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IN CONTEMPLATING the life of Mary Ball Washington, we need to set aside the negative characterizations that have been attributed to her by George Washington's 20th-century biographers. For the most part, they are filled with subjectivity and bias--and backed by no scholarly research on the woman herself.
The concerns and problems George Washington's mother experienced during the War for Independence reached her son in third-hand accounts that have been accepted uncritically by his biographers. And although Washington was understandably preoccupied with a war not yet won, it is not to his credit that he failed to refer these hearsay accounts to his sister Betty to deal with.
Much of the dysfunction in family matters in Mary's last decade was due to the death of Fielding Lewis, Betty's husband, who had been George Washington's faithful surrogate problem-solver and the dedicated caregiver for his aging mother-in-law.
This was a reality that seemingly went unrecognized by Washington himself--and also by the biographers who merely searched out instances (taken out of context) that supported a preconceived bias.
For a long time, their pronouncements have intimidated Mary Washington's defenders, who did not wish to seem parochial or run the risk of being classed with the 19th-century writers who elevated her to near-sainthood.
Still, Fredericksburg-area historians, who are now broadly searching local records with increasingly sophisticated methods, have accumulated documentation and sound circumstantial evidence to begin developing a chronology of her life and some reasonable conjectures about her youthful character.
And since we are going in search of George Washington's genes, Mary Washington should be a prime candidate for study.
Mary's father was Joseph Ball, a prominent landowner of Lancaster County in his 50s with grown children, who married a widow named Mary Johnson about 1708, fathered one daughter, and died in 1711.
Mary Johnson Ball already had two children from an earlier marriage, Elizabeth and John Johnson. The only contemporary description of her is by a member of the Ball family who referred to her as "an English woman."
We also can deduce with certainty that her older children were born in the 1690s. If she came from England, she could have been a "head right," given free transportation by a land-seeker who wished to acquire the 50 acres to which she was entitled.
Or she could have arrived in Virginia already widowed, hired to serve as a housekeeper in Joseph Ball's house. The place of birth of her children would, thus, be an invaluable clue.
There was also a Mary Bennett from West Chester, England, living in Middlesex County across the river from Joseph Ball's Lancaster estate. Her marriage to a William Johnson was recorded in 1689 in the Christ Church Parish register. But alas, there is no record of the baptism of any children of the marriage. And so her identity remains unverified.
This does not, however, rule her out of the gene pool in speculating on George Washington's heritage. Whoever she was, Mary Johnson made Joseph Ball a good wife during their brief marriage, and he wrote an affectionate will bequeathing to her some valuable furniture, livestock and one-third of the earthenware and woodenware. He also stipulated her lifetime (dower) right to a substantial portion of the produce of the plantation where they lived.
For his small daughter Mary, Joseph Ball provided in his will three slaves, 15 head of cattle and "all the feathers in the kitchen loft to be put into a bed for her." She was also to receive 400 acres farther upriver at Little Falls Run (today in Stafford County). He bequeathed to his wife's other daughter, Elizabeth, 100 acres of land.
While the widow's bequests and dower rights were generous, she inherited no estate that she could pass to her children, which seemed to be her principal objective. Within a year of her husband's death, Mary Johnson Ball married again. She had once again found an appreciative husband of gentry rank, Richard Hues (or Hewes) in Northumberland County, who was in failing health.
Her new husband made a will soon after their marriage, and having no heirs, he obliged her by securing the future of her two Johnson children.
Her daughter Elizabeth was to receive his home estate of 160 acres on Cherry Point after her mother's death. The son, John Johnson, was to receive 600 acres in Stafford County near Accokeek Creek.
As Hues had made the Stafford County land purchase at the time of the marriage and immediately included it in his will, it seemed like a promissory wedding present to his new wife. No one could have foreseen the importance his action would later have on 5-year-old Mary Ball's life.
It is noteworthy that Mary Johnson's husbands were supportive of her intentions and made it possible for her to secure estates for all three of her children. This was a remarkable accomplishment for a woman in the 17th-century frontier counties on the Northern Neck.
Mary Ball would have few memories of her stepfather, Richard Hues, for he died when she was probably no more than 5. Her mother presided over the Cherry Point household in Northumberland County as Mary entered adolescence, but when she was 12, her mother, too, died.
Elizabeth became the mistress of the Cherry Point household, and it was surely her mother's intent for her to make a home for her younger sister. In her will, Mary Hues carefully divided her furnishings between her two daughters, giving Mary most of her clothing except for a suit of black and white calico, which must have been too matronly for a 12-year-old. She also bequeathed to Mary two gold rings and "a good pacing horse."
Within a few months, her brother, John Johnson, died, as well. This young man left no record of his existence and was perhaps in frail health; but his mother had seen to it that he executed a will, for he had the 600 acres in Stafford County left him by his stepfather--which he bequeathed to his half sister, Mary.
Elizabeth was now the wife of Samuel Bonum of Westmoreland County, whom she had married before her mother's death. A welcome member of the Cherry Point household, he was the nephew of Rebecca Bonum, the deceased wife of George Eskridge, who was the most prominent lawyer in the Northern Neck--and who had thus been introduced to the Cherry Point household.
In her will, Mary Hues had asked that George Eskridge be her executor and that he see to her daughter Mary's "tutilage and government." But though Eskridge remained in touch with the Cherry Point home, he did nothing more as Mary Hues' executor than file her will in the spring of 1721. He did not request to be appointed guardian of young Mary, nor did he submit an inventory of her mother's estate as the court instructed.
George Eskridge did, however, apply to be the administrator of John Johnson's estate, for there was the valuable real estate in Stafford left to him by his stepfather, and its recipient (his sister Mary) would not become an adult for several more years.
Five years later, when Mary was 18, Samuel Bonum died, leaving his young widow, Elizabeth, to care for their two infant sons, the second born posthumously. At his nephew's request, George Eskridge did serve as their guardian.
The sisters managed together at the Cherry Point farm until late in the decade. Elizabeth then married a neighbor and the farm remained a home place for her descendants.
But Mary Ball's life was also changed--about the time of her sister's remarriage--by George Eskridge, who introduced her to Augustine Washington.
George Eskridge had been a sponsor and friend of Augustine Washington even before the young man's marriage at the age of 21 to Jane Butler in 1715. In fact, by 1717, he was also Augustine's brother-in-law, having married Jane's older sister.
Eskridge was a careful adviser to the young couple as Augustine became interested in a mining venture begun in Stafford in 1725 by an English company.
He had already represented at least one client in a property sale to the mine owners, and having followed Augustine's career with great interest, he would certainly have been aware of the opportunity presented by Mary Ball's inherited property.
He may very well have been planning to assist Augustine in acquiring it, once Mary came of age. But fate intervened. Augustine's young wife died soon after he departed for England to negotiate an interest in the mining venture. Not until his return in the spring of 1730 did he learn of his tragic loss. He became so distraught that he neglected his new contract, to the concern of the company owners in England.
Certainly it was George Eskridge who rallied the grieving widower to renew his interest in the mine, and who impressed on him the benefits of marriage to an heiress with uniquely valuable property who also had experience in caring for small children. It was a desirable marriage for both partners, for Mary joined one of Westmoreland County's first families.
Mary Ball and Augustine Washington were married on March 6, 1731. Her mother's hopes for her daughter had surely been realized.
Like many women of America's Colonial period, Mary Ball Washington lived a life of constant childbearing under harsh conditions. She bore six children in eight years; and, except for the baby daughter born in 1739 who died at 16 months, her children all survived, far below the mortality rate of the time. And she herself endured to a very old age.
During her four years at Augustine's Pope's Creek farm in Westmoreland County, she had her first three children--George, Betty and Samuel. Then, with the death of Augustine's daughter Jane in 1735, and with his two sons enrolled in his old school in England, Augustine moved his second family to Little Hunting Creek (later inherited by his eldest son, Lawrence, who named it Mount Vernon). It was a 2,500-acre tract he had acquired from his sister Mildred, which had been left to her by their father.
In the summer of 1736, Augustine was off to England again for the better part of a year, on business with the Principio Company. By now, there were four small children in their Hunting Creek home. John Augustine was the new arrival.
Following his return from England, Augustine moved his family again, this time to the bank of the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg. The move was in the dead of winter, and there was a new addition, the infant Charles, and another on the way. Baby Mildred arrived in June.
After her husband's untimely death in 1743, Mary reared her children alone on the farm and remained after the last child left in 1758. Her son-in-law Fielding Lewis built her a house in 1761 on a lot George Washington had purchased. But it was another decade before her grown children finally prevailed and she agreed to leave the farm. George had to buy the house back from its owner.
Mary Washington spent the last 17 years of her life in her Fredericksburg house on Charles Street. Her unexpected longevity encompassed many hardships and traumas. But the neighborhood where Fielding Lewis had built the cottage for her was now a well-developed community. She had a garden that extended to the grounds of the new manor house being built by her son-in-law, a pleasant walk away.
Although she may have been reluctant to accept town life, she was fortunate in her neighbors. Nearby were James Mercer, a lawyer and family friend (as his father, John Mercer, had been before him); Dr. Hugh Mercer, the family physician; and Charles Dick, a member of the family circle for more than a quarter of a century.
When the War for Independence began, it brought with it great anxiety for her son, who would have faced severe punishment if the Colonies' effort failed. Some said she was a Tory sympathizer; but actually she probably wished the rebellion had never begun.
Gen. Washington took command of the Continental Army in June 1775 and she did not see him for nearly 10 years.
By 1779, although the fighting had not yet reached the South, Virginians were experiencing food shortages, as their commodities were collected for tax payments to replace the deteriorating currency. No doubt missing her farm, she fretted that "I have never been so poor in my lifeno corn in the cornhouse." The significance of this shortage has been underappreciated--corn was the essential staple of Virginians' diet, and her son's overseer at Mount Vernon took immediate steps to replenish her supply.
Virginia's critical war years began in 1780 when the British launched a southern campaign. Fredericksburg was twice threatened early in 1781, which caused the ailing Fielding Lewis to flee with his family and his mother-in-law to Berkeley County, where they resided with Fielding Jr. for many months. It was during their stay that Lewis died and was buried on the 1,000-acre estate he had given his son.
Mrs. Washington and her newly widowed daughter returned to Fredericksburg to pick up the pieces of their lives. We have a glimpse of her unpretentious lifestyle in the description by the tutor in James Mercer's nearby residence: "Active and sprightlyshe goes about the neighborhood on foot with a cane in her hand to visit our quality.She lives in a house of one story without the slightest affectation of magnificence."
Perhaps her proudest moment came during the visit her son made in February 1784, when he accepted the honors of the town and responded with a declaration honoring "my reverend mother by whose maternal hand, early deprived of a father, I was led to manhood."
Mary's last years were plagued with pain and illness. A life-threatening attack in the spring of 1787 brought Washington in haste from Mount Vernon, but she rallied. Her final lengthy illness from cancer ended her life in the summer of 1789, at the age of 81.
Throughout her life, there were instances that suggest Mary Washington had a decidedly independent spirit, beginning as early as her refusal to permit George to go to sea as a naval cadet even though the proposers considered her objections trifling.
After Augustine's death, Mary rode up to the mine to collect the rents on her Accokeek land herself. She was determined that the property would go to her son George; it was the first bequest in her will.
When she returned to Fredericksburg in 1782 after Fielding Lewis' death in Berkeley County, and with the war continuing, she wrote to George, "If I ever be driven this way again, I will go into some little house of my own, if it is only twelve feet square."
We have no pictures of Mary Washington, but we do have descriptions and impressions. She was tall and said to resemble her son. The young cousins from Chotank who visited the farm in their teens, though like her sons "all proper tall fellows," were "mute as mice" in her presence, but they found her kind. Lafayette is said to have likened her to a Roman matron.
Eleanor Parke Custis, the wife of Betty Lewis' son Lawrence, described her as "remarkably plain in her dress." There was no painting, she wrote, though several had been claimed. She added, "I was in mourning for her in New York [at the beginning of Washington's presidency]. Had a likeness of her been above ground, it must have been in her children' possession at that time."
If for no other reason, George Washington, regarded as the finest horseman of his day, should probably give credit to his mother's genes. Mary's mother specified in her will that a good pacing horse and fine side saddle be purchased for her. (Mary was 12 years old at the time.)
And although his oratorical style may be discounted, Lawrence Washington, a Chotank cousin a few years older than George, wrote this in his old age:
"I could not behold that remarkable woman without feelings it is impossible to describe. Whoever has seen that awe inspiring air and manner so characteristic of the Father of his Country will remember the matron."
Perhaps we should all take a closer look.
