [New York], but declined complying with it first, because the propriety of accepting any invitation of this sort appeared very questionable and secondly (though to do it in this instance might not be improper), because it might be difficult to discriminate in cases which might thereafter happen." The establishment of precedents and the arrangements of etiquette were of more importance than might at first thought appear. The plan of having certain days and hours when the President would receive calls, was a measure of absolute necessity, in order that the chief magistrate might have the control of his time ; and yet it offended many who were of the extremely democratic school. The precedents of monarchy might not be followed in a simple republic, and yet a certain dignity was to be preserved. The arrangement of official ceremonies, connected with the 206 MOUNT VEEN ON President personally, was finally left chiefly to Colonel Hum- phreys, who had been abroad, and was a judicious observer of the phases of society under every aspect. The customs which were established during Washington's administration concern- ing the levees the President not returning private visits, et cetera have ever since prevailed ; and the chief magistrate of the republic is never seen in the position of a private citizen. In the letter just quoted, Mrs. Washington wrote : " Dear Fanny, I have, by Mrs. Sims, sent you a watch. It is one of the cargo that I have so long mentioned to you that was expected. I hope it is such a one as will please you. It is of the newest fashion, if that has any influence on your taste. The chain is Mr. Lear's choosingj and such as Mrs. Adams, the Vice-President's lady, and those in polite circles use. It will last as long as the fashion, and by that time you can get another of a fashionable kind." The watch mentioned in this letter was a flat gold one, manufactured by Lepine, u watchmaker to the king." Wash- ington purchased one for his own use at the same time, it being much more agreeable in the pocket than the old-fash- ioned bulky English watch. That watch, with the key and seals, became the property of Bushrod Washington, the Gen- eral's nephew, who inherited Mount Yernon, and was by him, in the following clause in his will, given to a friend : " My gold watch I give to my friend Robert Adams, of Philadelphia, knowing that he will approbate the gift, not for the intrinsic value of the article, but because it was worn by the Father of our Country, and afterward by his friend. After the death of the said Robert Adams, I give the said watch to his son Bushrod." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 207 On the 23d of March, 1830, the watch was forwarded to Mr. Adams by John A. Washington, who inherited Mount Vernoii from his uncle Bushrod. It is now in the possession of Bush- rod Washington Adams, of Phila- delphia, and is preserved with the greatest care as a precious memento of the beloved patriot. Our en- graving shows the watch, ribbon, seal, and key, on a scale one-third less than the objects themselves. The picture of the impression of the seal, exhibiting the Washington arms and motto, is the size of the original. The stones of the seal and key are cornelian ; the former white and the latter red, and polygonal in -form. The dial is of white enamel; the seconds figures carmine red. The case is standard gold, the alloy cop- per, giving it the red appearance of jeweller's gold. WASHINGTON 8 LKPINH WATCH, SKAL, AND KEY. In the letter from which we have just quoted, Mrs. Washington exhibits the care and frugality which she always practised at home. To Fanny she wrote : " I send to dear W iria a piece of chene to make her a frock, and a piece of muslin which I hope is long enough for an apron for you. In exchange for it, I beg you will give me a worked muslin apron you have, like my gown WASHINGTON 8 LAST WATCH-SEAL. 208 MOUNT VERNON that I made just before I left home, of worked muslin, as 1 wish to make a petticoat to my gown of the two aprons." It should be remembered that the writer was in the midst of the gay life of New York, then the federal metropolis ; the wife of the presiding chief magistrate of the republic, receiving visits from the great of many lands and the most notable of her own, and having her own arid her husband's large fortune at command. Some may call her practice the development of a parsimonious spirit. It was not so. Hers was the " liberal hand" that devised "liberal things" for the poor and unfor- tunate. It was only an exhibition of economy in the use of articles and the management of affairs, which American house- wives would do well to imitate. Mrs. Washington left Mount Vernon for New York on the 19th of May, in her chaise, accompanied by her grandchildren, Eleanor Parke and George Washington Parke Custis, and a small escort on horseback. She was clothed tidily in manufac- tures of our own country entirely. She lodged at Baltimore the first night of her journey. When she approached that city she was met by a cavalcade of gentlemen and escorted into the town. In the evening fireworks were displayed in her honor ; and after supper she was serenaded by a band of musicians, composed of some gentlemen of the city. When she approached Philadelphia she was met, ten miles from the town, by the president of the state and the speaker of the assembly, accompanied by two troops of dragoons and a large cavalcade of citizens. Some miles from the city she was met by a brilliant company of women, in carriages. They attended her to Gray's Ferry, on the Schuylkill, where they all partook of a collation ; and from that place to the city, Mrs. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 209 Robert Morris occupied a seat by the side of the President's wife, resigning her own carriage to Master Custis, then a boy a little more than eight years of age. The procession entered the city at two o'clock, when the beloved lady was greeted by thirteen discharges of cannon, and the shouts and cheers of a great multitude. While in the city she was the guest of Mrs. Morris. On Monday morning, the 26th of May, Mrs. "Washington left Philadelphia for New York, accompanied by her hostess. The military paraded for the purpose of forming an escort as far as Trenton, but, as on the morning when her husband left the same city a month before, rain prevented the performance. After proceeding a short distance they took a respectful leave of her, and returned. She slept at Trenton that night, and on Tuesday night she and her family were guests of Governor Livingston, at Elizabethtown. On Wednesday morning Washington proceeded, in his splendid reception-barge, to Elizabethtown Point to meet his family, accompanied by Robert Morris and several other dis- tinguished men. The barge was manned as on the occasion of the reception of the President. When it approached White- hall, on its return, crowds of citizens thronged the wharves ; and from the grand battery the voices of thirteen cannon, in quick succession, uttered a greeting. On the day after Mrs. Washington's arrival, the President entertained a few guests at a family dinner. These consisted of Vice-President Adams, Governor Clinton, the Count du Mous- tier (French minister), Don Diego Gardoqui (Spanish minister), Mr. Jay, General St. Clair, Senators Langdon, Wingate, Izard, and Few, and Mr. Muhlenburg, Speaker of the House of Rep- u 210 MOUNT VERNON resentatives. The dinner was plain ; and Washington, standing at the head of the table, asked a blessing. After the dessert, a single glass of wine was offered to each of the guests. The President then arose, and led the way to the drawing-room, and the company departed without ceremony. On the following day, Mrs. Washington held her first draw- ing-room. It was attended by a very numerous company, of the highest respectability. Unlike the levees at the Presiden- tial mansion in our time, they were attended only by persons connected with the government and their families, the foreign ministers and their families, and others who held good positions in fashionable and refined society, either on account of their own merits or their social relations. All were expected to be in full dress, on these occasions. Mrs. Washington, though averse to all ostentatious show and parade, fully appreciated the dig- nity of her station, and was careful to exact those courtesies to which she was entitled. She was also careful not to allow public ceremonies to inter- fere with some of the life-long habits of herself and husband. He usually stood by her side, for awhile, on these occasions, and received the visitors as they were presented. But he did not consider himself visited. He was a private gentleman ; and when the visitors were assembled, he moved among the company, conversing with one and another, with the fa- miliarity that marked his manner in his own drawing-room at Mount Vernon. On these occasions he usually wore a brown cloth coat, with bright buttons, and had neither hat nor sword. The reception was never allowed to last beyond the ap- pointed hour, which was from eight to nine. When the clock AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 211 in the hall was striking the latter hour, Mrs. Washington would say to those present, with a most complacent smile, " The Gen- eral always retires at nine, and I usually precede him." In a few minutes the drawing-room would be closed, the lights extinguished, and the presi- dential mansion would be as dark and quiet before ten o'clock, as the house of any private citizen. The President held his levees or receptions, on Tuesdays, from three to four o'clock in the after- noon, and these were very numerously attended, but by gentlemen only. On these occasions, after the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia, he was always dressed in a suit of black velvet, black silk stockings, silver knee and shoe buckles, and having his hair powdered, and tied in a black silk bag or queue behind. He wore yellow gloves, and held a cocked hat with a cockade upon it, the edges adorned with a black feather about an inch deep. He also wore an elegant dress-sword which he bore with the utmost grace. This sword had a finely-wrought and polished steel hilt, which appeared at the left hip. The scabbard was white polished leather. The coat was worn over the sword, the point of the scabbard only appearing below the skirt. At his levees in New York the President also wore a dress-sword, but less elegant than the one WASHINGTON'S worn in Philadelphia, which an eye-witness has described to me. The sword used in New York is preserved 212 MOUNT VERNON at Mount Vernon, it having fallen to the lot of Bushrod Wash- ington, in the distribution of several similar weapons, disposed of by the following clause in Washington's will : " To each of my nephews, William Augustine Washington, George Lewis, George Steptoe Washington, Bushrod Wash- ington, and Samuel Washington, I give one of the swords or couteaux, of which I may die possessed ; and they are to choose in the order they are named. These swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights; and in the latter case to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands, to the relinquishment thereof." This sword appears in Stuart's full-length portrait of Wash- ington, painted for the Marquis of Landsdowne. It has a fine silver-gilt hilt, and black leather scabbard, silver-gilt mounted. On one side of the blade are the words RECTE FACE ICE "Do what is right ;" on the other, NEMINE TIMEAS " Fear no man." At his receptions in Philadelphia the President always stood, says an eye-witness, " in front of the fireplace, with his face toward the door of entrance. The visitor was conducted to him, and he required to have the name so distinctly pro- nounced that he could hear it. He had the very uncommon faculty of associating a man's name and personal appearance so durably in his memory as to be able to call any one by name who made him a second visit. He received his visitor with a dignified bow, while his hands were so disposed as to indicate that the salutation was not to be accompanied with shaking hands. This ceremony never occurred in these visits, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 21-'i even with the most intimate friends, that no distinction might be made. " As visitors came in, they formed a circle around the room. At a quarter past three the door was closed, and the circle was formed for that day. He then began on the right, and spoke to each visitor, calling him by name, and exchanging a few words with him. When he had completed his circuit, he resumed his first position, and the visitors approached him in succession, bowed, and retired. By four o'clock this ceremony was over." In New York the President occupied the mansion at No. 10 Cherry -street, for about nine months, and then moved to a more spacious house on the west side of Broadw r ay, between Trinity Church and the Bowling Green, where the French minister, M. de Moustier, had resided. It was a very pleasant house, with a garden extending to the shore of the Hudson. An English gentleman, who visited the President at that time, described the drawing-room as "lofty and spacious, but," he added, "the furniture was not beyond that found in the dwellings of opulent Americans in general, and might be called plain for its situation. The upper end of the room had glass doors, which opened upon a balcony, commanding an extensive view of the Hudson River, and the Jersey shore opposite." Some of the furniture here alluded to, was purchased of the French minister. Under date of February 1, 1790, "Washing- ton recorded in his Diary " Agreed, on Saturday last to take Mr. McComb's house, lately occupied by the Minister of France, for one year from and after the 1st day of May next ; and would go into it immediately, if Mr. Otto, the present posses- sor, could be accommodated. This day I sent my Secretary to MOUNT VERNON examine the rooms to see how my furniture would be adapt- ed to the respective apartments." Two days afterward he recorded : "Visited the apartments in the house of Mr. McCombs made a disposition of the rooms fixed on furniture of the Minister's (which was to be sold, and was w r ell adapted to par- ticular public rooms) and directed additional stables to be built." One piece of the French minister's furniture " fixed upon " and purchased at that time, was a writing-desk, or secretary, and also an easy chair that was used w r ith it. These Washing- ton took with him to Philadelphia, and afterward to Mount Vernon ; and in his will they were disposed of as follows : " To my companion in arms and old and intimate friend, Dr. Craik, I give my bureau (or as cabinet-makers call it tambour secretary), and the circular chair, an appendage of my study." That secretary is now in the possession of a grandson of Dr. Craik, the Reverend James Craik, of Louisville, in Ken- tucky. The engraving is from a pencil-sketch by Mr. Alex- ander Casseday. The seat of the federal government was removed from New York to Philadelphia in 1790, by act of Congress. That body adjourned on the 12th of August, and Washington imme- diately thereafter made a voyage to Newport, Rhode Island, for the benefit of his health. Close application to public business had caused a nervous prostration, that threatened con- sequences almost as serious as those with which he had been menaced by a malignant carbuncle the year before. He had also suffered severely from a violent inflammation of the lungs. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 215 WASUINUION S SKCHKTARY AND CIRCI'I.AR CHAIR. The sea voyage was beneficial, and on the 30th of August the President and his family set out for Mount Yernon, there to spend the few months before the next meeting of Con- gress at Philadelphia. They left New York for Elizabethtown in the splendid barge in which they had arrived, amid the thunders of cannon and the huzzas of a great multitude of people. Washington never saw New York again. Having no further use for his barge, he wrote to Mr. Tvandall, the 216 MOUNT VEKNON chairman of the committee through whom he had received it, "As I am at this moment about commencing my journey to Virginia, and consequently will have no farther occasion for the use of the barge, I must now desire that you will return it, in my name, and with my best thanks, to the original proprie- tors; at the same time I shall be much obliged if you will have the goodness to add, on my part, that in accepting their beautiful present, I considered it as a pledge of that real urbanity which, I am happy in declaring, I have experienced on every occasion during my residence among them ; that I ardently wish every species of prosperity may be the constant portion of the respectable citizens of New York ; and that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the polite atten- tions' of the citizens in general, and of those in particular to whom the contents of this note are addressed." A few days after this, Washington was again beneath the roof he loved so well, at Mount Vernon, but the coveted enjoyment of his home was lessened by the weight of public cares that pressed upon him. The old feeling of deep respon- sibility, which it was so difficult for him to lay aside at the close of his military career, returned ; and in his library, where he loved to devote his morning hours to reading and the labors of the pen in recording facts connected with his pursuits as a farmer, he might be seen with state papers, maps, plans, and every thing that indicated the weighty cares of a public man. The Congress then just closed had been a most important one, and the labors of every conscientious officer and employee of the government had been very severe. Upon them had AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 217 been laid the responsible and momentous task of putting in motion the machinery of a new government, and laying the foundations of the then present and future policy of that gov- ernment, domestic and foreign. As the chief magistrate of the republic, the chief officer of the government, the chief archi- tect of the new superstructure in progress, Washington felt the solemnity of his position, and the importance of the great trusts which the people had placed in his hands; and the sense of all this denied him needful repose, even while sitting within the quietude of his home on the banks of the Potomac. Just before Congress adjourned, Washington received a curious present, which he carried with him to Mount Vernon. It was the key of the Bastile, that old state prison in Paris, which had become a strong arm of despotism. It was first a royal castle, completed by Chnrles V. of France, in 1383, for the defence of Paris against the English, but in the lapse of time it had become a fortress, devoted to the selfish purposes of tyranny. It was hated by the people. During the preceding year, the slumbering volcano of revo- lution burning in the hearts of the people, upon which for a long time, royalty and the privileged classes in France had been reposing, showed frequent signs of inquietude, which proph- esied of violent eruption. The abuses of the government, under the administration of the ministers of a well-meaning but weak monarch, had become unendurable, and the best friends of France had spoken out boldly against them. Among these the boldest was Lafayette. He had made a formal demand for a National Assembly. "What!" said the Count d'Artois to him on one occasion, " Do you make a mo- tion for the States General?" "Yes, and even more than that," 218 MOUNT VERNON Lafayette replied ; and that more was nothing less than a char- ter from the king, by which the public and individual liberty should be acknowledged and guarantied by the future States General. That body opened their session at Versailles in May, and soon constituted themselves a National Assembly. Their hall was closed by order of the king, on the 20th, and from that time until early in July, Paris was dreadfully agitated. Every one felt that a terrible storm was ready to burst. The king, surrounded by bad advisers, attempted to avert it by means which precipitated it. He placed a cordon of troops around Paris, to overawe the opposers of government. The Assembly, supported by the people, organized a militia within the city. The number required was forty-eight thousand. In two days, two hundred and seventy thousand citizens enrolled them- selves. A state mayor was appointed by the town assem- bly, and the Marquis La Salle was named commander-in-chief. The armed people intercepted the court dispatches by arrest- ing the royal couriers ; and an immense assemblage went to the Hospital of the Invalids, on the 10th of July, and demand- ed of the governor to deliver up to them all the arms depos- ited there. He refused, and they seized thirty thousand mus- kets and twenty pieces of cannon. They also seized all the arms in the shops of the armorers, and those of the Garde- Meuble. The tumult throughout the city became terrible in strength and intensity, and the National Assembly sent a dep- utation to the king to inform him of the disturbances, and to point to the cause the surrounding troops. The king, under advice, refused to make a change, haughtily declaring that he alone had the right to judge of the necessity of public measures. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 219 On the night of the 13th, Paris was comparatively quiet. It was the lull before the bursting of the storm. The dismissal of M. Necker from the post of minister of finance, had greatly exasperated the inhabitants. The streets were barricaded. The people formed themselves into a National Guard, and chose Lafayette as their commander. Each assumed some sort of military dress, and laid hold of gun, sabre, scythe, or whatever weapon first fell in their way. Multitudes of men of the same opinion, embraced each other in the streets as brothers ; and in an instant, almost, a National Guard was formed, consisting of a hundred thousand determined men. It was believed that the Bastile contained a large quantity of arms and ammunition, and thither the people repaired on the morning of the 14th. A parley ensued, the gates were opened, and about forty citizens, leaders of the people, were permitted to go in. The bridges were then drawn, and a firing was heard within ! That moment marks the opening of the terrible drama of the French revolution. The fury of the populace was excited beyond all control. That firing fell upon their ears as the death-knell of their friends who had gone within the walls of the hated prison. With demoniac yells they dragged heavy cannon before the gates, in the face of a storm of grape-shot from the fortress. They quailed not before the storm, but attacked the stronghold of Despotism with tiger-like ferocity. The alarmed governor, Delaunay, soon displayed a white flag, and the firing ceased. A second deputation was now sent to the governor. They shared the fate of the former. With redoubled fury the people again assailed the walls, made a breach, rushed in, 220 M U X T V E R N N seized the governor and other officers, and conducting them in triumph to the Place de Grace, first cut off their hands, and then their heads. The latter were then paraded upon pikes through the streets, and the great iron key of the Bastile was carried to the Hotel de Ville, or town hall. The National Assembly decreed its demolition. Seven prisoners who had been confined in its dungeons since the reign of Louis the Fifteenth (three of whom had lost their reason) were set at liberty, and the old fortress was demolished soon afterward. Upon its site is now the Place de Bastile, within which stands the Column of July, erected by order of Louis Philippe, in commemoration of the events of the memorable Three Days of July, 1830, which placed him upon the throne of France. The National Assembly, by unanimous vote, now elected Lafayette commander-in- chief of the National Guard of all France, a corps of more than four millions of armed citizens. lie accepted the appointment, but, imitating the example of Washington, he refused all remuneration for his services, not- withstanding a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year was voted. The king approved of his appointment, and the mon- arch, being deserted by his bad advisers, threw himself upon the National Assembly. "He has hitherto been deceived," Lafayette proclaimed to the people, " but he now sees the merit and justice of the popular cause." The people shouted " Vive le roi ! " and for a moment the revolution seemed to be at an end. The key of the Bastile was placed in the hands of Lafayette, and in March following he sent it to Thomas Paine, then in London, to be forwarded as a present to Washington, together with a neat drawing, in pencil, representing the destruction of AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 221 222 MOUNT VERNON the prison. A copy of that sketch is given on page 221. With these Lafayette enclosed a letter to Washington, dated the 17th of March, in which he gave him a general picture of affairs in France, and added : "After I have confessed all this, I will tell you, with the same candor, that we have made an admirable and almost incredible destruction of all abuses and prejudices; that every thing not directly useful to or coming from the people has been levelled ; that in the topographical, moral, and political situation of France, we have made more changes in ten months than the most sanguine patriots could have imagined ; that our internal troubles and anarchy are much exaggerated ; and that, upon the whole, this revolution, in which nothing will be w r anting but energy of government, as it was in America, will im- plant liberty and make it flourish throughout the world ; while we must wait for a convention, in a few years, to mend some defects, which are not now perceived by men just es- caped from aristocracy and despotism." He then added : "Give me leave, my dear general, to present you with a picture of the Bastile, just as it looked a few days after I ordered its demolition, with the main key of the fortress of despotism. It is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adopted father as an aide-de-camp to my general as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch." After considerable delay, Paine forwarded the kej' and drawing to Washington, with a letter, in which he said : " I feel myself happy in being the person through whom the Marquis has conveyed this early trophy of the spoils of despot- ism, and the first ripe fruits of American principles trans- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 223 planted into Europe, to his great master and patron. When he mentioned to me the present he intended for you, my heart leaped with joy. It is something so truly in character, that no remarks can illustrate it, and is more happily expressive of his remembrance of his American friends than any letters can convey. That the principles of America opened the Bastile is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes to the right place. "I should rejoice to be the direct bearer of the marquis's present to your excellency, but I doubt I shall not be able to see my much-loved America till next spring. I shall therefore send it by some American vessel to New York. I have permitted no drawing to be taken here, though it has been often requested, as I think there is a propriety that it should first be presented. But Mr. West wishes Mr. Trumbull to make a painting of the presentation of the key to you." On the llth of August Washington wrote to Lafayette : " I have received your affectionate letter of the 17th of March by one conveyance, and the token of the victory gained by liberty over despotism by another, for both which testimonials of your friendship and regard I pray you to accept my sincerest thanks. In this great subject of triumph for the New World, and for humanity in general, it will never be forgotten how conspicuous a part you bore, and how much lustre you reflected on a country in which you made the first displays of your character/' KEY OP THE BASTILK. 224: MOUNT VERNON The key of the Bastile, and the drawing representing the demolition of the fortress, are at Mount Vernon. The former is preserved in a glass case, and the latter hangs near it, in the same relative position in which they were originally placed by Washington, in the great passage of the mansion. Directly opposite the key, in the great passage, hangs the spy-glass used by Washington in the Revolution, and after- WASHINOTON S SPY-GLASS. ward at Mount Vernon. This was always carried by Billy, his favorite body-servant, to be used in reconnoitring at a distance. Mr. Oustis, in his Recollections of Washington, gives the following anecdote in connection with this spy-glass, or telescope, on the field of Monmouth : "A ludicrous occurrence varied the incidents of the 28th of June. The servants of the general officers were usually well armed and mounted. Will Lee, or Billy, the former hunts- man, and favorite body-servant of the Chief, a square, mus- cular figure, and capital horseman, paraded a corps of valets, and, riding pompously at their head, proceeded to an eminence crowned by a large sycamore-tree, from whence could be seen an extensive portion of the field of battle. Here Billy halted, and, having unslung the large telescope that he always carried in a leathern case, with a martial air applied it to his eye, and reconnoitred the enemy. Washington having observed these manoeuvres of the corps of valets, pointed them out to his AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 225 officers, observing, 'See those fellows collecting on yonder height ; the enemy will fire on them to a certainty.' Mean- while the British were not unmindful of the assemblage on the height, and perceiving a burly figure well mounted, and with a telescope in hand, they determined to pay their respects to the group. A shot from a six-pounder passed through the tree, cutting away the limbs, and producing a scampering among the corps of valets, that caused even the grave coun- tenance of the general-in-chief to relax into a smile." The pocket telescope used by Washington throughout the war was presented to President Jackson, by the late George Washington Parke Custis, en the 1st of January, 1830. To this interesting memorial Mr. Custis had affixed a silver plate, with the following inscription : "Erat Anctoris, est conservatoris, Libertatis. 1775 On presenting the gift, Mr. Custis observed that, "Although it was in itself of but little value, there was attached unto it recollections of the most interesting character. It had been raised to the eye of the departed Chief, in the most awful and momentous periods of our mighty conflict; it had been his companion from '75 to '83, amid the toils, privations, the hopes, the fears, and the final success of our glorious struggle for independence; and, as the memorial of the hero who triumphed to obtain liberty, it is now appropriately bestowed upon the hero who triumphed to preserve it. Mr. C. request- ed that, as he (the General) was childless, he would be pleased, at his decease, to leave the telescope as Alexander left hi& kingdom ' to the most worthy.' " 15 226 MOUNT VERNON President Jackson accepted the present and the compliment, and made a brief response. Whether he left it " to the most worthy," at his decease, or where it is now, we have no information. Washington carried with him to Mount Yernon, with the key of the Bastile, a pair of elegant pistols, which, with equally elegant holsters, had been presented to him by the Count de Moustier, the French minister, as a token of his personal regard. These weapons, it is believed, are the ones pre- sented by Washington to Col. Samuel Hay, of the tenth Pennsylvania!! regiment, who stood high in the esteem of his general. They bear the well-known cipher of Wash- ington, and were purchased at the sale of Colonel Hays' effects, after his death, toward the close of 1803, by John Y. Baldwin, of Newark, in New Jersey. Mr. Baldwin pre- sented them to Isaac I. Greenwood, of Brooklyn, New York, in 1825, in whose possession one of them remains, the other having been lost on the occasion of a fire which destroyed the residence of Mr. Green- wood's mother. Our engraving represents the preserved one. A son of Mr. Baldwin relates an anecdote in connection with these pistols : "When I was a boy," he says, "my father WASHINGTON'S PISTOL. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 227 would frequently take up the Aurora, a magazine then pub- lished in Philadelphia, and marking off about twenty lines, would say, 'Now, Joseph, if you read those correctly, and without a single mistake, you shall fire off one of Washing- ton's pistols.' Such a promise was a high incentive, and if the task was fairly accomplished, my mother would take off her thimble to measure the charge, and my father, having loaded the pistol, I would go to the backdoor with an exulting heart, and lifting the weapon on high, tightly grasped with both hands, pull the trigger." While at Mount Yernon in the autumn of 1790, Washington received from the Count D'Estaing a small bust of M. Necker, the French minister of finance, or comptroller-general, when the French devolution broke out in 1789. James Necker was a native of Geneva, in Switzerland. He went to France as ambassador for the republic, where, in 1765, he obtained the office of syndic to the East India Company, and in 1775 was made director of the royal treasury. He exhibited such virtue of character, and such eminent abilities, that twice, though a foreigner, he was made prime minister of France. He was popular with the people at the breaking out of the French Revolution, but that storm was so variable and fickle, that he returned to Switzerland, where he remained until his death, which occurred in 1804, at the age of seventy-two years. His daughter married Baron de Stae'l Holstein, a Swedish ambassador at the court of France. She was the Madame de Stae'l so well known in the world of letters. The little bust of Necker sent by D'Estaing to Washing- ton, is upon a bracket over the fireplace in the library at Mount Yernon, where the President placed it himself. Upon 228 MOUNT VERNON the tall pedestal are two brass plates, bearing inscriptions, and also a small plate upon the lower part of the bust itself. On the latter is only the name of NECKER. Upon the upper plate on the pedestal are the words : QUI NOBIS RESTITUIT REM. Upon the second or lower plate is inscribed : PRESENTED TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BY HIS MOST DUTIFUL, MOST OBEDIENT, AND MOST HUMBLE SERVANT, ESTAING, A CITIZEN OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA, BY AN ACT OF 22o FEB., 1785, AND A CITIZEN OF FRANCE IN 1786. Count D'Estaing, who had twice commanded a French fleet on our coast, in co-operation with American land forces, be- came a member of the Assembly of Notables in the early part of the French Revolution, and being suspected of an unfriendly feeling toward the Terrorists, he was destroyed by the guillo- tine, on the 29th of April, 1793. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 229 Iii a letter to Tobias Lear, (then in New York,) dated at Mount Vernon on the 3d of August, 1790, Washington requests him, when able to get at Count D'Estaing's letters (which, with others, had been packed for removal from New York to Philadelphia), to send him a transcript of what the Count says of a bust of M. Necker he had sent to him, together with a number of prints of Necker and Lafayette. Upon another bracket in the library at Mount Vernon, not far from the little head of Necker, is a full-size bust of Lafayette, a copy ot the one in the capitol at Richmond made by lloudon, by order of the legislature of the state of Vir- ginia, in 1786, which was exe- cuted under the direction of Mr. Jefferson, then American minister in Paris. The legisla- ture of Virginia also ordered a copy to be made and pre- sented to the city of Paris. This fact was made known to the authorities there, by Mr. Jefferson, in the following words : BUST OF M. NKCKEK. " The legislature of the state of Virginia, in consideration of the services of Major-General the Marquis de Lafayette, has resolved to place his bust in their capitol. This intention of erecting a monument to his virtues, and to the sentiments with which he has inspired them, in the country to which they are 230 MOT] NT VERNON indebted for his birth, has induced a hope that the city of Paris would consent to become the depository of a second proof of their gratitude. Charged by the state with the BUST OF LAFAYETTE. execution of this resolution, I have the honor to solicit the Prevot des Marchands and municipality of Paris to accept the bust of this brave officer, and give it a situation where it may continually awaken the admiration and witness the respect of the allies of France. "Tnos. JEFFERSON. 'Dated [at Paris] llth September, 1786." The Prevot soon received a letter from the Baron de Bre- teuil, minister and secretary of state for the department of Paris, informing him that the king, to whom the proposition had been submitted, approved of the bust being erected in the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 231 city. The council accordingly assembled on the 28th of Sep- tember, and Mr. Short, of Virginia, representing Mr. Jefferson (who was confined to his room by illness), went to the Hotel de Ville to present, the bust, which Houdon had satisfactorily executed. The proceedings of the meeting were opened by M. Pelletier de Morton taine, counsellor of state and Prevot des Marchands, by stating its object. M. Veytard, the chief clerk, read all the documents connected with the matter, after which M. Ethit de Corny,, attorney-general and knight of the order of Cincinnatus, delivered an address, in which he recounted the services of Lafayette in America, the confidence of the army in him, and the attachment of the people to him. In his official capacity he then gave the requisite instructions for the reception of the bust, agreeably to the wishes of the king. It was accordingly placed in one of the galleries- of the Hotel de Ville, where it remains to this day. This was a most rare honor to be paid to a young man, only twenty-nine years of age. It was- as unexpected to Lafayette as it was grateful to his feelings ;, and it was an additional link in the bright chain of memories and sympathies which bound, him to this country. Soon after his arrival in New York to assume the duties- of the presidency, Washington imported a fine coach from Eng- land, in which, toward the close of the time of his- residence there, and while in Philadelphia, he often rode with his family, attended by outriders. On these occasions it was gen- erally drawn by four, and sometimes by six fine bay horses. The first mention of a coach, in his diary, in which he evident- ly refers to this imported one, is under the date of December 12, 1789, where he records as follows: 232 MOUNT V E R X X " Exercised in the coach with Mrs. "Washington and the two children (Master and Miss Custis) between breakfast and din- ner went the fourteen miles round." Previous to this he WASHINGTON 8 uiousu CUACU. mentions exercising in "a coach" (probably a hired one), and in "the post-chaise" the vehicle in which he travelled from Mount Yernon to New York. This coach was one of the best of its kind, heavy and sub- stantial. The body and wheels were a cream color, with gilt mouldings ; and the former was suspended upon heavy leathern straps which rested upon iron springs. Portions of the sides of the upper part, as well as the front and rear, were furnished with neat green Venetian blinds, and the remainder was enclosed with black leather curtains. The latter might be raised so as to make the coach quite open in fine weather. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS 233 ^^ C T N The blinds afforded shelter from the storm while allowing ventilation. The coach was lined with bright black leather; and the driver's seat was trimmed with the same. The axles were wood, and the curved reaches iron. Upon the door Washing- ton's arms were handsomely emblazoned, having scroll ornaments issuing from the space between the shield and the crest ; and below was a ribbon with his motto upon it. Upon each of the four panels of the coach was an allegorical picture, emblem- atic of one of the seasons. These were beautifully painted upon copper by Cipriani, an Italian artist. The ground was a very dark green so dark that it appeared nearly black ; and the allegorical figures were executed in bronze, in size nine and a half by ten inches. One of them, emblematical of spring, is represented in the engraving. Washington and his family travelled from Elizabeth town to Philadelphia in this coach when on their way from New York to Mount Yernon, in the early autumn of 1Y89. Dunn, his driver, appears to have been quite incompetent to manage the six horses with which the coach was then drawn ; and almost immediately after leaving Elizabethtown Point, he allowed the coach to run into a gully, by which it was injured. At Governor Livingston's, where they dined, another coachman EMBLAZONING ON WASHINGTON'S COACH. 234 MOUNT VERNON PICTUKK ON A PANEL OF WASHINGTON'S COACH. was employed. In a letter to Mr. Lear, written at a tavern in Maryland, while on his way to Mount Vernon, Washington said : " Dunn has given such proof of his want of skill in driving, that I find myself under the necessity of looking out for some one to take his place. Before we reached Elizabethtown we were obliged to take him from the coach and put him on the wagon. This he turned over twice, and this morning he was found much intoxicated. He has also got the horses into the habit of stopping." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 235 In a letter to Mr. Leur soon after arriving at Mount Yernon, Washington mentions the fact that he had left his coach and harness with Mr. Clarke, a coach-maker in Philadelphia, for repairs, and requests him to see that they are well done, when he shall reach that city, Mr. Lear being then in New York. Clarke built the coach in England, came over with it and another precisely like it (which was imported by Mrs. Powell, of Philadelphia), and settled in business in that city. On the 31st of October, Washington again writes about his coach, in a letter to Mr. Lear. He appears to have had the emblazoning changed at that time, and instead of his entire coat-of-arms upon the doors, he had the crest only retained. He tells Mr. Lear that he thinks a wreatli around the crests would better correspond with the seasons which were to re- main on the panels, than the motto ; and suggests that the motto might be put upon the plates of the harness. He leaves the whole matter, however, to the taste and judgment of Mr. Lear and the coach-maker. This English coach was purchased by the late Mr. Custis, of Arlington, when the effects of the general were sold, after Mrs. Washington's death ; and it finally became the property of the Right Reverend William Meade, now Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia. Of this vehicle, the bishop thus writes : " His old English coach, in which himself and Mrs. Wash- ington not only rode in Fairfax county, but travelled through the entire length and breadth of the land, was so faithfully executed, that at the conclusion of that long journey, its build- er, who came over with it, and settled in Alexandria, was 236 MOUNT YERNON proud to be told by the general, that not a nail or screw had failed. It so happened, in a way I need not state, that this coach came into my hands about fifteen years after the death of General Washington. In the course of time, from disuse, it being too heavy for these latter days, it began to decay and give away. Becoming an object of desire to those who delight in relics, I caused it to be taken to pieces and distributed among the admiring friends of Washington who visited my house, and also among a number of female associations for benevolent and religious objects, which associations, at their fairs and other occasions, made a large profit by converting the fragments into .walking-sticks, picture-frames, and snuff- boxes. About two-thirds of one of the wheels thus pro- duced one hundred and forty dollars. There can be no doubt that at its dissolution it yielded more to the cause of charity than it cost its builder at its first erection. Besides other mementos of it, I have in my study, in the form of a sofa, the hind seat, on which the general and his lady were wont to sit."* From Mount Yernon, during the recess, Washington wrote several letters to Mr. Lear, who was charged with the removal of the effects of the President from New York, hiring a house for his residence in Philadelphia, and arranging the furniture of it. Previous to Washington's arrival in Philadelphia from New York, the corporation of the latter city had hired for his use the house of Robert Morris, in Market street, on the south side of Sixth street the best that could be procured at that time. Washington had examined it and found it quite too * Meade's Old Churches, Ministers, and Families in Virginia, II, 237. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 237 small to accommodate his household as he could wish, even with an addition that was to be made. " There are good sta- bles," he said, " but for twelve horses only, and a coach- house which will hold all my carriages." There was a fine garden, w T ell enclosed by a brick wall, attached to the man- sion. The state legislature, had, at about the same time, appropri- ated a fine building for his use on South Ninth street, on the grounds now covered by the University. But he declined ac- cepting it, because he would not live in a house hired and fur- nished at the public expense. There were other considerations, without doubt, that caused Washington to decline the liberal offers of the state and city authorities, to relieve him of any private expense for the sup- port of his personal establishment. The question of the per- manent locality of the seat of the federal government was not then fairly settled, and the Philadelphians were using every means in their power to have it fixed in their city. Wash- ington was aware of this, and as he was more favorable to a site farther south, he was unwilling to afford a plea in favor of Philadelphia, such as the providing of a presidential man- sion would afford. This matter appears to have given Washington considerable anxiety. He was willing to rent Mr. Morris's house on his own account, and, with "his accustomed prudence, he directed Mr. Lear to ascertain the price; but up to the middle of No- vember his secretary was unsuccessful in his inquiries, though they were repeatedly made. Washington was unwilling to go into it, without first knowing what rent he had to pay. u Mr. Morris, has most assuredly," he said, " formed an idea 238 MOUNT VERNON of what ought to be the rent of the tenement in the condition he left it ; and with this aid, the committee [of the Philadel- phia city council] ought, I conceive, to be as little at a loss in determining what it should rent for, with the additions and alterations which are about to be made, and which ought to be done in a plain and neat and not by any means in an extravagant style ; because the latter is not only contrary to my wish, but would really be detrimental to my interest and convenience, principally because it would be the means of keeping me out of the use and comforts of a home to a late period, and because the furniture and every thing else would require to be accordant therewith." Washington was convinced that the committee was delaying with the intention of having the rent paid by the public, to which he would not consent ; and he was not willing to have the place fixed and furnished in an extravagant manner, and thus be subjected to pay extortionate prices for the same. " I do not know," lie said, " nor do I believe that any thing unfair is intended by either Mr. Morris or the committee ; but let us for a moment suppose that the rooms (the new ones I mean) were to be hung with tapestry, or a very rich and costly paper, neither of w r hich would suit my present furniture ; that costly ornaments for the bow windows, extravagant chimney- pieces and the like were to be provided ; that workmen, from extravagance of the times, for every twenty shillings' worth of work would charge forty shillings ; and that advantage would be taken of the occasion to newly paint every part of the house and buildings ; w r ould there be any propriety in adding ten or twelve-and-a-half per cent, for all this to the rent of the house in its original state, for the two years that I am to hold AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 239 it? If the solution of these questions is in the negative, wherein lies the difficulty of determining that the houses and lots, when finished according to the proposed plan, ought to rent for so much. " When all is done that can be done, the residence will not be so commodious as that I left in New York, for there (and the want of it will be found a real inconvenience at Mr. Morris's) my office was in the front room, below, where persons on business immediately entered ; whereas, in the present case, they will have to ascend two pairs of stairs, and to pass by the public rooms as well as the private chambers to get to it." In making suggestions to Mr. Lear about the proper ar- rangement of the furniture, even in minute detail, "Washington said: "There is a small room adjoining the kitchen that might, if it is not essential for other purposes, be appropriated to the Sevres china, and other things of that sort, which are not in common use." He undoubtedly referred to the sets of china which had been presented, one to himself, and the other to Mrs. Washington, by the officers of the French army. The former was a dull white in color, with heavy and confused scroll and leaf ornaments in bandeaux of deep blue, and hav- ing upon the sides of the cups and tureens, and in the bottoms of the plates, saucers, and meat dishes, the Order of the Cin- cinnati, held by Fame, personated by a winged woman with a trumpet. These designs were skilfully painted in delicate colors. These sets of china were presented to Washington and his wife, at the time when the elegant and costly Order of the Cincinnati (delineated on page 130) was sent to him. That 240 MOUNT VERNON Order, I omitted to mention in the proper place, cost three thousand dollars. The whole of the eagle, except the beak and eye, is composed of diamonds. So, also, is the group of mili- tary emblems above it, in which each drum-head is composed of one large diamond. WASHINGTON'S CINCINNATI CHINA. Several pieces of the Cincinnati china, as it is called, are preserved at Arlington House. In the engraving is shown a group composed of a large plate, a soup tureen, custard cup, and teapot. The set of china presented at the same time by the French officers to Mrs. Washington, was of similar material, but more delicate in color than the general's. The ornamentation was also far more delicate, excepting the delineation of the figure and Cincinnati Order on the former. Around the outside of each cup and tureen, and the inside of each plate and saucer, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. MBS WASHINGTON" S CHINA. is painted, in delicate color, a chain of thirteen large and thirteen small elliptical links. Within each large link is the name of one of the original thirteen states. On the sides ot O the cups and tureens, and in the bottom of each plate and saucer, is the interlaced monogram of Martha Washington M. W. enclosed in a beautiful green wreath, composed of the leaves of the laurel and olive. Beneath this is a ribbon, upon which is inscribed, in delicately-traced letters, DECUS ET TUTAM KNABILLO. From the wreath are rays of gold, which give a brilliant appearance to the pieces. There is also a delicate- colored stripe around the edges of the cups, saucers, and plates. A few pieces of this set of china are preserved at Arlington House. The engraving represents a cup and saucer, and plate. Mrs. Atkinson, of Gennantown, granddaughter of Dr. David Stuart, who owns Washington's telescope, already mentioned, 16 242 MOUNT VERNON bas a single piece of porcelain ware that belonged to the household goods of Mount Vernon. It is a white china butter- bowl and dish, with a cover. It is entirely white, with the exception of a gold stripe along the edges of the bowl and dish, and the knob of the lid. The bowl and dish are united. At that time the china like that presented by the CHINA BUTTER-BOWL AND DISH. made at the Sevres manufactory, the art of decorating porce- lain or china-ware with enamel colors and gold being then not generally known. The colors used are all prepared from metallic oxides, which are ground with fluxes, or fusible glasses of various degrees of softness, suited to the peculiar colors with which they are used. When painted, the goods are placed in the enamel kiln, when the fluxed colors melt and fasten to the glazed surface, forming colored glasses. The gold, which is applied in the form of an amalgam, ground in turpentine, is afterward polished with steel burnishers. The first Monday in December was the day fixed upon for the assembling of Congress. The seat of government, as we have observed, had been transferred to Philadelphia, not per- manently, but temporarily. As early as December, 1788, the legislature of Virginia had offered to present to the United States a tract of land ten miles square, anywhere within the bounds of that commonwealth, for the permanent seat of gov- ernment. Maryland made a similar offer. The citizens ot New Jersey and Pennsylvania asked to have it upon the Delaware, within a tract of land ten miles square, to be ceded AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 213 to the United States. The people of Trenton, in New Jersey, petitioned to have it there; those of Lancaster, in Pennsyl- vania, wished to have it there, while, as we have observed, the Philadelphians were extremely anxious to have their city remain the federal capital, as it had been most of the time since the commencement of the Revolution. States and towns perceived great local advantages to be derived from a political metropolis in their midst, and were ready to make heavy sacrifices to obtain the boon. It is amusing to observe, in the correspondence and public proceed- ings of the times, how strongly local prejudices were engaged in the consideration of the matter. Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, eager to have the Congress fix on that city as its future home, wrote to one of the Pennsylvania representatives, saying : " 1 rejoice in the prospect of Congress leaving New York ; it is a sink of political vice ;" and advised tearing it away from that city " in any way" A Yirginian declared that, in his opinion, New York was the best situation in the Union for the federal capital, it being superior to any place within his knowledge, " for the orderly and decent behavior of its inhabitants ;" while the South Carolinians objected to Philadelphia, on account of the Quakers, who, they declared, were " eternally dogging Southern members with their schemes of slave emancipation." It was finally agreed by both Houses of Congress, that the federal capital should be upon the " Potomac River, between the eastern branch and Conogocheague," and that Philadelphia should be the federal city for ten years, until the one upon the Potomac should be laid out, and proper public buildings erected. The selection of the exact site was left to the Presi- dent. 24:4: MOUNT VERXON This action dissatisfied the New Yorkers, and elated the Philadelphians, for they considered a " half loaf better than no bread." Robert Morris had been chiefly instrumental in secur- ing the residence of the government at Philadelphia for the ten years, and wit and satire pointed their keenest arrows at him. A caricature was issued "in which," says Griswold, "the stout senator from Pennsylvania was seen marching off with the federal hall upon his shoulders, its windows crowded with members of both houses, encouraging or anathematizing this novel mode of deportation, while the devil, from the roof of the Paulus' Hook ferry-house, beckoned to him in a patron- izing manner, crying, ' This way, Bobby.' " Freneau, who had written many pungent poems during the Revolution, used his pen upon the topic of the removal with considerable vigor, in prose and verse. In a political epistle, he makes a New York housemaid say to her friend in Phila- delphia : "As for us, my dear Nanny, we're much in a pet, And hundreds of houses will be to be let ; Our streets, that were just in a way to look clever, Will now be neglected and nasty as ever ; Again we must fret at the Dutchified gutters And pebble-stone pavements, that wear out our trotters. ********* This Congress unsettled is, suie, a sad thing Seven years, my dear Xanny, they've been on the wing ; My master would rather saw timber, or dig Than see them removing to Conogocheague Where the houses and kitchens are yet to be framed, The trees to be felled and the streets to be named." There were some Philadelphians who were as afflicted AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. because Congress was coming there, as New Yorkers were in having the government leave their city. As soon as it was ascertained that the government would reside there ten years, rents, and the prices of every kind of provisions and other necessaries of life, greatly advanced. "Some of the blessings," said a letter-writer at Philadelphia, quoted by Griswold, " an- ticipated from the removal of Congress to this city, are already beginning to be apparent. Rents of houses have risen, and I fear will continue to rise shamefully ; even in the outskirts they have lately been increased from fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen pounds to twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thirty. This is oppression. Our markets, it is expected, will also be dearer than heretofore." It was a view of these changes, and anticipated extortion, that made Washington so anxious to know beforehand how much rent he must pay for his house in Philadelphia, and to avoid furnishing it in an extravagant manner, as he did not expect to remain there more than two years. He was resolved to continue the unostentatious way of living he had com- menced in New York, not only on his own account, but for the benefit of those connected with the government who could not afford to spend more than their salaries. And that resolu- tion, well carried out, was most salutary in its effects. "When Oliver Wolcott, of Connecticut, was appointed first auditor of the treasury, he, like a prudent man, before he would accept the office, went to New York to ascertain whether he could live upon the salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. He came to the conclusion that he could live upon one thou- sand dollars a year, and he wrote to his wife, saying : " The example of the President and his family will render parade 24-6 MOUNT VERNON and expense improper and disreputable." This sentence speaks powerfully in illustration of the republican simplicity of Wash- ington's household in those days. The rent of Morris's house was fixed at three thousand dollars a year, and on the 22d of November, Washington left Mount Vernon for Philadelphia, accompanied by Mrs. Washington and Master and Miss Custis, in a chariot drawn by four horses. They were allowed to travel quietly, without any public pa- rade, but receiving at every shopping-place the warm welcome of many private citizens and personal friends. None gave the President a heartier shake of the hand on this occasion, and none was more welcome to grasp it, than Tommy Giles, a short, thickset man, of English birth, who kept a little tavern a short distance from the Head of Elk (now Elkton), on the road from Baltimore. His tavern-sign displayed a rude portrait of Washington ; and the President on his way to and from Mount Vernon, never passed by until he had greeted the worthy man. Tommy had been a fife-major in the Continental army, and had been -employed a long time by Washington as his confi- dential express in the transmission of money from one point to another. In this business lie was most trustworthy. Mrs. Giles was a stout Englishwoman, but republican to the core. Washington always shook hands with her as heartily as with her husband, and frequently left a guinea in her palm. On these occasions, when the President had passed, Tommy would array himself in his Continental uniform, and hasten to Hollings worth's tavern, in Elkton (where Washington slept, or took a meal and fed his horses), to pay his respects in a formal manner to his beloved General. Washington always treated him with the greatest consideration, and for several AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 247 days after such interviews, Tommy would be the greatest man in the village. Tommy was appointed postmaster at Elkton, by "Washing- ton, and was for several years crier of the Cecil county court. He always deported himself with dignity ; and, regarding his acquaintance with Washington and his official position as suf- ficient claim to profound personal respect, he sometimes as- sumed an authoritative manner quite amusing. In a recent letter to me, an old resident of Philadelphia, speaking of Tom- my, remarks; U I was once obliged to attend court as a witness,, and one day went home, a distance of twenty-two miles. I returned the following morning in a snow-storm, in the month of April, and reached the court-house a few minutes after nine o'clock, when Mr. Giles was making his proclamation for me to appear. As I dismounted from my horse, my nose com- menced bleeding, and I called across the street to say I would be in court as soon as it stopped. Tommy rejoined shortly and authoritatively, ; You have no business to let your nose bleed when the court wants you !' The court was more in- dulgent, and readily excused me." The President and his family reached Philadelphia on Sat- urday, the 28th of November, and found their house in read- iness for them. Mr. Lear had brought on the furniture from New York, purchased some in Philadelphia, and arranged the house much to the satisfaction of the President and his wife. Yet it was some time before they were ready to see company, and the first of Mrs. Washington's public receptions was on Friday evening, the 25th of December Christmas-day. It is said that the most brilliant assemblage of beautiful, well- dressed, and well-educated women that had ever been seen in 24:8 MOUNT VEBXON America, appeared at that levee. The Vice-President's wife s mentioned in a letter that "the dazzling Mrs. Bingliam and her beautiful sisters [Misses Willing], the Misses Aliens, the Misses Chew, and in short, a constellation of beauties," were present. The season opened very gayly, and balls, routs and dinners of the most sumptuous kind, succeeded each other in rapid succession. " I should spend a very dissipated winter," wrote Mrs. Adams, " if I were to accept one-half the invitations I receive, particularly to the routs, or tea-and-cards." Phila- delphia had never seen or felt any thing like it, and the whole town was in a state of virtual intoxication for several weeks. But Washington and his wife could not be seduced from their temperate habits, by the scene's of immoderate pleasure around them. They held their respective levees on Tuesdays and Fridays, as they did in New York, without the least ostenta- tion ; and Congressional and official dinners were also given in a plain way, without any extravagant displays of plate, or- nament, or variety of dishes. Having furnished his house as a permanent residence while .he should remain President, Washington had indulged in some things which would insure congruity, that were not seen in New York. He had ordered through Gouvernenr Morris, then in Paris, some articles for his sideboard and table. Among them were -some silver-plated wine-coolers, the cost of which rather startled him. He had received an invoice of them, before he left Mount Vernon, and in a letter to Mr. Lear, he wrote : " Enclosed I send you a letter from Mr. Gouverneur Morris, with a bill of the cost of the articles he was to send me. The AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 249 prices of the plated ware exceed far exceed the utmost bounds of my calculation ; but as I am persuaded he has done what he conceives right, I am satisfied, and request you to make immediate payment to Mr. Constable, if you can raise the means." He then spoke of wine-coolers, that had been sent, an article that he had never used, and says : " As these coolers are designed for warm weather, and will be, I presume, useless in cold, or in that in which the liquors do not require cooling, quere, would not a stand like that for casters, with four aper- tures for so many different kinds of liquors, each aperture just sufficient to hold one of the cut decanters sent by Mr. Morris, be more convenient for passing the bottles from one to another, than the handing each bottle separately, by which it often happens that one b'ottle moves, another stops, and all are in confusion? Two of them one for each end of the table, with a flat bottom, with or without feet, open at the sides, but with a raised rim, as caster-stands have, and an upright, by way of handle, in the middle could not cost a great deal, even if made wholly of silver. Talk to a silversmith, and ascertain the cost, and whether they could be immediately made, if re- quired, in a handsome fashion. " Perhaps the coolers sent by Mr. Morris may afford ideas of taste ; perhaps, too (if they prove not too heavy, when examined), they may supersede the necessity of such as I have described, by answering the purpose themselves. Four double flint bottles (such as I suspect Mr. Morris has sent), will weigh, I conjecture, four pounds ; the wine in them when they are filled will be eight pounds more, which, added to the weight of the coolers, will, I fear, make these latter too unwieldy to 250 MOUNT VERNON pass, especially by ladies, which induces me to think of the frame in the form of casters." Mr. Lear was pleased with Washington's suggestions, and ordered a silversmith to make two of the caster-like frames, of solid silver, and these were used upon the President's table on the occasion of the first dinner which he gave to the offi- cers of government and their families, foreign ministers and their families, and other distinguished guests. Their lightness and convenience commended them, and from that time they became fashionable, under the appropriate title of coasters. Thenceforth the \vir\e-cooler was left upon the sideboard, and the coaster alone was used for sending the wine around the table. For more than a quarter of a century afterward, the coaster might be seen upon the table of every fashionable family in Philadelphia. Few persons, however, are aware that Washington was the inventor of it. The coolers sent over by Mr. Morris, were eight in number, four large and four smaller ones, the former holding four bottles, and the latter two. Two of the larger ones were presented by Washington to General Hamilton, and are now in possession of Mrs. Holley, of Washington city, a daughter of the latter. The others were taken from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon, and after the death of Mrs. Washington, passed into the possession of her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. They now belong to Mr. Custis's daughter, at Arling- ton House. They are both elliptical in form at top, the larger one nine inches in height, and the smaller one eight inches. The silver coasters are also at Arlington House. They are four- teen inches in height, and each is composed of four baskets united to a handle in the centre, made of strong wire. There AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 251 WINE-COOLERS AND COASTKB. is a roller under the centre of each basket, by which the coast- er is more easily sent around the table. A specimen of each of these articles is seen in the engraving upon the next page. Washington took his family plate with him when he went to New York in 1789, and there had it made over into more elegant and massive forms. Several pieces were also added to it, and this service graced his table and sideboard in Phil- adelphia. Several pieces of this plate are now in use at Arlington House. The engraving shows five of them, namely, a round salver, an elliptical tray, a coffee-pot, teapot, and sugar-bowl. All of these have Washington's crest neatly en- graven upon them. The tray with handles, all of massive silver, is plain, except a beaded rim. It is twenty-two inches in length, and seventeen and a half inches in breadth. This, 252 MOUNT VERNON with the waiter, was used at all the levees and drawing-rooms of the President and Mrs. Washington, during the eight years of their public life in New York and Philadelphia, and served SPECIMENS OF WASHINGTON'S PLATE. the purposes of hospitality afterward, at Mount Yernon. How many eyes, beaming with the light of noble souls, have looked upon the glittering planes of that tray and salver! How many hands that once wielded mighty swords, and mightier pens, in the holy cause of universal freedom, long since mouldered into native earth, have taken from them the sparkling glass, while health and long life were invoked for Washington ! Mr. Custis once related to me a pleasing circumstance con- nected with the use of that tray. Gushing from a rocky bank beneath the trunk of a huge oak-tree a genuine Anak of the primeval forest near the bank of the Potomac, on his estate, is a copious spring, and around it stands a beautiful grove, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 253 wherein parties from Alexandria, Washington city and George- town, have picnics in the summer months. For the accommo- dation of these, Mr. Custis generously erected, near the spring, a kitchen and dancing-hall ; and he frequently attended the joyous gatherings, and lent servants to wait upon the ladies. On one occasion, a party of military, accompanied by ladies, went over to Arlington spring, from Washington city, for a day's recreation. Mr. Custis sent his favorite servant, Charles, to wait upon the company at table. He also sent down the precious silver tray for their use. Placing a dozen glasses of ice cream upon it, Charles carried it to the visitors, and said, " Ladies, this waiter once belonged to General Washington, and from it all the great ladies of the Revolution took wine." The young ladies, as if actuated by one impulse, immediately arose, crowded around Charles, and each in turn, kissed the cold rim of the salver, before touching the cream. The session of 1790-91, was the third of the first Congress, and ended by limitation on the 3d of March ; but Wash- ington did not depart from Philadelphia for Mount Yer- non, until Monday the 21st. On that day, at twelve o'clock, he and his family left his residence on Market- street, in his English coach, drawn by six horses, accompanied by Mr. Jefferson and Gen- eral Knox (two of the heads of departments), who escorted them as far as Delaware. Major Jackson was also of the party. He accompanied Washington to Mount Yernon, and THE PRESIDENTIAL MANSION. 254 MOUNT VERNON throughout an extensive tour through the Southern states, which the President commenced a few days afterward. That tour had occupied Washington's thoughts from time to time, for several months. Many leading men of the South invited him to visit their respective states. He had made a tour eastward, and it was deemed expedient that the Southern states should be honored by his presence. Their invitations generally expressed a desire, that the President, in the event of his making such tour, should honor the writers by a resi- dence with them, while he remained in their respective neigh- borhoods. Among others who proffered the hospitalities of his house was Colonel William Washington, the heroic cavalry officer in the southern campaigns under Greene, who was then residing in Charleston. But his invitation, like all others of the same kind, was declined for reasons which Washington frankly stated : " I cannot," he said, " comply with your invitation, without involving myself in inconsistency ; as I have determined to pursue the same plan in my Southern as I did in my Eastern visit, which was, not to incommode any private family by taking up my quarters with them during my journey. It leaves me unincumbered by engagements, and by a uniform adherence to it, I shall avoid giving umbrage to any, by de- clining all such invitations." Washington remained at Mount Yernon only a week, mak- ing preparations for his Southern tour. On the 4th of April he wrote to the several heads of departments Jefferson, Ham- ilton and Knox giving them information concerning the time when he expected to be at certain places on his route. This information was given because the public service might re- quire communication to be made to him AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 255 "My journey to Savannah," he said, "unless retarded by mforeseen interruptions, will be regulated, including days of halt, in the following manner : I shall be, on the 8th of April at Fredericksburg, the llth at Richmond, the 14th at Peters- burg, the 16th at Halifax, the 18th at Tarborough, the 20th at Newbern, the 25th at "Wilmington, the 29th at Georgetown, South Carolina ; on the 2d of May at Charleston, halting there five days; on the llth at Savannah, halting there two days. Thence leaving the line of mail, I shall proceed to Augusta ; and according to the information which I may receive there, my return by an upper road will be regulated." It is a singular fact that Washington was at these various places on the very days contemplated. He wrote to Jeffer- son from Richmond on the 13th of April, to Hamilton from Charleston on the 7th of May, and to Mr. Seagrove, collector of the port of St. Mary, Georgia, from Savannah on the 20th. He was everywhere received with demonstrations of the highest respect and veneration. At Wilmington he was met by a mili- tary and civic escort, entertained at a public dinner, and in the evening attended a ball given in his honor. At Newbern he received like homage ; and when, on Monday, the 2d day of May, he arrived at Haddrell's Point, a short distance from Charleston, beyond the mouth of the Cooper River, a twelve- oared barge, manned by thirteen captains of American ships, was in readiness to receive him, and convey him to the city. The barge contained a band of vocal and instrumental perform- ers, and was followed by a flotilla of richly decked boats, of every kind, filled with gentlemen and ladies. At the wharf he was received by Governor Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and conducted to his lodgings by a military and civic escort. 256 MOUNT VERNON On Monday, the 9th of May, lie left Charleston for Savan- nah ; and on his way from that city a week afterward, he stopped and dined with the widow of General Greene. lie reached Augusta on the 18th, and on Saturday, the 21st, he started for home, travelling by way of Columbia, Camden, Charlotte, Salisbury, Salem, Guilford, Hillsborough, Harris- burg, Williamsburg, and Fredericksburg, to Mount Vernon. He arrived home on the 12th of June, having made a most satisfactory journey of more than seventeen hundred miles, in sixty-six days, with the same team of horses. " My return to this place is sooner than I expected," he wrote to Hamilton, " owing to the uninterruptedness of my journey by sickness, from bad weather, or accidents of any kind \vhatsoever," for which he had allowed eight days. Washington remained at Mount Vernon betwjeen three and four weeks. Meanwhile, he met commissioners at Georgetown, who had been appointed to lay out the federal city, Washing- ton having selected as the site the point of land on the eastern side of the Potomac, between that river and the Anacostia, or eastern branch, which flows eastward of the capitol. It is related as an historical fact, that in the year 1663, almost two hundred years ago, the proprietor of that land, named Pope, marked out a city upon it, called it Rome, named the eleva- tion on which the capitol now stands (and where the Indian tribes held their councils) the Capitoline Hill, and the east branch of the Potomac the Tiber ! Major L'Enfant, a Frenchman, who had served as engineer in the continental army, was employed to furnish a plan and make a survey of the federal city, and he spent a week at Mount Yernon, after Washington's return from his southern AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 257 tour, in consultation with the President. His plans were laid before Congress at the next session, and were approved. The federal city was laid out on a magnificent scale, on a plot con- taining eight square miles. The states of Virginia and Mary- land had already ceded to the United States a territory ten miles square, for the purpose of erecting the federal city within it, and this was named the District of Columbia. L'Enfant and the commissioners disagreed, and he was suc- ceeded by Andrew Ellicott, in 1792. On the 2d of April that year, President Washington approved of a plan for the capitol, submitted by Dr. Thornton, and in September, 1793, he laid the corner-stone of the north wing, with Masonic honors. The commissioners, without the President's knowledge or consent,, named the federal metropolis the City of Washington, which honored name it bears. Washington was again at the presidential mansion, in Phila- delphia, on the 6th of July, where he remained until Septem- ber, when he returned to Mount Vernon, to spend a few weeks previous to the assembling of the new Congress. During that recess from official labors he was part of the time employed in the instruction of a new agent, Robert Lewis, in the manage- ment of his estate, his nephew, George A. Washington, having been compelled to leave for the mountains on account of ill health. At the same time he carried on quite an extensive correspondence with officers' of the government and private citizens. Every post brought him numerous letters. An Indian war, in the North-western territory, was in progress ; the French Revolution was assuming an alarming shape, for the obligations of an ally still appeared to rest upon the United States, especially so long as Louis remained king ; and 11 258 MOUNT VERNON domestic affairs, pertaining to finance and commerce, were largely occupying the public mind. These topics engaged Washington's pen very frequently during his weeks of rest at Mount Vernon. The first session of the second Congress opened on the 24th of October, and on the 25th Washington delivered his annual message in person, in the Congress Hall, corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets. About two months later he was waited upon by Archibald Robertson, a Scotch artist of considerable merit, who had been induced to come to the United States to practice his profession, by Doctor Kemp, of Columbia College, New York. Robertson came charged with an interesting commission from the Earl of Buchan. He arrived in New York in Octo- ber, and in December went to Philadelphia to fulfil his special engagement. He had been charged by the Earl to deliver to Washington a box made of the celebrated oak-tree that shel- tered Sir William Wallace after the battle at Falkirk. Ac- companying the box was a letter from the Earl, dated at Dry- burgh Abbey, Jan. 28, 1791, in which, after speaking of the box, and his having entrusted it to the " care of Mr. Robert- son, of Aberdeen, a painter," he said : " This box was presented to me by the goldsmiths' company at Edinburgh, of whom feeling my own unworthiness to re- ceive this magnificent and significant present I requested, and obtained leave to make it over to the man in the world to whom I thought it most justly due ; into your hands 1 commit it, requesting you to pass it, in the event of your decease, to the man in your own country, who shall appear to your judg- ment to merit it best, upon the same considerations that have induced me to send it to your Excellency." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 259 He added " I beg your Excellency will have the goodness to send me your portrait, that I may place it among those I most honor, and I would wish it from the pencil of Mr. Robertson." Robertson presented the box to the President on Friday, the 13th of December. He was much embarrassed, he said, on being introduced to "the American hero," but was soon relieved by Washington, who entered into familiar conversa- tion with him, and introduced him to Mrs. Washington. The President also made the painter happy, by consenting to sit for his portrait, in compliance with the wishes of the Earl of Buchan. He also invited Robertson to dine with him ; and the painter felt quite at ease before he left the august presence. Of that dinner (a family one) Robertson thus writes : "It was ready at three o'clock plain, but suitable for a family in genteel circumstances. There was nothing specially remarkable at the table, but that the general and Mrs. Wash- ington sat side by side, he on the right of his lady ; the gentle- men on his right hand, and the ladies on his left. It being on Saturday, the first course was mostly of eastern cod and fresh fish. A few glasses of wine were drank during the dinner, with other beverages. The whole closed with a few glasses of sparkling champagne, in about three-quarters of an hour, when the general and Colonel Lear retired, leaving the ladies in high glee about Lord Buchan and the Wallace box." After dinner, the President sat to Mr. Robertson, for a min- iature portrait, and from it, when finished, the artist painted a larger picture, in oil, for Lord Bnchan, " of a size," he said, " corresponding to the collection of portraits of the most cele- brated worthies of liberal principles and of useful literature, 260 MOUNT VERNON ' in the possession of his lordship." This picture was painted at the close of May, 1792, when Washington wrote to Lord Buchan, thanking him for the present of the box, and saying of the portrait : " The manner of the execution of it, does no discredit, I am told, to the artist." The picture was sent to Europe by Colonel Lear, and Robertson received the thanks of the Earl of Buchan. Mrs. Washington also sat to Robertson for her miniature. She was then sixty years of age, and still beautiful. Her complexion was fair, and her dark eye was as brilliant as ever. In person she was heavier than in her younger days, and was, in a very slight degree, inclined to corpulency. That miniature is now at Arlington House. It was first engraved for the American Portrait Gallery, about the year 1833. In a letter to his wife, in July of that year, Mr. Custis wrote : " I have been requested to write a short biography of my grandmother, to be accompanied by a splendid engraving from one of my originals, for Longman's work, called the National Gallery of Portraits, and have consented to do it." The biog- raphy was written, and the " original" chosen was Robertson's miniature, from which our engraving was copied. In his letter of thanks to Buchan, Washington said : " I will, however, ask, that you will exempt me from com- pliance with the request relating to its eventual destination. In an attempt to execute your wish in this particular, I should feel embarrassment from a just comparison of relative preten- sions, and fear to risk injustice by so marked a preference." The box was taken to Mount Yernon at the close of the session, where it remained until Washington's death, when AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 261 MARTHA WASHINGTON. lie recommitted it to the Earl by the following clause in his will: "To the Earl of Buchan I recommit the box made of the oak that sheltered the great Sir William Wallace, after the battle of Falkirk, presented to me by his lordship, in terms too flattering for me to repeat, with a request ' to pass it, on the event of my decease, to the man in my country who should appear to merit it best, upon the same conditions that have induced him to send it to me.' Whether easy or not to select the man who might comport with his lordship's opinion, in this respect, is not for me to say ; but, conceiving that no dis- position of this valuable curiosity can be more eligible than the recommitment of it to his own cabinet, agreeably to the original design of the Goldsmith's Company of Edinburgh, who presented it to him, and, at his request, consented that it 262 MOUNT VERNON should be transferred to me, I do give and bequeath the same to his lordship ; and, in case of his decease, to his heir, with my grateful thanks for the distinguished honor of presenting it to me, and more especially for the favorable sentiments with which he accompanied it." The first session of the second Congress terminated on Tues- day, the 8th of May, and on the 10th Washington set out for Mount Yernon, leaving his family in Philadelphia. He re- mained there about four weeks, directing the affairs of his estate, inspecting the progress of the surveys and plans for the federal city, and in correspondence with friends at home and abroad. He carried home with him on that occasion several copies of the Rights of Man, a work from the pen of Thomas Paine, published the year before, fifty copies of which, sent by the author to the President, reached him a day or two before he left Philadelphia. One of these he gave to Richard Henry Lee, who, after thanking him for it, remarked : " It is a performance of which any man might be proud ; and I most sincerely regret that our country could not have offered sufficient inducements to have retained as a permanent citizen, a man so thoroughly republican in sentiment, and fearless in the expression of his opinions." In his letter accompanying the books, Paine remarked : " The work has had a run beyond any thing that has been published in this country on the subject of government, and the demand continues. In Ireland it has had a much greater. A letter I received from Dublin, 10th of May, mentioned that the fourth edition was then on sale. I know not what number of copies were printed at each edition, except the second, which was ten thousand. The same fate follows me here as I AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 263 at first experienced in America strong friends and violent enemies ; but as I have got the ear of the country, I shall go on, and at least show them, what is a novelty here, that there can be a person beyond the reach of corruption." This work was written in answer to Edmund Burke's famous letter to a French gentleman, in 1790, entitled Reflections on the Revolution in France. The government, incensed at Paine's language in the Rights of Man, instituted a prosecu- tion against him for libel. He went to France, became a member of the National Assembly, fell into prison during the reign of the Terrorists, and becoming offended at Washington because he properly refused his official aid in procuring Paine's liberation, on the ground of his being an American citizen, he abused him most shamefully in a published letter, more remarkable for its scurrility than talent. Washington returned to Philadelphia early in June, and toward the close of July journeyed with his family to Mount Vernon. He remained there until early in October, when he returned to Philadelphia, with his family, to prepare for the assembling of the Congress, which took place on the 5th of November. During that time he was in frequent correspond- ence with the heads of departments, for matters of great public interest required frequent communications between them and the chief magistrate. An Indian war in the west was then in progress, and symptoms of insurrectionary movements in West- ern Pennsylvania, on account of an excise law which the people deemed oppressive, began to appear. Washington was also much engaged, during that time, with his agricultural operations; and he and Mrs. Washington were much distressed on account of the mortal sickness of his 264 nephew George, who had resided at Mount Vernon much of the time since his marriage several years before. Washing- ton's anxiety concerning him is evinced by the frequent men- tion of his illness to his correspondents. In a letter to Lafay- ette, in June, he said : " ^>am afraid my nephew George, your old aide, will never have his health perfectly re-established. He has lately been attacked with the alarming symptoms of spitting large quan- tities of blood ; and the physicians give no hopes of resto- ration, unless it can be effected by a change of air, and a total dereliction from business, to which he is too anxiously attentive. He will, if he should be taken from his family and friends, leave three fine children, two sons and a daughter. To the eldest of the boys he has given the name of Fayette, and a fine looking child he is. To General Roux, he wrote : " I thank you most sincere- ly for the medicine you were so obliging as to send for my nephew, and for the sympathetic feeling you express for his situation. Poor fellow ! neither, I believe, will be of any avail. Present appearances indicate a speedy dissolution. He has not been able to leave his bed, except for a few moments to sit in an arm-chair, since the 14th or 15th of last month. The par- oxysm of the disorder seems to be upon him, and death, or a favorable turn to it, must speedily follow." The sufferer was then residing upon a small estate in Han- .over. He lingered for several weeks, and expired ; and on the 24th of February, Washington wrote to his widow : " MY DEAR FANNY : To you, who so well know the affec- tionate regard I had for our departed friend, it is unnecessary AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 265 to describe the sorrow with which I was afflicted, at the news of his death, although it was an event I had expected many weeks before it happened. To express this sorrow with the force I feel it, would answer no other purpose than to revive in your breast that poignancy of anguish, which by this time, I hope, is abated. The object of this letter is to convey to your mind the warmest assurance of my love, friendship, and disposition to serve you. These I also profess to bear, in an eminent degree, for your children." He then invites her to make Mount Yernon the home of herself and children. "You can go to no place," he said, " where you will be more welcome, nor to any where you can live at less expense or trouble." He then invites her to bring his niece, Harriet Washington, with her, to Mount Yernon, of whose conduct he had heard pleasant words. Miss Harriet remained at Mount Yernon a long time, the grateful recipient of her uncle's bounty. The young widow appears to have declined the offer of a home at Mount Yernon, preferring to keep house in Alexan- dria, but offering to resign the charge of her eldest son, Fay- ette, into Washington's keeping. In March, the President wrote to her, saying : "The carriage which I sent to Mount Yernon, for your use, I never intended to reclaim, and now, making you a formal present of it, it may be sent for whenever it suits your conve- nience, and be considered as your own. I shall, when I see you, request that Fayette may be given up to me, either at that time, or as soon after as he is old enough to go to school. This will relieve you of that portion of attention, which his educa- tion would otherwise call for." 266 MOUNT VERNON Washington's affection for children was very great, and he was ever anxious to have young people in the mansion at Mount Yernon. He enjoyed their amusements with a keen relish, and yet the mysterious awe felt in his presence, by all who had the good fortune to know him personally, was expe- rienced by children. His adopted daughter (Mrs. Lewis) used to say that she had seen him laugh heartily at her merry pranks, or when, a gay, joyous girl, she would give him a description of some scene in which she had taken a part ; and yet she had as often seen him retire from the room in which her young companions were amusing themselves, be- cause he perceived that his presence created a reserve which they could not overcome. His love for his two adopted children was very strong, and he watched over their mental and moral development with great solicitude. In several of his letters to Mr. Lear, from Mount Yernon, in the autumn of 1790, when preparing for his residence in Philadelphia, he mentioned the subject of schools, expressing a great desire to have young Custis placed in one of ilie best character. Mrs. Washington was always over-indulgent to her two grandchildren. The boy (George Washington Parke Custis) was always familiarly called Washington, and by that name he was always distinguished in the general's private corre- spondence. His beautiful sister, Nelly, used to speak of the affection which Mrs. Washington lavished upon him, and the many excuses which she offered in his defence, when the father, true to his nature and education, exacted submission to the most thorough discipline on all occasions, much as he loved the boy. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 267 " Grandmamma always spoiled Washington," his sister would say ; and his daughter, in a late memoir of- him, has said " He was the pride of her heart, while the public duties of the veteran prevented the exercise of his influence in form- ing the character of the boy, too softly nurtured under his roof, and gifted with talents, which, under a sterner discipline, might have been more available for his own and his coun- try's good." Notwithstanding her indulgent disposition, Mrs. Washing- ton was a thorough disciplinarian in her household, and Nelly Custis experienced many a tearful hour when compelled by her grandmother to attend assiduously to her studies in letters and music. Washington made her a present of a fine harpsi- chord, at the cost of one thousand dollars Schroeder's beau- tiful invention, the piano-forte, not being then much used in America. In England, even, where Zumpe had introduced it, with many improvements, between twenty and thirty years before, the piano had by no means supplanted its parent the harpsichord, and the latter instrument, or the spinet, might be found in almost every family of wealth in the kingdom. The best teachers were employed to instruct Nelly in the use of the harpsichord, and her grandmother made her practise upon it four or five hours every day. " The poor girl," says her brother, the late Mr. Custis, " would play and cry, and cry and play, for long hours, under the immediate eye of her grandmother, a rigid disciplinarian in all things." That harpsichord, according to the inscription upon a plate above the keys, was manufactured by " Longman and Brode- rip, musical instrument makers, No. 26 Cheapside, and No. 13 Haymarket, London." It was carefully packed and taken 268 MOUNT VEHNON to Mount Vernon when Washington retired from office the last time. It was used there until his death, for Nelly and her husband resided at Mount Vernon for more than NELLY CUHTIS'S HARPSICHORD. a year after their marriage in February, 1?T9. It is now (1859) in the possession of Mrs. Lee, of Arlington House., who intends to present it to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Associa- tion, when the home of "Washington shall have passed into their absolute possession, that it may take its ancient place in the parlor of the hallowed mansion. The instrument was one of the most elegant of its kind. It is about eight, feet long, three and a half feet wide, and three AND ITS ASSOCIATION'S. 269 feet in length, with two banks, containing one hundred and twenty keys in all. The case is mahogany. On the 4th of March, 1793, Judge Gushing, of Massachu- setts, administered to Washington, in the senate chamber, in Philadelphia, the oath of office as President of the United States, he having been, by unanimous vote of the electoral college, speaking the will of the people, re-elected to the exalted station of chief magistrate. It was with great reluc- tance that he consented to serve another prescribed term of four years. He had looked forward lo retirement from office vvith real pleasure, and when he agreed to serve his country still longer, he endured a sacrifice which none bat a disinterested patriot could have made. For himself he preferred the quiet of domestic life at his pleasant home on the Potomac, to all the honors and emoluments ^that the world could offer. But in this instance, as in all others, he yielded his own wishes to the more important demands of his country. He knew, as well as any man living, the dangers to which the coun- try was then exposed from the influence of French politics and of domestic factions ; and the representations of the true friends of government convinced him that his further service in public life was demanded by every consideration of patriotism. Hamilton, in whose judgment and purity of motives Wash- ington had the most entire confidence, had urged him, in a touching letter, to accept the high office a second term; and while his cabinet was agitated by discordant opinions upon other subjects, they all agreed that Washington's retirement from office at that time would be a serious calamity to the country. Every one felt that the affairs of the national gov- ernment were not yet firmly established ; that its enemies 2TO MOUNT VERNON were many and inveterate, and that Washington could not retire without damaging his reputation as a patriot. " I trust, sir, and I pray God, that you will determine to make a further sacrifice of your tranquillity and happiness to the public good," said Hamilton, at the close of his letter just alluded to. Such sacrifice was made, and for four years longer Mount Yernon was without its master, except at long intervals. Although Washington's second inauguration was in public, there was far less parade than at the first. It had been deter- mined by those with whom he had consulted respecting the matter, as the democratic feeling was very strong, that the President should go to the senate-chamber "without form, attended by such gentlemen as he may choose, and return without form, except that he be preceded by the marshal." Thus he went and thus he returned, conveyed in his own beautiful cream-colored coach, drawn by six splendid bay horses. And thus he went to that senate-chamber a few months later, when he presented his annual message to the Congress, for in those days the President read the address before the assembled wisdom of the nation, and did not, as now, send it in manuscript by his private secretary. An eye-witness on one of these occasions has left a pleasant picture of it on record. "As the President alighted," he says, " and, ascending the steps, paused upon the platform, looking over his shoulder, in an attitude that would have furnished an admirable subject for the pencil, he was preceded by two gen- tlemen bearing long white wands, who kept back the eager crowd that pressed on every side to get a nearer view. At that moment I stood so near that I might have touched his clothes ; but I should as soon have thought of touching an AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 271 electric battery. I was penetrated with a veneration amount- ing to the deepest awe. Nor was this the feeling of a school- boy only ; it pervaded, I believe, every human being that approached Washington ; and I have been told that, even in his social and convivial hours, this feeling in those who were honored to share them never suffered intermission. I saw him a hundred times afterward, but never with any other than that same feeling. The Almighty, who raised up for our hour of need a man so peculiarly prepared for its whole dread respon- sibility, seems to have put an impress of sacredness upon His own instrument. The first sight of the man struck the heart with involuntary homage, and prepared every thing around him to obey. When he ' addressed himself to speak,' there was an unconscious suspension of the breath, while every eye was raised in expectation. " The President, having seated himself, remained in silence, serenely contemplating the legislature before him, whose mem- bers now resumed their seats, waiting for the speech. No house of worship, in the most solemn pauses of devotion, was ever more profoundly still than that large and crowded chamber. "Washington was dressed precisely as Stuart has painted him in Lord Lansdowne's full-length portrait in a full suit of the richest black velvet, with diamond knee-buckles, and square silver buckles set upon shoes japanned with the most scrupulous neatness, black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled at the breast and wrists, a light dress-sword, his hair profusely powdered, fully dressed, so as to project at the sides, and gathered behind in a silk bag, ornamented with a large rose of black riband. He held his cocked hat, which had a large 272 MOUNT VERNON black cockade on one side of it, in his hand, as he advanced toward the chair, and. when seated, laid it on the table. "At length, thrusting his hand within the side of his coat, he drew forth a roll of manuscript, which he opened, and rising, held it in his hand, while in a rich, deep, full, sonorous voice, he read his opening address to Congress. His enun- ciation was deliberate, justly emphasized, very distinct, and accompanied with an air of deep solemnity, as being the utterance of a mind profoundly impressed with the dignity of the act in which it was occupied, conscious of the whole re- sponsibility of its position and action, but not oppressed by it." Washington made a hurried visit to Mount Vernon in April, on account of the death of his nephew, already mentioned, some matter connected with that young man's aifairs requiring his personal attention, lie was again called to Mount Yernon at the close of June, on account of the sudden death of Mr. Whiting, his manager, who had taken the place of Robert Lewis. "It was a critical season," says Washington, in a letter to General Henry Lee, " for the business \vith which he was interested. How to supply his place I know not; of course my concerns at Mount Vernon are left as a body without a head." Notwithstanding Congress was not in session, the pressure of public business was such that Washington remained at the seat of government all through the summer, and it was not until the yellow fever, which broke out in Philadelphia in August, had raged for two or three weeks, and the officers of government had fled, that he left his post and retired to Mount Vernon. He left Philadelphia on the 10th of September. He would have remained longer, but Mrs. Washington, alarmed AND ITS. ASSOCIATIONS. 273 for the safety of the whole family, the house in which they lived being in a manner blockaded by the disorder, prevailed on him to leave. The fever raged with great violence until late in October,, when frosts checked its progress, and in November the inhab- itants who had fled from the pestilence generally returned to the city. On the 2d day of December Congress was convened there. The progress of the disease at Philadelphia was watched by Washington, at Mount Vernon, with great solicitude, espec- ially w hen September had passed away, and much of October had gone by, before it abated. It was near the time set for the assembling of a new Congress, and the public welfare demanded legislative action, upon important points, as early as possible. He therefore proposed to call the Congress together at Germantown, or some other place near Philadel- phia, but at a safe distance from the pestilence ; and yet he doubted his power to do so. This topic employed his pen as well as his thoughts, and of many letters from Mount Vernon it was the burden. His agricultural affairs occupied much of his time while at home. He appears to have found a manager not much to his liking, for he needed instruction. At the middle of October we find him writing to his friend, General Henry Lee, concerning a threshing-machine that that gentleman had recommended. He seemed anxious to use all really useful improvements, but the difficulty in making his overseers understand them was a bar. " The model [of a threshing machine] brought over by the English farmers," he said, " may also be a good one, but the 18 274 MOUNT VERNON utility of it among careless negroes and ignorant overseers will depend absolutely upon the simplicity of the construction ; for if there is any thing complex in the machinery, it will be no longer in use than a mushroon is in existence. I have seen so much of the beginning and ending of new inventions, that I have almost resolved to go on in the old way of treading until I get settled again at home, and can attend, myself, to the management of one. As a proof in point of the almost impos- sibility of putting the overseers of this country out of the track they have been accustomed to walk in, I have one of the most convenient barns in this or perhaps any other country, where thirty hands may with great ease be employed in threshing. Half of the wheat of the farm was actually stowed in this barn in the straw by my order, for threshing; notwithstanding, when I came home about the middle of September, I found a treading-yard not thirty feet from the barn-door, the wheat again brought out of the barn, and horses treading it out in an open exposure, liable to the vicissitudes of weather." Washington and his family set out for the seat of govern- ment toward the close of October. Mr. Dandridge, a relation of his wife, who had been appointed the President's 'private secretary, accompanied them. Philadelphia presented a most gloomy aspect. Between three and four thousand of the in- habitants had fallen before the scythe of the pestilence, and there was mourning in almost every family. There was very little gayety in the capital during the session of Congress that followed. There was also a general expectation that the scourge would reappear the ensuing summer of 1794 ; and when, at the middle of June, Washington made a flying visit to Mount Yernon, he removed his family to a pleasant resi- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 275 dencc at Germantown, about six miles from the city. To that place he returned at the close of July, and he seems not to have visited Mount Vernon again until April the following year, when he was there for only a short time, to give his per- sonal attention to home duties that required them. He again visited his home early in July, 1795, but, as his correspond- ence on the way and at Mount Yernon shows, he carried a vast weight of public business upon his mind ; for, besides the routine of official duties, he was greatly burdened with anxiety respecting a treaty lately made with England, by John Jay, which lie approved, and which for a time was so unpopular as to cause great excitement throughout the country. Washington left Mount Yernon again toward the middle of August for the seat of government, and returned early in Sep- tember. He remained until the 12th of October, when he set out for Philadelphia, stopping at Georgetown for a day to attend to business with the commissioners of the federal city. It was not until June, 1Y96, that the master of Mount Yer- non was again under his own roof. His family accompanied him ; and there, at the beginning of July, they received as a guest, Don Carlos Martinez, Marquis d'Yrugo, the newly- arrived Spanish ambassador. On the 4th of July Washington wrote to Timothy Pickering, the secretary of state, saying : " The Spanish Minister, M. d'Yrugo, spent two days with me, and is just gone. I caused it to be intimated to him that, as I should be absent from the seat of the government until the middle or latter end of August, I was ready to receive his letter of credence at this place. He answered, as I understood it, that his credentials were with his baggage on its passage to 276 MOUNT VERNON Philadelphia, and that his reception at that place, at the time mentioned, would be perfectly convenient and agreeable to himself. He is a young man, very free and easy in his man- ners, professes to be well disposed toward the United States, and, as far as a judgment can be formed on so short an ac- quaintance, appears to be well informed." The Spanish minister had not been long in Philadelphia when he became enamored .of Salty, the beautiful daughter of Thomas M'Kean, the chief-justice of Pennsylvania, and they were married. Their son, the Duke of Sotomayer, who was born m Philadelphia, became prime minister of Spain. "Philadelphia," says Griswold, "furnished wives for the envoys of France, England, and Spain during Washington's administration, and a large number of foreign ministers have since been married to American women." Genet, the French minister during Washington's first term, married a daughter of Governor Clinton, of New York. Washington remained at Mount Vernon until the middle of August. During the time of this visit to his dearly-loved home, he completed the final draft of his Farewell Address to the people of the United States, prepared in contemplation of his retiring from public life forever, at the close of his term of office the ensuing spring. That address had been the subject of deep and anxious thought for many months, and at the special request of the President, Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, and perhaps others, had given him suggestions in writing, topical and verbal. These he took with him to Mount Ver- non, and in the quiet of his library he arranged his address in the form and expression in which it was published in Septem- ber following. It was the noblest production of Washington's AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 277 mind and heart, and has been pronounced by Alison, the eminent British historian, unequalled by any composition of uninspired wisdom. It is a political legacy which not only the countrymen of Washington, but the world ought to value, as one of the most precious gifts ever bestowed by man upon his race. It is permeated with the immortal spirit of a true MAN, a true PATRIOT, and a true CHRISTIAN. The Farewell Address was published in the Philadelphia Advertiser, in September, 1796, and produced a most profound sensation. The ribald voice of party spirit, which had been for a long time uttering the most scandalous abuse concerning the President, was at once subdued in tone, if not silenced, for it was deprived of the theme of Washington's renomination, which had been a convenient excuse for partisan attacks. The address was entered at length upon the journals of several of the state legislatures ; was published in every newspaper in the land, and in many of those in foreign countries ; and in legislative bodies and social and diplomatic circles abroad, it was a fruitful topic of remark for some time. Of all the asso- ciations which cluster around Mount Yernon, none should be dearer to the heart of every American to every friend of freedom and good order than that connected with WASHING- TON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. And now Washington calmly looked forward to his retire- ment from public life with a heart full of joy and gratitude. The eight years of his administration of public affairs had been years of immense toil, anxiety, and vexation. They had been stormy years, for blasts of disturbing and dangerous sentiments came frequently from the borders of the hurricane that swept so terribly over France, the old ally of the United States ; and 278 MOUNT VERNON the electric forces of party spirit, subtle and implacable, had cast down, from the black clouds of selfish hate, a copious hail of abuse. But amid all that storm in the face of those fierce blasts and that pelting hail, Washington stood calm, dignified, and unharmed ; and he approached the hour when he should be no longer a public servant, to be applauded or reviled, with that serenity of mind which nothing but a con- science void of offence toward God and man can impart. And yet he was not always unmoved by the ungenerous attacks of his enemies. To his long-tried and dearly-loved friend, Gen- eral Knox, then in the far east, he wrote, two days before his retirement : " To the wearied traveller who sees a resting-place, and is bending his body to lean thereon, I now compare myself ; but to be suffered to do this in peace is too much to be endured by some. To misrepresent my motives, to reprobate my politics, and to weaken the confidence which has been reposed in my administration, are objects w r hich cannot be relinquished by those who will be satisfied with nothing short of a change in our political system. The consolation, however, which results from conscious rectitude, and the approving voice of my coun- try, unequivocally expressed by its representatives, deprive their sting of its poison, and place in the same point of view the weakness and malignity of their efforts." Never since has the unscrupulous virulence of party spirit been so manifest as at the time in question. No one dared openly to charge "Washington with a dishonest or dishonorable act, during his long public life; and yet, by inuendos and false- hoods of the darkest aspect, disguised as insinuations, his po- litical enemies attempted to destroy his popularity, and to AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 279 send him into private life without the sweet consolations of the approval of his countrymen. One specimen of the venom of party hate will be sufficient to illustrate the remarks just made. I quote from a corre- spondent of the Aurora, a Philadelphia paper in opposition to Washington's administration. The number containing the fol- lowing article was printed three days after the President's retirement from office : " ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,' was the pious ejaculation of a man who beheld a flood of happiness rushing upon man- kind. If ever there was a time that would license the reitera- tion of the exclamation, that time is now arrived ; for the man who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country, is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment ; every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people, ought to beat high with exultation that the name of WASHINGTON, from this day, ceases to give a currency to polit- ical iniquity, and to legalize corruption. A new era is now opening upon us, an era which promises much to the people ; for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and nefarious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When a retrospect is taken of the Washingtonian administra- tion for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a single individual should have cankered the principles of republicanism in an enlightened people, just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far, as to have put in jeopardy its 280 MOUNT VERNON very existence. Sucli however are the facts, and with these staring us in the face, this day ought to be a JUBILEE in the United States." How utterly impotent were such attempts to injure the character of Washington, let history testify. On the 3d of March, 1797, Washington gave a farewell dinner, to which many of the leading persons at the seat of government were invited. These were chiefly the officers of government and members of the diplomatic corps, with their wives. Bishop White, whose sister was the wife of Robert Morris, was present, and described some of the events of the banquet. " During the dinner," wrote the bishop, " much hilarity pre- vailed ; but on the removal of the cloth, it was put an end to by the President certainly without design. Having filled his glass, he addressed the company, with a smile on his coun- tenance, saying, ' Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time I shall drink your health as a public man. I do it with sin- cerity, and wishing you all possible happiness.' There was an end to all hilarity ; and the cheeks of Mrs. Liston, wife of the British minister, were wet with tears." On the following day John Adams, who had been elected Washington's successor, was inaugurated the second President of the United States. The event took place in the Hall of the Representatives, which was densely crowded with spectators. At the appointed hour Washington rode to Congress Hail in his coach, drawn by six horses, and, amidst the most enthusi- astic cheers, entered the room prepared for the ceremonies which were to release him from public life. He was followed by Mr. Adams, and when they were seated, perfect silence prevailed. Washington then arose, and with the most commanding dig- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 281 nity and self-control, introduced Mr. Adams to the assembly, and proceeded to read, in a firm, clear voice, a brief valedictory. "The most profound silence greeted him," says a still living eye and ear witness of the august event, " as if the great assembly desired to hear him breathe, and catch his breath in homage of their hearts. Mr. Adams covered his face with o both his hands; the sleeves of his coat and his hands were covered with tears." As he pronounced his parting words, a sob was heard here and there in the assembly ; and when he sat down, the whole audience -were in tears. " Then," says the eye-witness just quoted, " when strong nervous sobs broke loose, when tears covered the faces, then the great man was shaken. I never took my eyes from his face. Large drops fell from his cheeks." The late President Duer, of Columbia College, who was present on that occasion, says that when Washington left the hall, there was " a rush from the gallery that threatened the lives of those who were most eager to catch a last look of him who, among mortals, was the first object of their veneration." " Some of us," he said, " effected an escape by slipping down the pillars." "When Washington had entered iiis carriage, the multitude in the streets uttered long and loud huzzas, and he waved his hand in return. " I followed him," says Duer, " in the crowd to his own door, where, as he turned to address the multitude, his coun- tenance assumed a serious and almost melancholy expression, his voice failed him, his eyes were suffused with tears, and only by his gestures could he indicate his thanks, and convey a farewell blessing to the people." 282 MOUNT VERNON In the evening a splendid entertainment was given to the retiring President, by the inhabitants of Philadelphia, in the Amphitheatre, which was beautifully decorated with appro- priate paintings. One of the newspapers of the day thus describes a compliment that was paid to Washington on that occasion : " Upon entering the area the General was conducted to his seat. On a signal given, the band played Washington's March, and a scene, which represented simple objects in the rear of the principal seat, was drawn up and discovered emble- matical paintings. The principal was a female figure as large as life, representing America, seated on an elevation composed of sixteen marble steps. At her left side stood the federal shield and eagle, and at her feet lay the cornucopia / in her right hand she held the Indian calumet of peace supporting the cap of liberty ; in the perspective appeared the temple of fame ; and, on her left hand, an altar dedicated to public grat. itude, upon which incense was burning. In her left hand she held a scroll inscribed Valedictory; and at the foot of the altar lay a plumed helmet and sword, from which a figure of General Washington, as large as life, appeared retiring down the steps, pointing with his right hand to the emblems of power which he had resigned, and with his left to a beautiful land- scape representing Mount Vernon, in front of which oxen were seen harnessed to the plough. Over the General appeared a genius, placing a wreath of laurels on his head." These pictures were from the pencil of Charles Willson Peale, who, twenty-five years before, as we have observed, had painted the portrait of Washington at Mount Vernon, in the costume of a Virginia colonel. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 283 The heads of departments, foreign ministers, and distin- guished strangers in Philadelphia, were present on this gala occasion ; and with that elegant display of taste, fashion, and gayety, ended the public life of Washington. To General Knox he had written two days before : "The remainder of my life, which in the course of nature cannot be long, will be occupied in rural amusements; and, though I shall seclude myself as much as possible from the noisy and bustling crowd, none would more than myself be regaled by the company of those I esteem, at Mount Yernon ; more than twenty miles from which, after I arrive there, it is not likely that I shall ever be." Before following Washington to his home, from which he never did go more than twenty miles afterward, let us listen to the voice of another eye-witness of events during Washing- ton's administration (the late Rev. Ashbel Greene), as he dis- courses of the table of the President. He says : "The President ate Indian cakes for breakfast, after the Virginia fashion, although buckwheat cakes were generally on the table. Washington's dining parties were entertained in a very handsome style. His weekly dining day, for company, was Thursdav, and his dining hour was always four o'clock in the afternoon. His rule was to allow five minutes for the variation of clocks and watches, and then go to the table, be present or absent whoever might. He kept his own clock in the hall, just within the outward door, and always exactly regulated. When lagging members of Congress came in, as they often did, after the guests had sat down to dinner, the President's only apology was, 'Gentlemen (or sir), we are too punctual for you. I have a cook who never asks whether the 284 MOUNT VERNON company, but whether the hour has come.' The company usually assembled in the drawing-room, about fifteen or twenty minutes before dinner, and the President spoke to every guest personally on entering the room. Mrs. Washing- ton often, but not always, dined with the company, sat at the head of the table, and if, as was occasionally the case, there were other ladies present, they sat each side of her. The private secretary sat at the foot of the table, and was expected to be quietly attentive to all the guests. The President him- self sat half- way from the head to the foot of the table, and on that side he would place Mrs. Washington, though distant from him, on his right hand. He always, unless a clergyman was present, at his own table asked a blessing, in a standing posture. If a clergyman were present, he was requested both to ask a blessing and to return thanks after dinner. The centre of the table contained five or six large silver or plated waiters, those of the ends, circular, or rather oval on one side, so as to make the arrangement correspond with the oval shape of the table. The waiters between the end pieces were in the form of parallelograms, the ends about one-third part of the length of the sides ; and the whole of these waiters were filled with alabaster figures, taken from the ancient mythology, but none of them such as to offend in the smallest degree against delicacy. On the outside of the oval, formed by the waiters, were placed the various dishes, always without covers ; and outside the dishes were the plates. A small roll of bread, enclosed in a napkin, was laid by the side of each plate. The President, it is believed, generally dined on one dish, and that of a very simple kind. If offered something, either in the first or second course, which was very rich, his usual reply was : AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 285 ' That is too good for me.' He had a silver pint cup or mug of beer placed by his plate, which he drank while dining. He took one glass of wine during dinner, and commonly one after. He then retired (the ladies having gone a little before him), and left his secretary to superintend the table, till the wine- bibbers of Congress had satisfied themselves with drinking. His wines were always the best that could be obtained. Nothing could exceed the order with which his table was served. Every servant knew what he was to do, and did it in the most quiet and yet rapid manner. The dishes and plates were removed and changed, with a silence and speed that seemed like enchantment." On the 9th of March Washington set out for Mount Yernon, a private citizen, accompanied by Mrs. Washington, her two grandchildren (Master and Miss Custis), and George Washing- ton Lafayette, son of the marquis, who was then an exile from France, and in prison. Young Lafayette was then between seventeen and eighteen years of age, and was accompanied by his preceptor, M. Frestel, who composed a part of the family then on its way to Mount Yernon. The misfortunes of Lafayette, whom Washington loved so devotedly, and the condition of his interesting family, had given him more painful anxiety, during the latter part of his administration, than any other circumstance. Lafayette, as we have seen, was one of the prime leaders in the revolution in France during its first stages. He was an aqtive advocate of civil liberty, but conservative in a country where and when representatives and constituents were alike radical. When the revolution was at its height, he was at the head of the Constitutionalists ', who advised moderation. 286 MOUNT VERNON /' '/ ' / GtORGK WASHINGTON LAFAYETTK. Because of this, he, of all the leaders, was left almost alone. He was forsaken by timid friends, who trembled at the frowns of the Terrorists, and was menaced by his violent political enemies. He dared to oppose the factions, of whatever creed, and for this he drew upon his head the anathemas of the Jacobins, the emigrants, and the royalists. Even his army, hitherto faithful, had become disaffected toward him, through the machinations of his enemies, and nothing remained for him but to flee. He left his army encamped at Sedan, and, in company with a few faithful friends, set oif for Holland, to seek an asylum there or in the United States. At the first Austrian post he and his friends were at first detained, and then made prisoners. Soon afterward they AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 287 were sent to the dungeons of Wesel and Magdeburg, and ultimately to those of Olmutz, by order of the allied monarchs of Austria and Prussia. When information of this condition of his dear friend reached Washington at Philadelphia, he was deeply moved. The late venerable Richard Rush intelligence of whose death is spreading upon electric pinions over the land while I write (August 1, 1859) relates an interesting incident illustrative of the feelings of Washington on that occasion. Mr. Bradford, the attorney-general, was living directly opposite the Presi- dent's house, and was spending an evening with Washington's family, when the conversation reverted to Lafayette. Wash- ington spoke with great seriousness, contrasted the marquis's hitherto splendid career with his present forlorn and suffering condition, and at length became so deeply affected, that his eyes filled with tears, and his whole great soul was stirred to its very depths. "Magnanimous tears they were," says Mr. Rush, " fit for the first of heroes to shed virtuous, honorable, sanctified !" Mr. Bradford, who deeply sympathized with the feelings of Washington, was much affected at the spectacle, and returning to his own house, he " sat down," says Griswold, from whose Republican Court I quote, " and wrote the following simple, but touching verses, an impromptu effusion from the heart of a man of sensibility and genius : "THE LAMENT OF WASHINGTON. " As beside his cheerful fire, 'Midst his happy family, Sat a venerable sire, Tears were starting in his eye, 288 MOUNT V E R N X Selfish blessings were forgot, Whilst he thought on Fayette's lot, Once so happy on our plains Now in poverty and chains. " ' Fayette,' cried lie ' honored name 1 . Dear to these far distant shores Fayette, fired by freedom's flame, Bled to make that freedom ours. What, alas ! for this remains What, but poverty and chains ! " ' Soldiers in our fields of death Was not Fayette foremost there ? Cold and shivering on the heath, Did you not his bounty share? What reward for this remains, What, but poverty and chains ! '' ' Hapless Fayette I 'midst thine error, How my soul thy worth reveres ! Son of freedom, tyrant's terror, Hero of both hemispheres ! What reward for all remains, What, but poverty and chains ! " ' Born to honors, ease, and wealth, See him sacrifice them all; Sacrificing also health, At his country's glorious call, What for thee, my friend, remains, What, but poverty and chains I " ' Thus with laurels on his brow Belisarius begged for bread; Thus, from Carthage forced to go, Hannibal an exile fled. Alas ! Fayette at once sustains EXILE, POVERTY, and CHAINS!' AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 289 "Courage, child of Washington ! Though thy fate disastrous seems, We have seen the setting sun Rise and burn with brighter beams, Thy country soon shall break thy chain, And take thee to her arms again. Thy country soon shall break thy chain, And take thee to her arms again !" In the horrid dungeon at Olnmtz, in a cell three paces broad and five and a half long, containing no other ornament than two French verses whicli rhyme with the words to suffer and to die, the generous Lafayette was confined almost three years, and yet his great soul was not bound by suffering, nor his zeal for liberty one whit abated. Deprived of pen, ink, and paper, except a sheet that "by a miracle" he possessed, he wrote a letter with a toothpick to a princess who sympa- thized with him, and said, in a postscript : " I know not what disposition has been made of my planta- tion at Cayenne, but I hope Madame Lafayette will take care that the negroes who cultivate it shall preserve their liberty." Lafayette's noble wife, as soon as she could get permission to leave France, hastened to Olmutz, with her daughters, to share the prison with the husband and father, while their son, George Washington, came to the United States, with his tutor, consigned to the fatherly care and protection of the great patriot whose name he bore. They arrived at Boston at the close of the summer of 1795, and immediately informed Wash- ington of the fact. The President's first impulse was to take the young man to his bosom and cherish him as a son, "but grave reasons of state denied him that pleasure. " To express all the sensibility," he said, in a letter to Senator Cabot, of 19 290 MOUNT VERNON Boston, "which has been jBxcited in my breast by the receipt of young Lafayette's letter, from the recollections of his father's merits, services, and sufferings, from my friendship for him, and from my wishes to become a friend and father to his son, is unnecessary." He then declared himself the young man's friend, but intimated that great caution in the manifestation of that friendship would be necessary, considering the light in which his father was then viewed by the French government, and "Washington's own situation as the executive of the United States. He desired Mr. Cabot to make young Lafayette and M. Frestel, his tutor, understand why he could not receive them as he desired, but that his support and protection, until a more auspicious moment, might be relied on. He ordered them to be provided with every thing necessary, at his expense, and advised their entrance at Harvard University. Young Lafayette assumed the name of Motier (a family name of his father) ; and in November Washington wrote to him with caution, telling him that the causes which rendered it necessary for them both to be circumspect were not yet removed, and desiring him to repair to Colonel Hamilton, in New York, who would see that he was well provided for. " How long the causes which have withheld you from me may continue," Washington said, " I am not able at this moment to decide ; but be assured of my wishes to embrace you so soon as they shall have ceased, and that, whenever the period arrives, I shall do it with fervency." He then, with fatherly solicitude, advised him to attend well to his studies, that he might "be found to be a deserving son of a meritorious father." After leaving Boston, young Lafayette lived with his tutor AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 291 for awhile in the vicinity of New York, in comparative seclu- sion. At length the Congress took cognizance of the presence of the young man, and on the 18th of March the House of Representatives passed the following resolution and order : u Information having been given to this House that a son of General Lafayette is now within the United States ; u Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into the truth of the 1 said information, and report thereon ; and what measures it would be proper to take if the same be true, to evince the grateful sense entertained by the country for the services of his father. " Ordered that Mr. Livingston, Mr. Sherburne, and Mr. Murray be appointed a committee pursuant to the said resolu- tion." As chairman of the committee, Mr. Livingston wrote to young Lafayette as follows : " SIR : Actuated by motives of gratitude to your father, and eager to seize every opportunity of showing their sense of his important services, the House of Representatives have passed the resolution which I have the pleasure to communicate. r The committee being directed to inquire into the fact of your arrival within the United States, permit me to advise your immediate appearance at this place, that the legislature of America may no longer be in doubt, whether the son of Lafay- ette is ..under their protection, and within the reach of their gratitude. '"I presume to give this advice as an individual personally attached to your father, and very solicitous to be useful to any person in whose happiness he is interested. If I should have 292 MOUNT VERNON that good fortune on this occasion, it will afford me the great- est satisfaction. " I am, etc., " EDWARD LIVINGSTON." This letter and the resolutions of the House of Kepresentatives young Lafayette forwarded to President Washington, and asked his advice as to the course he should pursue. Washington advised him to come to Philadelphia at the opening of the next session of Congress, but to avoid society as much as pos- sible. He complied, and remained in Philadelphia until the following spring, when Washington, on becoming a private citizen, embraced the son of his friend as if he had been his own child, and bore him to his home on the Potomac. There lie remained until early in October, when the joyful news having reached him of the release of his father from confine- ment, and his restoration to his country and friends, caused him to leave for the seaboard to depart for France. He and M. Frestel sailed from New York on the 26th of October, 1797. As young Lafayette was about to leave Mount Yernori, Washington placed a letter in his hands for his father, in which he said : "From the delicate and responsible situation in which I stood as a public officer, but more especially from a miscon- ception of the manner in which your son had left France, till explained to me in a personal interview with himself, he did not come immediately into my family on his arrival in Amer- ica, though he was assured in the first moments of it of my protection and support. His conduct, since he first set his feet on AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 293 American ground, has been exemplary in every point of view, such as has gained him the esteem, affection, and confidence of all who have had the pleasure of his acquaintance. His filial affection and duty, and his ardent desire to embrace his parents and sisters in the first moments of their release, would not allow him to wait the authentic account of this much- desired event ; but, at the same time that I suggested the pro- priety of this, I could not withhold my assent to the gratifica- tion of his wishes to fly to the arms of those whom he holds most dear, persuaded as he is from the information he has received, that lie shall find you all in Paris. " M. Frestel has been a true Mentor to George. No parent could have been more attentive to a favorite son; and he richly merits all that can be said of his virtues, of his good sense, and of his prudence. Both your son and he carry with them the vows and regrets of this family, and all who know them. And you may be assured that yourself never stood higher in the affections of the people of this country than at the present moment." The profile of George Washington Lafayette, given on a preceding page, was painted in crayon, by James Sharpless, an English artist, who came to this country in 1796, and visited all the principal cities and towns in the United States, carrying letters of introduction to various distinguished per- sons, and requesting them to sit for their portraits. These were generally painted in crayon, upon a small scale, and finished in less than three hours from the commencement of the sitting. Sharpless usually drew them in profile, and the likenesses were generally so much admired for their faithful- ness, that orders would sometimes be given for whole families. 294 MOUNT VERNON In this way lie painted immense numbers of portraits, and received fifteen dollars for each commission. Sliarpless brought with him his wife and three children. He made New York his head-quarters, and generally travelled in a four-wheeled carriage, so contrived by himself as to con- G. W. P. CUSTIS AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN YEARS. vey his whole family and all of his painting apparatus, and* drawn by one stout horse. He was a plain and frugal man, and amassed a competence by his profession. He was a man of science and a mechanician, and manufactured the crayons which he used in his profession. He died suddenly in New York, at the age of about sixty years, and was buried in the cemetery attached to the Roman Catholic chapel in Barclay AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 295 street. His widow and family returned to England, where they sold the portraits of the distinguished Americans whom Sharpless had painted, and settled in Bath. While in Philadelphia Sharpless painted the profile portraits of President and Mrs. Washington ; and also those of George Washington Lafayette (just mentioned) and George Washing- ton Parke Custis. The latter was then a lad between sixteen and seventeen years of age, and he and young Lafayette became warmly attached friends. When, in 1824 and 1825, General Lafayette visited this country, as the guest of the nation, his son George accompanied him, and he and Mr. Custis were much together when opportunity allowed the privilege. The following note from George W. Lafayette to the friend of his youth, is an exhibition of the warmth of his attachment : "WASHINGTON CITY, January the third, 1825. " MY DEAE CUSTIS : My father being able to dispose of him- self on Wednesday, will do himself the pleasure of going that day to dine at Arlington. It is so long since I wished for that satisfaction myself, that I most sincerely rejoice at the antici- pation of it. You know, my friend, how happy I was when we met at Baltimore. Since that day I felt every day more and more how much our two hearts were calculated to under- : stand each other. Be pleased, my dear Custis, to present my respectful homage to the ladies, and receive for yourself the expression of my most affectionate and brotherly sentiments." The profiles of General and Mrs. Washington, by Sharpless, have been pronounced by members of the Washington family who remembered the originals, as the best likenesses extant, 296 MOUNT VKRNON both in form and color. Sharpless made many copies from it. So also did Mrs. Sharpless, who painted miniatures in water colors most exquisitely. One of these is in the possession of CRAYON PROFILE OF WASHINGTON. Mrs. Eliza M. Evans, a daughter of General Anthony Walton "White, of New Jersey. It is somewhat smaller than the usual size of miniatures, and on the back is written, by the hand of the fair artist : " General Washington, Philadelphia, 1796. E. Sharpless." These four originals, by Sharpless, are preserved at Arling- ton House. Those of Mrs. Washington, and Lafayette and Custis. when lads, have never been engraved before. They hung upon the walls at Mount Vernon from the time when Washington retired from the presidency until the death of Mrs. Washington, in 1802, when they passed into the posses- sion of her grandson, G. W. P. Custis. When fairly seated again in private life at Mount Yernon, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 297 Washington appeared to revel in the luxury of quiet. He was never idle, never indifferent to the progress of current events, but he loved the peacefulness of nature away from the haunts CRATOX PROFILE OF MRS. WASHINGTON. of men, and was delighted when working like the bee among the fruits and flowers. He was not unsocial, and yet he loved to be away from the great gathering-places of men and the tumults of public life. He was not unambitious, but he was not only indifferent but averse to the plaudits of the multitude when given in the accents of flattery. He wished to be loved as a righteous man, and he relied upon his conscience more than upon the voices of men for a knowledge of the accept- ableness of his endeavors. It was his guide in all things, for he regarded it in one sense as Emanuel God with us the righteous judge of the thoughts and actions of men. Washington now felt that his country had received all that 298 MOUNT VERNON could reasonably be asked of him as a public servant, and he returned to his old pursuits with a sincere desire to mingle no more in the stirring arena of busy life. " To make and sell a little flour annually," he wrote to Oliver Wolcott, " to repair houses (going fast to ruin), to build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, and to amuse myself in agricultural and rural pursuits, will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this terrestrial globe. If, also, I could now and then meet the friends I esteem, it would fill the measure and add zest to nay enjoyments; but, if ever this hap- pens, it must be under my own vine and fig-tree, as I do not think it probable that I shall go twenty miles from them." "Washington enjoyed the visits of friends, but those of mere ceremony he disliked, and was sometimes annoyed by those prompted by idle curiosity. " I might tell my friend," he said, in a letter at the close of May to Mr. McHenry, the secretary of war, " that I begin my diurnal course with the sun ; that if my hirelings are not in their places at that time, I send them messages of sorrow for their indisposition; that, having put these wheels in motion, I examine the state of things further ; that the more they are probed, the deeper I find the wounds which my buildings have sustained by an absence and neglect of eight years ; that by the time I have accomplished these matters, breakfast (a little after seven o'clock, about the time I presume you are taking leave of Mrs. McHenry) is ready ; that this being over, I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out of respect for me. Pray, would not the word curiosity answer as well ? And how dif- . AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 299 ferent this from having a few social friends at a cheerful board! The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea, bring me within the dawn of candlelight ; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing-table and acknowledge the letters I have received ; but when the lights are brought, I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work, conceiving that the next night will do as well. The next night comes, and with it the same causes for postponement, and so on. " This will account for your letter remaining so long unac- knowledged ; and, having given you the history of a day, it will serve for a year, and I am persuaded you will not require a second edition of it. But it may strike you that, in this detail, no mention is made of any portion of time allotted for reading. The remark would be just, for I have not looked into a book since I came home ; nor shall I be able to do it until I have discharged my workmen, probably not before the nights grow longer, when possibly I may be looking in Dooms- day Book." Washington's allusion in the foregoing letter to his writing- table, reminds me of his inkstand, which is preserved at Arling- ton House. It is composed wholly of silver, except three cut- glass bottles, two of them used for ink, and one (in the centre) for sand. The tray is seven and a half inches in length. It was used by "Washington during the last two years of his administration, and ever afterward at Mount Yernon. Washington found his mansion and all of the surrounding buildings much in want of repair when he returned home. " I find myself," he said, " in the situation nearly of a new 300 MOUNT VERNON WASHINGTON'S INKSTAND. beginner ; for although I have not houses to build (except one, which I must erect for the accommodation and security of my military, civil, and private papers, which are voluminous and may be interesting), yet I have scarcely any thing else about me that does not require considerable repairs. In a word, I am already surrounded by joiners, masons, and painters ; and such is my anxiety to get out of their hands, that I have scarcely a room to put a friend into or to sit in myself, without the music of hammers or the odoriferous scent of paint." The mansion at Mount Yernon was soon thoroughly repair- ed, and many ornaments and pieces of furniture, not known to it before, were placed in it. Whatever had been used in the presidential mansion at Philadelphia, and could be appro- priately transferred to Mount Yernon, were reserved, when Washington broke up his establishment in the federal capital, and disposed of all superfluities. Among other things brought on from Philadelphia, was a pair of mural candelabra, of elegant form and workmanship. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 301 These were upon the walls of the dining-room at Philadelphia, which was also used for public receptions by the President and his wife. They were now placed in the large drawing- MURAL CANDELABRA. AXCIF.NT LANTERN. room at Mount Vernon. They are each constructed of a mir- ror enclosed in a neat metal frame, resting upon an elaborately wrought bracket, and surmounted by flowers and festoons of leaves, all of the same material, and heavily gilt. In front of the mirror is a crystal candlestick and branches, so placed as to have a brilliant reflection produced. 302 MOUNT VERNON These "lustres," as they were sometimes called, were im- ported from France, and formed a strong contrast to the ancient dingy iron lantern which hung in the great passage. That lantern, first hung up in the original cottage upon Mount Vernon by Lawrence Washington, continued its services there until the death of the general. It had then cast its dim light upon the entrance door full eighty years. It is still in service, having for more than fifty years lighted the great passage at Arlington House, illuminating pictures by Vandyke and Sir Godfrey Kneller. In the dining-room at Mount Yernon was another relic of the household of Lawrence Washington. It was a sideboard, handsomely wrought of black walnut, and is an excellent specimen of the quality of furniture in Yirginia a hundred years ago. Its edges and legs are ornamented with delicate leaf-carving, and the wood is as perfect as when it was first used. It is about five feet in length, two and a half feet in width, and three feet in height, and quite heavy. It is used by the family at Arlington House, and is prized as one of the most precious mementos of Mount Yernon, because of its antiquity. There are also a tea-table and punch-bowl at Arlington House that belonged to Washington. The former is quite small, elliptical in shape, about three feet in length, and made of mahogany. It was manufactured in New York for use in the executive mansion there, as a tea-table only, for the little private family of Washington, which consisted of only four persons. Food was not often set upon it. Washington seldom ate any thing after dinner until eight o'clock in the evening, when, with his family, he partook of a cup of tea served from this table, and a small slice of buttered bread. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 303 SIDEBOARD, TEA-TABLE, AND PUNCH-BOWL. The great porcelain punch-bowl delineated in the engraving, has a deep blue border at the rim, spangled with gilt stars and dots. It was made expressly for Washington, but when, where, and by whom is not known. In the bottom is a picture of a frigate, and on the side are the initials G. ~W., in gold, upon a shield with ornamental sur- roundings. It is supposed to have been presented to Washington by the French naval officers. If so, it was doubtless manufactured and sent over at the time when the Cin- cinnati china was forwarded. There are two massive silver can- dlesticks, with extinguishers and snuffers of the same metal, at Ar- lington House, that once belonged WASHINGTON S SILVER CANDLESTICK.' to Washington. These formed a part of his furniture after his retirement from the army, in 304 MOUNT VERNON 1783, and are a portion of his plate not remodelled afterward in New York. How many interesting associations are made to cluster around these simple utensils of domestic use, at the sugges- tions of fancy and conjecture! Perhaps almost every distin- guished European Lafayette, Rochambeau, Chastellux, Hou- don, Pine, Moustier, Brissot, D'Yruzo, Graham as well as equally distinguished Americans who have spent a night at Mount Yernon bore one of them to the bedchamber. Perhaps they were used by Washington himself at his writing-table or by the fireside, or to light the conjugal chamber. And it is quite possible that the master bore one of them on the occasion mentioned in the following paragraph from the pen of Elkanah Watson, when describing his visit at Mount Yernon : " The first evening I spent under the wing of Washington's hospitality, we sat a full hour at table by ourselves, without the least interruption. After the family had retired, I was extremely oppressed by a severe cold and excessive coughing, contracted by the exposure of a harsh winter journey. He pressed me to use some remedies, but I declined doing so. As usual after retiring, my coughing increased. When some time had elapsed, the door of my room was gently opened, and on drawing my bed-curtains, to my utter astonishment I beheld Washington himself standing at my bedside, with a bowl of hot tea in his hand. I was mortified and distressed beyond expression. This little incident occurring in common life with an ordinary man, would not have been noticed ; but as a trait of the benevolence and private virtue of Washington, deserves to be recorded." AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 305 MOKNING A LANDSCAPE EV While residing in Philadelphia, Washington became ac- quainted with the merits of William Winstanley, an English- EVEM.NG A LANDSCAPE BY WIXSTANLET. man, and landscape painter, who came to America in 1796. 20 306 MOUNT VERNON He was spoken of as "an artist of genius and reputation, whose landscapes in oil are greatly admired by the connois- seurs." Washington, pleased with some specimens of his skill which were brought to his notice, gave him a commission to paint six medium-sized pictures, representing scenery on the Hudson River. These were afterward taken to Mount Vernon, and adorned the walls of the drawing-room there. Two of these, called respectively Morning and Evening, are now at Arlington House. Two others are in the family of the late Mrs. Lewis (Nelly Custis) ; of the remaining two we have no intelligence. Washington was again awakened from his sweet dream of peace and quietness in his home on the Potomac, by the call of his country to lend to it once more his voice and his arm. There were signs of war in the political firmament. France, once the ally of the United States, assumed the attitude of an enemy. The king and queen of that unhappy country had been murdered at the command of a popular tribunal. Out of the anarchy that ensued, had been evolved a government, in which supreme power was vested in five men called a Directory, who ruled in connection with two chambers, the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred. It was installed at the Little Luxembourg, at Paris, on the 1st of November, 1795, and held the executive power four years. That Directory was a most despotic tyrant, and ruled with an iron hand. Its pride disgusted the nations, and every true friend of man rejoiced when it quailed before the genius and the bayonets of Napoleon. Before Washington had left the chair of state, the friendly AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 307 feeling between the United States and France had become greatly weakened. The French Directory assumed a tone of incomparable insolence, and the American representatives in Paris were insulted. Three judicious men had been sent to adjust all difficulties with the French government. They were refused an audience with the Directory unless they would agree to pay a large sum into the French treasury. " Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute !" said Charles Cotes- worth Pinckney, one of the American envoys; and he and John Marshall, another of the envoys, were ordered out of the country. This insult the United States did not choose to allow to pass unheeded, and all diplomatic intercourse between the two governments was suspended. Preparations were made for war ; and in May, 1798, Congress authorized the formation of a large military force, to be called a Provisional Army. The movement was popular with the people, and with anxious hearts their thoughts turned instinctively to Washington as the man for the commander-in chief. There appeared to be a universal opinion that the weight of Washington's name and character would be necessary in order to produce unanimity among the military leaders that would be brought upon the stage, and to secure the confidence and support of the people. Washington, though in absolute retirement, had watched the progress of affairs in France with sorrow and indignation, and had expressed his mind freely to his friends upon the subject. President Adams, in the perplexities which the prog- ress of events produced, turned to him for advice, and looked to him for aid. " I must tax you," he said, " sometimes for advice. We must have your name, if you will in any case 308 MOUNT VERXON permit us to use it. There will be more efficacy in it than in many an army." And before Washington could reply, Adams nominated to the Seriate: "George "Washington, of Mount Vernon, to be lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of all the armies raised and to be raised in the United States." Already Mr. McIIenry, the secretary of war, had written : " You see how the storm thickens, and that our vessel will soon require our ancient pilot. Will you may we flatter ourselves that, in a crisis so awful and important, you will accept the command of all our armies? I hope you will, because you alone can unite all hearts and all hands, if it is possible that they can be united." The Senate confirmed the nomination of the president, and Washington was appointed commander-in-chief of the Provi- sional Army. True to the prophecies and promises of his antecedents, he accepted the trust, for his country demanded his services, but with the provision that he should not be re- quired to take the field until circumstances should make it absolutely necessary. " I see, as you do," he said to McHenry, " that clouds are gathering and that a storm may ensue; and I find, too, from a variety of hints, that my quiet, under these circumstances, does not promise to be of long continuance. * * * * As my whole life has been dedicated to my country in one shape or another, for the poor remains of it it is not an object to con- tend for ease and quiet, when all that is valuable is at stake, further than to be satisfied that the sacrifice I should make of these is acceptable and desired by my country." And now there were stirring times again at Mount Yernon. Washington's post-bag came filled with a score of letters some- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 309 times, for to him had been entrusted the selection of officers for the army, and there were thousands of aspirants for places of almost every grade. He nominated Colonel Alexander Hamilton as first major-general, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, then on his way from France, the second, and General Knox the third. The subordinate offices were frequently filled by the sons of his old companions in arms, and several of his own family received commissions. Young Custis, his adopted son, was appointed aide-de-camp to General Pinckney, and his favorite nephew, Lawrence Lewis, also received a com- mission. Many were the visitors who nocked to Mount Vernon dur- ing the autumn of 1798. A large number of these were army officers, who went to head-quarters to consult with the chief about military affairs ; and General Pinckney having returned, was there at Christmas time. At the same time Judge Gushing, of the Supreme Court of the United States, who administered the oath of office to Washington at his second inauguration, was also there. " We reached Mount Vernon," wrote the wife of Judge Gushing, in February, 1 799, " the evening before Christmas, and if any thing could have added to our enjoyment, it was the arrival of General and Mrs. Pinckney the next day [Tues- day], while we were dining. You may be sure it was a joyful meeting, and at the very place my wishes had pointed out. To be in the company of so many esteemed friends, to hear our good General Washington converse upon political subjects without reserve, and to hear General and Mrs. Pinckney re- late what they saw and heard in France, was truly a feast to me. Thus the moments glided away for two days, when our 310 MOUNT VERNON reason pointed out the propriety of our departing and improv- ing the good roads, as the snow and frost had made them better than they are in summer." The attitude assumed by the United States, and the appear- ance of Washington at the head of the army, humbled the French Directory, and President Adams was encouraged to send representatives to France again. When they arrived, toward the close of 1799, the weak Directory were no more. Napoleon Bonaparte was at the head of the government as first consul, and soon the cloud of war that hung between France and the United States was dissipated. We now come to consider the associations of Mount Yernon during the last year of the century. It opened with joy. it closed with sorrow. Lawrence Lewis, son of Washington's sister Elizabeth, had been a resident at Mount Yernon for some time. We have already observed, by an expression in a letter of Washington to Mr. McHenry, that the visits of strangers to Mount Vernon had become somewhat burdensome to the master. With this feeling he wrote to Lawrence, giving him a formal invitation to reside at Mount Vernon, and saying : " As both your aunt and I are in the decline of life, and regular in our habits, especially in our hours of rising and going to bed, I require some person (fit and proper) to ease me of the trouble of entertaining company, particularly of nights, as it is my inclination to retire (and unless prevented by very particular company, I always do retire) either to bed or to my study soon after candlelight. In taking those duties (which hospitality obliges one to bestow on company) off my hands, it would render me a very acceptable service." Lawrence com- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 311 plied with the request of his uncle, and became an inmate of the family at Mount Vernon at the beginning of 1T98. Nelly Custis was at this time blooming into womanhood, and was exceedingly attractive in person and manners. She was a great favorite with her foster-father, and as she ap- proached marriageable age, he had indulged many anxious thoughts respecting her. The occasional visits of Lawrence Lewis to Mount Vernon had been productive of the most intimate friendly relations between them, and when he became a resident there, his respect for Nelly grew into warm and tender attachment. Washington was pleased ; but there came ;i rival, whose suit Mrs. Washington decidedly encouraged. That rival was a son of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, who had just returned from Europe, and displayed all the accomplish- ments of a good education, adorned with the social graces derived from foreign travel. " 1 find that young Mr. C- - has been at Mount Vernon, and, report says, to address my sister," wrote her brother to Washington, in April, 1798, from Annapolis, where he was at school. "It may be well to subjoin an opinion," he said, " which I believe is general in this place, viz., that he is a young man of the strictest probity and morals, discreet with- out closeness, temperate without excess, and modest without vanity ; possessed of those amiable qualities and friendship which are so commendable, and with few of the vices of the age. In short, I think it a most desirable match, and wish that it may take place with all my heart." Washington, who favored the suit of his nephew, closed abruptly the correspondence with young Custis on that sub- ject, by saying, in a letter to him a fortnight afterward : 312 MOUNT VERNON u Young Mr. C- - came here about a fortnight ago, to dinner, and left us next morning after breakfast. If his object was such as you say has been reported, it \vas not declared here; and therefore the less is said upon the subject, particu- larly by your sister's friends, the more prudent it will be until the subject develops itself more." In his next letter, in reply to this, young Custis ventured only to say : " With respect to what 1 mentioned of Mr. C in my last, I had no other foundation but report, which has since been contradicted."* Lawrence Lewis triumphed, yet the foster-father had some time doubted respecting the result, for other suitors came to Mount Yernon, and made their homage at the shrine of Nelly's wit and beauty. " I was young and romantic then," she said to a lady, from whose lips Mr. Irving has quoted " I was young and roman- tic then, and fond of wandering alone by moonlight in the woods of Mount Yernon. Grandmamma thought it wrong and unsafe, and scolded and coaxed me into a promise that I would not wander in the woods again unaccompanied. But I was missing one evening, and was brought home from the interdicted woods to the drawing-room, where the General was walking up and down with his hands behind him, as was his wont. Grandmamma, seated in her great arm-chair, opened a severe reproof." * For very interesting correspondence between General Washington and his adopted son, G. TV. P. Custis, while the latter was in college at Princeton and Annapolis, from November, 1796, to January. 1799, see RecoUectiona ci'id Private Memoirs of Washinglon i by his adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, edited by the author of this work. AXD ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 313 " Poor Miss Nelly," says Mr. Irving, " was reminded of her promise, and taxed with her delinquency. She knew that she had done wrong admitted her fault, and essayed no excuse ; but, when there was a slight pause, moved to retire from the room. She was just shutting the door when she overheard the General attempting, in a low voice, to intercede in her behalf. ' My dear,' observed he, ' I would say no more perhaps she was not alone.' " His intercession stopped Miss Nelly in her retreat. She reopened the door and advanced up to the General with a firm step. ' Sir,' said she, ' you brought me up to speak the truth, and when I told Grandmamma I was alone, I hope you believed / was alone.'' " The General made one of his most magnanimous bows. ' My child,' replied he, ' I beg your pardon.' " Lawrence and Nelly were married at Mount Vernon on Washington's birthday, 1799. It was Friday, and a bright and beautiful day. The early spring flowers were budding in the hedges, and the bluebird, making its way cautiously north- ward, gave a few joyous notes in the garden that morning. The occasion was one of great hilarity at Mount Vernon, for the bride was beloved by all, and Major Lewis, the bride- groom, had ever been near to the heart of his uncle, since the death of his mother, who so much resembled her illustrious brother, that when, in sport, she would place a chapeau on her head and throw a military cloak over her shoulders, she might easily have been mistaken for the Chief. It was the wish of the young bride, said her brother, that, the general of the armies of the United States should wear, on that occasion, the splendidly-embroidered uniform whicb the 314: MOUNT VKRXOX board of general officers had adopted, but Washington could not be persuaded to appear in a costume bedizened with tinsel. He preferred the plain old continental blue and buff', and the modest black ribbon cockade. Magnificent white plumes, which General Pinckney had presented to him, he gave to the bride ; and to the Reverend Thomas Davis, rector of Christ Church, Alexandria, who performed the marriage ceremony, he presented an elegant copy of Mrs. Macaulay's History of England, in eight octavo volumes, saying, when he handed them to him : "These, sir, were written by a remarkable lady, who visited America many years ago ; and here is also her treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth, which she sent me just before her death read it and return it to me." s- "With characteristic modesty, Washington made no allusion to the fact that Mrs. Macaulay (Catharine Macaulay Graham) crossed the Atlantic in the spring of 1785, for no other pur- pose, as she avowed, than to see the great leader of the Amer- ican armies, whom she revered as a second Moses. Washing- ton thus alluded to her, in a letter to General Knox, written on the 18th of June, 1785 : " Mrs. Macaulay Graham, Mr. Graham, and others, have just left us, after a stay of about ten days. A visit from a lady so celebrated in the literary world could not but be very flattering to me." The year 1799 the last year of the century, the last year of Washington's life was now drawing to a close, and he appears to have made preparations for his departure, as if the fact that the summons from earth would soon be presented had been revealed to him. In March he said, in a letter to AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 315 Mr. McIIenry, after alluding to business affairs : " My greatest anxiety is to have all these concerns in such a clear and dis- tinct form, that no reproach may attach itself to me when I have taken my departure for the land of spirits." In July he executed his last will and testament. It was written entirely by himself, and at the bottom of each page of manuscript he signed his name. During the autumn he digested a complete system of management for his estate for several succeeding years, in which were tables designating the rotation of crops. This document occupied thirty folio pages, all written in his peculiar and clear style. It was completed only four days before his death, and was accompanied by a letter, dated December 10th, 1799, to his manager or steward, giving him special directions, -as if the master was about to depart on a journey. At this time Washington w r as in full health and vigor, and the beautiful days of a serene old age were promised him. He had once said : " I am of a short-lived family, and cannot expect to remain very long upon the earth ;" yet now, at the age of almost sixty-eight, he appeared to have full expectations of octogenarian honors. Only a few days before his death, he had walked out, on a cold, frosty morning, with his nephew, Major Lewis, and pointed out his anticipated improvements, especially showing him the spot where he intended to build a new family vault. "This change," he said, "I shall make the first of all, for I may require it before the rest." " "When I parted from him," said Major Lewis, to James K. Paulding, " he stood on the steps of the front door, where he took leave of mvself and another. He had taken his usual 316 MOUNT VERNON ride, and the clear healthy flush on his cheek and his sprightly manner, brought the remark from both of us that we had never seen the general look so well. I have sometimes thought him decidedly the handsomest man I ever saw; and when in a lively mood, so full of pleasantry, so agreeable to all with whom he associated, I could hardly realize that he was the same Washington whose dignity awed all who approached him." On the llth of December Washington noted in his diary that there was wind and rain, and " at night a large circle round the moon." This portent of snow was truthful, for at one o'clock the next day it began to fall. It soon changed to hail, and then to rain. Washington had been out on horseback, as usual, since ten o'clock in the morning, and returned only in time for late dinner. Mr. Lear, who was again residing at Mount Yernon, as Washington's secretary and business manager, carried some letters to him to frank, when he observed snow hanging to the general's hair about his neck, and expressed a fear that lie was wet. " No," Washington replied, " my great coat has kept me dry;" and after franking the letters, and observing that the storm was too heavy to send a servant to the post-office that evening, he sat down to dinner without changing his damp clothes. On the following day (Friday, the 13th) the snow was three inches deep upon the ground, and still falling. Washington complained of a sore throat, and the storm continuing, he omitted his usual ride. At noon the clouds broke, the sun came out clear and warm, and he occupied himself before dinner in marking some trees, between the mansion and the AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. Bi'l river, that were to be cut down, and with compass and chain defining lines for improvements. After dinner his hoarseness grew worse, yet he regarded it as nothing serious. He was very cheerful during the evening, and sat in the parlor with Mrs. Washington and Mr. Lear, amusing himself with the newspapers, which were brought in at seven o'clock, occasionally reading aloud something that pleased him, or asking Mr. Lear to do so, his hoarseness some- times depriving him of his voice. Among other things, Mr. Lear read to him the report of debates in the Virginia Assem- bly, and Washington made comments, as well as his hoarseness would permit. About nine o'clock Mrs. Washington left the parlor, and went to the chamber of Mrs. Lewis, who was confined, and the general and Mr. Lear continued the perusal, of the papers some time afterward. When he retired, Mr. Lear suggested that he had better take something for his cold, his hoarseness appear- ing to increase. " No," he answered, " you know I never take any thing for a cold. Let it go as it came." Between two and three o'clock the next morning he awoke Mrs. Washington, told her that he was very ill, and had had an ague. He was so hoarse that he could scarcely speak. He breathed with great difficulty, and Mrs. Washington proposed to get up and call a servant, but the tender husband would not permit her to do so, lest she should take cold. At day- light their chambermaid, Caroline, went into the room to make a fire, as usual, when Mrs. Washington sent her for Mr. Lear. That gentleman dressed himself quickly, and, on going to the general's room, found him breathing with great diffi- culty, and hardly able to utter a word intelligibly. 318 MOUNT V K R N X Washington desired Mr. Lear to send immediately for Mr. Rawlins, one of the overseers, to come and bleed him, while another servant was dispatched to Alexandria for Dr. Craik, the sufferer's life-long friend and his family physician. Some mix- tures were prepared to give im- mediate relief, but he could not swallow a drop. Rawlins came soon after sun- rise. He was much agitated. Washington perceived it, and said, "Don't be afraid." A slight incision was made in the arm, for Mrs. Washington, doubtful whether bleeding was proper in the case, begged that not much blood might be taken. The blood ran pretty freely, but the general whispered, "The orifice is not large enough ;" and when Mr. Lear was about to loosen the bandage to stop the bleeding, at the request of Mrs. Washing- ton, he put his hand up to prevent it, and said, " More, more." About half a pint of blood was taken from him, and external applications were made, but nothing seemed to relieve the sufferer. At eight o'clock Washington expressed a desire to get up. His clothes were put on, and he was led to a chair by the fire. But he found no relief in that position, and at ten o'clock he lay down again. Mrs. Washington had become much alarmed, and before Dr. DR. JAMES CRAIK. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 319 Craik arrived, she desired Mr. Lear to send for Dr. Brown, of Port Tobacco, whom Craik had recommended to be called if any alarming sickness should occur during his absence. At about nine o'clock Dr. Craik arrived. He at once took more . blood from the general, put a blister on his throat, prepared a gargle of vinegar and sage tea, and ordered some vinegar and hot water for him to inhale the steam of. The gargle almost suffocated him. A little phlegm was brought up with it, and he attempted to cough, but was unable to do so. At eleven o'clock Dr. Craik requested Dr. Dick, with whom he often consulted, to be sent for, as Dr. Brown might not come in time. He then bled the general again, but no effect was produced by it. His inability to swallow any thing con- tinued. At three o'clock Dr. Dick arrived, and after consulta- tion with him, Dr. Craik again bled the sufferer. The blood was thick, and flowed very sluggishly. Dr. Brown arrived soon afterward, and after the three physicians had held a brief consultation, Dr. Craik administered calomel and tartar emetic, which the general managed to swallow. But this too was without effect. "About half-past four o'clock," says Mr. Lear, in a narra- tive which he wrote at the time, " he desired me to call Mrs. Washington to his bedside, when he requested her to go down into his room, and take from his desk two wills which she would find there, and bring them to him, which she did. Upon looking at them he gave her one, which he observed was useless, as being superseded by the other, and desired her to burn it, which she did, and took the other and put it into her closet. "After this was done, I returned to his bedside and took his 320 MOUNT VERNON hand. He said to me : ' I find I am going. My breath can- not last long. I believed from the first that the disorder would prove fatal. Do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers. Arrange my accounts and settle my books, as you know more about them than any one else, and let Mr. Rawlins finish recording my other letters which he has begun.' I told him this should be done. He then asked if I recollected any thing which it was essential for him to do, as he had but a very short time to continue with us. I told him that I could recollect nothing, but that I hoped he was not so near his end. He observed, smiling, that he certainly was, and that, as it was a debt we must all pay, he looked to the event with perfect resignation. " In the course of the afternoon he appeared to be in great pain and distress from the difficulty of breathing, and fre- quently changed his posture in the bed. On these occasions I lay upon the bed and endeavored to raise him, and turn him with as much ease as possible. He appeared penetrated with gratitude for my attentions, and often said, 'I am afraid I shall fatigue you too much ;' and upon my assuring him that I could feel nothing but a wish to give him ease, he replied, ' Well, it is a debt we must pay to each other, and I hope when you want aid of this kind you will find it.' ' : Washington then inquired when Mr. Lewis and Washington Custis, who were in New Kent, would return; and being told, he remained silent awhile, and then desired his servant, Chris- topher, who had been in the room all day, to sit down, for he had been standing most of the time. He did so. A few minutes afterward Dr. Oraik came into the room, and as he approached the bedside, Washington said to him : " Doctor, I AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 321 die hard, but I am not afraid to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I should not survive it. My breath cannot last long." The doctor, overcome with emotion, pressed his hand, but could not utter a word. He left the bedside, and, in deep grief, sat by the fire for some time, while all was silent in the room, except the heavy breathing of the sufferer. Doctors Dick and Brown came into the room between five and six o'clock, when they and Dr. Craik went to the bedside and asked Washington if he could sit up in bed. He held out his hand and Mr. Lear raised him up. " I feel myself going," he said ; " I thank you for your attentions ; but I pray you take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quickly. I cannot last long." Then casting a look of gratitude toward Mr. Lear, he lay down, and all left the bedside except Dr. Craik. Mr. Lear now wrote to Mr. Law and Mr. Peter, gentlemen who had married two granddaughters of Mrs. Washington (sisters of Nelly Custis), requesting them to come immediately, with their wives, to Mount Vernon. At about eight o'clock the physicians tried other outward applications to relieve the sufferer, but in vain, and they left the room without any hope. At about ten o'clock Washington attempted to speak to Mr. Lear, but failed several times. At length he murmured: "I am just going. Have me decently buried ; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead." Mr. Lear could not speak, but bowed his assent. Washington whispered, " Do you understand ?" Lear replied, " Yes." " 'Tis well," he said ; and these were the last words he ever spoke " ' Tis well /" "About ten minutes before he expired," says Mr. Lear (" which was between ten and eleven o'clock), his breathing 21 322 MOUNT VERNON became easier. He lay quietly ; he withdrew his hand from mine and felt his own pulse. I saw his countenance change. I spoke to Dr. Craik, who sat by the fire. He came to the bedside. The general's hand fell from his wrist. I took it in mine and pressed it to my bosom. Dr. Craik put his hands over his eyes, and he expired without a struggle or a sigh. " While we were fixed in silent grief, Mrs. Washington, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, asked, with a firm and col- lected voice. ' Is he gone?' I could not speak, but held up my hand as a signal that he was no more. ' 'Tis well,' said she, in the same voice, ' all is now over ; I shall soon follow him ; I have no more trials to pass through.' " " It may be asked," says Mr. Custis, " why was the ministry of religion wanting to shed its peaceful and benign lustre upon the last hours of Washington? Why was he, to whom the observances of sacred things were ever primary duties through life, without their consolations in his last moments? We an- swer, circumstances did not permit. It was but for a little while that the disease assumed so threatening a character as to forbid the encouragement of hope ; yet, to stay that summons which none may refuse, to give still farther length of days to him whose time-honored life was so dear to mankind, prayers were not wanting to the throne of grace. Close to the couch of the sufferer, resting her head upon that ancient book, with which she had been wont to hold pious communion a portion of every day for more than half a century, was the venerable consort, absorbed in silent prayer, and from which she only arose when the mourning group prepared to lead her from the chamber of the dead." That chamber, ever held sacred by the Washington family, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 323 and concealed from the eyes of the curious visitor, appears now, in form and feature, precisely as when the spirit of the Father of his Country took its departure from it. Not a vestige of the furniture that was there at the time of Washing- ton's death, remains. The bed and bedstead on which he died are at Arlington House, where they, too, are kept as not only precious but sacred mementos of the great and good Wash- ington. BED AND BEDSTEAD ON WHICH WASHINGTON DIED. The bedstead is made of mahogany, and was manufactured in New York in 1789. It is remarkable for its size, being six feet square. It was in constant use in the bed-chamber of General and Mrs. Washington, from the time of its manufac- ture until his death. The bed and bedding remain in precisely 324 MOUNT VERNON the same condition as when Washington was borne from his Chamber to his tomb. The room in which Washington died has seldom been seen by visitors at Mount Yernon. While enjoying the hospitali- ties of the late proprietor for two or three days, I was permit- ted to enter and sketch it. It was used as a private ch amber by the heads of the family. Empty, it presents the same appearance it did at Washington's death, and so I delineated it. Two doors open from it into other chambers, and one to stairs that lead to the garret. KOO.M IX WHICH WASHINGTON DIED. As I stood alone in that death-chamber of the illustrious Washington, fancy seemed to fill it with those who occupied it on Saturday night, the 14th of December, 1799, mentioned in a memorandum by Mr. Lear. On the bed lay the great man at the sublime moment of his death. Near the bed stood Mr Lear and Dr. Craik. " Mrs. Washington was sitting near the foot of the bed. Christopher was standing near the bedside Caroline, Molly, and Charlotte (house-servants) were in the room, standing near the door. Mrs. Forbes, the housekeeper, AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 325 was in the room likewise." And as I stood there, delineating the simple outlines of that chamber, the words of Wallace came vividly to my memory : " There is an awful stillness in the sky When, after wondrous deeds and light supreme, A star goes out in golden prophecy. There is an awful stillness in the world, When, after wondrous deeds and light supreme, A hero dies with all the future clear Before him, and his voice made jubilant By coming glories, and his nation hush'd As though they heard the farewell of a god A great man is to earth as God to heaven." No one, except Mrs. Washington, mourned more sincerely at the deathbed of the great patriot than Dr. Craik, a gen- erous, warm-hearted Scotchman, and excellent physician, who settled in Virginia in early life, was with Washington in the campaigns of the French and Indian war, and of the Revolu- tion, and was his friend and medical adviser for more than forty years. Twice he accompanied Washington to the Ohio country, the first time in 1770, and the second time in 1785. He continued to reside in Alexandria until old age caused him to relinquish his profession, when he retired with a competent fortune to Vaucluse, a part of the Ravensworths' estate, where lie died in 1814, at the age of eighty-four years. He was exceedingly vigorous, in mind and body, until the last. His grandson, the Reverend James Craik, of Louisville, Kentucky, to whom I am indebted for the silhouette likeness of Dr. Craik, printed on page 318, says, in a recent letter to me: " He was a stout, thickset man, perfectly erect, no stoop of the shoulders, and no appearance of debility in his carriage. 326 MOUNT VERNON Not long before his death he ran a race with me (^then about eight years old) in the front yard of the house at Vaucluse, before the assembled family." At midnight the body of General Washington was brought down from the chamber of death, and laid out in the large drawing-room, in front of the superb Italian chimney-piece, delineated on page 172 a work of art which the master had feared, " by the number of cases " which contained it, would be "too elegant and costly" for his "room, and republican style of living ;" and on the following day (Sunday) a plain mahogany coffin was procured from Alexandria, and mourning ordered for the family, the overseers, and the domestics. On the same day several of the relatives who had been sent for arrived, among whom was Mrs. Stuart, the mother of Mrs. Washington's grandchildren. At the head of the coffin was placed an ornament inscribed SURGE AD JUDICUM. At about the middle were the words GLORIA DEO ; and upon a silver plate was the record : GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON DEPARTED THIS LIFE ON THE 14rTH DECEMBER, 1799, JET. 68. The coffin was lined with lead, and upon a cover of the same material, to be put on after the coffin was laid in the vault, was a silver shield, nearly three inches in length, in- scribed : GEORGE WASHINGTON, BORN FEB. 22, 1732, DIED DECEMBER 14, 1799. GEORGEWASHINGTON BOKNrEB:.22.1732 i DIED DEC? I*. 1799 AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS 327 The time for the funeral was fixed at twelve o'clock on Wednesday, the 18th, and the Reverend Mr. Davis, of Alex- andria, was invited to perform the burial service, according to the beautiful ritual of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Having received information from Alex- andria that the military and Freemasons were desirous of showing their respect for their chief and brother, by following his body to the grave, Mr. Lear ordered pro- SILVEE sm ^ oy WASHING . visions to be prepared for a large number of people, as some refreshment would be expected by them. And Mr. Robert Hamilton, of Alexandria, wrote to Mr. Lear, that a schooner of his would anchor off Mount Yernon to fire minute guns, while the body was passing from the mansion to the tomb. The arrangements for the procession at the funeral were made by Colonels Little, Simms, and Deneale, and Dr. Dick. The old family vault was opened and cleaned, and Mr. Lear ordered an entrance door to be made for it, that it might not be again closed with brick. Mr. Stewart, adjutant of the Alexandria regiment, of which "Washington had once been colonel, went down to Mount Yernou to view the ground for the procession. The people began to collect at Mount Vernon on Wednes- day, at eleven o'clock, but owing to a delay of the military, the time for the procession was postponed until three o'clock. The coffined body of the illustrious patriot lay, meanwhile, beneath the, grand piazza of the mansion, where he had so often walked and mused. 328 MOUNT VERNON Between three and four o'clock the procession moved, and, at the same time, minute guns were fired from the schooner anchored in the Potomac. The pall-bearers were Colonels Little, Simms, Payne, Gilpin, Ramsay, and Marsteler. Colonel Blackburn preceded the corpse. Colonel Deneale marched with the military. The procession moved out through the gate at the left wing of the house, and proceeded round in front of the lawn, and down to the vault on the right wing of the house. The following was the composition and order of the procession : The troops, horse and foot, with arms reversed. Music. The clergy, namely, the Rev. Messrs. Davis, Muir, Moffat, and Addison. The general's horse, with his saddle, holsters, and pistols, led by two grooms (Cyrus, and Wilson), in black. The body, borne by the Masons and officers. Principal mourners, namely, Mrs. Stuart and Mrs. Law, Misses Nancy and Sally Stuart, Miss Fairfax and Miss Dennison, Mr. Law and Mr. Peter, Mr. Lear and Dr. Craik, Lord Fairfax and Ferdinando Fairfax. Lodge No. 23. Corporation of Alexandria. All other persons, preceded by Mr. Anderson and the overseers. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 329 When the body arrived near the vault, at the bottom of the lawn, on the high bank of the Potomac, the cavalry halted ; the infantry moved forward and formed the in-lining; the Masonic brethren and citizens descended to the vault, and the funeral services of the church were read by the Keverend Mr. Davis. He also pronounced a short discourse. The Masons then performed their peculiar ceremonies, and the body was deposited in the vault. Three general discharges of arms were then given by the infantry and the cavalry ; and eleven pieces of artillery, which were ranged back of the vault and simulta- neously discharged, " paid the last tribute to the entombed commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States." The sun was now setting, and mournfully that funeral assembly departed for their respective homes. The bier upon which Wash ington was conveyed from the mansion tO the tomb, is pre- WASHINGTON'S BIER. served in the museum at Alexandria. It is oak, six feet in length, and painted a lead color. The handles, which are hinged to the bier, have leather pads on the under side, fast- ened with brass nails. The vault in which the remains of Washington were laid, had already become dilapidated by the action of the growing roots of the trees around it, and, as we have seen, Washington, in contemplation of the immediate construction of a new one, had chosen a place for it. In his will he left the following directions : " The family vault at Mount Yernon requiring repairs, and being improperly situated besides, I desire that a new one, of 330 MOUNT VERNON brick, and upon a larger scale, may be built at the foot of what is called the Vineyard Enclosure, on the ground which is marked out, in which my remains, and those of my deceased relatives (now in the old vault), and such others of my family as may choose to be entombed there, may be deposited." THE OLD VAULT IN 1858. For thirty years the remains of Washington lay undisturbed in the old vault, when the tomb was entered and an attempt was made to carry away the bones of the illustrious dead. Others were taken by mistake, and the robber being detected, thev were recovered. A new vault was soon afterward erected AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 331 upon the spot designated by Washington, and the old one is now a gaping ruin. Congress was in session at Philadelphia, when information of the death of Washington reached them on the day of his funeral. On the following day the announcement of it was formally made on the floor of the House of Representatives, by the Honorable John Marshall, of Virginia (afterward chief- justice of the United States), and after some appropriate action, the House adjourned. On Monday, the 23d of December, the Congress adopted joint resolutions -first, that a marble monument should be erected at the capitol ; second, that there should be " a funeral procession from Congress Hall to the German Lutheran Church, in memory of General George Washington, on Thursday, the 26th instant," and that an oration be prepared at the request of Congress, to be delivered before both Houses that day ; and that the president of the Senate, and the speaker of the House of Representatives, be desired to request one of the members of Congress to prepare and deliver the same ; third, that the people of the United States should be recommended to wear crape on their left arm as mourning for thirty days ; fourth, that the president of the United States should direct a copy of the resolutions to be transmitted to Mrs. Washington, with words of condolence, and a request that her husband's remains- might be interred at the capitol of the republic. On the 30th of December Congress further resolved, that it should be recommended to the people of the Union to assem- ble on the succeeding 22d of February, " to testify their grief by suitable eulogies, orations, and discourses, or by public prayers." 332 MOUNT V E R X N (.K.NKKAI. IILNKV l.th. In accordance with one of the foregoing resolutions, General Henry Lee, of Virginia, then a member of Congress, was in- vited to pronounce an oration on the 26th. He consented, and the Lutheran Church in Fourth street, above Arch, in Phila- delphia, the largest in the city, was crowded on that occasion. No man in the Congress could have been chosen better fitted for the service than General Lee. He had served his country nobly as an officer of cavalry during the war for independence, and from boyhood had been a special favorite of Washington. He was a son of that " Lowland Beauty" who won the heart of young Washington, and drew sentimental verses from his pen. Throughout the war he was beloved by his chief for his manly and soldierly qualities, and he was an ever welcome guest at AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 333 Mount Vernon, where he was on terms of the greatest intimacy with Washington and his family. Mr. Irving gives the follow- ing example of Lee's perfect familiarity with his chief, when on a visit at Mount Vernon after the war : " Washington one day at table mentioned his being in want of carriage-horses, and asked Lee if he knew where he could get a pair. " ' I have a fine pair, General,' replied Lee, ' but you cannot get them." "'Why not?' " ' Because you will never pay more than half price for any thing ; and I must have full price for my horses.' "The bantering reply set Mrs. Washington laughing, and her parrot, perched beside her, joined in the laugh. The general took this familiar assault upon his dignity, in good part. 'Ah, Lee, you are a funny fellow,' he said 'see, that bird is laughing at you.' " Lee's oration on the death of Washington, though hastily prepared, was an admirable production : and in it he pro- nounced those remarkable words of eulogy, so often quoted : " FIRST IK WAR, FIRST IN PEACE, FIRST IX THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN." On that occasion, the McPhenson's Blues, a military corps of Philadelphia, composed of three hundred young men, the elite of the city, performed the duties of a guard of honor. Only six of them, who were present on that occasion, now (August, 1859) survive, namely : Samuel Breck, aged eighty- eight ; S. Palmer, aged seventy-nine ; S. F. Smith, aged seventy- 334 MOUNT VERNON nine ; Charles N. Bancker, aged eighty-three ; Quintin Camp- bell, aged eighty-three, and John F. Wat- son, the annalist of Philadelphia and New York, aged eighty. President Adams transmitted the reso- lutions of Congress to Mrs. Washington, and in reply to their request concerning the remains of her husband, she said : " Taught by the great example which I have so long had before me, never to oppose my private wishes to the public will, I must consent to the request made by Congress, which you have the good- ness to transmit to me ; and in doing this, I need not, I cannot say, what a sacrifice of individual feeling I make to a sense of public duty." The remains of Washington have never been removed from his beloved Mount Vernon. It is well. They never should be. The HOME and the TOMB of our illustrious Friend, should be inseparable ; and the glowing words of LUNT should express the sentiment of every American : " Ay, leave him alone to sleep forever, Till the strong archangel calls for the dead, By the verdant bank of that rushing river, "Where first they pillowed his mighty head. " Lowly may be the turf that covers The sacred grave of his last repose ; But, oh I there's a glory round it hovers, Broad as the daybreak, and bright as its close. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 335 " Though marble pillars were reared above him, Temples and obelisks, rich and rare Better he dwells in the hearts that love him, Cold and lone as he slumbers there. "Why should ye gather with choral numbers? Why should your thronging thousands come ? Who will dare to invade his slumbers, Or take him away from his narrow home ? " Well he sleeps in the majesty, Silent and stern, of awful death ! And he who visits him there, should be Alone with God, and his own hushed breath. " Revel and pomp would profane his ashes: And may never a sound be murmured there But the glorious river that by him dashes, And the pilgrim's Voice in his heartfelt prayer." The death of her husband, so sudden and unexpected, weighed heavily upon the mind and heart of Mrs. Washing- fon for a time, but her natural cheerfulness of disposition and habitual obedience to the will of God manifested in his dispen- sations, healed the wound and supported her burdened spirit. She received many letters and visits of condolence. The pres- ident of the United States and his wife (Mr. and Mrs. Adams) visited Mount Yernon for the purpose, and so also did many distinguished citizens. From every part of the land came testimonials of respect and veneration for the dead ; and from beyond the Atlantic she received gratifying evidences of the profound esteem in which her beloved husband was held. On hearing of his death, Lord Bridport, who was in command of a British fleet of almost sixty sail, at Torbay, ordered every ship to lower her flag to half-mast ; and Bonaparte, then First 336 MOUNT VKRNON Consul of France, announced his death to his army, and or- dered black crape to be suspended from all the flags and standards in the French service for ten days. The domestic establishment at Mount Vernon was kept up after the death of the General, upon the same liberal scale of hospitality that marked it during his lifetime ; and scores of pilgrims to the tomb of the Hero, Patriot and Sage, were entertained by the widow. But her prediction at the death-bed of her husband "I shall soon follow him" did not remain long unfulfilled. Two years and a half afterward, her body was laid in a leaden coffin by his side, in the vault. She died of a bilious fever, on the 22d of May, 1802 ; and the estate of Mount Vernon passed into the possession of the General's nephew, pursuant to the following clause in his will : " To my nephew, Bushrod Washington, and his heirs (partly in consideration of an intimation made to his deceased father, while we were bachelors, and he had kindly undertaken to super- intend my estate during my military service in the former war between Great Britain and France, that if I should fall therein, Mount Vernon, then less extensive in domain than at present, should become his property), I give and bequeath all that part thereof which is comprehended within the following limits: [here the boundaries are specified] containing upward of four thousand acres, be the same more or less, together with the mansion house, and all other buildings and improvements thereon." He also bequeathed to Bushrod his "library of books and pamphlets," and all of his papers. This principal heir of Washington (who had no children) was a son of the General's brother, George Augustine, and was at that time about forty years of age. Two years before AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 337 , BUSHROD WASHINGTON. Washington's death, President Adams had appointed Bushrod to the office of Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and he performed the duties of his exalted station with eminent ability until his death, thirty-two years afterward. Judge Washington took possession of the Mount Yernon es- tate, immediately after the death of Mrs. Washington. Among the slaves that belonged to him, and who were taken to Mount Fernon at that time, only one is living. Although set free by the will of his master in 1829, he has never left the estate, but remains a resident there, where he is regarded as a patri- arch. I saw him when I last visited Mount Vernon, in the autumn of 1858, and received from his lips many interesting reminiscences of the place and its surroundings. 22 338 MOUNT VERNON Just at evening, when returning from a stroll to the ancient entrance to Mount Yernon, I found Westford (the name of the patriarch) engaged at the shop, near the conservatory, making a plough. He is a mulatto, very intelligent and communica- tive ; and I enjoyed a pleasant and profitable half-hour's con- versation with him. He carne to Mount Yernon in August, 1802, and when I saw him he was in the seventy-second year of his age. Westford well knew Billy, Washington's favorite servant > during the war for independence. Billy, with all of his fellow AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 339 slaves, was made free by his master's will ; and lie received a liberal pension and a residence for life at Mount Vernon. His means for luxurious living had a bad effect upon him, and Billy became a lon^vivant. Delirium tremens finally seized him, with its terrors. Occasionally Westford sometimes relieved him of the paroxysms by bleeding. One morning, a little more than thirty years ago, he was sent for to bleed Billy. The blood would not flow. Billy was dead, and the last but one of Washington's favorite servants passed from earth forever. The other (a woman) died at Arlington House a few years ago, where I saw her one evening at family worship. I left Westford at his plough-making, with an engage- ment to meet him the next morning before breakfast, for the purpose of delineating a pencil sketch of his features. I found him prepared, having on a black satin vest, a silk cravat, and his curly gray hair arranged in the best manner, " For," he said, " the artists make colored folks look bad enough any- how." When my sketch was finished, he wrote his name under it with my pencil. While Judge Washington was living, Lafayette came to America as the guest of the nation, and after a lapse of fifty years, he again visited Mount Vernon, the home of his dear friend. For more than twenty-five years the mortal remains of that friend had been lying in the tomb, yet the memory of his love was as fresh in the heart of the marquis, as when, in November, 1784, they parted, to see each other on earth i < more. On that occasion Lafayette was presented with a most touching memorial of the man whom he delighted to call " father^ The adopted son of that father, the late Mr. Custis. 340 MOUNT VERNON with many others, accompanied the marquis to the tomb of Washington, where the tears of the venerable Frenchman flowed freely. While standing there, Mr. Custis, after a few appropriate remarks, presented to Lafayette a massive gold ring, containing a lock of Washington's hair. It was a most grateful gift ; and those who were present have spoken of the occurrence as one of the most interesting and touching they had ever experienced. Again there was a gathering before the tomb of Washington on an interesting occasion. Judge Washington w r as then no more. He died at Philadelphia in the autumn of 1829, at the age of seventy years, bequeathing his estate of Mount Vernon to his nephew, John Augustine Washington, a son of his brother Corbin. The latter was also lying in the family vault, having died in 1832 at the age of forty-three years, and his widow, Mrs. Jane Washington, was then mistress of the man- sion and estate. The occasion referred to, was the re-entombing of General Washington and his wife. This event occurred in October 1837. Mr. John Struthers, of Philadelphia, generously offered to present two marble coffins in which the remains of the patriot and his consort might be placed for preservation forever, for already the wooden coffins, which covered the leaden ones containing their ashes, had been three times renewed. Major Lewis, the last surviving executor of Washington's will, accepted the proposed donation, and the sarcophagi were "wrought from solid blocks of Pennsylvania marble. The vestibule of the new vault was enlarged so as to permit the coffins to stand in dry air, instead of being placed in the damp vault; and on Saturday the 7th of October 1837, Mr. William Strickland, of AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 341 Philadelphia, acccompanied by a number of the Washington family, assisted in placing the remains of the illustrious dead in the receptacles where they have ever since lain undisturbed. The vault was first entered by Mr. Strickland, accompanied by Major Lewis, of whom he said : " Imagine a figure stately and erect, upward of six feet in height, with a keen, penetrat- ing eye, a high forehead partially covered with the silvery locks of seventy winters, intelligent and bland in expression, in movement graceful and dignified, and you will have the portraiture of the companion and friend of the immortal Washington." This was the favorite nephew who married Nelly Custis on the 22d of February, 1799. When the decayed wooden case was removed from the lead- en coffin of Washington, the lid was perceived to be sunken and fractured. In the bottom of this case was found the silver shield which was placed upon that leaden lid when Washing- ton was first entombed. " At the request of Major Lewis," says Mr. Strickland, in his published account, "the fractured part of the lid was turned over on the lower part, exposing to view a head and breast of large dimensions, which appeared, by the dim light of the candles, to have suffered but little from the effects of time. The eye-sockets were large and deep, and the breadth across the temples, together with the forehead, appeared, of unusual size. There was no appearance of grave-clothes ; the chest was broad, the color was dark, and had the appearance of dried flesh and skin adhering closely to the bones. We saw no hair, nor was there any offensive odor from the body ; but we observed, when the coffin had been removed to the outside of the vault, the dripping down of a yellow liquid, which 342 MOUNT VEHNON stained the marble of the sarcophagus. A hand was laid upon the head and instantly removed ; the leaden lid was restored to its place ; the body, raised by six men, was carried and laid in the marble coffin, and the ponderous cover being put on and set in cement, it was sealed from our sight. The relatives who were present, consisting of Major Lewis, Lorenzo Lewis, John Augustine Washington, George Washington, the Rev. Mr. Johnson and lady, and Mrs. Jane Washington, then retired to the mansion." The remains of Mrs. Washington being placed in the other marble sarcophagus, they were both boxed, so as to prevent their being injured during the finishing of the vestibule in its present form. WASHINGTON S MARBLE COFFIN. Mrs. Washington's coffin is perfectly plain. That of her husband has a sculptured lid, on which is represented the American shield suspended over the flag of the Union. The latter is hung in festoons, and the whole group is surmount- ed with a spread-eagle as a crest. The new tomb, in design and structure, is offensive to good taste, and its appearance justifies the description of it by an English nobleman who said, " It is a glaring red building somewhat between a coach-house and O ftt f AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 343 WASHINGTON 8 TOMB. hill, on the edge of a deep wooded glen that extends to the river, and through which flows a choked brook. The spacious vault is built of brick, with an arched roof. It is entirely overgrown with shrubbery, brambles and vines, which gives it an antiquated appearance. Its iron door is entered from the spacious vestibule ; and over it, upon a stone panel, are the words : ki I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE ; HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, YKT SHALL HE LIVE !" The vestibule is also built of brick, and is twelve feet in height. The iron picketed gateway, through which the mar- ble sarcophagi may be seen, is flanked by two brick pilas- 344: MOUNT VERNON ters, surmounted by a stone coping, which covers a gothic arch. Over this arch is a white marble tablet inscribed " WITHIN THIS ENCLOSURE EEST THE REMAINS OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON.-" On the east side of the tomb, beneath marble monuments, lie the remains of Eleanor Parke Lewis and her daughter, Mrs. M. E. Conrad. In front of the tomb are two stately obelisks of marble. One of them was erected in memory of Judge Bush- rod Washington, and the other of John Augustine Washing- ton, father of the last proprietor of Mount Yernon of the Wash- ington name. Very few articles of the personal property of General Wash- ington, except the library of books, remain at Mount Vernon. After Mrs. Washington's death, the devised personal property was distributed according to the directions of his will, and the remainder was sold. The purchasers consisted chiefly of mem- bers of the family, the grandchildren of Mrs. Washington taking nearly all of the family plate, and furniture. Many of these things have been described and delineated in these pages ; and many others have been scattered over the country, and since lost. While this very page was in preparation, I received from Mr. George Livermore, of Cambridge, an account of a most precious relic jf Washington's earlier life, which is now in possession of the venerable Josiah Quincy, of Boston. It is the silver gorget of General Washington, which composed a part of his uniform while in the colonial service, and is seen suspended from his neck in Peale's portrait of him, painted in 1772, and printed on page 82 of this book. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 345 "This precious relic," says Mr. Quincy in a letter to Mr. Livermore, " came to my possession under the following cir- cumstances : from 1805 to 1813, I was one of the representa- tives of the state of Massachusetts, in the Congress of the United States, from Suffolk District. During these years I had the happiness, with my wife, to form an acquaintance with Mrs. Martha Peter (formerly Custis), the wife of Thomas- Peter, Esq., of Tudor Place, in the District of Columbia. There sprang up between both families particularly between Mrs. Peter and my wife a great intimacy, the result of mu- tual respect and also coincidence in political feeling and opin- ion, which, at that period, constituted a bond of great strength. She was a woman of great personal beauty, highly accom- plished, intellectual, elevated in spirit and sentiment, and worthy of the relation which she held of granddaughter to George Washington. "When, in 1813, on resigning my seat in Congress, I called at Tudor Place to take leave, Mrs. Peter, after stating the inter- est she felt in me and Mrs. Quincy, asked my acceptance of the ' gorget of Washington, with the ribbon attached to it, which' she said ' she had received at the division of her * grandfather's estate.' About that time, there had been form- ed in Boston a political association bearing the name of the Washington Benevolent Society, having for its object the sup- port of the views and principles of Washington, of which I was one of the vice-presidents ; and I immediately suggested the propriety, and asked her leave, to present in her name that precious relic to that society. She expressed her gratifi- cation at the suggestion, saying ' that she knew of no place where the principles of Washington had been more uniformly 346 MOUNT VERNON cherished, or were likely to be more highly prized or pre- served longer, than in the town of Boston.' " Accordingly, on .my return in April, 1813, I made a for- mal statement of the above circumstances to the Washington Benevolent Society, and presented the gorget, in her name, to that society. The gift was gratefully and cordially received and acknowledged by a vote of the society, signed by Arnold Welles, president ; and William Sullivan, Josiah Qnincy, Samuel Messinger, John C. Warren, and Benjamin Russell, vice-presidents. A record of the gift, of the vote of thanks, and of all the proceedings, was written upon parchment, and deposited in a box especially adapted for its preservation ; and an account of the doings of the society was officially trans- mitted to Mrs. Peter. "The gorget remained in that situation, under the care of the society, for five or six years, until its final dissolution, when, by a vote of the society, it was formally placed in my custody ; and I immediately wrote to Mrs. Peter a statement of the circumstances, offering to return the gorget to her. She was pleased to reply, that it was her wish that I should retain it in my possession, and make such disposition of it as I saw fit." When I last visited Mount Yernon, in the autumn of 1857, I saw there a few articles, not already mentioned, that belonged to Washington. These were a liquor-chest, two mirrors, some tissue paper, one of his ordinary address cards, several dia- grams and memoranda from his pen, and a number of en- gravings. The liquor-chest was in a closet adjoining the dining-room, and was used by the family when I was there. It is made of AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 34' WASHINGTON S LIQrOR-CHEST. mahogany ; and tradition avers that it composed a part of WASHIXGTONS MIRROR. Washington's baggage during the Revolution. It contains twelve large white glass flasks, thirteen inches in height. 348 MOUNT VERNON One of the mirrors, highly ornamented with elaborate carvings, and bearing the arms of the Washington family, was in a small parlor adjoining the great drawing-room ; and the other, a plain one, also bearing the family arms, in gilt upon a deep blue ground, at the top, was in another parlor, adjoining the library. The tissue paper was made expressly for "Washington's use. Each sheet bears his name and crest, and a rude figure of Liberty with the pileus and cap, forming the water-mark. The paper is quite coarse in texture com- pared with that manufactured at the present time. The engraving of the water-mark is half the size of the original. WATER-MARK. WASHINGTON S ADDRESS CARD. The address card was coarsely engraved on copper, and was used by Washington during the war. While he was Presi- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 349 dent, he had a neat invitation-to-dinner card engraved in writ- ing. The original plate of the latter is in the possession of a gentleman in Philadelphia. Some of the diagrams from Washington's pen, alluded to, have been delineated upon other pages of this work. The en- gravings that belonged to him hang in the great passage and two adjoining parlors. These are, Andromache bewailing the Death of Hector ; The Death of Montgomery ; The Death of Warren ; two Hunting Scenes ; four Landscapes ; The De- fence of Gibraltar, four Views ; Descent from the Cross ; and a St. Agnes. These are all more or less injured by some tiny de- stroyers, that are daily making the high lights still stronger, so that all the pictures now appear snowy. If their destructive progress shall not be speedily arrested, those relics of the great Patriot's household ornaments will be lost forever. With characteristic modesty, Washington allowed no picture of scenes in which he was a participant to adorn the walls of Mount Yernon. Some fine oil paintings and family portraits that were there have been distributed among relatives ; that of Lawrence Washington alone remains. Only one more object of interest at Mount Vernon remains to be noticed. It is a portrait of Washington taken from a common English earthenware pitcher, and is known as The Pitcher Portrait. It is in a deep gilt frame, and upon the back is an admirable eulogy of the great Patriot, in monumen- tal form. The history of this portrait and the eulogy was com- municated to me recently by the venerable artist, Rembrandt Peale, of Philadelphia, and is both curious and interesting. About the year 1804, the late John R. Smith, of Phila- delphia, son of the eminent Jonathan Bayard Smith, showed 350 MOUNT VERNON Mr. Peale a copy by Sharpless himself, of that artist's crayon profile of Washington, made in 1796. On the back of it was a eulogy of Washington, written in monumental form in two columns, by an English gentleman, Mr. Smith said, whose name he had forgotten, or never knew. He told Mr. Peale that the gentleman pasted it on the back of the portrait. PITCHER I'OKTKAIT. It was at about that time that a crockery dealer in Phila- delphia imported a number of earthenware pitchers from Liverpool, each bearing a portrait of Washington from an engraving of Stuart's picture painted for the Marquis of Lans- downe, w T hich Heath had badly engraved, and XutU-r had better executed for Hunter's quarto edition of Lavater. Nut- ter's engraving was coarsely imitated in the one upon the pitcher. The pitchers attracted the attention of Mr. Dorsey, a sugar AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 351 refiner of Philadelphia, who had a taste for art, and he pur- chased several of them, as he considered the likeness of Washington a good one. Mr. Dorsey, after several unsuc- cessful attempts to separate the part bearing the portrait, from the rest of the pitcher, succeeded, by using the broad-faced hammer of a shoemaker, in breaking them cleanly out by a single blow, given directly upon the picture. One of these pictures broken out by Mr. Dorsey, was hand- somely framed by Mr. Smith, and sent to Judge Washington at Mount Vernon, with the eulogy on the back of the Sharp- less profile belonging to his father, copied by his own hand. That copy varies materially from the original, in some of its phraseology and in large omissions. This difference may be accounted for by the supposition that Mr. Smith had not room in the space on the back of the picture to transcribe the whole of the original, and some parts were omitted and others changed. The Sharpless picture was much larger than the- pitcher portrait, and there was more room on the back for the- eulogy. In the year 1819 or 1820, Mr. Smith gave Mr. Harrison Hall, the publisher of the Port Folio, a perfect transcript of what was, probably, the original eulogy, and to the courtesy of that gentleman I am indebted for the subjoined copy, which contains all the omissions in the one upon the back of the picture at Mount Yernon. Mr. Hall, and others of Mr.. Smith's friends, have been under the impression that that ac- complished gentleman was the author of the eulogy, but the explicit statement of Mr. Peale and concurring circumstances appear to remove all doubt of the truth of the common tradi- tion in the Washington family, that it was written by an 352 MOUNT VERNON unknown English gentleman. The mutilated inscription, as it appears upon the back of the portrait at Mount Yernon, was published in Alden's Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions, as early as the year 1814. The following is a copy of the original on the back of the Sharpless profile given by Mr. Smith to Mr. Hall : WASHINGTON, The DEFENDER of his COUNTRY, The FOUNDER of LIBERTY, The FRIEND of MAN. HISTORY and TRADITION are explored in vain For a Parallel to his Character. In the Annals of MODERN GREATNESS, He stands alone, And the noblest Names of Antiquity Lose their Lustre in his Presence. Born the Benefactor of Mankind, He was signally endowed with all the Qualities Appropriate to his Illustrious Career. Nature made him Great, And, Heaven directed, He made himself Virtuous. Called by his Country to the Defence of her Soil And the vindication of her Liberties, He led to the Field Her Patriot Armies ; And displaying in rapid and brilliant succession. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 353 The united Powers Of Consumniate Prudence And Heroic Valour, He triumphed in Arms Over the most powerful Nation Of Modern Europe ; His Sword giving Freedom to America, His Counsels breathing Peace to the world. After a short repose From the tumultuous Vicissitudes Of a Sanguinary War, The astounding Energies of WASHINGTON Were again destined to a New Course Of Glory and Usefulness. Tlie Civic Wreath Was spontaneously placed By the Gratitude of the Nation, On the Brow of the DELIVERER of his COUNTRY. He was twice solemnly invested With the Powers of Supreme Magistracy, By the Unanimous Voice of A Free People; And in his EXALTED and ARDUOUS station, His Wisdom in the Cabinet Transcended the Glories of the Field. The Destinies of Washington Were now complete. Having passed the Meridian of a Devoted Life, Having founded on the Pillars 2:: 354 M U N T V E R X N Of NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE The SPLENDID FABRIC Of a Great Republic, And having firmly established The Empire of the West, He solemnly deposited on the Altar of his Country, His Laurels and his Sword, And retired to the Shades Of PRIVATE LIFE. A Spectacle so New and so Sublime, Was contemplated by Mankind With the Profoundest admiration ; And the name of WASHINGTON, Adding new Lustre to Humanity, Resounded To (he remotest regions of the EarOi. Magnanimous in Youth, Glorious through Life, Great in Death, His highest Ambition The Happiness of Mankind, His noblest victory The Conquest of Himself. Bequeathing to America The Inheritance of his Fame, And building his Monument In the Hearts of his Countrymen. He Lived, The Ornament of the 18th Century ; He Died, LAMENTED BY A MOURNING WORLD. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 355 One hundred and sixteen years ago, Mount Vernon received its name, and from that time until the present year (1859) it lias been owned and occupied by a Washington. Lawrence Washington, as we have seen, named it in honor of his gallant friend, and from him it descended to his half- brother, George, who occupied it more than forty years. By him it was bequeathed to his nephew, Bushrod, who lived there twenty-seven years. It then passed into the possession of John Augustine Washington, a son of Bushrod's brother Corbin. He died three years afterward, leaving it to his widow. At her death, in 1855, it became the property of her son, John Augustine Washington, who resides there. For many years the Mount Vernon estate had been decay- ing. The ravages of time and the rust of neglect were rapidly destroying all that had received the care and culture of Gen- eral Washington's mind and hand ; and thoughtful and pa- triotic visitors often felt saddened when they saw the man- sion and its dependent buildings, and other visible memorials of the great and good Father of his Country, evidently per- ishing. The sad thoughts of these visitors led to patriotic action, and for a long time there was a growing desire felt throughout the Union, to have Mount Yernon become the property of the nation. The young owner, unable to keep the estate in proper order, and greatly annoyed by thousands of visitors every year, many of whom took liberties about the house and grounds, in apparently utter forgetfulness that they were private property, expressed, a willingness to sell it for such a purpose. Congress was asked to buy it. The application was unsuccessful. At length an American matron conceived the idea of ap- 356 MOUNT VERNON pealing to her countrywomen in behalf of Mount Vernon. She asked them to put forth their hands to the work of obtain- ing sufficient money to purchase it, that the HOME AND TOMB OF WASHINGTON might be a national possession forever. The idea was electric, and it was felt and responded to all over the land. Her invalid daughter, strengthened by the thought of being instrumental in accomplishing the great work, took the direction of the enterprise. She printed a strong appeal to her countrywomen ; organized an association, and procured a char- ter of incorporation for it ; bargained for the purchase of the mansion and appendages, and two hundred surrounding acres of the Mount Vernon estate, for two hundred thousand dollars, and began in great earnestness the work of obtaining that amount of money, and as much more for the restoration and support of the estate. By common consent she was constitu- ted regent or chief manager, and she appointed vice-regents in every state in the Union as assistants. Meanwhile the cupidity of speculators was awakened. They perceived that great profits might be made by trans- forming the HOME and TOMB of WASHINGTON into a public show. The proprietor had oifered the property to the federal government, or the state of Virginia, for two hundred thou- sand dollars. Before American women proposed to purchase it, and while awaiting the action of Congress, these speculators offered him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it. He refused to sell it for such an unhallowed purpose at any price, preferring to take much less from the United States or Vir- ginia ; or to keep it, and continue to suffer the inevitable an- noyances arising from the conduct of thoughtless or vicious visitors. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 357 The efforts of American women have been successful. They have been cheered and aided by the best and wisest men of their country. EDWARD EVERETT, one of our most saga- cious statesmen and accomplished scholars, devoted his tongue and pen to the work. He went from city to city like Peter the Hermit pleading for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, de- livering an oration upon the character of Washington for the benefit of the fund ; and delighted crowds who listened to his eloquent words, contributed so freely, that in less than two years he paid into the treasury of the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association, one quarter of the purchase money. The whole amount has been obtained, and now Mount Vernon is no long- er a private possession, but the property of the multitudes of men, women and children of the land, who have contributed in ever so slight a degree to its purchase. It is to be theirs and their posterity's forever. In a word, it belongs to the na- tion ; and while these pages were in preparation, the work of renovation and restoration was commenced at Mount Vernon. Nothing now remains for the association to do, but to obtain a sum fully equal to that of the purchase money, for the com- plete restoration and future support of the estate, and a general supervision of its management. This, American women will speedily accomplish, for the heart of the nation beats in unison with their own. And when in a few years the mansion and its surrounding buildings shall be restored to the form and strength they bore when Washington left them when the lawns, the gardens, the conservatory, shall all be revealed in their original beauty and perfection when the same kinds of trees, planted with so much taste and care by Washington, shall again adorn the 358 MOUNT VERNON grounds, and his tomb shall be beautified by the hand of art, the visitor from whithersoever, will bless the noble and patri- otic American women by whose efforts all this transformation lias been accomplished ; especially will they remember with reverential affection, Miss ANNA PAMELA CUNNINGHAM, the regent, the invalid daughter of a " Southern matron," whose feeble hand but energetic spirit directed all. We have now considered some of the most interesting of the past associations of Mount Yernon, connected with the illus- trious man whose character has in a degree sanctified them all. But there are other associations that cluster around Washing- ton and his home, in the presence of which these material things sink into utter insignificance. They are of a moral nature, and belong not only to the Past but to all the Future. It is delightful to contemplate the character of Washington in its relation to the events in which lie was immediately engaged, for it presents a most noble example ; but far more delightful and profitable is it, to contemplate him with that broader vision which discerns his relation to all people and to all time to regard him as the fulfilment of the heart-prophe- cies of earnest lovers of freedom in the past ; born, nurtured, developed, disciplined, and inspired, to lead a great people out of bondage, and to be forever a sublime model of a PATRIOT for the contemplation of generations yet to appear. We should become habituated thus to think of him, and learn to love the spirit which led him to the performance of great deeds, rather than the deeds themselves. Such contemplations of Washington are not incompatible with a sober reverence for material things with which he was intimately associated ; and especially should we cherish as AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 359 precious memorial treasures, the HOME that he loved, and the TOMB wherein his remains repose. These may excite the mind to loftier views of the Pater Pat rise, and inspire senti- ments such as filled the soul of the Rev. William Jay, of Eng- land, who, on seeing a picture of Mount Yernon, wrote im- promptu "There dwelt the MAN the flower of human kind, Whose visage mild bespoke his noble mind. There dwelt the SOLDIER who his sword ne'er drew But in a righteous cause to freedom true. There dwelt the Hero, who ne'er fought for fame, Yet gained more glory than a Ciesar's name. There dwelt the STATESMAN, who, devoid of art, Gave soundest counsels from an upright heart. And oh ! Columbia, by thy sons caressed, There dwelt THE FATHER of the realms he blessed. Who no wish felt to make his mighty praise, Like other chiefs, the means himself to raise, But there, retiring, breathed in pure renown, 4 And felt a grandeur that disdained a crown.'' INDEX, A. PAGE Adams, John, description of the inauguration of 280 Adarns. Mr. and Mrs., visit Mrs. Washington after the death of her hushand 335 Adams, President, nominates Washington to the Senate, as commander-in-chief 808 Adams, Robert, watch that belonged to Washington willed to 206 Adams, Vice-President, at Washington's table 209 Address card of Washington 348 Alexandria, Washington invited to partake of a public dinner at 195 Alison, remarks of, respecting Washington's Farewell Address 277 Ameburg, J. F., glass manufacturer, visits Mount Vernon in 1789 190 " presents some specimens of his art to Washington 190 Ancient entrance to Mount Vernon, picture of 196 " present condition of 196 Appearance, personal, of Washington, when on horseback 63 Arch, triumphal, at Trenton, in honor of Washington 199 Arlington Spring, kitchen and dancing hall erected at, by Mr Uustis 258 " Washington's tent at 126 Arms of the Washington family, picture of 13 Armstrong, John, letter of, to General Gates respecting Washington's reception in Now York in 1769 200 Army, American, disbanded 117 " officers of part with Washington 117 Army, British, evacuates New York : , 117 Army, Continental, adopted by Congre>s 99 " Washington made commander-in-chief of 100 Army, popular one formed 92 ' its character 92 Asses presented to Washington by the King of Spa'n 175 " Mr. Custis's account of 176 Akinson. Rev. A. B., wife of, has Washington's telescope 85 " Washington's butter-bowl in possession of 241 Aurora, letter hostile to Washington published in, soon after his retirement from office 279 Autographs of Jane and Mary Washington 18 B. Bachelor, London orders of Washington when a 54 Baldwin, John Y., owner of Washington's pistols 22fi Ball at Annapolis, attended by Washington . 118 " Fredericksburg, attended by Washington 115 362 I'AGB Ball, Colonel William, ancestor of Washington's mother 19 " arms of his family ..; 19 " Joseph, letter of to Washington's mother 81 Baptism of Washington 19 Barge, Washington's, returned to the giver 216 Bartram, John, garden of, near Philadelph:a 143 ' William, explorations of 143 Bassett, Colonel, J. P. Custis dies at the house of 113 Bastile, key of, presented to Washington 217 Bastilo, sketch of 21T " destruction of 220 " site of 220 " picture of destruction of 221 " picture of key of .... 223 Battle-sword of Wash'ngton preserved 120 " where manufactured 1 20 " with Franklin's staff ... 120 Bed and bedstead on which Washington died kept as sacred mementos at Arlington House, 323 " description of 323 " picture of 823 Belvoir, the seat of the Fairfaxes 29 " mansion of the Fairfaxes consumed by fire 9J " owner of never returned from England 92 Bianca, Florida, the Spanish premier, letter of, to Washington . 176 Bible on which Washington took the oath of office in 1789 202 " inscription on 202 " picture of 202 " in possession of St. John's Lodge, in New York 208 Bier upon which the body of Washington was conveyed to the tomb 329 Billy, one of Washington's favorite servants, known to Westford 338 " death of, hastened by intemperate habits 339 Birth of Washington 19 Birth-place of Washington 20 " present desolation of 21 " picture of the inscribed stone that marks it 22 Bishop, Washington's body -servant 68, 106 Bishop White, at the farewell dinner given by Washington in Philadelphia n 1797 280 Blues, McPherson's, picture of uniform of 384 " six survivors of, in 1869 333 Bonaparte, respect paid to the memory of Washington by 336 Book-plate, Washington's, picture of 13 Boot-jack, Washington's travelling, picture of 195 Boundary disputes between the French and English . M Box made of the wood of the oak tree that sheltered Wallace after the battle at Falkirk, sent to Washington by tho Earl of Buchan 258 Box sent to Washington by the Earl of Buchan recommitted to his care by the Will of the General 261 Braddock, General 41 " calls a council at Alexandria 42 " invites Colonel Washington to his quarters 42 " invites Washington to become his aide 43 Bradford, Mr., impromptu effusion of, on learning the misfortunes of Lafayette 287 Brevoort, J. Carson, owner of Pine's portrait of Washington 168 Bridport, Lord, respect paid to the memory of Washington by 835 Brienne, Marchioness de, sister of Count de Moustier, at Mount Vernon 184 " painted a miniature of Washington 1H4 " her picture of Washington and Lafayette 185 Brown, Dr., called to attend Washington in his last illness 319 Burgesses, Virginia, Washington a member of, the House of 71 363 I'AOK Bushrod Washington, nephew of the General, comes into possession of Mount Vernon, on the death of Mrs. Washington 386 " appointed by President Adams to be Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States 8.57 " portrait of 387 Butter-bowl, china, that belonged to Washington 242 Button, military, belonging to Washington's coat SI Buttons stolen from military coat of Washington 81 C. Calvert, Benedict, miniature of daughter of, painted by Peale 84 " daughter of, wife of John Parko Custis 84 Camp-chest, leal hern, used by Washington in 1753, picture of 89 Candelabra, mural, used in Washington's dining-room at Philadelphia, described 801 ' picture of 301 Candlesticks, Washington's, massive silver .- 303 " picture of 808 Capitol, singular historical fact respecting the site of the 256 " corner-stonu of the north wing of, laid in September, 1793 257 " plan for the, submitted by Dr. Thornton, approved by Washington 257 Carey's House, at Alexandria, place where Braddoek had his quarters 42 " picture of 42 Carpenter's Hall, place of meeting of the first Congress 90 Carrington, Mrs., her description of Mrs. Washington at home 204 Carroll, Charles, of Carrolltou 126 " son of, a suitor for the hand of Nelly Custis 311 " letter of G. W. P. Custis to Washington, respecting son of, as a suitor for the hand of Nelly Custis 311 Carthagena, British soldiers perish at 27 Casseday, Alexander, drawing by, of Washington's secretary 214 Cave Castle, the seat of Washington's ancestors in England 15 " picture of 15 Century plant at Mount Vernon 144' Chairs at Mount Vernon, pictures of 55 " described by Washington 55 Chamberlay ne, Mr., the host of Washington when he first saw Mrs. Custis 48 ' Colonel Washington lingers at the house of 48 Chastellux, Marquis de, at Mount Vernon in 1781 106 " sketch of 108 " portrait of 109 " Washington's letter to 109 Chatham, Earl of, his opinion of the Continental Congivss 91 Children, great fondness of Washington for 2ti(i Chimney-piece presented to Washington by Samuel Vaughan, of London 171 " picture of 172 China, Sevres, belonging to Washington 2'(9 China, Cincinnati, presented to Washington 289 " picture of 240 " M rs. Washington's 240 " picture of Mrs. Washington's 241 Christ Church, Alexandria, Washington a vestryman of 76 " Washington's pew in 76 " picture of 77 Christmas at Mount Vernon in 1788 i:)U Cincinnati china, picture of . 240 Cincinnati. Society of the, account of the formation of 127 " object of 123 " constitution of . . . . . 15JS 364 INDEX. PACE Cincinnati, Society, order of 129 " splendid order of, presented to "Washington by French soldiers '. . 130 " member's certificate of 131 " Washington president-general of the Society of the 182 ' Knox secretary of the Society of the 182 City Tavern, Philadelphia, Washington entertained at a sumptuous banquet at 198 Clarke, maker of Washington's coach 2:(5 Clinton, George, Washington's letter to, on Peace 117 " at Washington's inauguration in 1789 202 " at the President's table 209 Clothes, military, Washington lays aside his 119 Coach, Washington's English 2?1 " picture and description of 232 " emblazoning upon 283 " picture on panel of 234 " Washington's letters about 236 " fate of 285 " used by him on his journey from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon in 1791 258 Coasters, wine, invented by Washington 249 " their popularity 250 " picture of 251 Cochran, Dr. John, Washington's letter to 122 Coffee pot, Washington's silver 251 Coffins, marble, remains of Washington a d his wife re-entombed in, in 1S87 340 Coffin of Washington . 826 " inscription on plates on ... 326 Coffin, marble, of Washington, picture of 34'2 " sculptured lid of Wash ngton's, picture of 842 Column of July in the Place de Bastile .. ..220 Commission as commander-in-chief resigned by Washington in 1TS8 .' 118 Commissioners of Maryland and Virginia, consult Washington in 1785 179 Confederation, Articles qf, inefficiency of 1 78 " movement toward the amendment of 178 Congress, general, proposed by Dr. Franklin, meets at Philadelphia 86 " assembling of delegates to 88 " opening of the session of 89 " officers of 90 " resolution adopted by 90 " adjourned to meet in May, 1775, if necessary 92 Congress. Continental, action of 99 " adopt an army 99 " choose. Washington commander-in-chief 99 Congress, Federal, vote a bronze equestrian statue to Washington in 1783 157 Congress, meeting of, at Philadelphia 242 " action of concerning seat of government 243 " verses, respecting the removal of 244 " effects of removal of 245 " joint resolutions adopted by, on the occasion of the death of Washington 331 Conogocheague . 243, 244 Conservatory at Mount Vernon destroyed by fire 14(5 " ruins of 146 Continental Congress, Washington a member of the 87 Convention, federal, adopt a constitution for the United States 180 " Washington a member of 180 Correspondence of Washington, extensive, in 1792 257 Cornwallis, Earl, joy caused by surrender of 118 Costume and manners of Washington while president 211 Craik, Dr. James, attends John Parke Custis 118 " at Mount Vernon. .. . 98 INDEX. 365 I'AGK Craik. Dr. James, mentioned in Washington's will 214 " called to attend Washington in his last illness .. 819 " portrait of 318 " short biographical sketch of ... 325 Craik, Eev. James, owns the secretary that belonged to Washington 214 Crayon profile of Washington 29li " of Mrs. Washington . . 297 Crest of Washington engraved upon his family plate 251 Cunningham, Miss Anna Pamela, regent of Mount Vernon 858 Cushing, wife of Judge, extract from a letter of, describing her visit at Mount Vernon in February, 1T99 309 Custis, Daniel Parke, Mrs. Washington's first husband 49 " portrait of : 50 Custis, Eleanor Parke, marriage of with Lawrence Lewis 114 " portrait of ... 114 Custis, Elizabeth Parke, description of the portrait of 167 " portrait of . 168 Custis, G. W. P., places an inscribed stone on Washington's b rth-place 22 " his Recollections of Washington 47i " description by, of Washington on his farm 68- portrait of, when a child 169 " portrait of, at the age of seventeen years 294 " and G W. Lafayette, persoi al friendship between, in youth . ... 296 " letter of, to Washington, respecting the son of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, as a suitor for the hand of Nelly Custis ... 811 " massive gold ring presented to Lafayette by, at the tomb of Washington 340 Custis, John Parke, articles ordered from London for 69 " arms of family of 60 " portrait of, painted by Peale 64 " portrait of wife of, painted by Peale 81 " at Mount Vernon 104- ' Washington's letter to, during his stay at Mount Vernon 104' children of, at Mount Vernon Ill ' aide-de-camp of Washington 112 death of 118 " two children of, adopted by Washington 118 Custis, Mrs. Martha, affianced to Colonel Washington 49 " her fortune 49 " her iron chest 50 " articles for, ordered from London by Washington . . 56 Custis, Martha, daughter of Mrs. Washington, her sickness and death 85 " grief of Washington at the death of . 85 Custis, Master and Miss, London orders of Washington for 60 " accompany Mrs. Washington to New York 208 Custis, Nelly, a son of Charles Carroll of Carrollton a suitor for the hand of 811 " Lawrence Lewis a suitor for the hand of 811 " interesting anecdote of, told by Mr. Irving. 812 and Lawn nee Lewis married on Washington's birthday, 1799 813 D. Daggett, Dr., president of Yale College 181 Dandridge, Mr., private secretary of Washington in 1793 274 Davis, Rev. Thomas, books presented to him by Washington on the occas on of his officiat- ing at the marriage of Nelly Custis 814 Death-bed of Washington, resignation of Mrs. Wash ngton exhibited at 822 ' why no clergyman was present at 822 Death-chamber of Washington, thoughts suggested to the author by a visit to 825 Death of George A. Washington, nephew of the General 64 366 INDEX. PAGE Death of Washington, system of management, written by the General, completed only four days before 815 " health and vigor of Wash ngton only a few days before . 315 " detailed account of the illness preceding 316-3:21 " announced to ongress by Hon. John Marshall of Virginia . . 831 Dclaunay, governor of the Bastile .. 219 D'Estamg presents a bust of At. Keeker to Washington 227 " fate of 228 " letters of 2i.9 " Destiny of Washington," an allegorical painting lt>5 " picture of . 186 " description of 186 " history of 187 Diary, Wash ngton's, kept in the blank leaves of the Virginia Almanac 66 " headings of pages in fiti " fac-simile of entry in 67 " extract from, concerning furniture 213,214 " note made In it on the llth of December, 1T99 316 Dick, Dr., consulted by Dr. Cra k on the occasion of Washington's last illness 819 Dinner, at the table of Washington the artist Robertson's description of 259 Dinner, farewell, of Washington, at Philadelphia, in 1797 280 Dinner. Washington sits down to, without changing his damt; clolhes, December 12, 1799. . 316 Dinwiddie, Governor, sends Washington to Ohio 39 Dress of Washington at his second inauguration minutely described 271 Dress-sword of Washington, picture of 211 Dry- well at Mount Vernon 147 Duer, President, on the anxiety of citizens to see Washington on his retirement from office, 281 Dunlap, William, paints Washington's portrait 158 Dunmore, unsuccessful attempt of, to desolate Mount Vernon 105 Dunn. Washington's coachman 234 Dutch tile in Washington's b.rth-place, picture of 2(1 E. Earl of Buchan, letter of, accompanying the oaken box sent by him to Washington 258 Elizabethtown Point, Washington met at, by a committee of Congress 200 Elkanah Watson, anecdote of his, respecting his vis t at Mount Vernon 304 Ellenborough, Lord, nephew of, marries the granddaughter of Mrs. Washington 110 Emblazoning on Washington's coach, 288 English traders driven away from the Ohio by the French 39 Et.quette, doubts of Washington in relation 10 2('5 Eulogy of Washington written on the back of the Pitcher Portrait 350 Eulogy of Washington, written on the back of the Sharpless profile 352-354 Evans, Mrs. Eliza, daughter of General Anthony Walton White (6 Evening a landscape, by Winstanley 305 Everett, Edward, large sum paid by, into the treasury of the Ladie*' Mirunt Vei-nim ASKO- ciation 857 F. Fairfax, Anne, wife of Lawrence Washington 28 Fairfax, Brynn, at Mount Vernon with Major Gates ' 8 Fairfax, General, leader of the Parliamentary forces 14 Fairfax, Lord 29 " large domain of, in Virginia . 30 " death of, at Green way < ourt, in 17fc2 30 Fairfax, Sir William 2i> " a soldier in the Indies 31 " narratives of, influence young Washington 31 INDEX 367 PAGE Fairfax, Washington a vestryman of the parish of 72 Family dinner at Washington's house in New York 20P Family plate of Washington made over again in New York, and additions made to, in 17J>9 . 251 " several pieces of, now in use at Arlington House 251 Farowell Address of Washington, prepared by Washington at Mount Vernon 276 " profound sensation caused by its publication ' 277 " said by Alison to be unequalled as an uninspired composition 277 Farewell dinner of Washington at Philadelphia, in 1797 280 Federal city, Major L'Enfant employed to make a plan and survey of 256 " named by the commissioners without Washington's knowledge 257 " point of land selected by Washington for the 256 " singular historical fact respecting the site of the 256 " Washington meets commiss'oners to lay out 256 Federal Convention, Washington president of 180 Fencing, Washington takes lessons in, from Van Braam 36 Field, an English painter, takes a button from Washington's coat 81 " anecdote of 82 " becomes a bishop in Canada 88 First President of the United States, Washington elected 189 Flag, British, captured at Yorktown, presented to Washington, picture of 104 Flag Hessian, presented to Washington 102 " picture and description of 103 Flower-garden at Mount Vernon, plants in 143 Fort du Quesne taken possession of by Colonel Washington 46 France, hostile attitude of, in 1795 806 " preparations made for war with, in 1798 307 ' pacific relations w.th, on the overthrow of the Directory by Napoleon Bonaparte.. 310 " unanimity of military leaders in looking to Washington in the impending war with, 807 Franklin, Dr., to superintend making of statue of Washington 158 Franklin's staff willed to Washington 120 Fraunces' Tavern, at New York. Washington parted with his officers at 1 17 Frederick the Great, his praise of Washington 102 Fredericksburg, Washington visits his mother at in 1781 115 Freemasons at the funeral of Washington 827, 329 French Directory, insolent attitude of, toward the United States 307 French dominion ceases south of Lake Erie, on Washington's taking Fort du Quesne 47 French minister, furniture of, purchased by Washington 214 French officers' admiration of Washington's mother 115 Frestel, M., tutor of young Lafayette, favorable mention of, by Washington . . . . 293 Funeral of Washington, detailed account of 326-829 " minute guns fired from schooner of Mr. Robert Hamilton, during 827 Funeral procession of Washington, gentlemen who made the arrangements for 827 " composition and order of 328 G. Galveston, Spanish ship-of-war, salutes Washington 200 Garden-house at Mount Vernon, picture of 148 Gardens at Mount Vernon 142 Gardoqui, Don Diego, at Washington's table 208 Gates, Major Horatio, at Mount Vernon 93 " sketch of portrait of 96 " w th Bryan Fairfax, at Mount Vernon 98 Germantown, Washington proposes to call Congress together at, in consequence of the pres- ence of yellow fever in Philadelphia 273 " family of Washington at, in the summer of 1794 274 Giles, Tommy, notice of 246, 247 Gist, agent of English Ohio Company, questioned by an Indian 88 Glass-ware, first manufactured in the United States .. 190 " Washington's letter to Jefferson respecting : 191 368 INDEX. PACK Gloucester, Duke of, speaks of the Americans in presence of Lafayette 149 Goblets, silver, belonging to Washington 123 u picture of one 124 Gold medal decreed to Washington by Congress for the recovery of Boston 101 " picture of 102 Gorget, silver, worn by Washington, while in the colonial service, history of, by Mr. Quincy 345 Graham. Mrs. Macaulay, modest allusion of Washington to the visit of, in 1785 314 Gray's Ferry, Washington's reception at 19b Greene, General, Washington dines with the widow of, in 1791 256 Greene, Rev. Ashbel, particular description by, of Washington's hab.ts at table 288 Greenway Court 80 Greenwood, Isaac I., owner of Washington's pistols 226 Gunston Hall, the seat of George Mason 71 H. Hale, Sir Matthew, his "Contemplations Moral and Divine," read by Washington's mother, 17 Hallam, Lewis, at tho head of a company of players C4 Hamilton, Alexander, letter of, to Washington, on peace 116 " proposes a convention of states to amend the Articles of Confederation 17& " urges Washington to accept office a second term 269 " appointed first major-general of the Provisional Army 809 Hamilton, Mr. liobert, fires minute guns from his schooner during the funeral of Washington 827 Harpsichord presented to Nelly Custis by Washington 267 " now at Arlington House 268 Harrison, Benjamin, goes with Washington to the Congress in 1775 99 " governor of Virginia, letter of, respecting the statue of Washington 161 Hay, Colonel Samuel, pistols presented to, by Washington . 226 Henry Lee, General, portrait of 882 Henry, Patrick, speech of, in Virgin-u Assembly 71 " at Mount Vernon, on his way to the first Congress 88 portrait of 89 " business of Congress opened by 90 Head-quarters. Washington's first 40 " picture of 41 Home of Washington, as it was in 1759 58 Home and tomb of Washington to be ever cherished as memorial treasures 359 Hopkinson, Francis, portrait of, painted by Pine 166 " letter of Washington to, in relation to his sitting to Pine for his portrait 166 Hospitalities, Washington's, reasons for declining, on his Southern tour in 1791 254 Houdon, the sculptor, engaged to make a statne of Washington 161 " his bust of Washington 162 " letter of Washington to 162 Houdon's bust of Washington, picture of '168 Hounds, French, presented to Washington by Lafayette 169 " anecdote of one of them 170 Humphreys, Colonel, accompanies Washington to Mount Vernon in 17bl 106 " resident guest at Mount Vernon 181 " portrait of 181 " brings pictures from King Louis to Washington 182 " writes his Life of Putnam at Mount Vernon 182 Hunting establishment at Mount Vernon broken up 170 I. Ice-house at Mount Vernon, picture of 147 Inauguration of John Adams 281 Inauguration of Washington, as first president of the United States 201 " less parade at the second than at the first 270 '* pleasant picture of the second 270 Inkstand of Washington, description of 299 u picture of 300 INDEX. 369 .1 . PAGK lackson. Major, accompanies Washington to Mount Vernon and on his Southern tour, in 1791, 258 Jane an d Mary Washington, autographs of 18 .lay, John, letter of Washington to, in 1786 ITS " anxiety of Washington respecting the treaty made by 275 Jay, Ke v. William, impromptu lines of, on seeing a picture of Mount Vernon 359 Jefferson, Thomas, letter of, respecting Iloudon 161 " letter of, respecting bust of Lafayette 229 K. Key of the Bastile, letter of Washington to Lafayette respecting the 223 Kitchen and dancine-hall erected by Mr. Custis at Arlington Spring 258 Knox, General, Washington's letter to, respecting his going into office 191 " at Washington's inauguration . 202 " letter of Washington to, two nays before his retirement to private life 278, 288 " appointed third major-general of the Provisional Army 809; L, Ladies' Mount Vernon Association the present owners of Mount Vernon 857 Lafayette, Marquis de, visit of, at Mount Vernon in 1784 149 " arrival of at New York, in 1784 150 " Washington's intuitive perception of his character on his first arriv.il 150 " letter of, to Washington at New York 151 ' portrait of 152 " commander of National Guard in France 219 " sends key of Bastile to Thomas Paine, to be sent by him to Washington 220 letter of, to Washington, presenting key of the Bast ile . 222 bust of, at Mount Vernon . . 229 " picture of bust of 230 " ceremony at the presentation of the bust of, to the c ty of Paris 231 anxiety of Washington respecting the misfortunes of 285 " a prisoner in a dungeon at Olinutz for three years 289 " wife and daughters of, share his prison at Olmutz 289 ' letter of Washington to, respecting his son . 292 " massive gold ring presented to, by Mr. Custis, at the tomb of Wash ngton 340 I.at'nyette, George Washington, accompanies Washington to -.omit Vernon, on his retire- ment from office in 1797 285- portrait of 286- arrives at Boston from France in 1795 289 " parental feelings of Washington toward 289 " reasons of state govern Washington's manner of receiving, 91 " resolution of Congress respecting 291 return of to France, in 1797 2y2 letterof to G. W. P. Custis, in 1825 295 Lafayette, Madame, letter of Washington to 184 " her admiration of Washington 152 " sends Masonic apron to Washington . 158 " picture of Masonic apron sent by, to Washington 158 "Lament of Washington," pnem from the pen of Attorney-General Bradford, respecting the misfortunes of Lafayette 287 Lungdon, John, president of the United States senate }>ro tempo re 192 informs Washington by letter of his elevation to the presidency 192 Lantern, ancient iron, eighty years at Mount Vernon, now at Arlington House 802 " picture of 301 I. a Salle, commander-in -chief of the militia of Paris 218 Lust illness of Washington, detailed account of 816-321 Last words of Washington 821 Lawrence Washington, goes to Barbadoes for his health 87 24 370 INDEX. PAOR Lawrence Washington, accompanied to Barhadoes by his brother George 37 " his return home from liarbadors, and death 37 Lear, Tobias, becomes a resident at Mount Vernon 1 77 " his stay there remembered in Washington's will 177 " letters of Washington to, relating to his coach 236 " letters of Washington to, relating to his house and furniture in Philadelphia.. .236- 239 " residing in the family of Washington at the time of his last illness 31fi Lee, General Charles, at Mount Vernon . . 93 " portrait of 94 Lee, Richard Henry, letter of, to Washington, when a child 23 " the first to congratulate Washington after his taking the oath of office 202 " his opinion of Tlte Rights of Man by Thomas Paine 262 u letter of Washington to, respecting a newly-invented threshing-machine 273 " invited to pronounce an oration on the occasion of Washington's funeral 882 " anecdote of, showing his familiarity with Washington , 333 Lee, Mrs. Hobert E., the great-granddanghter of Mrs. Washington 85 Lemon-tree at Mount Vernon 144 L'Enfant Major, employed to furnish a plan and survey of the federal city 256 " his plans of the federal city approved of by Congress 257 Lepine, watches made by, purchased by Washington 206 Levees, Washington's.. 211 Lewis, George, inherits a sword from Washington 212 Lewis, Lawrence, a suitor for the hand of Nelly Custis. 311 " invited to take up his residence at Mount Vernon in 1798 ?10 " and Nelly Custis married on Washington's birthday, 1799 313 Lewis, Major, re-entombs remains of Washington and his wife in marble sarcophng , n 1837, 340 Lewis, llobert, instructed by Washington in the management of his estate 25" Lexington, effects of the news of the battle of, at Mount Vernon 93 Liquor-chest that belonged to Washington, remaining at Mount Vernon i n 1 S57 346 " picture of 347 Livermore, Mr. George, h'8 account of a silver gorget, a rel.c of Wash ngton's earlier lite 844 Livingston, Chancellor, administers the oath of office to Washington in 1*89 201 Livingston. Edward, letter of, to George Washington Lafayette 291 Livingston, Governor, entertains Mrs. Washington -.09 Livingston, Uobert K., secretary for foreign affairs 116 " letter of, to Washington, communicating the news of the conclusion of peace, in 1783. 1 1 6 London Chronicle, sketch of Washington in Ill Louis XVI. sends an engraving of himself to Washington Ih2 Lunt, his lines on the burial-place of Washington 334 JK. McCombs. house of, occupied by Washington 214 Macubbin, Mrs , opens a ball at Annapolis with Washington 118 Mcllenry, Mr. letter of Washington to, from Mount Vernon, after his retirement 298 " letter of Washington to, respecting the anticipated troubles with France 308 " anxiety of Washington expressed to, that his affairs might be found in order after his death 315 McKean, Sally, becomes the wife of the Marquis d' Frugo 27(i Mcl-hcrson's Blues, six survivors ot, in 1S59 383 " picture of uniform of 334 Madison, James, wr tes an inscription for the statue of Washington 160 " at Mount Vernon with Houdon, the French sculptor 168 Mansion near the Potomac, the home of the Washington family 18 Mansion, the presidential, at Philadelphia, picture of 253 Manuscript memorandum of Washington 149 Marble coffin of Washington, picture of. 842 Marqu6e and Tent of. Washington 1 24, 1 25 " p cture of portmanteaux contain ng 126 Marriages of foreign envoys with American women, numerous 276 Marshall, Hon John, announces the death of Washington to < ongress 331 INDEX. 371 PAGE Mason, George, Washington's ne.ghbor and frieud 71 Masonic apron presented to Washington by Madame Lafayette 153 ' picture of. .... 158 Massey, Kev. Lee, minister of Pohick Church 75 Maurepas, Count, remark of, in relation to Lafayette 150 Meade, Bishop, notice of MASOII L. Weenis, by 75 " letter ft, in relation to Washington's English coach 235 Mercer, Dr. Hugh, at Mount Vernon 93 Mifflin, Governor, meets Washington on the frontiers of Pennsylvania 197 Military clothes of Washington, picture of 119 Miniature of Washington, by Mrs. Sharpless ,. . . 296 Miniature portrait of Mrs. Washington, painted by liobertson in 1792 260 Mirror of Washington still at Mount Vernon 848 " picture of. 817 Monuments of several members of the Washington family on the east side of the tomb of the General 844 "Morning" and "Evening" landscapes painted for Washington, by Winstanley, now at Arlington House 806 Morris, George P., his ode on Washington's sword and Franklin's staff 121 Morris, Gouverneur, stands to Houdon for the figure of Washington 166 " sends wine-coolers to Washington 248 Morris, Mrs., accompanies Mrs. Washington to New York 209 Morris, Robert, builds a studio for Pine the portrait painter 166 " house of, in Philadelphia, rented for Washington's residence 286 Morris, Roger, marries Mary Phillipse 45 " picture of his residence 46 " proscribed, as an "enemy to his country" 46 Mortar, bronze, that belonged to Cimon Washington in 1664, picture of 16 Mossom, Rev. David, unites Washington and Mrs. Custis in marriage 51 Mother of Washington, visited by him for the last time 194 Motier, a family name of Lafayette assumed by his son in 1795 290 "Motto of the Washington family 16 Mount Vernon, the mansion at, built by Lawrence Washington 28 " style of living at, before the Revolution 61 " picture of present landing at .-. 69 " changes in and around 92 little children at 110 " sorrow at, in 1781 112 " mansion at, and its surroundings described 186 " mansion and other buildings at, found by the General much in want of repair, after his eight years' absence 299 ' hospitalities at, continued after the death of the General 836 " passes into the possession of Bushrod Washington, nephew of the General, on the death of Mrs. Washington 386 " becomes the property of John Augustine Washington in 18.9 840 " Mrs. Jane Washington mistress of, in 1832 840 " few articles of the personal property of Washington remaining at 844 " articles that belonged to Washington, remaining at, in 1857 846 " engravings that belonged to Washington still remaining at 349 " successive owners of, for one hundred and sixteen years 355 " inconsiderate conduct of visitors at 855 " for many years falling into decay . . . 855 " proposition to make it a national possession '. 366 ' high price offered by speculators for, rejected 856 " the property of the Ladies' Mmvnt Vernon Association 857 " the work of renovation and restoration commenced at .. 857 . " moral associations connected with the name 858 Moustier, Count de, French minister, at Mount Vernon 184 Mural candelabra, used in Washington's dining-room at Philadelphia, picture of 301 372 INDEX. Hf. PAGE Necker, M., dismissed from his post as minister of finance, in France 219 " bust of, presented to Washington " inscriptions on bust of, presented to Washington 228 " picture of bust of Necker, presented to Washington .... 229 Newport, Rhode Island, Washington makes a voyage to, for the benefit of his health 214 North, Lord, emotions of, on hearing of the defeat of Cornwallis 116 O. Oath of office administered to Washington in 1793, by Judge Cusbing 269 Occoquan Falls, mills at, destroyed by Lord Dunmore 105 Ode to Washington sung at Trenton 199 Ogden, Charles S., original study of Peale's first portrait of Washington, in possession of 68 Olmutz, dungeon at, the prison of Lafayette for three years . 289 Ora'ion pronounced by General Henry Lee, on the occasion of the funeral of Washington . . 882 Otis, Mr., holds the Bible at Washington's inauguration .201 P. Packsaddle used by Washington on his expedition to the Ohio country in 1T53, picture of. . . 39 Paine, Thomas, letter of to Washington respecting the key of the Bastile 2-22 " letter of to Washincton respecting the success of " Tin Rigid* nf J/an,'' 262 " Washington shamefully abused by, in a published letter 2fi3 Patrick Henry's opinion of Washington 91 Patrick Henry, Washington heard the burning words of, in the Virginia Assembly 97 Peace, desire for in England 116 " Washington's letter to Clinton on the subject of 116 Peale, Angelica, crowns Washington at Gray's Ferry in 17S9 19S Peale, Charles Willson, beginning of artist life of 80 paints Washington at Mount Vernon in 1772 80 " portrait of 81 fac-simile of his receipt for ten guineas for painting miniature of Mrs. Washington, t8 " ordered by Gov Harrison to paint a portrait of Washington to make a statue from, 161 " emblematic paintings by, on the occasion of Wash ngton's retirement from office . . 282 Peale, Rembrandt, his history of the Pitcher Portrait and the eulogy on the back of it .... 849 Pendleton, Edmund, at Mount Vernon on his way to the first Congress 88 Peters, Judge, meets Washington on the frontiers of Pennsylvania 197 Philadelphia the federal city for ten years 244 Phillipse, Mary, Washington in love with 4"> " marries Roger Morris 45 " portrait of . . 5 Pinckney, Gov. Charles Cotesworth, receives Washington at the wharf in Charleston, in 1791, 255 " reply of, to the insulting proposition of the French Directory 307 " appointed second major-general of the Provisional Army 309 Pine, Robert Edge, an English painter, at Mount Vernon 165 " his portrait of Washington in Montreal 1 68 Pistols, Washington's, description and picture of 228 Pitcher Portrait, and eulogy of Washington on the back of it 349-354 Plan of the grounds at Mount Vernon 141,142 Plaster cast taken of the face of Washington 158 Plate, Washington's, pictare of pieces of, at Arlington House. ... 25'2 Pohick Church, Washington attends 73 " rebuilding of, 78 " Washington's drawing of 73 li author's visit to 77 " picture of 78 " present condition of 79 " picture of pulpit "9 Precedents established for the President of the United Slates 20ft Presence of Washington, remarkable sense of awe caused by 271 INDEX. 373 1'AGK Presidential mansion at Philadelphia, picture of 258 Profile portrait of Washington 29:i Profile portrait of Mrs. Washington 297 Protestant Episcopal Church, burial service of Wash ngton according to the r.tual of 327 Provisional Army, Washington appointed coimiiander-in-chief of, in view of the impending war with France. 803 " major-generals and other officers appointed by Washington 309 Punch-bowl, tea-table, and sideboard, picture of 303 Putnam, Life of, written at Mount Vernon by Humphrey* 182 R. Randolph, Peyton, chosen president of first Congress 90 Ranney, letter of Washington to, in relation to his sending flag-stones, &c,, from England ... 139 Rawlins, Mr., one of Washington's overseers, sent for to bleed Washington in his last Ilness, 318 Reading of Washington at his second inauguration 272 Receptions of Mrs. Washington 210 Receptions of Washington at New York and at Philadelphia 211, 212 Jieco/lectiona and Private Memoirs ff Waxfthigton, interesting corresi ondence of Wash- ington to be found in 812 Remains of Washington, account of the re-entombment of, in !S-'57 K40-84H Resolution, important, passed by the first Congress 90 Retirement from office of Washington, extract from a newsjKiper of the day. describing a public entertainment on the occasion of .... 2*2 Revolution, flames of, kindling, in 1773 86 Revolution, involuntary tribute by ladies to the memory of . -,53 Revolution, French, breaking out of 21S Kipon, Karl of, present owner of the English seat of the Washington family IG Rochambeaii, Count de, at Mount Vernon in 1181 106 " portrait of 107 Room in which Washington died, picture of. 824 Roosevelt, M r., funeral ot the wife of 205 Rush, Dr., remarks of, in relation to the seat of government 248 Rush, the late venerable Richard, incident related by, illustrating the feelings of Washington toward Lafayette in misfortune 267 S. Sago palm at Mount Vernon 145 St. John's Lodge, in New York, in possession of the Bible used at Washington's inauguration, 208 Sarcophagi of Washington and his wife, description of 342 Seal, impression of Washington's, attached to a death-warrant 17 Seal, impression of Washington's last watch, picture of 2H7 Seal-ring, picture of Washington's 17 Seals, Washington's watch, lost on Braddock's field and in Virginia, and afterward found 17 ' pictures of 17 Secretary, Washington's, willed to Dr. Craik 214 ' picture of 215 Sharpless, James, his profile portraits of Washington and Mrs. Washington said to be the h^t likenesses extant 295 Sharpless, Mrs., beautiful miniature of Washington \>y 29t< Shield, silver, on Washington's coffin, picture of 327 Sideboard, black walnut, that belonged to Lawrence Washington, now at Arlington House. 802 Silver candlestick. Washington's, picture of 808 Silver inkstand of Washington, description of 299 Sotomayer, Duke ot; a native of Philadelphia 276 Southern States, tour of Washington through, in 1791 264 Spaniards, depredations of, on British commerce in the West Indies 25 Spy glass. Washington's anecdote in connection with 224 ' picture of 224 374 INDEX. V AC.K Statuary, orders of Washington for, from London 58 Statue, bronze, of Washington, ordered by Congress 157 ' to be made by the best sculptor in Europe . 158 Statue of Washington, ordered by the legislature of Virginia 159 Steuben, Baron, at Washington's inauguration 202 Stockton, Annis, assistance of, in honoring Washington at Trenton 199 Strickland, Mr., his description of the personal appearance of Major Lewis in 1837 841 Struthers, Mr. John, marble sarcophagi presented by, for the re-entombing of the remains of Washington and his wife, in 1S37 340 Stuart, David, Washington wills his telescope and shaving apparatus to 35, 65 " marries the widow of John Purke Custis 35 Stuart, Gilbert, painter of Eleanor Parke Custis 115 Style, old and new, how it originated 20 Summer-house at Mount Vernon, picture of. 148 Sword and staff, Washington's and Franklin's, picture of, and ode by George P. Morris 121 Sword, Washington's, picture of 211 " will concerning 212 T. Table, particular description by Rev. Ashbel Greene of Washington's habits at 288 Tea-table, Washington's, now at Arlington house, description of. 802 Telescope, Washington's, in the possession of the wife of Kev. A. B. Atkinson 35 " picture of r 36 Telescope, Washington's pocket, presented to General Jackson 225 The, Entry, a satire, published in 17b9 201 Thomson, Charles, secretary of Congress, carries to Washington at Mount Vernon, a notice of his election to the presidency 192 " portraitof 193 Thornton, Dr., his plan for the capitol approved of by Washington 257 Threshing-machine, letter of Washington to General Henry Lee respecting one 278 Tomb of Washington broken into thirty years after his death 330 " description of 342-344 " p'cture of 343 Travelling writing-case, Washington's, picture of 125 Tray, Washington's silver, anecdote respecting 252 Trenton, triumphal arch at, in honor of Washington 199 Trunk, Washington's travelling, described 121 " picture of 122 Truro Point. Washington a vestryman at 72 V. Van Braam, teaches Washington the art of fencing 36 Vases, porcelain, that belonged to Washington, picture of 174 Vaughan Samuel, presents a marble chimney-piece to Washington 171 Vault, the Washington family, site of a proposed new one indicated to Major Lewis by Washington, a few days before his death 315 Vault, the Washington family, directions left in the General's will concerning 39 Vault, old, of the Washington family, picture of 380 Vernon, Admiral, commander-in-chief of the English navy in the West Indies 25 " portrait of 26 " medal in commemoration of h.s capture of Porto Bello, preserved at Mount Vernon 27 Virginia, address of legislature of, to Washington ^ . 160 " legislature of, vote a statue of Washington 15!) Von Berckel, copy of an allegorical picture painted by the wife of 186 Vulcan, a French hound, anecdote of 171 W. Walker, Colonel, aide to Baron Steuben, takes a letter to Gov. Clinton from Mount Vernon, 118 Wallace, words of, brought to memory of the author, while occupied in sketching the death- chamber of Washington 325 INDEX. 375 I'AGK Warville, Brissot de. at Mount Vernon 187 Washington and tlie Knirfiixes in Virginia in political opposition 16 Washington, a page of Charles I., dies at Madrid 14 Washington, Augustine, father of George, death of 24 " bequeaths Hunting Creek estate to Lawrence 24 Washington Benevolent Society, recipient of Washington's masonic apron 154 Washington, Bushrod, wills his watch to Mr. Adams 206 " receives a sword from General Washington 212 " becomes master of Mount Vernon on the death of Mrs. Washington 386 Washington Colonel William, hospitalities of proffered to Washington on his Southern tour, 254 Washington family emigrate to America nine years after the death of Charles 1 15 Washington, George, a boy at Mount Vernon 29 ' about to enter the navy - 81 " a letter from his uncle 10 his mother decides her against his going to sea 3-orr.rait of '25 " his military sp rit 25 " present at the attack of Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth on Carthagena . 26 " friendship of Wentworth and Vernon for 27 " his marriage 28 " takes possession of the estate upon the d. ath of his father, and names it Mount Vernon, 23 " adjutant-general of his district 81 " portrait of. still at Mount Vernon 349 Washington Lodge, Alexandria, Washington's masonic apion in 156 Washington, Lund, the General's overse,er 104 " reproved by the General for saving Mount Vernon from destruction by giving aid to the enemies of his country 105 Washington, Mrs., portraits of children of 52 " portraits of . 53, 261, 297 ' in camp and at head-quarters 100 letters to. from her husband, destroyed by her 100 " grandchildren of, painted by Pine 167 " letter of, asking Fanny for an apron 207 " honors paid to, on her way to New York 206 " first drawing-room of, at New York 210 " first public reception of, in Philadelphia 247 " company at public receptions of 248 " excessive fondness of, for her grandchildren 266 resignation of, exhibited at the death-bed of her husband .'. 822 " reply of. to Congress, respecting the disposition of the remains of her husband 334 " letters and visits of condolence to, after the death of her husband 335 u death of, in 1802 336 Washington, Mrs. Jane, mistress of Mount Vernon in 1832 340 Washington, Samuel, receives a sword from the General 212 Washingtons an ancient English family 14 Watch, owned by Washington, picture of. 207 Water-mark, on paper m.ide for Washington, picture of . 348 Watson and Cossoul, correspondence of, with Washington respecting his masonic apron . . . 155 Watson, Elkanah, anecdote of his, respecting his visit at Mount Vernon 804 " remarks of, in relation to Washington's masonic apron 156 Watson. John F., owns Washington's military button ; . 81 AVeems, Kev. Mason L., officiates at Poll ck Church 75 " portrait of 75 Westford, sole survivor of Judge Washington's slaves, portrait of 83S White. General Anthony Walton, picture of gold pen presented to, by Washington 66 " Widow of Malabar," translated by Humphreys at Mt. Vernon, performed at Philadelphia. . 1S3 Will of Washington, executed in July, 1799, written out entirely by himself 315 Wine-coolers, disposition of, that belonged to Washington . . . 250 picture of, 251 Winstanley, William, landscapes " Morning" and " Evening" painted for Washington by. ... 306 Wolcott, Oliver, of Connecticut, prudence of 245 " letter of, respecting the president's habits of economy 242 Worcester, English city of, defended by Henry Washington against Fairfax 14 Wright. Joseph, paints portraits of Washington and his wife ." 168 " attempts to take a plaster mould from Washington's face 158 " makes a medal die of Washington 159 Wright, Mrs. Patience, wax figures of 15S Y. Yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1794. Washington retires to Mount Vernon to avoid 272 Yrugo, Marquis d', the Spanish minster, the guest of Washington n 1796 at Mount Vernon. . 275 " becomes the husband of Sail v McKean 27l> RECCVFL. JW iVm ACNOV0120K. RECDYRL JEta w ill