Martha Dandridge Custis

## Martha Dandridge

19th-century portrait by unknown artist after Gilbert Stuart and after Charles Willson Peale.

## Personal Details

### Born

June 2, 1731Chestnut Grove, Virginia, British America

### Died

May 22, 1802 (aged 70)Mount Vernon, Virginia, U.S.

### Spouse

Daniel Parke Custis ​(m. 1750 - died on 1757)​George Washington ​(m. 1759 - died on 1799)

## ***DESCRIPTION***

**Martha Dandridge Custis Washington** (June 2, 1731 — May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, Martha Washington served as the inaugural first lady of the United States. During her lifetime, she was often referred to as "Lady Washington".

Martha Dandridge first married Daniel Parke Custis. They had four children, two of whom survived to young adulthood. Daniel's death made Martha a widow at age 26. She brought her vast wealth to her marriage to Washington, which enabled him to buy land to add to his personal estate. She also brought with her 84 dower slaves from Daniel Custis' estate for use during her lifetime. They and their descendants reverted to Custis' estate at her death and were inherited by his heirs. The Washingtons did not have children together, but they did rear her two surviving children, John and Martha. They also helped both of their extended families.

On May 15, 1750, at age 18, Dandridge married Daniel Parke Custis, a rich planter two decades her senior, and moved to his residence, White House Plantation, located on the south shore of the Pamunkey River, a few miles upriver from Chestnut Grove. They had four children together: Daniel, Frances, John, and Martha. Daniel (November 19, 1751 – February 19, 1754) and Frances (April 12, 1753 – April 1, 1757) died in childhood. The other two children, John (Jacky) Parke Custis (November 27, 1754 – November 5, 1781) and Martha (Patsy) Parke Custis (1756 – June 19, 1773), survived to young adulthood.

Daniel Parke Custis's death in 1757 left Martha a rich young widow at age 26, with independent control over a dower inheritance for her lifetime, and trustee control over the inheritance of her minor children. In all, she was left in custody of some 17,500 acres of land and 300 slaves, apart from other investments and cash. According to her biographer, "she capably ran the five plantations left to her when her first husband died, bargaining with London merchants for the best tobacco prices"

Martha Custis, age 27, and George Washington, age 26, married on January 6, 1759, at the White House plantation. As a man who lived and owned property in the area, Washington likely knew both Martha and Daniel Parke Custis for some time before Daniel's death. During March 1758, he visited Martha Custis twice at the White House plantation; the second time, he came away with either an engagement of marriage or at least her promise to think about his proposal. At the time, she was also being courted by planter Charles Carter, who was even wealthier than Washington.

## ***FIRST LADY (1789-1797)***

After the war, Washington was not fully supportive of her husband's agreeing to be President of the newly formed United States. Once he assumed office, as the First Lady (a term that was only used later) she hosted many affairs of state at New York City and Philadelphia during their years as temporary capitals. The socializing became known as the Republican Court. Martha Washington presented an image of herself as an amiable wife, but privately complained about the restrictions placed on her life.

In July 1790, artist John Trumbull gave Martha Washington a full-length portrait painting of General George Washington as a gift. It was displayed in their home at Mount Vernon in the New Room.

## ***DOWER SLAVES, ESTATE, AND DEATH***

While Martha Washington's father had owned 15 to 20 slaves, her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, owned nearly 300, making him one of the largest slaveowners and wealthiest men in the Virginia colony. The full Custis estate contained plantations and farms totaling about 27 square miles (70 km2), and 285 enslaved men, women, and children attached to those holdings.

Daniel Parke Custis' death in 1757 without a will meant that, according to law, his eldest son John would inherit two-thirds of the Custis estate when he reached adulthood, together with the estate's slaves and the children of those slaves. As Daniel's widow, Martha received a "dower share", the lifetime use of (and income from) the remaining one-third of the estate and its slaves. After her death, the dower slaves and their progeny were to be distributed among the surviving Custis heirs.

Upon his 1759 marriage to Martha, George Washington became the legal manager of the Custis estate, under court oversight. At the time of her marriage, Martha's dower share included more than 80 slaves. She also would control any children they had, as they would become part of the dower. Estate records indicate that Martha Washington continued to purchase supplies, manage paid staff, and make many other decisions.[*citation needed*] Although the Washingtons wielded managerial control over the whole estate, they received income only from Martha's "dower" third. The remainder of the income went to a trust held for John Parke Custis until he reached maturity at age 21.

George Washington used his wife's great wealth to buy land and slaves; he more than tripled the size of Mount Vernon (2,650 acres (10.7 km2) in 1757; 8,251 acres (33.39 km2) in 1787). For more than 40 years, her "dower" slaves farmed the plantation alongside her husband's. By law, neither of the Washingtons could sell Custis lands or slaves, which Martha's dower and the trust owned. After John died during the Revolutionary War, his slaves passed to his son, George Washington Parke Custis, who at the time was a minor. If John's trust or Martha's dower owned a slave's mother, her children were included in that holding. Some slaves owned by the Washingtons and the trust married each other, forming linked families. This created complex inheritance issues.

Seven of the nine slaves whom President Washington brought to Philadelphia (the national capital, 1790–1800) to work in the President's House were "dowers". Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition law in 1780, under which nonresidents were allowed to hold slaves in the state for up to six months; after that date, they could claim freedom. Because the president would have been liable for compensating the Custis estate for any dower slaves freed under this law, he surreptitiously rotated his President's House slaves in and out of the state before the six-month deadline to prevent their establishing residency (and legally qualifying for manumission).

Martha Washington promised her lady's maid Oney Judge, a "dower" slave, to her granddaughter Elizabeth Parke Custis as a wedding gift. To prevent being sent back to Virginia, Judge escaped in 1796 from the Philadelphia household during President Washington's second term. According to interviews with Judge in the 1840s, the young woman had enjoyed being in Philadelphia and feared she would never gain freedom if taken to Virginia. She hid with free black friends in the city, who helped arrange her travel by ship to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There, she married and had three children.

Patricia Brady, in her 2005 biography of Martha Washington, writes:

> Martha felt a responsibility for the unsophisticated girl under her care, especially since her mother and sister were expecting to see her back at Mount Vernon. What she could never understand was that [Oney had ...] a simple desire to be free. Ona, as she preferred to call herself, wanted to live where she pleased, do what work she pleased, and learn to read and write ... Ona Judge professed a great regard for Martha and the way she had been treated, but she couldn't face a future as a slave for herself and her children.
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After Oney Judge's escape, Martha Washington gave Oney's younger enslaved sister Delphy (also known as Philadelphia) to Elizabeth and her husband Thomas Law as a wedding gift.

George Washington's slave Hercules, who had worked as his chief cook at the President's House before being returned to Mount Vernon in 1796, escaped from there on February 22, 1797. He was known to have traveled to Philadelphia, and by December 1801, was living in New York City. His six-year-old daughter, still enslaved at Mount Vernon, told a visitor that she was glad her father was free.

In his July 1790 will, written a year after he became President of the United States in April 1789 and nine years before his death in December 1799, George Washington left directions for the emancipation, after Martha Washington's death, of all the slaves that he owned. Of the 318 slaves at Mount Vernon in 1799, fewer than half, 123 individuals, belonged to George. His will stipulated that his slaves were not to be freed until Martha's death because of his desire to preserve the families of those who had intermarried with Martha's dower slaves.

In accordance with state law, George Washington stipulated in his will that elderly slaves or those who were too sick to work were to be supported throughout their lives by his estate. Children without parents, or those whose families were too poor or indifferent to see to their education, were to be bound out to masters and mistresses who would teach them reading, writing, and a useful trade, until they were ultimately freed at the age of 25.

In December 1800, Martha Washington signed a deed of manumission for her deceased husband's slaves, a transaction that was entered into the records of Fairfax County, Virginia. The document was lost during the American Civil War. The slaves received their freedom on January 1, 1801, a little over a year after George's death.

Just a few weeks earlier in December, Abigail Adams, wife of the second president John Adams, had visited Mount Vernon and wrote: "Many of those who are liberated have married with what are called the dower Negroes, so that they all quit their [family] connections, yet what could she do?" Mrs. Adams suggested a motive for Martha Washington to have freed her husband's slaves early:

> In the state in which they were left by the General, to be free at her death, she did not feel as tho her Life was safe in their Hands, many of whom would be told that it was [in] their interest to get rid of her–She therefore was advised to set them all free at the close of the year.
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Washington's health, always somewhat precarious, declined after her husband's death. Two and a half years after the death of her husband, Washington died on May 22, 1802, at the age of 70.