The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-05-05
WASHINGToN'S COMMONPLACE
MOTHER

| head we nave Deen accuSJomeu 10 Gus
| ter all womanly virtues. 1t seems sac
religious to think of her as gossiping
about her neighbors' peccadillOes with
evident relish; or in fit of passion APP
plying the shingle to young Georges
backsides; or keeping her husband,
! Augustine, awake into the "wee sma'
! hours in bitter complaint about the
mismanagement of his share of the do
nestle affairs. Any such suggestion
would be to bring the revered mother
! down to the plane of the womankind
with which Benedicts are so familiar.
! To the popular eye Mary Washington
has occupied a pedestal of superlative
! goodness; she is instinctively thought of
as a wise, noble, metherly and dignified
woman, her attractive face beaning with
maternal fondness as she teaches George
| not to lie, or play truant, or 90 fishing
! Sundays, or steal fruit from the neigh
| bors' orchards. 1t is noticeable that
these perfect women-that is, perfect old
women-lived in the long ago, and that
their descendants have in some way be-
come imbued with human nature.
Notwithstanding the patriotic devotion
| to the memory of 1.-THE salnted mother
of the father of our country, she is not
tree from the shafts of iconoclasm. And
the one who is in this glowing sunset of
the nineteenth century rises to intimate
! that Mary Washington was mo better
than she should be'' is none other than a
| descendant of the Washingtons-ene
Mary Starting Payne of Hopkinsyille,
| KY. She is not lineal descendant of
| George Washington, however, brt of
Georges uncle, we believe. According
to her representations, Mary Washington
was much like many other women never
esteemed of especial consequence by
their contemporaries or posterity. What
| she says throws considerable light upon
| the antecedents and early life of Wash
| ington. and is, therefore, historically in
structive as we'll as decidedly entertain
ing, especially as it differs from and is
| intended to correct accounts given by
various biOgraphers. The following will
appear in the light of revelation to
many:
I'm every account of the early life of
| George Washington there is the same
talk of the little four-roomed house
which was burned in 1875, which caused
his fathers removal to Ferry Farm, op.
pOsite Fredericksburg. There was al,
ways much that was contradictory and
homogeneous in that. 1t is conceded
that General Washington had elegant
manners, too much inclined to ceremony.
Well, such manners are not learned amid
such sordid surroundings. 1t has been
explained by saying that he was very
much with tho Fairfaxes, but the in-
ventOry of Austin Washington's proper
| ty reveals the fact that the house was y
fine residence with eight bedrooms, be-
sides the other apartments. In General
Washington's letter to Sir Isaac Heard
| he speaks of the mansion at Bridge
Greek. The mansion of his fatherr
What a pitiful piece of snobbsry that
would have been, applied to the little
wooden house, and General Washing
toms known habits of punctilious truth
| fulness might have given a hint of the
facts before now. In Weem's life Of
Washington he speaks Of this large
house. and he makes mention of
10 fire as reason for their
removal to Ferry Farm. No
mention up to this time has ever been
made of his being at Epsewasson.
! Wakefield, then, was the home place of
John Washington, the emigrant. He
left it to his son Lawrence, who, judge,
built that house. He was the husband
of Mildred Warner, one of the three
heiresses of the very wealthy Augustine
Warner, Speaker of the House of Bar
gesses. before whom Bacon made ac-
knewledgment of his guilt, and mem
Der of the Kings Council. 1t Is not
credible that people of their wealth and
position would be content in the little
wooden house. After Lawrence Wash
ington's death it passed to his eldest
son, John; but he had married wealthy
Gloucester county heiress, Catherine
Whiting, and sold it to his brother Au-
gustipe,
Augustine Washington made a vast
difference between the children of Jane
Butler and Mary Ball. | have thought
that i. is possible that he married Mary
Ball for the qualities that will make q
| good head to his house and good
mother to his little boys, for she was
very inferior to the wives of his two
sons, Anne Aylettle and Anne Fairfax.
Mary Ball could hardly read or write.
had no accomplishments, was simply a
Woodworking manager of house or farm
and that, TOO, when there was no earthly
need OF it. She had a complaining tenn
per. At no time was she in poverty.
Her two stepsOns were rich mems were
here son and sOn-in-law. All her sons
were rich men, and yet she grumbles
and means of hard times. She has l 900
acres of land. the house in Fredericks.
burg, free of rent, and all the money she
| Will receive from her son, and she rents
one of her farms and manages another
herself, and yet, but for the Trenches
and Mrs. Lewis / believe I'D starve.' [
| quote from memory, but that is the
sense. The fact is that | Judge the
mother of our country must have been a
very trying woman, and that Augustine
Washington did very well for himself
to die as early as he did. Marian Har-
land has written Mary Washington. [
have heard, as contribution to the
monument fund. She sentimentalizes
over the young wife and the little cot
tage her husband brought her to- [
wish earnestly her generous work could
have been correct, and don't l-now how
the facts will ever be known, except to
few"
We are all acquainted with Just the
sort of woman pictured here as Mary
ashingtOn-working and Worrying in
cessantly when there was no necessity
OF either But to think that the mother
OF Washington was Every Inferior to
the wives of her stepsons; that she could
hardly read or write, and "that she had
a complaining temper" Besides, through
lowly birth and breeding, she acquired
absurdly thrifty notions, and kept saving
and ScrubbinR long after her circum-