The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-09-14
ANECDOTES OF WASHINGTON.
Two New Stories Concerning the AmOurs of
the Father of His Country.

Two New Stories Concerning the AmOurs of
the Father of His Country
Interview with Joseph Harper, of Harper Brothers.
The two anecdotes l have promised to
tell about General Washington have come to
me within the past two or three weeks, and
give the substance of them without ex-
pressing any opinion on the same, having no
knowledge of my own on the subject
The first will put in the words of a
friend who recently said to me: Have you
ever been in the Society Library of New
York to look at the record of a court-martal
held during or just after the American army
deserted the city of New York during the
revolutionary WARP
Said l: do you mean following the bat
tie of Long Island2"
81 presume that is the time" said he; ~
have not seen the record myself But am
told that in the Society Library is the manu-
script record of a court martial OF certain
Tory, who was spy OF the British IN WASH
ington's camp. The record as | understand
it, accused the man of permitting his own
wife to be intimate criminally with General
Washington, so that the man could look
through his letters and papers, ransacking
his clothing tor that purpose when he was
disembarrassed of it. am told that the
man was found guilty, and was hanged as a
spy by the court martial"
The other matter l heard told between
certain Maryland gentlemen, we'll stricken
in years, at Saratoga. We were in little
circle there, talking over old families and
public men in Maryland, and one of the
gentlemen who lived in the vicinity of
Wirt's birthplace said to another:
Have you ever heard that story around
Bladensburg about the parentage of William
Wirt?o
'There is story there among the old peo-
pie, some of whom are dead that Writ was
Legitimate"
Another person present spoke up and said:
1.-The late Samuel Tyler, who wrote the life
of Chief Justice fancy, said he had heard at
Bladensburg the yarn that General Washing
ton was the father of William Writ
Al this there was great interest all around.
The individual continued:
'Wirt's father and mother were Germans,
who kept little tavern, and the stage some
times stopped there for diaper, and it was
Washington's stopping place when overtalsep
by night on his way to Mount Vernon from
the North. The old people around there
could not see where Writ got his brains, and
they suspected that he got some of the brains
of old General Washington, whom he very
much resembled."
Hearing this story, an old gentleman OF
good record in Maryland spoke up and said
well, l never heard that he was the father
of William Writ, but 1 did hear at Beltsville
about Washington's fondness for one of old
Van Blanks creole women. By the way"
continued this gentleman "old Van had a
hotel on the top of the hill, and 1T is still
called Vanville. II was great place in it's
day, because the hill was a pretty steep one
and had bad clay roads on it, so that teams
were pretty we'll stalled when they got to the
top, In the days of my youth" said this old
gentleman, ut was currently said about
Beltsville and up at old Vans that when
Washington came there he was always
waited on exclusively by that particular Gre
OLE"
To the above yarns, which only affected
me because of the very respectable sources
from whence they came especially the last
one, which was told by a person who, if
Washington were alive would be his neigh
Dor and in approximate social condition to
himself, permit me to allude to a much older
story which has been told in many parts of
this country, namely, that Washington
caught his last illness by being wetted in a
rain-storm while he was visiting woman on
one of his plantations This story is known
to almost everybody around Washington
City and Alexandria and Fredericksburg. 1t
is sometimes told that Washington had
white oyerseer with an interesting wife, and
that he stood under the caves OF the house
as the overseer Unexpectedly returned, the
rain fell on his neck and gave him his last
cod 1t is sometimes told that the woman
in question was yellow woman. l suspect
that some of these stories were traditional
b.
ants of some of whom still live on
the premises But. as far as this
last story is concerned, there is au-
thentic evidence to disprove it in the record
of Washington's last illness by his adopted
son, George w. P. GUSTS. So far from Wash
ington catching his last illness in any distant
part of the plantation, he caught it in sight
of the front windows thereof, his wife then
being in the house and her granddaughter
Nellie being about to be confined. and she
was confined the very night Washington ex-
pired. Washington caught his cold by sur
yeying on the lawn in front of Mount Ver-
non, with the idea of making some improve
ments, probably in the way of paths, around
the brow of the hill and through the grass.
He had out the old theodolte he used when
he was boy in the Allegheny mountains,
and being deeply earnest in his work he did
not observe or heed the showers Of rain, but
continued until he was wet, and that even
ing he went in and did not remove his cloth
ing, and even sat up in the library working
with Tobia Lear his secretary, till about II
o'clock, and when he came to bed his wife
rebuked him. He had already suffered from
a chill at the supper-table. He could not
sleep that night, next morning was very i'll,
and he died the next evening.
EVANGELIST MOODY.