The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers (5 page)

The experiment was not a success. She was constantly listening for the thud of a horse’s hoofs, which she was sure would be a messenger reporting Jack was ill or worse. Even the bark of a dog made her start violently. Her imagination kept conjuring images of Jack lying sick in his bed or writhing in the road after falling from his horse.

VII

As Jack Custis grew older, Washington began worrying about his education. A private tutor had taught him how to read and write and do arithmetic. But Jack was going to be a very wealthy man, and Washington thought he should have a far more extensive intellectual background to play a leading role in Virginia society. All his life, Washington suffered pangs of inferiority over his limited schooling. He wanted to make sure Jack did not became a man with similar regrets. After consulting various friends, Washington enrolled Jack in a boarding school run by the Reverend Jonathan Boucher, a well-regarded Anglican clergyman.

Washington had scarcely persuaded Martha to part with the fourteen-year-old boy when calamity struck. Twelve-year-old Patsy, who seemed to be maturing into a very pretty young girl, suddenly collapsed in what George and Martha at first thought was a fainting spell. But her twitches and gasps and groans soon made them realize it was a convulsion. A few days later, she collapsed again in another “fitt.” Washington sent to Alexandria for a doctor, who glumly informed them that Patsy was an epileptic. Over the next several years, the Washingtons consulted eight different doctors. But there was no cure, and the drastic medicines the medical men forced down the poor girl’s throat only made her nauseous and morose.

For Martha it was a dismaying blow. It meant Patsy would probably never marry. Several of the doctors warned them that the seizures might grow worse in years to come. This proved to be the case. Soon Patsy was having two seizures in a single day. A mournful Washington knew what this meant for Martha. He told a friend, “The unhappy situation of her daughter has to some degree fixed her eyes upon [Jack] as her only hope.”

Meanwhile, Colonel Washington was receiving letters from the Reverend Boucher informing him that Jack, now seventeen, was close to being expelled from his school. “I never did in my life know a youth so exceedingly indolent, or so surprisingly voluptuous; one wd suppose nature had intended him for some Asian prince,” the clergyman ranted at one point. Jack was rich and knew it. So did many of his friends and acquaintances. He had far too many invitations to “visits, balls and other scenes of pleasure.” Worse, Jack had “a propensity to the sex.” It was hardly surprising after these revelations to learn that Jack “does not much like books.” More and more, Dr. Boucher had begun to think that only his “fervent prayers”
would make Jack “if not very clever, what is much better, a good man.”
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The clergyman opined that forcing Jack to leave his horses at Mount Vernon might keep him at least in proximity to his books. Martha flew to her son’s defense, saying she thought he had done nothing that merited such punishment. She resented the idea of confining him like a criminal. In early 1771, at the close of the Christmas holidays, Washington assured Boucher that Jack was returning to school “with a determination of applying close attention to his studies.” But he was forced to add that Jack would be a few days late because he wanted a little more time for “his favorite amusement of hunting.”
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VIII

In 1773, shortly after Martha and George and Patsy returned from Williamsburg following the spring legislative session, Jack confided to Martha stunning news about his future plans. He had gotten engaged to a Maryland belle, Nelly Calvert, without asking his mother’s or his stepfather’s permission. Jack could, of course, have committed far worse indiscretions. In his family background lurked the example of his maternal grandfather, Daniel Parke, who was a womanizer of epic proportions, especially after he became governor of the West Indies island of Antigua. He was murdered by a group of outraged citizens, in part because of his pursuit of virtually every female on the island.

Jack was hardly imitating his grandfather in his pursuit of Nelly Calvert. But for a young man worth tens of thousands of pounds—an undoubted millionaire in today’s currency—to marry without consulting his parents was serious enough to justify Martha’s surprise. As for George, he could scarcely control his anger. Not only did he believe marriage was central to a man’s happiness, but there was a great deal of money involved. That large fact stirred worries about sincerity and honesty, especially if there was a disparity in the bride and bridegroom’s wealth. Moreover, Jack was still a minor; he could not marry without their permission. Before the distressed parents could do or say anything, Jack arrived at Mount Vernon with his fianceé’s father, Benedict Calvert, and the latter’s good friend, Sir Robert Eden, the governor of Maryland.

Ostensibly, Governor Eden was there to discuss with Washington ways to make the Potomac River a link to the West by dredging it and building canals. But there was little doubt Eden knew he added some social stature
to his friend Calvert by inviting him along. Calvert was an illegitimate son of the colony’s proprietor, the fifth Lord Baltimore. Nobody held that against him. He had married the daughter of a former Maryland governor and prospered well enough to preside at Mount Airy, a comfortable plantation near Annapolis, and sit in the colony’s legislature.

After the two men departed, Washington wrote Calvert a letter that leaves no doubt that he was still very angry with Jack. The subject was “of no small embarrassment to me,” he began. He was aware that Jack had “paid his addresses” to “Miss Nelly” and that her “amiable qualifications stand confess’d by all hands.” He would be “wanting in candor” if he did not admit that an “alliance with your family would be pleasing” to Jack’s “family.” He might as well have written the literal truth behind that statement: Martha and young Patsy were delighted.

Washington then spent a paragraph making it clear that an immediate alliance would not be pleasing to him. Jack’s “youth, inexperience and unripened education is & will be insuperable obstacles in my eye.” As his guardian, he felt he had an “indispensable duty” to insist on Jack completing his education. He had enrolled him in King’s College in New York. At the same time, Washington admitted he had no desire to break up the match; he wanted only to postpone it. He was going to recommend to Jack “with the warmth that becomes a man of honor (notwithstanding he did not vouchsafe to consult either his mother or me) that he consider himself as much engaged to your daughter as if the indissoluble knot was tied.”

Washington followed this blend of smoldering rage and soothing assurances with a brief summary of Jack’s impressive net worth in land, slaves, and cash. He hoped this information would inspire Calvert to “do something genteel by your daughter” in the matter of a dowry. Then came words of virtual capitulation. He hoped that Calvert and his wife and daughters would “favor us” with a visit to Mount Vernon.
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Jack galloped off with this letter to Mount Airy and returned with a warm reply assuring Washington that Calvert agreed “it was too early for Mr. Custis to enter upon the matrimonial state.” But he hoped the coming separation would “only delay, not break off the intended match.” Unfortunately, he had ten children and feared Nelly’s dowry would be “inconsiderable.” That bad news delivered, he smoothly assured Washington that the Calverts would be glad to visit Mount Vernon while Jack was studying hard and otherwise maturing in distant New York.
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Washington personally escorted Jack to New York, a journey that grew into a two-week series of dinners and receptions with the elite of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. It is hard to decide whether Washington was hoping to impress Jack with the importance that can come from achieving some distinction in life or whether he simply found the attention paid to him impossible to refuse. Fame was already swirling around the edges of his life. The trip ended with the stepfather and son being feted at a dinner given by Washington’s friend from frontier warfare days, General Thomas Gage, now commander in chief of the British Army in America.

At King’s College, the president, Myles Cooper, greeted them as if they were visiting royalty. Jack was soon telling his “Dear Momma” that he liked the way he was being treated. He was the only student who had dinner with the faculty and joined them in “all their recreations.” He had a comfortable three-room suite, with a separate room for his slave body servant, Joe.

IX

Back in Mount Vernon, if Washington had hopes of terminating the match with Nelly Calvert, they vanished before his eyes as Nelly totally charmed Martha. They were similar types of women, warm and cordial by instinct; Nelly added to this pleasing temperament a lustrous brunette beauty. She not only mesmerized Martha, she became Patsy’s best friend. The two young women, roughly the same age, became inseparable. Martha buoyed their spirits by inviting numerous other belles from nearby plantations to join them in the evenings for music and dancing. George’s younger brother Jack and his wife, Hannah, and two of their children mingled with these visitors. It was a happy family gathering, marred only by the scorchingly hot weather.

On Saturday, June 19, they enjoyed a festive family dinner that kept everyone at the table until about five o’clock. Patsy and Nelly went upstairs, talking about Jack. Patsy ran into her bedroom to get a letter he had written to her. A thud and a strangled cry brought Nelly to the door. Patsy was lying on the floor, writhing in another epileptic seizure. Nelly called downstairs for help. Several people, including her stepfather, helped lift Patsy onto her bed. Almost instantly it became apparent that this was not
a mild attack. Patsy’s breathing grew labored and suddenly dwindled. In less than two minutes, “without uttering a word, a groan or scarce a sigh,” Washington later wrote, she was dead.

Martha wept uncontrollably for hours. Washington’s sorrow—and possibly his tears—matched hers. It was visible in a letter he wrote to Martha’s brother-in-law, Burwell Bassett, the following day, after Patsy’s funeral:

Washington wished he could persuade Martha’s mother, Fanny Dandridge, to move to Mount Vernon permanently, but no argument could entice this lady to join them. He had to depend on frequent visits from the Fairfaxes and his brother Jack and his wife, as well as the continuing presence of Nelly Calvert, to console Martha. He did his best to join them in this almost impossible task.

For the next several months, Washington stayed close to Mount Vernon, canceling a trip to the West with Lord Dunmore, the new governor of Virginia, on which he had hoped to add to the thousands of acres he already owned beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. He frequently persuaded Martha to join him in a light carriage, supposedly to visit his outlying farms. “Rid with Mrs. Washington to Muddy Hole, Doeg Run and Mill Plantations,” he wrote in his diary on one of these days—terse testimony to his attempts to offer Martha his company and sympathy. He became very fond of Nelly Calvert, who stayed at Mount Vernon for most of the summer of 1773. Her tact and skill in comforting Martha soon created a bond that made her a substitute daughter.

X

For a while Jack Custis was a consolation. His letters from New York were cheerful and full of determination to study hard and acquire the education Washington wanted him to have. “I hope the progress I make…
will redown not only to my own credit, but to the credit of those who have been instrumental in placing me here,” he told Washington. He made a point of thanking his stepfather for “the parental care and attention you have always & upon all occasions manifested toward me.”
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In September, after only three months of study, King’s College gave Jack a vacation—so he claimed. Washington arranged to meet him in Annapolis for the annual horse races and festivities connected with the meeting of the state’s assembly. Jack joined him for these revels and had a joyful reunion with Nelly Calvert. He and Washington stayed at Governor Eden’s mansion and spent five days enjoying balls, the theater, and the racetrack. They came home in good spirits to Mount Vernon, where Jack was greeted with fervent kisses by his delighted mother.

During the next several weeks, Washington’s pleasure at presiding over this joyous reunion turned into angry disappointment. He was a busy man; Patsy’s death meant the legal transfer of much valuable property to Jack’s estate and to Martha’s holdings as well. Meanwhile, Jack was telling his mother how much he loved Nelly and how badly they both wanted to console her for Patsy’s loss by giving her grandchildren. Jack persisted in this campaign while he and Martha and Nelly traveled to Williamsburg with Washington to arrange for the transfer of Patsy’s property and give Martha a chance to visit her mother and other nearby relatives. On the way home to Mount Vernon, Martha told Washington that Jack had obtained her permission to abandon his education and marry Nelly as soon as possible. All her relatives agreed with her decision.

Washington was infuriated, but what could he do? He had no desire to play the villain and oppose the young lovers, much less curtly inform Martha that she should wait patiently for grandchildren. Jack was so rich, it was difficult if not impossible to argue that a classical education was a vital necessity for him. Back at Mount Vernon, the defeated colonel wrote a letter to Myles Cooper, the president of King’s College, informing him of Jack’s decision. “I have yielded,” he all but growled, “contrary to my judgment & much against my wishes, to his quitting college…having his own inclinations—the desires of his mother & the acquiescence of almost all his relatives to encounter, I did not care, as he is the last of the family, to push my opposition too far; & therefore have submitted to a kind of necessity.”
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