You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

by Alexis Coe

If Washington had been a king, Americans waiting to celebrate him on the road to New York would have bowed, but since the country had evicted the monarchy, it was Washington who bowed to them. And they loved him for it. Hundreds of people walked alongside his small caravan to Baltimore, where he stayed the night. Well-wishers took him all the way to Wilmington, Delaware, the next day, and the day after that a military escort accompanied him to the Pennsylvania border. There the state president, Thomas Mifflin, escorted him, along with two cavalry units and a company of around a hundred men, into Philadelphia. Once in town, Washington ditched the carriage for a white horse. The crowds went wild. They cheered him on as he boarded a commercial ferry, crossing into New Jersey along the same passage he had on that Christmas night in 1776, when a much-needed victory at Trenton restored belief that the war could be won; this time, the ride and weather were much more accommodating. He rode under a bridge with a sign that read “The Defenders of the Mothers will also Defend the Daughters”; it was covered in flowers, more of which were thrown at his feet. He was so moved by the gesture that he immediately had a thank-you letter sent “To The Ladies of Trenton.”

After dinner at the governor’s mansion and a fireworks display, Washington, surely exhausted, settled into his new home at 3 Cherry Street, hoping to take advantage of the days before the inauguration. He was immediately thwarted. Everyone in New York seemed to know where he lived, and many showed up unannounced, looking for favors.

The best thing about the house was that Congress paid the yearly rent of $845. Washington argued, as he had during the war, that he should cover his own living expenses, which was great for optics but terrible for his pocketbook. Fortunately for him, the Constitution required compensation and Congress allotted him a twenty-five-thousand-dollar annual salary plus the cost of living. But the new government didn’t pay in advance, and like most Virginians, Washington was land rich and cash poor. In order to make it to New York, he had to secure a loan from Alexandria merchant Richard Conway.13 Plenty of stately homes and gratis accommodations were available to him, had he wanted to be someone’s guest, but he was determined to pay his own way. Washington was defining the role of president as he occupied it, and from the very beginning, it seems, he was sure about one thing: He wasn’t going to owe anyone any favors.

“Long live George Washington, President of the United States!” Livingston shouted, prompting the crowds to erupt in cheers. A flag signaled an artillery salute, and Washington delivered his inaugural address. David Humphreys, a former aide-de-camp and an enthusiastic poet who inclined toward lengthy odes, had written a seventy-page draft back at Mount Vernon; Washington had opted to go with James Madison’s far shorter version, which clocked in at five hundred words. He spoke in general terms, promising to follow the Constitution and lead on behalf of the people.

Washington was pragmatic through it all; he had already outlived most of the men in his family, and he’d lived some of those years hard, which apparently showed. “Time has made havoc upon his face,” observed Fisher Ames, a congressman from Massachusetts, during the inauguration.18 It may have been a pained reaction to all the attention, but such comments would only become more frequent—and be made about every president who followed.

After the first session of Congress ended, Washington marked up his personal copy of the Constitution, writing “President” next to the sections that applied to him. He was extremely careful to satisfy every requirement of the office; a false move might kill the infant nation in its crib.5 What’s more, his decisions would shape how future presidents wielded power; he was determined that “precedents may be fixed on true principles.”6 The Constitution had been written by men he knew well, and could now call on to consult with, but it was ultimately up to interpretation. The first year of government was like the fourth trimester of a pregnancy; Washington had carried the baby to term, but now he had to figure out how to keep it happy, healthy, and growing.

In Philadelphia, the Washingtons settled into a three-and-a-half-story brick mansion on Market Street. It had once served as British general Sir William Howe’s headquarters, and then as Benedict Arnold’s, just as he was being tempted toward treason; a financier named Robert Morris purchased it at the end of the war. Washington had been a guest there during the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and now he made it his own. The bathing room became the president’s office. Martha installed a new bed in their room and expanded others.

Washington would hold eight more meetings of the cabinet—a term coined by Madison—in 1791.19 “[I]n these discussions, Hamilton & myself were daily pitted in the cabinet like two cocks,” Jefferson later wrote.20 His description turns meetings into a blood sport, with Washington as the referee and Jefferson and Hamilton the razor-beaked competitors. By 1792, their fights spilled out of the cockpit. Jefferson and Madison, who were ideological allies, quietly funded Philip Freneau’s National Gazette, which criticized all of Washington’s policies and attacked Federalist supporters; he was, at least in the first term, far too popular with the people to assault directly. Just as they had blamed Parliament for misleading the king, they now blamed Washington’s seemingly favorite adviser, Hamilton, for misleading the president. Hamilton was already promoting—and perhaps backing—John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States, a pro-administration paper; he sometimes wrote for it under the name “An American.”21 Neither publication bothered with the pretense of objectivity or balance. Most articles were written anonymously or pseudonymously, as was commonplace in early America; none were fact-checked, and everything, including personal lives, was fair game. Washington, who wished nothing more than to be a symbol of unity, was horrified. But the public couldn’t get enough of the infighting. Similar newspapers launched all over the country, inflaming partisanship in even the most remote regions.

But he didn’t leave. Washington, then sixty, was once again named on the ballot of every presidential elector.31 He did not so much agree as capitulate to a second term, a decision Washington must have regretted on March 4, 1793, when he took his second oath of office against a backdrop of such immense international unrest, it threatened America’s very ability to survive.

With some effort, the troops arrested one hundred and fifty whiskey rebels. But without much evidence, and with few people willing to testify, only two men, John Mitchell and Philip Wiegel, were found guilty of treason. Although Washington bragged about the peaceful resolution, he must have felt embarrassed about the situation, or at least the reception his overreaction had received; he used a presidential pardon for the first time in history, and let the men go.

In the 1790s, Washington’s favorite breakfast was prepared by two enslaved house servants: Nathan, who slept in a bunk in the crowded greenhouse quarters, and Lucy, who lived in a nearby cabin with her husband, Frank Lee, a butler. Their days were long. They were expected to be in the plantation’s mansion house kitchen by 4:30 a.m. to prepare Washington’s breakfast. By 5 a.m., Lucy was stirring the hoecake batter she had prepared the night before, and by 6:30 a.m., she and Frank were frying the hoecakes and preparing coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. They may have added cold cuts or leftovers from the night before to the breakfast spread. At 6:45 a.m., the plantation bell rung, alerting the Washingtons that their breakfast would soon be served, and by 7 a.m., Frank would bring the food to the table for it to be served by Marcus, another house slave. This, along with the sandwich Lucy prepared Washington for his daily eight- to fourteen-mile ride around Mount Vernon, would satisfy him until dinner. Ingredients ½ teaspoon active dry yeast 2½ cups white cornmeal 3 to 4 cups water, room temperature 1 large egg, room temperature Vegetable oil or lard Salt Directions The night before: In a large bowl, mix the yeast with 1¼ cups of cornmeal. Stir in 1 cup of water for the consistency of pancake batter. If needed, add an additional cup of water. Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight. The next day: Preheat the oven to 200°F. Remove the batter from the refrigerator. Lightly beat th...

Washington was in good spirits until Lear, who had been reading the papers in the parlor, shared the latest on the Virginia Assembly. Monroe had been elected governor, with Madison’s backing, which left Washington “much affected.” He “spoke with some asperity on the subject,” Lear reported—probably a polite way to describe cursing. Take some medicine, Lear suggested on the way out. “You know I never take anything for a Cold,” Washington replied. “Let it go as it came.”

“We were governed by the best light we had,” Brown would later write to Craik. “We thought we were right; and so we were justified.”4 And by the medical standards of the day, and the information available to them, they were. But everything Craik, Brown, and Dick did made Washington’s condition worse. Around 4:30 p.m., Washington asked Lear to get Martha, who preferred to wait in another room. He sent her to his study to get the wills. (He had two: The earlier one, possibly dated around June 1775, had been drawn by a lawyer friend; the other was more recent.5) As he neared death, Washington was still focused on what people around him were feeling, and what those left behind would remember about him.

“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.

“Doctor, I die hard,” Washington said when Craik appeared at his bedside around 5 p.m. “But I am not afraid to go.” He thanked the rest of the doctors for their “attentions,” but he would have no more. “Let me go quietly,” he said, as all but Craik retired. “I cannot last long.” They tried to make him comfortable, applying wheat bran to his legs and feet, then attempted another round of blistering. Eventually, though, all but Craik left “without a ray of hope.” Over the next few hours, Washington rarely complained, though he often asked for the time. The bloodletting had continued, and by that point he had been drained of a few more pints of blood. By 10 p.m., Washington finally showed fear. “Do not let my body be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead,” he ordered Lear, perhaps doubting that he, after surviving so much, would actually die. Lear reported that he “bowed assent, for I could not speak.” “Do you understand me?” Washington asked. “Yes,” Lear managed. “’Tis well,” Washington said, and his hands went limp. Craik closed his eyes. Martha, standing at the foot of the bed, asked if he was gone. Then, according to Lear, she repeated, “’Tis well.”

Perhaps it was a coincidence that he visited six months after Washington’s death, when he was running for president and would have benefitted from her support. Either way, she didn’t give it, and he won anyway. When she found out, a guest recalled that “she spoke of the election of Mr. Jefferson as one of the most detestable of mankind, as the greatest misfortune our country has ever experienced.”

There is ample evidence to suggest that Martha was disinclined to free Washington’s slaves before she had to, and may never have agreed to, or known about the plan to begin with. When she mentioned slaves in her letters, it was not uncommon for her to write things like “Blacks are so bad in thair nature that they have not the least Gratatude for the kindness that may be shewed to them.”9 In her own will, the slaves she controlled, whom she could have freed, she left to her family. It was not, then, morality that drove Martha to, on December 15, 1800, sign a deed of manumission, freeing all of her late husband’s slaves. It was self-preservation.

In 1831, Bushrod’s nephew and heir, John Augustine Washington II, oversaw the completion of a new burial vault. The bodies of Washington, Martha, Bushrod, Fanny, and a few other family members were transferred to the exact verdant spot Washington had wanted, with small but significant deviations from what he’d envisioned. In 1837, his mahogany casket was enclosed in a marble sarcophagus bearing the Great Seal of the United States. During the Civil War, Confederate and Union soldiers carved their initials into the walls of the vault, a fitting addition to the resting place of the man whose fondest hope was for the nation to be unified. Both sides, the South and the North, the slave-owning and the free, viewed him as their inspiration. And both were right. Since 2014, the woods near the vault have been undergoing excavation. The area is never mentioned in the thousands of documents Washington left behind. It is a cemetery for the people he enslaved, full of unmarked graves.