A Year With George Washington
On March 16, 1758, Washington met 26-year-old Martha Dandridge Custis for the first time.
The still young and attractive Martha had recently been widowed when her husband, Daniel Parke Custis, died unexpectedly the previous July. Historians are divided on the cause of his death, but surmise he died of either a heart attack or a severe throat infection; it is not known which.
Twenty-one years her senior, he was heir to the vast Custis family fortune. His death made Martha and their two children, four-year-old“Jacky” and two-year-old “Patsy,” comfortable for life.
The social mores governing appropriate mourning periods and remarriage were not as harsh in the eighteenth century as they would become later. It was not uncommon for a widow or widower to court a new spouse within months of the death of a spouse, owing in most cases, to sheer practicality. Martha, though she was wealthy and thus had no need to remarry, was not judged negatively for entertaining suitors.
Though Washington did not own Mount Vernon as yet (he would upon the death of Anne Fairfax in March of 1761), he had completed several upgrades to the property in recent years and was thus ready for a bride with whom to share his beloved estate.
He was not the only suitor who vied for a chance to wed the wealthy widow, however. A well-to-do planter named Charles Carter also threw his hat in the ring. He was wealthy, no doubt. On that score, he was more than a match for George. But he was near fifty years old and came with a dozen children from his previous marriage. Marriage to Charles Carter would have meant that Martha had to care for a brood of fourteen children. The contrast of Carter with the young military hero in George must have been striking. Still, George took no chances and took to courting Martha as he would everything else in his life – with verve and vigor. He would tip her servants well so that their flattering whispers would linger in the air between visits.
The courtship of George and Martha did not last long, just over nine months, in fact, and both seemed to anticipate that a permanent union between the two of them was inevitable. Each placed orders for new clothing, shoes, and myriad other accoutrements necessary for happy matrimony. They would be married at her home (portentiously called the White House!) during the Twelfth Night celebration of Christmas, January 6th 1759.
By every account, their marriage was a happy one. More than that, each filled the voids in the other’s life. Washington was stable, virile, and kind to her children. She was devoted, doting, and utterly unaffected by his monumental status. Most of all, she gave him peace, something he sorely lacked in every other theater of his life.
Though eight months older than Washington, Martha teasingly referred to her husband as the “Old Man.” She was almost certainly the only person in his life who could take such a liberty, as he was not given to opening up to most anyone. Martha must have seemed heaven-sent when Washington compared her open and abiding affection to the frigid and often harsh character of his mother.
Martha would suffer alongside Washington as often as he needed it, even leaving the comfort of Mount Vernon to join her husband in each winter camp during the war. She was not only a comfort to him but was to all those around him, including the young soldiers. A French-born emigrant to America named Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau, who visited Mount Vernon in November of 1780, offered a glimpse into the nature of Martha Washington when he said…
“She reminded me of the Roman matrons of whom I had read so much, and I thought that she well deserved to be the companion and friend of the greatest man of the age.”
Perfectly said.
