USA > Maryland > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 6
USA > Virginia > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 6
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In all his business transactions, and they were many and varied, no instances have been recorded by any writer of any attempt on his part to get the advantage of any of his fellows. He was a fast friend and a patron of merit. He recognized the divinity of labor, and believed that it should be respected and fully requitted. True, he was a slave holder, but it was for the reason that labor was urgently needed in those times to open and subdue the wilderness, produce supplies, and develop the great resources of the country; but he did not look upon his bondsmen as mere machines, devoid of feelings or sensibilities. There is the most authentic evidence that he looked most carefully after their welfare in respect to diet, raiment, quarters, and seasons of toil; had them taught habits of industry, provided medical attendance for them in sickness, allowed them religious instruction and by his last bequest, made July 9, 1799, ordered that they should all be freed. And it is but just to mention in this connection that from no one of his freed folks or their immediate descendants has there ever been heard any instance of unnecessary severities under his benign rule as a master.
The estate was large, and land for tillage was plentiful, and every family had ample privilege of having plots of ground for growing all kinds of vegetables, while fish were abundant in the river and creeks, and wild game plentiful in the woods.
In 1786, he wrote to Robert Morris, "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery. But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by leg- islative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." And in another letter, written to his nephew, Robert Lewis, August 17, 1799, four months before his death, he says, "I have more negroes on my estate of Mount Ver- non than can be employed to any advantage in the farming system: and I shall never turn planter thereon. To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against that kind of traffic in the human species. To hire them out is almost as bad, because they cannot be disposed of in families and I have an aversion to that system."
In a letter to John F. Mercer, of Virginia, September, 1786, he wrote, "I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law." Martha, his widow, in 1801, man- umitted all the slaves she held in her own right.
The relation of the African race to our nation, Washington represented. He was not a radical reformer, not an ideal theorist, but a practical thinker and actor, and as such he interpreted the African's destiny. He recognized his capacity to be a tiller of the soil and a mechanic, and treated him kindly; and taught and practised the prin- ciple of emancipation. He regarded slavery, indeed, as the law of the land, and de- nied the right of any citizen to interfere with the legal claims of the master to his slave but he thought the law ought to be changed, and he stands in our history as the repre- sentative of the old school of emancipationists who regarded slavery as a fading relic of a semi-civilized form of society. He could work with the negro and mingle praise with blame in his judgments, and, without having extreme opinions of their gifts or virtucs, he thought them fitted for freedom and capable of education.
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
He was methodical in all his undertakings and pursuits, no matter how common place; kept a diary of ordinary as well as extraordinary events, and noted down reg- ularly from day to day his expenditures, whether incurred for household necessities, raiment, the carrying on of his farm arrangements, or for traveling. His strict atten- tion to details, added to his habit of close observation and investigation and correct judgment, was the secret of the remarkable success which attended him through life. It made him the accurate surveyor, the safe counselor, the efficient general, the capa- ble and trusted President, and it made him one of the best farmers of his time. His handwriting, from his characteristic order and care, was invariably neat and legible whether he wrote a state paper, a letter to some home or foreign dignitary, or whether he wrote a deed for the conveyance of land, or an order on his merchant, or a receipt to his mechanic, every letter was well formed and distinct, so that it never required, as is too often the case with public men of our day, much time to decipher his meaning.
As a farmer he was not content to merely follow the modes which had long prevailed with the planters around him, but at a very early period of his farming operations he put into practice new and more advantageous systems of croppings and manuring;
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SULGRAVE MANOR, ENGLAND. Residence of some of Washington's Ancestors.
laid down his land to grass; planted out orchards of the best fruits then obtainable; employed the newest agricultural implements, and had a constant care to obtain the best seeds and the most improved stock. Washington was a farmer by choice and be- cause he believed the "calling to be the most healthful, the most useful, and the noblest employment of men." He might have entered many avenues opened for him when a young man which would have insured success whatever the undertaking. But the quiet- ude and peaceful surroundings of a rural life were more in keeping with his natural inclinations than the circumstances of other pursuits, which to many of the young men now coming up around us seem far more attractive.
He was domestic in his habits, and loved the peace, the tranquility, and joys of home life. And we most delight to dwell on the part of the history of this great man which pictures that life-the life he led as a plain, unpretending citizen of the republic he had been so instrumental in establishing. What to a man of the finer sensibilities is the tinselry and show and power of a public life when compared with genial minds and with a nature clothed in the simple and beautiful garb of truth? Of all men none could appreciate the difference better than Washington. "I am now, I believe," he writes in a letter from Mount Vernon, "fixed in this seat, and I hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world."
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
His hospitality was large, and his generosities and charities wide-reaching. No one was more ready to acknowledge an error of heart or judgment, nor more magnanimous to those differing in opinions.
We do not claim that he was perfect, for perfection in humanity is impossible. We only claim for him that he came as near to filling the measure of the "noblest work of God" as any other man in history. And certainly no character in all its aspects or bearings is more worthy of emulation by the youth of our country than his. The clos- ing scene of his life on the fourteenth of December, 1799, was peaceful, and a grateful people mourned for him as a father indeed.
He had rounded out to the full his matchless lifework. There was nothing left for him to do. He escaped the quicksands into which other feet have been tempted, and folding his hands, lay down and passed away in the fullness of years, with his fame at its zenith, and like the star set in the heavens, too firmly placed, to be drawn aside from its orbit.
"When common men have perished No earthly trace we find;
To lowly dust and aslies Though mortal flesh hath gone,
The soul of this our hero Rose and remained behind.
No grave can ever hide him- His very life lives on."
COLONEL WASHINGTON OF MOUNT VERNON.
Owing to the death, some years before, of Lawrence Washington's only child, Sara, followed as it shortly after was by that of his widow, Annie, Colonel George Washing- ton, already proprietor of the paternal estate on the Rappahannock, had inherited, with much additional property, the magnificent domain of Mount Vernon, and was now one of the wealthiest planters of the Old Dominion. Washington's fondness for agri- cultural pursuits had not been the only motive of his retirement. The harassing cares of his command had not exerted a complete monopoly of his thoughts during this pro- longed period of Indian warfare. The romantic traditions of his courtship it is un- necessary to recall here. On the seventeenth of January, 1759, he was married to Mrs. Custis, a very young and wealthy widow, who formerly had been the most attrac- tive belle at the vice-regal court of Williamsburg. The ceremony was performed amid a joyous assemblage of relatives and friends, at the White House, the bride's home, where they remained until the trees were budding at Mount Vernon, when they took up their permanent residence there. Washington at this time wrote to a friend, "I am now, I believe, fixed in this seat, with an agreeable partner for life, and I hope to find more happiness in retirement than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world. No estate in America is more pleasantly situated. In a high and 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. The borders of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tidewater. The whole shore is one entire fishery." The whole region thereabout, with its range of forests and hills and picturesque promontories, afforded sport of various kinds; and was a noble hunting ground.
These were, as yet, the aristocratical days of Virginia. The estates were large, and continued in the same families by entail. A style of living prevailed which has long since faded away. The houses, liberal in all their appointments, were fitted to cope with the free-handed, open-hearted hospitality of the owners. Each estate was a little empire, and its mansion-house the seat of government, where the planter ruled supreme. The negro quarters formed a hamlet apart. Among the slaves were artificers of all kinds, so that a plantation produced within itself everything for ordinary use. Arti- cles of fashion and elegance, luxuries and expensive clothing were imported from Lon- don, for the planters on the Potomac carried on an immediate trade with England.
Their tobacco, put up by their own negroes, bore their own marks, and was shipped directly to their agents in Liverpool or Bristol, Edinburg or Bordeaux.
Washington, instead of trusting to overseers, gave his personal attention to every de- tail of the management of his estate. He carried into his rural affairs the same method,
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activity, and circumspection that had distinguished him in military life. He made a complete survey of his lands, apportioned them into farms, and regulated the cultiva- tion of all. The products of his estate became so noted for the faithfulness-as to quality and quantity-with which they were put up, that it is stated that any barrel of flour that bore the brand of George Washington, Mount Vernon, was exempted from the customary inspection in the ports to which it was sent. There were many relax- ations in the arduous duties he had assumed. He deliglited in the chase. In the height of the season he would be out with the fox hounds two or three times a week, accompanied by his guests and the gentlemen of the neighborhood, and ending the day with a hunting dinner, when he is said to have enjoyed himself with unwonted hilarity. He also greatly relished duck shooting, in which he was celebrated for his skill. The Potomac was the scene of considerable aquatic state at that time, and Washington had his barge, rowed by six uniformed negroes, to visit his friends on the
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WASHINGTON AT FORTY.
From a painting by Charles Peale. 1772
Of this painting Washington makes these notes in his diary: "May 20, 1772, sat for Mr. Peale to have my picture taken. May 21, sat again for the drapery. May 22, sat for Mr. Peale to finish my face. In the afternoon rode with him to my mill. Returned home by the Ferry plantation."
Maryland side of the river. He had his chariot and four, with black postilion in livery, for the use of Mrs. Washington and her lady visitors. As for himself he always ap- peared on horseback. His stable was well filled and admirably regulated-his stud all
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
thoroughbred. Occasionally he and Mrs. Washington would pay a visit to Annapolis, and partake of the gaitics which prevailed there during the sessions of the legislature. X
In this round of rural occupations, rural amusements and social intercourse, Wash- ington passed many tranquil ycars, the halcyon season of his life. His already estab- lished reputation drew many visitors to Mount Vernon, who were sure to be received with cordial hospitality. His marriage was unblessed with children, but those of Mrs. Washington received from him parental care and affection. His domestic concerns were never permitted to interfere with his public duties. As judge of the county court, and member of the House of Burgesses, and executor oftentimes for his neighbors, he had numerous calls upon his time and thought; for whatever trust hc undertook, he was sure to fulfill with scrupulous exactness.
THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
The storm of the Revolution, so long impending, had suddenly burst over the land, and Washington, who had represented Virginia in the First Continental Congress and was now a member of the second, was by it, June 15, 1775, unanimously called to the command of the colonial army. On the 20th he received his commission and the fol- lowing day started for Boston on horseback to take command. "There is something charming to me in the conduct of Washington," wrote John Adams at the time. "A gentleman of one of the first fortunes on the continent, leaving his delicious retirement, his family and friends, sacrificing his ease and hazarding all in the cause of his country. His views are noble and disinterested." And Mrs. Adams wrote on his arrival before Boston, "Dignity, ease and complacency, the gentleman and the soldier are agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every feature of his face." The honors with which he was received only told him how much was expected from him, and when he looked around upon the raw and rustic levies he was to command, "a mixed multitude of peo- ple, without discipline, order, or government," scattered about in rough encampments, beleaguering a city garrisoned by an army of veteran troops with ships of war in its harbor, he felt the awful responsibility of his situation, and the complicated and stu- pendous task before him. "The cause of my country," he wrote, "has called me to active and dangerous duty, but I trust that Divine Providence will enable me to discharge it with fidelity and success." With what unswerving and untiring fidelity, and with what complete and splendid ultimate success-despite disaster, mutiny, faithlessness, and treachery in those most trusted, privations without parallel, difficulties such as never leader encountered before, bitter rivalries, the opposition of Congress, and the loss of confidence, as once well nigh seemed, of a whole people-Washington, never faltering, ยท discharged his trust during the long, weary years that followed, needs no repetition here. There are no better known pages in the world's history.
THE FIRST PRESIDENT.
The electors chosen under the new Constitution were unanimous in calling Washing- ton to the presidential chair. On the 16th of April, 1789, he again badc adieu to Mount Vernon, and set out for the scat of government. His progress to New York was a continuous ovation. There on April 30th, the first President of the United States was inaugurated.
It is not our purpose to dwell upon the incidents of the following eight years, when Washington so worthily filled the loftiest position within the gift of any people. Dur- ing this period, crowded with events most important in the formative history of the republic, its chief magistrate-it may surprise those unfamiliar with the publications of the time-was pursued in his official acts, and even private life, by a bitter partisan malignity, the like of which is almost unknown in our later day. The pressure of pub- lic duties admitted but few opportunities to visit his home. During one of thesc visits there, in the summer of 1796, he wrote his farewell address, which a great British his- torian has declared to be "unequalled by any composition of uninspired wisdom." He was now looking forward with unfeigned longing to his retirement. His term of office expired March 4, 1797, when Mr. Adams, in his inaugural address, spoke of his prede-
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
eessor as one "who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, had merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity."
LAST WILL OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.
In July of 1799, only a few months previous to his death, George Washington made his last will and testament with the following preamble, the brevity, of which, as well as the clearness of language in the bequests which follow it, are in striking con- trast with the rambling verbiage of the wills generally of that time, as appears by the county records.
"I George Washington of Mount Vernon, a citizen of the United States and lately President of the same, do make, ordain, and declare this instrument which is written by my own hand and every page thereof subscribed with my name to be my last Will and Testament, revoking all others."
The handwriting of this interesting historic document still preserved in the Clerk's office of Fairfax county, is in the writer's usual careful and legible style.
To his wife Martha, he devised with some exceptions "all his estate, real and per- sonal for the term of her natural life. At Mrs. Washington's death, which occurred May 22, 1802, his estate left by her was to be divided among his many relatives and to public institutions of learning and to charities, under particular specifications. His real estate in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky not including the domain of Mount Vernon of Sooo acres and the town lots in Alexandria and the National Capital amounted to 5000 acres. Just what his personal effects amounted to does not appear, but the value is known to have been very considerable.
In the will the testator directs about the place and manner of his last resting place in the following clause:
"The family vault at Mount Vernon requiring repairs and being improperly situated, besides, I desire that a new one of brick, and upon a larger scale may be built at the foot of what is commonly called the Vineyard Inclosure on the ground which is marked out-in which my remains with those of my family as may choose to be entombed there may be deposited-and it is my express desire that my corpse may be interred in a private manner, without parade or funeral oration."
At the President's death all his slaves numbering several hundred, were to be freed with explicit direction that such of them who were by bodily infirmities, old age or infaney, unable to support themselves should be comfortably clothed and fed by his heirs while they lived. There were many of this class and they became a heavy ex- pense to the estate for many years. No one of them under any circumstance was again . to become a slave. Mrs. Washington manumitted all her dower slaves a year before her death. The executors of the will were Martha Washington, William Augustine Washington, Bushrod Washington, George Steptoe Washington, Samuel Washington, Lawrence Lewis and George Washington Custis.
The last will of Martha Washington is not extant, it having been destroyed with other county records during the civil war. But it is known that the most of her large estate consisting chiefly of bonds, cash, and stocks was divided among her four grand . children, George Washington Custis, Mrs. Eliza Law, Mrs. Martha Peters and Mrs. Eleanor (Nellie) Lewis.
MOUNT VERNON.
THE HOME AND TOMB OF WASHINGTON.
One hundred and sixty-five years ago when Captain Augustine Washington, grand- son of Col. John Washington of Cave Castle, England, the first immigrant of the name to the province of Virginia, was laying the foundations of the home of his eldest son Lawrence, on the commanding heights of the Upper Potomac, if some astrologer had been present to set his square of the planets and cast the horoscope of the undertaking he might truly have foretold that.
"A mansion built with such auspicious rays
Would live to see old walls and happy days."
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
The site of the historic habitation was then an unbroken forest whose solitudes dense and profound as in the long centuries before, had as yet, hardly heard the sound of an axe or the tread of any human being save that of the swarthy savage. The deer, the bear and the wolf, still made it their wild abode, and remnants of the old Algonquins were yet threading their shadowy trails.
Captain Washington had been a seafaring man, plowing the Atlantic seas for several years, bringing over immigrants from England and carrying back iron ore, and other commodities, but now he was a landsman in the Virginia province turning his atten- tion to home making, and as the sequel has proven, "building better than he knew."
Lawrence, the son for whom he was building was then a young man of three and twenty and was "off to the war" a Captain with the Virginia contingent of Provincials in Col. Gouch's regiment, serving under the command of Admiral Vernon of the British Navy in the siege against the town of Carthagena in Spanish America. George, his young half brother, a boy of four or five years was living two miles below in the little mill house at Epsewasson, enjoying the rare delights of wood and stream which that pleasant locality afforded.
Only the middle portion of the Mount Vernon Mansion as we now see it in its more perfect entirety, was then constructed. The first building was plain and simple, but with its four rooms it was deemed an ample dwelling place for that early day and no additions were made to it for many years to come.
Augustine, the father, left the Epsewasson neighborhood to go back to the lowlands of King George county where he died in 1743. By a provision of his last will and testament his eldest son Lawrence was to inherit all the tract of land whereon he had built the homstead already described. He returned from the Spanish main in the Autumn of 1742 and after his father's death, took possession of his inherited patrimony which consisted of twenty-five hundred acres lying below and along the course of Little Hunting Creek and fronting on the Potomac river. This tract was the share which had fallen by division to his great grandfather, John Washington before mentioned, of the patent of 5000 acres in 1674 from Gov. Lord Culpeper in payment for their mutual venture in bringing into the province according to an act of the General Assembly one hundred immigrants from England as settlers. It was known at the time as the "Hunting Creek plantation." Augustine had inherited the tract from his father Law- rence, the son of John Washington, who died in 1677.
Major Lawrence Washington in July, 1743, was married to Annie, eldest daughter of the Hon. William Fairfax one of the King's council and proprietor of the princely home of Belvoir.
He named his home in honor of the British admiral under whom he had lately served as a soldier, but he did not live long to enjoy it. The hardships he had undergone in the tropics during the Spanish war had undermined his physical power, never very strong; and he was induced to make a voyage to the Island of Barbadoes in the hopes of finding relief from his infirmities. In this voyage he was accompanied by his ever faithful brother George. But the voyage and stay of seven months on the Island gave him no permanent benefit. He returned to the shades of the Potomac just in time to receive the kindly ministrations of his anxious wife and friends and died in his own house, July 26, 1752, at the age of thirty-four. His remains rest just behind those of his brother in the Mount Vernon vault. In his will, after making ample provision for his wife and infant daughter Sara, and only child, he conditioned that in the event of the death of that child to whom Mount Vernon had been left conditionally by his father, then the property should descend to his beloved brother George. Sara, the daughter died soon after and George before the age of twenty was in possession of the Mount Vernon domain.
Lawrence Washington's widow having been provided for by bequests of other prop- erty was again married to Col. George Lee an uncle of Arthur and Richard Henry Lee of Revolutionary fame. Owing to his connection with the military events preceding and following the disastrous expedition of General . Braddock against the French and Indians on the Ohio frontier, Washington was called away from Mount Vernon the best
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