"SERIOUSLY & WITH REVERENCE": RELIGIOUS PRACTICE IN GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FAMILY
A Talk Given by Mary V. Thompson to the Mount Vernon Interpreters Thursday, August 26,1999
For a number of reasons, both social and political, beyond the
scope of this paper and this author, the religious faith of the men who
founded the United States is a subject which, two hundred years after their
deaths, still elicits strong opinions.' This is, however, nothing new. The
subject of George Washington's personal religious beliefs has been a
matter of some controversy for years. Washington has been called a near-
atheist by some and an extremely religious man by others. His one-time
colleague and later political adversary, Thomas Jefferson, once described
him in rather harsh terms to a young Englishman, closing with the remark
that Washington "has divines [ministers] constantly about him because he
thinks it right to keep up appearances but is an unbeliever." Jefferson's
views have been seconded in recent years by a site on the Internet, which
has sought to get out the message that Washington was not only neither a
communicant of the Episcopal or any other church, but was not even a
I For an example of a recent interchange on this subject, see Sally Quinn, "The G- Word and the A-List; In a Social Setting, There's One Subject Washington Avoids Religiously: God," The Washington Post, 7/12/1999; J.S. White, "The God of Our Founding Fathers," The Washington Post, 7/25/1999; John Lofton, "Of God and Revolution," The Washington Post, 8/8/1999. "believer in the Christian religion.' On the other hand, a eulogy delivered
shortly after Washington's death extolled that: "The virtues of our
departed friend were crowned by piety. He is known to have been
habitually devout. To Christian institutions he gave the countenance of his
example; and no one could express, more fully, his sense of the
Providence of God, and the dependence of man." These views have been
expounded by a contemporary member of the clergy, who has used his
television ministry to spread the word of Washington's "STERLING
CHARACTER ... CHRISTIAN HERITAGE ... FERVENT PRAYERS ...
DEVOTIONAL LIFE ... CHRISTIAN WALK ... ," and life as "A TRULY
DEVOUT CHRISTIAN." J
To further muddy the waters, still others, including the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, and prominent Washington biographer, James
Thomas Flexner, suggest that George Washington was a "Deist," rather
than a Christian. Deism propounded the notion that knowledge of God is
either born into each person or can be found through reason, rather than
revelation or the teachings of any specific religious group. This system
flowed from a strong beliefin human ability to reason, a disenchantment
or repugnance with religious teachings, based on revelation, which it was
2 R.W.G. Vail, editor, "A Dinner at Mount Vernon: From the Unpublished Journal of Joshua Brookes (1773-1859), The New-York Historical Society Quarterly, April 1947, 82; John E. Remsburg, "George Washington," Six Historic Americans, downloaded from Internet site www.infidels.org, 6/1 1/1999.
3 Reverend J.T. Kirkland, 12/29/1799, quoted in Maxims of George Washington (Mount Vernon, Virginia: The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, 1989), 197; Dr. D. James Kennedy, "The Faith of Washington," pamphlet published by Coral Ridge Ministries of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, no date [circa 1980-1999].
2 r
thought led to dogmatism and intolerance, and an image of God as the
rational creator of a logical and ordered universe. One well-known
example of the latter is the idea that the universe was a watch, which God
(the watchmaker) had constructed, set properly, and then walked away
from, allowing his creation to tick away without divine interference4
The truth about Washington's religious beliefs appears to lie
between these extremes. In the catalogue to a recent exhibition on the role
of religion in the founding of the United States, it was only through
limiting the definition or scope of deism that the author was able to fit
Washington into the deist category at all.5 At least two contemporary
historians have proposed that the 1st president was a Latitudinarian, a
member of a movement within the Anglican church in the 17th & is"
centuries, strongly influenced by rationalism, which sought to bring
people back to the church through an appeal to reason and intellect, rather
than emotion. The Latitudinarians also limited Christian doctrine to a few
beliefs which they considered to be fundamental and had to be accepted as
vital to the Christian faith. They were, however, quite accepting or
"allowed for latitude" on other teachings and practices, which they felt
were not critical, stressing that the doctrinal differences between
4 Encyclopaedia Britannica, IS'" edition, 1986,3:965,26:606-608. James Thomas Flexner, George Washington: Anguish and Farewell (1793-1799) (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972),490; see also pp. 300 & 442.
s James H. Hutson, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Washington, DC: The Library of Congress, 1998), 30, 32.
3 Protestant Christians were less important than the beliefs they shared6 A
close examination of Washington's religious practices would seem to bear
out this latter interpretation.
The controversy surrounding George Washington's religious
beliefs becomes understandable, when one considers what a very private
man he was by nature. On the subject of his religious beliefs and what he
might have confided in her on that subject, the step-granddaughter
Washington raised stated: " .. .Inever 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.' He communed with his God in secret. ... He 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 .... " Nelly went on
3 Dr. Robert Prichard, professor of church history and liturgy at the Episcopal Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, in a conversation with Mount Vernon Curator Emerita Christine Meadows, 11/6/1997, related to the author by the latter on that same day; D,. Taylor Sanders of Lexington, Virginia, comment that Washington expressed the beliefs of the Latitudinarians, made during discussion period at a seminar entitled "George Washington: Mouming and Memory," Mount Vernon, Virginia, 1117/1998. Encyclopaedia Britannica, lSlh edition, 1986,7:184,26:608. John W. Turner, Department of Religious Studies & Programs at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia, FAX'd communication to the author, 8/10/1999.
4 to say, however, that one of the reasons why Washington might not have
felt compelled to make more explicit statements on the subject of religion
to the young woman placed in his care was that he knew his wife, Nelly's
paternal grandmother, was a devout Christian woman, who would set a
proper example and bring up the girl in her own image. As Nelly
remembered her grandmother and the relationship between the
Washingtons, she also made several inferences about her step-
grandfather's religious beliefs. She noted that Martha Washington "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 .... ,,7 From family records
and statements such as these by Washington and those who knew him, we
can at least learn something about the practice of his religious beliefs, if
not the personal philosophy/theology behind them.
George Washington was born in Virginia in February of 1732 and
was christened two months later on the 5th of April into the Anglican
church, the state church of that colony. According to one historian who
has studied the practices of the Anglican church in Virginia in the years
7 Nelly Custis Lewis to Jared Sparks, 2/26/1833, quoted in Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington (Boston: Published by Ferdinand Andrews, 1839), 522. According to one Mount Vernon visitor, Mrs. Washington was successful in her efforts to raise Nelly up in her own image. Joshua Brookes recorded in his journal that of all the people he met at Mount Vernon, "... Mrs. Washington and Miss Custis pleased me the most, especially the former. Her affability, free manner and mild, placid countenance brought vividly to my mind my dear mother and I thought I saw in both resignation to God with the pure spirit of religion, humility, meekness, etc." (R.W.G. Vail, "A Dinner at Mount Vernon: From the Unpublished Journal of Joshua Brookes (1773-1859)," 75.)
5 when Washington was growing up, the church was hampered by several
factors, including a shortage of ministers and the scattered, rural pattern of
land settlement, which meant that parishes tended to be large and pastors
were forced to rotate between their flocks. The church saw its purpose as
a practical one of providing spiritual sustenance to and teaching individual
members, as opposed to a more intellectual involvement in theological and
philosophical theorizing, or a more emotional regard for "mysteries," such
as miracles. There was an emphasis on "low-key piety," which while it
was a deep and pervasive element in the life of an individual believer,
"was given to order rather than to passion or ecstasy." A typical Virginia
Anglican at this period saw religion as one of life's duties, and believed
that the proper response to God's love was obedience. As played out in
daily life, this duty was manifested by "a well-ordered life of prayer and
obedience to God's laws." Eminently practical, a believer's faith would
reveal itself through actions, such as prayer and the reading of devotional
literature, such as the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and numerous
others. Inthe words of this historian, "Doing one's duty was a statement
of faith and the product of a sincere devotionallife."s The logistical
problems facing the church in Virginia meant that church attendance,
while important, was emphasized less than private devotions, which could
'Edward L. Bond, "Anglican Theology and Devotion in James Blair's Virginia, 1685-1743: Private Piety in the Public Church," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Summer 1996.313-319.322, 328-330,333-335.338.
6 be done at home.9 The pattern prevailing in the Anglican church of
Washington's youth can be seen, played out, in the life of the mature
Washington.
George Washington's religious training would seem to have
continued throughout his childhood. One of the few surviving artifacts
from this period in his life is a book by Thomas Comber entitled Short
Discourses Upon the Whole Common-Prayer, now in the collection at the
Boston Athenaeum, which was signed by both of his parents and later by
George Washington himself, as a 13 year old. As a schoolboy, sometime
before his sixteenth birthday, Washington copied out a list of 110 "Rules
of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation," as part of
both a penmanship exercise and moral instruction. Four of those rules,
which influenced Washington throughout his life, deal with God, religion,
and the clergy. The first, number 26, includes "Churchmen" among those
"Persons of Distinction" in whose presence one is to remove one's hat,
while number 109 cautioned the young Washington to "Let your
Recreations be Manfull [sic] not Sinfull [sic]," and number 110 reminded
him to "Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial
fire Called Conscience." Evidence from his later writings, selections from
which are quoted later in this paper, indicate that Washington took the
fourth rule, number 108, very much to heart, which enjoined that "When
, Ibid., 331-333.
7 you Speak of God or His Attributes, let it be Seriously & with
Reverence .... ,,10
To the best of our knowledge, Washington remained a member of
the Anglican church throughout his life, the officiating ministers at both
th ills wedding on January 6 , 1759 and ills funeral in December 1799
having been Anglican clergymen. Stories have circulated for the past two
centuries that Washington turned from the Anglican faith and was either
baptized into the Baptist Church during the American Revolution or
converted to Catholicism on ills deathbed. Neither of these stories can be
substantiated and their veracity is quite doubtful. 1 t
As an adult, when he could have given up activities related to the
practice of religion, had he been so inclined, Washington continued to take
an active part in the religious life of ills family, friends, and community.
He stood as godfather for at least five children during ills lifetime.12 The
10 George Washington, Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation (Mount Vernon, Virginia: The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, 1989), 11-12, 14,28,61.
" Ben M. Bogard, "President Washington a Baptist: An Example for American Youth," (Texarkana: Baptist Sunday School Committee, no date); "George Washington's Chaplain," The Pentecostal Evangel, 2/22/1970,4; Roy J. Honeywell, Chaplains of the United States Army (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Chaplains, 1958),55-56; Martin I.J. Griffin, American Catholic Historical Researches, Volume 17,1900,126-129.
t2 Douglas Sonthall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, Volume 2 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951,227; Donal Jackson, editor, The Diaries of George Washington (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1976),2: 154, 158; George Washington to Philip Schnyler, 3/23/1781; Stephen Decatur, Jr., Private Affairs of George Washington (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1933), 67,205; Letter of Ashbel Green to Bernard Whitman, 3/811834, quoted in Annual Report 1956 (Mount Vernon, Virginia: The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, 1957), 41-42.
8 children for whom Washington was himself responsible were provided
with religious books for their instruction. In the faIl of 1761, he ordered
bibles and prayer books, "neatly bound in Turkey," with the young
children's names "wrote in gilt Letters on the Inside of the cover" for his
wife's 8 year old son and 6 year old daughter. Six years later, that
stepdaughter, Martha Parke Custis, known to the family as Patsy, was
given a music book containing "the New Version of Psalms and Hymns
set for the Spinnet [sic]." When Washington's stepson, John Parke Custis,
was a teenager, a large order for books was placed with an English agent
for the boy. Of 47 titles in that order, 11 or 23.4% concern the subject of
religion. Many years later, in the summer of 1794, a New Testament in
Greek was purchased for George Washington Parke Custis, his wife's 13
year old grandson. Much like her long-deceased aunt, his sister NeIly was
acquiring the musical scores for songs with a decided religious flavor,
such as "Angels ever bright & fair" and "Holy Holy Lord.,,13 While the
Bible, at least, was a fairly standard text for is" century students, and it is
probable that Mrs. Washington, the mother and grandmother of these
children, had a hand in choosing what else they would study, or a tutor
might have suggested these additional selections, George Washington, as
the head of the household and the person who actuaIly made or authorized
the purchases, could have refused to expose another generation to the
13 "Invoice of Sundry's to be Ship [sic) by Robert Cary Esq. & Co., ... " 10/12/1761; "Invoice of Goods to be Shipd by Robert Cary & Co., ... " 7120/1767; "Catalogue of Books for Master Custis Referred to on the
9 literature of the Christian faith and what some might consider its
superstitions, had he chosen to.14 In fact, in a very public, and
unnecessary, display of reverence for the scriptures during his
inauguration, Washington, as he finished taking the oath of office, added
the words, "So help me God" and kissed the Bible.15
George Washington was elected to serve as a vestryman for both
Fairfax Parish in Alexandria (10 miles from Mount Vernon) and at Truro
Parish (7 miles from Mount Vernon), an office he maintained in the latter
parish between 1762 and 1784. The activities of each Virginia parish at
this period were overseen by a minister and a group of twelve gentlemen,
known as the vestry. These men were responsible for levying taxes to pay
the minister's salary and church budget, as well as upkeep and
construction of church property, and care for the poor in the community.
Granted, there was a decided civic and/or social element to these offices,
and to church attendance, as well, in the 18'h century, but had Washington
been plagued with reservations about Christianity, he could have found
ways to drastically limit his church activities and express his civic duty
primarily through other means, especially since vestrymen were required
Otherside [sic]," George Washington to Capel and Osgood Hanbury, 7/25/1769; Philadelphia Household Account Book, 7/24/1794; Nelly Custis to Elizabeth Bordley, 7/2/1797.
14 Rhys Isaac, The Transfonnation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1982),65. rs Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, Volume 6 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954), 192; Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Republican Court, or American Society in the Days of Washington (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1856), 141.
10 to take what one historian has described as "formidable oaths of allegiance
and of conformity to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of
England." He had, for example, already been serving for three years in the
Virginia House of Burgesses when he became a vestryman for Truro
Parish. In his capacity as a vestryman, Washington is known to have
donated, with his friend George William Fairfax, gold leaf for gilding the
religious inscriptions on the altarpiece when the new church was built at
Pohick in 1772, and to have been charged with importing cloths and
cushions of "Crimson Velvet with Gold Firing," for use on the pulpit,
desks, and communion table at the same church in 1774.16
Over the years he lived at Mount Vernon, George and Martha
Washington worshiped at Christ Church in Alexandria and Pohick Church,
which he had taken a part in establishing, in Truro Parish. Attendance at
either of these churches would have required a roughly 1.5 to 2 hour trip
by horseback or coach, each way. The Washington family did not,
however, attend services every week and would have been most unusual if
they had. Studies of church attendance by other individuals in colonial
16 For Washington's attendance at vestry meetings, see Diaries (UV A), 2/13/1767, 2/16/1767, 2123/1767, 11/20/1767,7/16/1768, 11/28/1768,3/3/1769,4/7/1769,712411769,6/5/1772,212411774. For purchases for Pohick Church, see Diaries (UV A), 3: Il3n, 234n-235n. For Washington as a vestryman, see Mount Vernon: An Illustrated Handbook, 1981 edition (Mount Vernon, Virginia: The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, 1974), 108. For the role of vestrymen in the church in Virginia, see Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790,65,68; Edward Lewis Goodwin, The Colonial Church in Virginia (Milwaukee: Morehouse Publishing Company, 1927),78-79; William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, From the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619, Volume 5 (Richmond, Virginia: Franklin Press, 1819),226, and Volume 10 (Richmond, Virginia: Printed for the Editor by John Cochran, 1822), 1998.
II Virginia vary from indentured servant John Harrower's average rate of
14% to Colonel William Byrd II's mean of about 50%, while a 1724
survey by the Anglican church showed an attendance rate of 22-77% in
eleven Virginia parishes. 17
Although the Washington family maintained pews in both the
above-named churches, one scholar who has closely examined
Washington's diaries for evidence of church-going found that he typically
attended an average of one Sunday per month (a frequency dictated in
Virginia society by both custom and the law) and often spent Sundays at
Mount Vernon visiting with friends, working, or foxhunting. According
to a former Mount Vernon slave, Washington also was known to play
cards on Sunday. As far as I know, no one has correlated such factors as
weather conditions or the presence or absence of a pastor on the staffs of
these churches with Washington's absences from church to see if those
might explain some of those absences. For example, the Truro Parish
vestry book notes on June 4th of 1753, that the Reverend Mr. Charles
Green would preach there "every third Sunday" and evidence from
Alexandria suggests that Green may have been alternating his Sundays
between small congregations at Pohick, the city of Alexandria, and a third
near the Falls of the Potomac. In the rnid-1760s, after the death of the
Reverend Charles Green, there were several months when no minister
17 Patricia U. Bonomi and Peter R. Eisenstadt, "Church Adherence in the Eighteenth-Century British American Colonies," The William and Mary Quarterly, April 1982, 254n & 258n-259n.
12 regularly served the Pohick congregation, although the Reverend James
Scott ofDettingen Parish filled in frequently (giving 26 sermons between
November of 1765 and November of 1766 and another 6 or 7 in the
following year) and the Reverend John Andrews of Cameron Parish
helped out on two Sundays. Twenty years later, ill-health and/or the
diminishing size of his congregation caused Green's successor at Pohick,
the Reverend Lee Massey, to stop officiating regularly at services and,
after the I780s, the pulpit at Pohick, when filled at all, was manned by
itinerant preachers. The uncertainty of services at such times as these
undoubtedly had a negative influence on the Mount Vernon family's
church attendance. At other times, absences from church are known to
have occurred when: someone in the family was sick (and remember, that,
for many years, the Washingtons had a chronically ill child); also when
the weather was bad, i.e. it was raining all day; the family's vehicle had
been used to take a guest to their home and had not returned in time to go
to church; George Washington was travelling; the minister scheduled to
preach was sick; and when the chariot broke on the way to church. 18
18 For church attendance, see Paul F. Boller, Jr., George Washington & Religion (Dallas, Texas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963),28-31. For card-playing on Sunday, see "Mrs. [?] Staines," Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies, John W. Blassingame, editor (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977),248-250. For ministerial problems at Pohick and Christ Churches, see Gay Montague Moore, Seaport in Virginia: George Washington's Alexandria (Richmond, Virginia: Garrett and Massie, Inc., 1949), 131; Nan & Ross D. Netherton, compilers, Notes on the History and Architecture of Po hick Church, Truro Parish, Fairfax County, Virginia (Fairfax County, Virginia: Fairfax Historical Landmarks Preservation Commission, 1968),5& 10; Mary G. Powell, The History of Old Alexandria, Virginia (Richmond, Virginia: The William Byrd Press, Inc., 1928),85; Minutes of the Vestry: Truro Parish Virginia, 1732-1785 (Lorton, Virginia: Pohick Church, 1974), 100, 107, Ill. For absences from church, see Diaries (UV A): sickness in family, 3/6/1 768, 1/17/1790,4/4/1790, 5/9/1790, 9/1/1799, 9129/1 799; bad weather, 4/6/1766, 12/27/1789,4/1 811790; carriage loaned out, 1/6/1760, see also 9/16/1770; travelling, 4120/1760, see also 5/4/1760, 5/18/1 760,
13 There is also evidence that, as he aged, Washington found the distance
from church, and the resulting long carriage ride, more than he could
manage and spent the day quietly at home answering letters. 19
George Washington's church-going habits were noticeably more
regular during the presidency. His efforts to set an example as president
were certainly a consideration, a fact he admitted in a letter written at the
close of his presidency to the officials of the churches he attended in
Philadelphia, acknowledging that his attendance "on public worship" was
"prompted by a high sense of duty" and his subsequent gratitude for "the
liberal and interesting discourses which have been delivered." His more
frequent church attendance might also be attributable to a more mundane
reason, such as the better roads and shorter distance needed to travel to
church in the cities of New York and Philadelphia. As president,
Washington attended first Saint Paul's Church and later Trinity Church in
10/15/1763,4/13/1766, 10/23/1768, and others too numerous to mention; minister sick, 9/27/1772; broken chariot, 4/17/1774. For further information on George Washington's church-going, see Appendix #1. It should also be noted that an architectural historian was recently taken to task by a specialist in church history for criticizing George Washington's habits of church attendance. In a review of Dell Upton's book Holy Things and Profane: Anglican Parish Churches in Colonial Virginia (Cambridge, Massachusetts and New York: The MIT Press and the Architectural History Foundation, 1987), Joan R. Gundersen noted that "Other examples of emphasizing the negative include labeling George Washington a "private scoffer" for attending church once a month (p. 188) ... " (The William and Mary Quarterly, April 1989, 381).
19 See, for example, George Washington to the Secretary of War, 4/23/1799; also the statement by Nelly Custis Lewis that her step-grandfather "attended the church in Alexandria, when the weather and roads permitted a ride of ten miles, recorded in Nelly Custis Lewis to Jared Sparks, 2/26/1833, in Sparks' The Life of Washington, 521.
14 New York, and both Saint Peter's Church and Christ Church in
Philadelphia."
According to the two grandchildren from his wife's first marriage,
who were raised by the Washingtons, both making visits and receiving
visitors were generally prohibited by the family on Sundays during
Washington's presidency and the president would often read aloud
sermons "and other sacred writings" to his family on that day. Among the
books acquired by Martha Washington over the years were at least two
collections of sermons, purchased during Washington's presidency, quite
likely the very ones the grandchildren were remembering, as well as other
books on the subject of religion. By the time of George Washington's
death in 1799, the family library included approximately 35 titles relating
to religion, a bit less than 7% of the total."
During church services, Washington was described as "attentive"
and "respectful." He generally stood "as was then the custom ... during the
devotional parts of the service," while his wife, whose great-great-
grandfather was a minister in Oxfordshire, England, and great-grandfather
20 Decatur, Private Affairs of Washington. 90, 231-232; George Washington to The Rector, Church Wardens, and Vestrymen of the United Episcopal Churches of Christ Church and St. Peter's, [3/2/1797].
21 George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1860), 171, 173n, 174; Nelly Custis Lewis to Jared Sparks, quoted in Sparks' The Life of George Washington (Boston: Published by Ferdinand Andrews, 1839),521; Philadelphia Household Account Book, 4/8/1793, 112/1794,3/3/1794,3/8/1794, 1213/1794; W.K. Bixby, Inventory of the Contents of Mount Vernon, 1810 [1801] (Privately printed from the manuscript in the collection ofW.K. Bixby of Saint Louis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press, 1909), 16, 17, 19,22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 36.
15 was the first pastor at Williamsburg's Bruton Parish Church, followed the
training of her youth and knelt. One historian who has examined religious
practices in 18th century Virginia has noted the secular nature of that
society, quoting, by way of example, an Anglican minister who recorded
that "generally speaking, none went to the table [for communion], except
a few of the more aged." A study of church practice in America,
undertaken by the Anglican Church in 1724, for example, indicates that perhaps 15% of adult Anglicans in the southern colonies were regular communicants at the four to six communion services typically held each year, in comparison with a rate of 5-30% of those elegible to receive communion in England in the first half of the is" century. Prior to taking command of the Continental Army in the Revolution, however,
Washington regularly took communion; after that time, he, and the majority ofthe congregation, would exit the church building after the blessing, but prior to the start of the communion service, leaving those who were partaking in the ceremony inside. Mrs. Washington's granddaughter Nelly recalled that she would generally leave the church with her step-grandfather and the two would go home, sending the carriage back for Martha Washington at the close of the service. The reason for this change in Washington's customary practice is not recorded
in either his writings or by members of his family. One of Washington's
earliest biographers, however, suggested that "after he took command of
the army, finding his thoughts and attention necessarily engrossed by the
16 business that devolved upon him, in which frequently little distinction
could be observed between Sunday and other days, he may have believed
it improper publicly to partake of an ordinance, which, according to the
ideas he entertained of it, imposed severe restrictions on outward conduct,
and a sacred pledge to perform duties impracticable in his situation .... ',22
It appears from another source, however, that the change in Washington's
religious practices may not have been as abrupt or complete as Nelly and
others believed. According to one clergyman who knew him well, while
at Morristown, New Jersey, during the Revolution, George Washington
was " ... at his particular request, admitted to commune at the Lord's Table,
with the Presbyterian church of that place, then under the pastoral care of
the Revd Dr. Timothy Jones." The minister went on to note that "I believe
there still are, living, eyewitnesses of this fact.'>23
On at least one occasion during his presidency, Washington's
practice of leaving church before communion earned him a rebuke from a
clergyman. Dr. James Abercrombie, assistant rector of Christ Church in
Philadelphia, one Sunday from the pulpit chastised Washington and others
who set a bad example by turning "their backs upon the celebration of the
22 Nelly Custis Lewis to Jared Sparks, 2/26/1833, quoted in Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington, 521-522. Lyon G. Tyler, "Bruton Church," William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Volume III, January 1895, 171; Wilson Miles Cary, "Descendants of Rev. Rowland Jones, First Rector of Bruton Parish, Va.," William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Volume V, January 1897, 192. Rhys Isaac, Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790, 120; Bonorni & Eisenstadt, "Church Adherence in the Eighteenth-Century British American Colonies," 260-261. Letter of Nelly Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 12/1/1826. Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington, 523.
23 Ashbel Green to Bernard Whitman, 3/8/1834, quoted in Annual Report 1956, 41-42.
17 Lord's Supper." Later in the week, he learned in a conversation with a
senator that the president had mentioned the reproof at dinner, "that he
honored the preacher for his integrity and candour; that he had never
considered the influence of his example; and that, as he had never been a
communicant, were he to become one of them, it would be imputed to an
ostentatious display of religious zeal arising altogether from his elevated
station." After this incident, Washington stopped attending church on
days when communion services were held, although his attendance was
regular on other Sundays."
There are a number of highly romanticized (and highly suspect)
stories about George Washington praying, most, ifnot all, of which
probably date to the 19th or zo" centuries." Several members of
Washington's domestic household have left credible remarks on the
subject of George Washington and prayer, however. His sister-in-law,
Hannah Bushrod Washington, and others informed Martha Washington's
granddaughter Nelly that Washington had prayed "most fervently, most
affectingly" at the side of the girl's aunt, Martha Parke Custis, as the
young woman lay dying in 1773; another witness to this same scene,
probably Martha Washington's future daughter-in-law, Eleanor Calvert,
described him kneeling by the girl's bed as he "solemnly recited the
24 Boller, George Washington & Religion, 33-34.
18 prayers for the dying-while tears rolled down his cheeks, & his voice
was often broken by sobs." George Washington's nephew, Robert Lewis,
who lived with the family in the early months of the presidency, claimed
to have inadvertently walked in on Washington, who was involved in
prayer and Bible-reading in his study, early in the moming and also in the
evening.i" Statements by Martha Washington's former maid that she
never heard the General pray "and does not believe that he was
accustomed to" must be viewed in the light of another statement she made
to the effect that "Mrs. Washington used to read prayers, but I don't call
that praying." These remarks probably speak more, however, to the
differences between the formality of the Washingtons' is" century
Anglican faith and the less formal and more participatory services of the
19th century evangelical denominations with which this former slave was
probably accustomed than they do to the daily practice of religion in the
Washington household.27
Mrs. Washington regularly retired to her room between 9 and 10
o'clock in the moming "for an hour of meditation reading & prayer and
that hour no one was ever allowed to interfere with." She and Nelly, the
2S For one of the more credible of these, see Sullivan's Familiar Letters, quoted in Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington by George Washington Parke Custis, 493n.
26 Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington, 522-523; William D. Hoyt, Jr., "Self-Portrait: Eliza Custis, 1808," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, April 1945,92.
27 "Washington's Runaway Slave, and How Portsmouth Freed Her," Frank W. Miller's Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Weekly, 612/1877.
19 granddaughter she raised, also prayed, read the Bible, and sang hymns in
the evening, in preparation for bed. Among the books surviving in the
collections at Mount Vernon is a book of common prayer, authorized by
the Protestant Episcopal Church of America, bearing an inscription by
Martha Washington's great grandson, Lorenzo Lewis, which records that
Mrs. Washington read from this particular book twice a day from the time
it came into her possession until her death in 1802. In addition to the
prayer book, a large Bible was purchased for Martha Washington in New
York at the start of her husband's first term as president. She also saw that
other members of the family, not just those in her immediate household,
were provided with similar devotional materials. About the same time she
acquired the Bible, Mrs. Washington sent four prayer books to Mount
Vernon, one each for her niece Fanny Bassett Washington, her husband's
niece, Harriot Washington, and her two oldest granddaughters, Eliza Parke
Custis and Martha Parke Custis."
In regard to prayers at mealtimes, surviving descriptions by guests
of the Washingtons indicate that sometimes prayers were offered and other
times they were not. It was not unusual at this period for people to say
prayers at the beginning and end of a meal. For example, a tutor at one
Virginia plantation recorded that during dinner at the home of a local
28 Clayton Torrence, editor, "Arlington and Mount Vernon 1856 As Described in a Letter of Augusta Blanche Berard," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, April 1949, 162; Elswyth Thane, Mount Vernon Family, 74. Mount Vernon Library Collection, object # W-409. Decatur, Private Affairs of
20 minister, he, as the guest, was asked to ""say Grace" as they call it; which
is always express'd .. .in the following words, "God bless us in what we
are to receive" - & after Dinner, "God make us thankful for his
mercies ... .'",29 One guest at Mount Vernon, Amariah Frost, made a point
of mentioning that no prayers were offered at dinner on the day he ate with
the Washington family. Another guest, however, the Reverend John Latta,
recorded that George Washington asked him to "officiate in [his] clerical
character" at both the beginning and end of the meal. Whether this was
done out of deference to, or affection for, a guest is impossible to say, but,
according to another minister's recollection of the executive mansion
during Washington's administration, George Washington himself
generally stood and said grace before Congressional dinners, unless there
was a clergyman present, who could be asked to say prayers before and
after the meal.JO However George Washington may have felt about these
rituals, a letter to Martha Washington from her son, who was away at
college, assuring her that he offered thanks to God at the end of his
breakfast, certainly suggests that such prayers were important to Mrs.
Washington."
Washington, 50 & 313. Martha Washington to Fanny Bassett Washington, July 1789, quoted in "Worthy Partner," 217.
29 Philip Vickers Fithian, Journal & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian 1773-1774: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, Hunter Dickinson Farish, editor (Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg, Incorporated, 1957),42.
'0 Staples, "A Day at Mount Vernon," 8-11. Journal of John Latta, 7/3/1799. The Life of Ashbel Green, 267.
JI Gilbert Chinard, George Washington as the French Knew Him (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940),66. John Parke Custis to Martha Washington, 7/5/1773.
21 Both George and Martha Washington took concrete steps to care
for those less fortunate than themselves by giving money and food to the
poor. Such charities, which to a certain extent were probably expected
from members of their social class, were also a way of expressing
religious beliefs through action. During the Revolution, when he was
away from home and his wife spent many months each year at his
headquarters, George Washington asked his farm manager to: "Let the
Hospitality of the House, with respect to the poor, be kept up; Let no one
go hungry away. If any of these kind of People should be in want of Corn,
supply their necessities, provided it does not encourage them in idleness;
and I have no objection to your giving my Money in Charity, to the
Amount of forty or fifty Pounds a Year, when you think it well hestowed.
What I mean, by having no objection, is, that it is my desire that it should
be done. You are to consider that neither myself or Wife are now in the
way to do these good Offices." This same manager once remarked that
"Mrs. Washington's charitable disposition increases in the same
proportion with her meat house. ,,32 Many years after their deaths, Mrs.
Washington's youngest granddaughter remembered: " ... He [George
Washington] would have blush'd to find such trifles fame, (as giving fish
to the poor) ... Many were an[nually] fed & clothed from his and
32 George Washington to Lund Washington, 1775, and Lund Washington to George Washington, 1/1776, quoted in Mount Vernon: A Handbook (Mount Vernon, Virginia: Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, 1985),95,113.
22 Grandmama's hands, besides the charity almost daily bestowed on
wayfaring persons. But it was their aim to conceal from the left hand,
what the right performed, & accident only discover'd their good
deeds .... ,,33
In addition to food and clothing, the Washingtons also gave money
for charitable causes. As George Washington exhorted one of his young
nephews: " ... Let your heart feel for the affliction, and distresses of every
one; let your hand give in proportion to your purse; remembering always,
the estimation of the Widows [sic] mite." He went on to caution,
however, that "not every one [sic] who asketh ... deserveth charity; all
however are worthy of the enquiry, or the deserving may suffer."J4
Financial records from the family prior to George Washington's
election to the presidency contain numerous references to contributions for
"charity," but do not generally spell out the beneficiary of those gifts.
That situation changed after the inauguration, when Washington's
secretaries kept the financial records and frequently took care to say
something about who the recipients were and why they needed the money.
They recorded, for example, that Martha Washington provided $8.00 to
33 Nelly Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 4/29/1823, quoted in George Washington's Beautiful Nelly: The Letters of Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1794-1851, Patricia Brady, editor (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1991), 134.
34 George Washington to Bushrod Washington, 1/15/1783, quoted in Maxims, 122.
23 aid a number of poor families who were presumably hurt and made
homeless by a fire in Philadelphia in May of 1791.,,35 Not just
individuals, but more organized causes drew the attention ofthe
Washingtons. Offering money was contributed at church and clergymen
and churches were helped with a number of worthy projects. In addition
to these church-related charities, other groups benefited from their
association with the Washingtons. Early in 1790, George Washington
made a very large donation of 50 guineas or 93 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8
pence to "the Society for relieving distressed debtors." This was not the
first time Washington had helped out this particular group of prisoners; he
had arranged to have "provisions & beer" sent to them just a few months
before. One ofthe most generous donations ever made by George
Washington was a gift of $250 to a committee organized to help French
colonists in Haiti, after a violent slave uprising there during his
presidency. He presented a like sum shortly before his retirement from the
presidency to a group helping the survivors of a severe fire in the city of
Savannah36
George Washington was personally tolerant of religious beliefs and
practices which differed from his own. He stated in a letter to a friend
3S Decatur, Private Affairs of Washington, 48-49, 54, 55, 64, 87, 88, 113, 115, 179, 182, 193, 196, 202, 203,208,214,228,233,254,257,265,292, 312, 313, 321,322,323; Philadelphia Household Account Book, 7123/1793, 8/14/1793,12/27/1793,112111794,5/8/1794, 5/23/1794,1/26/1795,10122/1795, 10/23/1795,1212011796,12121/1796,11711797.
36 Decatur, Private Affairs of Washington, 38, 90, 91,112,201,231-232,254,310; Philadelphia Household Account Book, 7/18/1793,1128/1794,12/30/1796.
24 that: ..... Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to
indulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to Heaven,
which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to
exception." According to one historian, Washington was "never deeply
impressed by doctrinal arguments" and, when travelling, was known to
"attend the services of any other denomination with equal cheerfulness."
Other denominations with whom he is known to have worshipped include
Quakers, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Congregationalists, and Dutch
Reformed. In the latter case, Washington humorously noted in his diary
that he had gone to the Dutch church in York Pennsylvania in the summer
of 1791, because there was "no Episcopal Minister present in the place."
The service, however, was conducted completely in German, "not a word
of which I understood," and the president recorded that he was, therefore,
"in no danger of becoming a proselyte to its religion by the eloquence of
the Preacher." Other statements indicate that Washington's tolerance was
not simply limited to Christians. In the early months of his presidency he
wrote: .... .Itrust the people of every denomination, who demean
themselves as good citizens, will have occasion to be convinced, that I
shall always strive to prove a faithful and impartial Patron of genuine, vital religion." He would, however, also support those who did not believe in God at all. In a letter concerning his need to find skilled workmen for his Mount Vernon estate, Washington remarked that he was primarily interested in their work skills, not their religion: "If they are
25 good worJanen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be
Mahometans, Jews, or Christian of any Sect, or they may be Atheists. ,,37
Surviving financial records show that Washington gave money to a
number of religious groups over the years. Among the congregations he
assisted were groups trying to build churches in Albany & Gloucester,
New York, and Dauphin County, Pennsylvania; another church
construction project in Martintown; an "African Church," presumably for
an African-American congregation; a "Universal Church" in Philadelphia;
and a Catholic church in the same city."
Toleration of differing religious traditions was something George
Washington idealistically saw, and heartily approved of, as a unique and
basic quality of American life. As he informed the Jewish communities in
several large American cities, "The liberal sentiment towards each other
which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this
country stands unrivalled in the history of nations.,,39 He, in fact, viewed
religious toleration as a natural right of all men, which the new United
States would protect:
37 Decatur, Private Affairs of Washington, 232; George Washington to the Marquis de Lafayette, 8/15/1787, and George Washington to the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 5/29/1789, quoted in Maxims of George Washington, 179; George Washington to Tench Tilghman, 3/24/1784. For Washington's attendance at non-Anglican churches, see Diaries (INA), 9125/1774, 10/9/1774, 5127/1787, 10/18/1789,7/3/1791,1015/1794.
38 Decatur, Private Affairs of Washington, 41,125,185,189,252,254,255. Philadelphia Household Account Book, 5/8/1793, 7123/1793, 7/14/1794, 11/24/1796.
J9 George Washington to the Hebrew Congregations of Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, and Richmond, 12/1790.
26 ..It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was
by the indulgence of one class of people, that another
enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For
. happily, the government of the United States, which gives
to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,
requires only that they who live under its protection should
demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all
occasions their effectual support ... .'>40
In conclusion, while it is not possible, given the absence of
statements by Washington on the subject and from a distance of200 years,
to make definitive statements about the state of George Washington's
soul, one can certainly note that Washington took part in the religious life
of his social circle and his local congregation, supported both the church
and those less fortunate than himself financially, and promoted a national
atmosphere in which all were free to express their faith. One of the best
summaries of George Washington's religious beliefs was made some
years ago by Mount Vernon's long-time director, Charles Cecil Wall:
" ... Most students who have approached the question objectively have
concluded that George Washington was a true Christian who attached no
great significance to form and ritual. His broad tolerance toward all who
shared his own belief in a Supreme Being and his feeling of unity with
40 George Washington to the Hebrew congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, 8/17/1790, quoted in Writings, 31 :93n.
27 them is eloquently expressed in his own writings. The discerning reader
would discover in this mature and benevolent attitude the outstanding
characteristic of George Washington's religion."?'
41 Charles C. Wall to Major Louis Osborne, 8/5/1954.
28