“I find I am going, my breath can not last long,” he said to Lear, their hands intertwined. “I beleived from the first that the disorder would prove fatal.” He asked that his longtime secretary see to his military letters and papers, his accounts and books, “as you know more about them than any one else.” Washington’s will gave Bushrod Washington, a favorite nephew and Supreme Court justice, control over his personal papers; after Martha died, he would inherit the mansion house, the surrounding farm, and much of the remaining estate.
