Concluding the month of February’s posts on the Washingtons is a letter by Nelly Custis, granddaughter to Martha and adopted daughter of George Washington, to Jared Sparks in 1823 in reply to Jared’s questions about the Washingtons’ religious beliefs and practices as well as how they spent their Sundays.

I hasten to give you the information you desire.
Truro Parish [Episcopal] is the one in which Mount Vernon, Pohick Church [the church where George Washington served as a vestryman], and . . . are situated. Fairfax Parish is now Alexandria. Before the Federal District was ceded to Congress, Alexandria was in Fairfax County. General Washington had a pew in Pohick Church, and one in Christ Church at Alexandria. He was very instrumental in establishing Pohick Church, and I believe subscribed largely. His pew was near the pulpit. I have a perfect recollection of being there, before his election to the presidency, with him and my grandmother…
He attended the church at Alexandria when the weather and roads permitted a ride of ten miles [a one-way journey of 2-3 hours by horse or carriage]. In New York and Philadelphia he never omitted attendance at church in the morning, unless detained by indisposition. The afternoon was spent in his own room at home; the evening with his family, and without company. Sometimes an old and intimate friend called to see us for an hour or two; but visiting and visitors were prohibited for that day [Sunday]. No one in church attended to the services with more reverential respect. My grandmother, who was eminently pious, never deviated from her early habits. She always knelt. The General, as was then the custom, stood during the devotional parts of the service. On communion Sundays, he left the church with me, after the blessing, and returned home, and we sent the carriage back for my grandmother.
It was his custom to retire to his library at nine or ten o’clock where he remained an hour before he went to his chamber. He always rose before the sun and remained in his library until called to breakfast. I never witnessed his private devotions. I never inquired about them. I should have thought it the greatest heresy to doubt his firm belief in Christianity. His life, his writings, prove that he was a Christian. He was not one of those who act or pray, “that they may be seen of men” [Matthew 6:5]. He communed with his God in secret [Matthew 6:6].
My mother [Eleanor Calvert-Lewis] resided two years at Mount Vernon after her marriage [in 1774] with John Parke Custis, the only son of Mrs. Washington. I have heard her say that General Washington always received the sacrament with my grandmother before the revolution. (The king of England was the head of the church and apparently Washington would not recognize him as such after the war). When my aunt, Miss Custis [Martha’s daughter] died suddenly at Mount Vernon, before they could realize the event [before they understood she was dead], he [General Washington] knelt by her and prayed most fervently, most affectingly, for her recovery. Of this I was assured by Judge [Bushrod] Washington’s mother and other witnesses.
He [George Washington] was a silent, thoughtful man. He spoke little generally; never of himself. I never heard him relate a single act of his life during the war. I have often seen him perfectly abstracted, his lips moving, but no sound was perceptible. I have sometimes made him laugh most heartily from sympathy with my joyous and extravagant spirits. I was, probably, one of the last persons on earth to whom he would have addressed serious conversation, particularly when he knew that I had the most perfect model of female excellence [Martha Washington] ever with me as my monitress, who acted the part of a tender and devoted parent, loving me as only a mother can love, and never extenuating [tolerating] or approving in me what she disapproved of others. She never omitted her private devotions, or her public duties; and she and her husband were so perfectly united and happy that he must have been a Christian. She had no doubts, no fears for him. After forty years of devoted affection and uninterrupted happiness, she resigned him without a murmur into the arms of his Savior and his God, with the assured hope of his eternal felicity.
Is it necessary that any one should certify, “General Washington avowed himself to me a believer in Christianity?” As well may we question his patriotism, his heroic, disinterested devotion to his country. His mottos were, “Deeds, not Words”; and, “For God and my Country.”
With sentiments of esteem,
I am, Nelly Custis-Lewis

Excerpts from the letter were included in a blog post by Barbara Wells Sarudy paying tribute to Martha Washington. Read a more complete version of the letter HERE.

On December 22, 1799, ABIGAIL ADAMS wrote a letter to her sister Mary Cranch expressing her thoughts and feelings about George Washington and his death. She wrote another to Mary on January 28, 1800. While praising Washington Abigail was quick to point out that what had been accomplished in America was the work of many, not due to the efforts of one man alone.

MY DEAR SISTER:

I yesterday received your Letter of the eigth, I think you have testified your proportion of Respect in a handsome manner to the Memory of the good and virtuous Washington. That he ought to live in our Memories, and be transmitted to posterity as a Character truly worthy Imitation is Right, but some Eulogystjs] have asscribed to him solely, what was the joint effort & concert of Many. To no one Man in America, belongs the Epithet of Saviour of his Country. That Washingtons Character, when we take into view, his Education, the place of his Birth, and the various scenes in which he was calld to act, exhibits a most uncommon assemblage of Modesty, Moderation, Magninimity, fortititud [sic], perseverance and disinterestedness, will be most readily allowed, but at no time, did the fate of America rest upon the Breath of even a Washington, and those who assert these things, are Ignorant of the spirit of their countrymen, and whilst they strive to exalt one character, degrade that of their Country. . . .

The letter can be found in New Letters of Abigail Adams, 1788-1801, edited with an Introduction by Stewart Mitchell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947) pages 228-230. It can be read online HERE.

In a letter dated December 30, 1799, Abigail Adams wrote her sister Mary Cranch that her nephew Will Smith Shaw (son of her sister Elizabeth Shaw Peabody and private secretary of John Adams) had set out for Mount Vernon some days earlier to deliver messages of condolence from President Adams and Congress to Martha Washington on the death of her husband. Abigail remarked that “It was thought most respectfull to send a special Messenger.”
Washington died quite suddenly of acute laryngitis on December 14. His doctors had given him a blister on his throat, an enema, an emetic to induce vomiting, and a mixture for soothing his throat. In addition, following standard practice at the time, Washington was bled—four times, losing a total of 32 ounces of blood; this huge blood loss probably caused his death.
Abigail wrote again to Mary in January of 1800, describing Shaw’s reception and Mrs. Washington’s reaction.

. . . . Mr. [William Smith] Shaw returnd yesterday from Mount Vernon. He was much gratified by his tour, tho regreeted that he did not see Mrs. Washington. She strove the whole time he was there, which was two days, to get resolution sufficient to see him, but finally excused herself. She had the painfull task to perform, to bring her mind to comply with the request of Congress, which she has done in the handsomest manner possible in a Letter to the President which will this day be communicated to congress. She wrote me in reply to my Letter an answer repleat with a sense of my sympathy, and expressive of her own personal Grief and anguish of mind. Mr. [Tobias] Lear [Washington’s secretary] told Mr. Shaw that she had not been able to shed a tear since the Genlls. death, untill she received the Presidents and my Letters when she was two hours getting through them, tho they were not Lengthy. . . .

Abigail’s letters can be found in The New Letters of Abigail Adams,1788-1801 edited with an Introduction by Stuart Mitchell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), pp 224 and 226, online HERE. The illustration is an etching done in 1800 by an unidentified artist; it is at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Robert Lewis, one of George Washington’s nephews, served as his secretary from 1789 to 1791. He escorted Martha Washington and her grandchildren from Mount Vernon to New York in 1789 and helped them get settled. The following passage is taken from Dining with the Washingtons: Historic Recipes, Entertainments, and Hospitality from Mount Vernon, Stephen McLeod, Ed. (Chapel Hill: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, distributed by the University of North Carolina Press) p. 71. It includes a description of some amusing incidents which occurred during Mrs. Washington’s levées as recorded by Lewis in his diary.

As he came to the door to help several female guests out of their carriage, [Robert] Lewis heard “the screams and crys [of] a Lady who seemed to be in great distress.” The women reported that a member of their party had an insect in her ear. Lewis managed to get all the Ladies out of the carriage and into a private room in the president’s house, where, after pouring some oil in the sufferer’s ear, “the bug instantly run out—which was the cause of much rejoicing.”
Later, in his journal account of the evening, honesty compelled Lewis to record “another circumstance which has since cause much laugh[ter], when the bug ran out of . . . [the] . . . ear], it fell in her bosom and I plunged [my] hand into it involuntarily to catch the insect.” With all this excitement, one young lady . . . found herself “near fainting.” The young gallant was forced to “support her in my arms and to apply cold water to her face” in order to revive her. The ladies then rearranged their dresses, “which had been a good deal discomfited,” and went to make their greetings to Mrs. Washington,” who was all this while a stranger to what happened.” The story was told at the party, and Lewis was the hero of the evening. He also noted that “After . . . the company had nearly dispersed,” one of the female guests who “had observed my attention to the Lady whilst in distress invited me very politely to come and see her,” which Lewis thought he might do “so soon as time and opportunity will admit.”

Entry for Aug. 7, 1789, in R.L. diary (July 4—Sept.1, 1789, typescript, Library, George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, Museum and Gardens).

When the widowed Martha Dandridge Custis married George Washington she brought her two children to live at Mount Vernon: John “Jacky” and Martha “Patsy.” Sadly, her daughter died of consumption in 1773. Jacky was a bit wild, married young, joined the army and died of camp fever shortly after the battle of Yorktown, leaving his wife and four children. The two oldest children stayed with their widowed mother. The other two—George Washington Parke Custis, called “Wash,” and his sister Eleanor Parke Custis called “Nelly”—came to live at Mount Vernon. George Washington officially adopted his two step grandchildren.

G.W.P. Custis married Mary Lee Fitzhugh and their daughter Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the only one of four children who reached maturity, married Robert E. Lee. In 1826, GWP Custis admitted paternity of a child born to a slave who had once resided at Mount Vernon where she served Martha Washington. During his lifetime GWP Custis put down his recollections of George Washington and life at Mount Vernon. After his death his daughter published them in a volume that can be read online. Here is an anecdote he recounts that occurred at one of Martha Washington’s levees.

Mrs. Washington’s drawing rooms, on Friday nights, were attended by the grace and beauty of New York. On one of these occasions an incident occurred which might have been attended by serious consequences. Owing to the lowness of the ceiling in the drawing room, the ostrich feathers in the head-dress of Miss [Mary] McIvers, a belle of New York, took fire from the chandelier, to the no small alarm of the company. Major Jackson, aid-de-camp [sic] to the president, with great presence of mind, and equal gallantry, flew to the rescue of the lady, and, by clapping the burning plumes between his hands, extinguished the flame, and the drawing-room went on as usual.

Custis wrote that George Washington attended his wife’s drawing-rooms.

[He] paid his compliments to the circle of ladies, with that ease and elegance of manners for which he was remarkable. Among the most polished and well-bred gentlemen of his time, he was always particularly polite to ladies, even in the rugged scene of war; and, in advanced age, many were the youthful swains who sighed for those gracious smiles with which the fair always received the attentions of this old beau of sixty-five.

Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington by his adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, with a Memoir of the author, by his Daughter (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1860), pp 395-96 and 409. I promise you will spend time reading other stories from the Memoirs online HERE.