University of Virginia Press - Women in George Washington’s World

Women in George Washingtons World

Women in George Washingtons World

Edited by Charlene M. Boyer Lewis and George W. Boudreau

University of Virginia Press

Charlottesville and London

University of Virginia Press

2022 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

First published 2022

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lewis, Charlene M. Boyer, editor. | Boudreau, George, editor.

Title: Women in George Washingtons world / edited by Charlene M. Boyer Lewis, and George Boudreau.

Description: Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022007612 (print) | LCCN 2022007613 (ebook) | ISBN 9780813947440 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780813947457 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Washington, George, 17321799Relations with women. | Washington, George, 17321799Family. | Washington, George, 17321799Friends and associates. | Washington, George, 17321799Relations with slaves.

Classification: LCC E312.17 .W66 2022 (print) | LCC E312.17 (ebook) | DDC 973.4/10924dc23/eng/20220304

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022007612

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022007613

Cover art: Frances Bassett Washington, by Robert Edge Pine, ca. 1785 (Mount Vernon Ladies Association); Abigail Smith Adams, by Gilbert Stuart, ca. 18001815 (National Gallery of Art, gift of Mrs. Robert Homans, 1954.7.2); Elizabeth Willing Powel, attrib. Joseph Wright, ca. 1793 (Mount Vernon Ladies Association); Martha Washington, by James Peale, ca. 1795 (Mount Vernon Ladies Association); Phillis Wheatley, frontispiece of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, London, 1773 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC06154)

For our grandmothers

and all the ancestors

who lived these stories

and taught us about our pasts

And in honor of Vice President Kamala Harris

Cynthia A. Kierner

Kate Haulman

Mary V. Thompson

Lynn Price Robbins

Charlene M. Boyer Lewis

James G. Basker

Sara Georgini

Samantha Snyder

George W. Boudreau

Ann Bay Goddin

For most of history, Anonymous was a woman, Virginia Woolf related more than a century ago. Too often in history, womens thoughts and contributions were shuffled to the periphery. In this book, they take center stage.

Like many of the most important experiences of women and men in the eighteenth century, this book began in a sociable fireside conversation. Gathered around the hearth one evening during Mount Vernons 2018 symposium, the conversation turned to what presenters had related that day, and one editor of this volume said to the other this is really a book. Several of the presenters at that event agreed; other scholars joined in later to explore the history of gender and society in Americas critical founding era. We are deeply grateful to Stephen McLeod and Anthony King who organized A Sensible Woman Can Never Be Happy with a Fool: The Women of George Washingtons World in November of that year. These gentlemen, and the entire staff at Mount Vernon, allowed us to share ideas and provoke one another into new explorations about gender, family, race, material culture, mental worlds, and the lives of George and Martha Custis Washington and the women who they knew. The enthusiastic welcome from Doug Bradburn, Kevin Butterfield, Susan Schoelwer, and all of Mount Vernons leadership, and the kind response from the audience, as well as the Mount Vernon Ladies Association reminded us that these stories are vital.

Many institutions and their incredible staffs made this volume possible, both in relating details, documents, and the material worlds of these women, and in discussing the ways publics engage the story of the women in George Washingtons world. At Mount Vernon, we especially thank Samantha Snyder and Mary V. Thompson.

Numerous scholars offered feedback as these essays formed into a book, and we are grateful to Karin Wulf, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, and Judith Van Buskirk for their insights.

We would also like to thank the unflagging Nadine Zimmerli of the University of Virginia Press for her encouragement and guidance.

And finally, we are individually and collectively thankful to James Lewis and Paul Alles for their love and support over the years.

Cynthia A. Kierner

George Washington must have had mixed feelings as he crossed the Assunpink Creek on a rainy spring day in 1789. As he arrived in the town of Trenton on horseback, this most famous man in America likely braced himself for yet another formal receptionlike those he had already experienced in Alexandria, Baltimore, Wilmington, and Philadelphiaas he made another stop on his week-long journey from Mount Vernon to New York, where on Thursday, 30 April, he would be inaugurated as the first president of the American republic. Nevertheless, this riverside New Jersey town held special memories for Washington, who led his troops to a much-needed victory there on the day after Christmas in 1776. Now, years later, townspeople remembered and celebrated the exploits of their revered leader.

The ladies of Trenton especially claimed this American hero as their own. In Trenton, unlike in other towns where the president-elect was feted, women were the festivities central actors. As he crossed the creek, Washington passed under a large decorative arch festooned with flowers and a banner that proclaimed, The Defender of the Mothers will also Protect their Daughters. On the far side of the bridge, a group of matrons, young ladies, and small girls all dressed in white, and decorated with wreaths and chaplets of flowers greeted Washington with a sonata welcoming this mighty chief to their grateful shore. After receiving a printed copy of the commemorative ode, the usually reserved honoree responded with an eloquent and heartfelt tribute, observing that he could not leave this place without expressing his acknowledgments, to the Matrons and Young Ladies who received him in so novel & grateful a manner at the Triumphal Arch... for the exquisite sensation he experienced in that affecting moment. Mindful of the astonishing contrast between the current jubilation and the towns perilous wartime state, Washington praised The elegant taste with which it was adorned for the present occasionand the innocent appearance of the white-robed Choir who met him with the gratulatory song, [which] have made such impressions on his remembrance, as, he assures them, will never be effaced.

Washington may have found the production so moving and memorable in part because of the notable women it featured, at least some of whom he knew, either personally or indirectly. Many of those present had participated in the bold effort, spearheaded by Esther De Berdt Reed of Philadelphia, to collect money and supplies for the Continental Army in 1780, an effort that historians generally acknowledge as a watershed in the emergence of womens organized public activism. Mary Dagworthy of Trenton, who exchanged letters with Washington concerning the funds they raised and the 380 pairs of stockings that New Jersey women made for the soldiers, was now among the matrons in white who greeted him eight years later. So, too, was Ann Richmond, who, with her husband Jonathan, ran the nearby True American Inn, which had served briefly as Washingtons wartime headquarters. Many of these Trenton ladies were wives of military men who knew Washington and who that day accompanied him across the Assunpink bridge. One, Mary McCrea Hanna, was the sister of Jane McCrea, whose death at the hands of Britains Native American allies in 1777 became a cause clbre in patriot circles, despite Janes likely loyalism. While Washington protected Mary in New Jersey, a patriotic onlooker might surmise, her sister Jane fell victim to his barbarous foes on New Yorks northern frontier.