Part I Biographical Data Facts About the Presidents 1st PRESIDENT George Washington Date of birth—Feb. 22, 1732 (Feb. 11 on Term of office—Apr. 30, 1789–Mar. 4, 1797 Julian calendar) Term served—7 years, 308 days Place of birth—Pope’s Creek, Westmore- Administration—lst, 2nd land County, Va. Congresses—1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Education—Unknown; basic literacy and Age at inauguration—57 years, 67 days mathematical skills Lived after term—2 years, 285 days Religion—Episcopalian Occupation after term—Planter; held Ancestry—English rank of lieutenant general and commander Career—Surveyor, planter, soldier, colonial in chief of the nation’s armies legislator, delegate to Continental Con- Date of death—Dec. 14, 1799 gress, commander in chief of Continental Army, president of Constitutional Conven- Age at death—67 years, 295 days tion Place of death—Mount Vernon, near Alex- Political party—Federalist andria, Va. State represented—Virginia Burial place—Family vault, Mount Ver- non, Va. FAMILY FATHER sheriff; he ran a plantation using slave labor and went into business as an iron manufac- Name—Augustine Washington turer and exporter after ore was found on his Date of birth—1694 land. He is known to have been prone to law- Place of birth—Westmoreland, Va. suits. He is reported to have been a distant First marriage—Jane Butler, Apr. 20, 1715 and preoccupied father, often away from (d. Nov. 24, 1728) home. His first wife, Jane Butler, was about Second marriage—Mary Ball, Mar. 6, 1731 15 years old at the time of their marriage in 1715 and about 28 when she died; they had Occupation—Farmer, planter, iron four children together. With his second wife, exporter, sheriff, justice of the peace Mary Ball, he had six children. Date of death—Apr. 12, 1743 George Washington was 11 years old when Place of death—King George County, Va. Augustine died unexpectedly of a stomach Age at death—About 49 years disorder. In some 20,000 surviving letters Augustine Washington was the grandson and other documents written by George of John Washington, who immigrated to the Washington, Augustine Washington is men- colony of Virginia from the north of England tioned a total of three times. circa 1657, and the son of Lawrence and Mildred Warner Washington, who died when MOTHER their children were young. (Mildred Warner Washington was a descendant of King Name at birth—Mary Ball Edward III of England.) Date of birth—1708 Like his father and grandfather, August- Place of birth—Lancaster County, Va. ine was prominent in the colonial govern- Marriage—Augustine Washington, Mar. 6, ment, serving as justice of the peace and 1731 3 Facts About the Presidents Date of death—Aug. 25, 1789 SIBLINGS Place of death—Near Fredericksburg, Va. Augustine Washington was the father of Age at death—81 years ten children, four by his first wife and six by Mary Washington’s grandfather, William his second wife. George Washington was his Ball, abandoned his English estate during fifth child and the firstborn of Mary Ball England’s Civil War, circa 1650, and fled to Washington. Virginia, where he became a wealthy tobacco Children of Jane Butler Washington and grower. Mary was the product of the mar- Augustine Washington riage of his son Joseph, a widower, to a widow named Johnson; from their first marriages, Butler Washington, b. 1716, d. 1716 she had numerous half-siblings. Her father Lawrence Washington, b. 1718, d. July 26, died when she was a toddler, her mother 1752 when she was 12. Augustine Washington, b. 1720, d. May 1762 At the age of 35, after some 13 years of Jane Washington, b. 1722, d. Jan. 17, 1735 marriage, Mary Washington was left a widow Children of Mary Ball Washington and with four sons and a daughter. George, the Augustine Washington eldest, rebelled against her overbearing man- ner and spent long visits with his married George Washington, b. Feb. 22, 1732, d. Dec. half-brothers. He learned surveying and 14, 1799 became a soldier only because she vetoed his Elizabeth (“Betty”) Washington, b. June 20, plan to join the British Navy. She also 1733, d. Mar. 31, 1797 refused to relinquish to him the property that Samuel Washington, b. Nov. 16, 1734, d. Dec. he had inherited from his father. Although he 1781 supported her financially during all his adult John Augustine Washington, b. Jan. 13, life, including the years when he was serving 1736, d. Feb. 1787 as commander in chief of the Continental Charles Washington, b. May 2, 1738, d. Sept. Army and as President, she pestered him for 1799 money and embarrassed him by petitioning Mildred Washington, b. June 21, 1739, d. Oct. Virginia’s legislature for a pension she did 23, 1740 not need. Mary Washington died of breast cancer in MARRIAGE her eighties. She was not much mourned by Married—Martha Dandridge Custis President Washington and her grave had no marker until 1894, when a group of Virginia Date of marriage—Jan. 6, 1759 women paid for a marble shaft with the leg- Place of marriage—New Kent County, Va. end “Mary the mother of Washington.” Courtesy of The Library of Congress George Washington and his family 4 George Washington Age of wife at marriage—27 years, 199 Washingtons took into their household the days two youngest of these grandchildren—a Age of husband at marriage—26 years, three-year-old girl, Eleanor Parke Custis, 318 days known as Nelly, and an infant boy, George Years married—40 years, 342 days Washington Parke Custis, known as Wash— and acted as parents to both. George Washington’s will bequeathed to CHILDREN his stepgrandson a piece of land on the Poto- George Washington had no children of his mac River. Wash Custis built on it a mansion own. He was stepfather to Martha Park Cus- he called Arlington. It eventually passed to tis (known as Patsy) and John Parke Custis, his daughter Mary Ann and her husband, Martha Washington’s two surviving children army officer Robert E. Lee. During the Civil from her first marriage (she had had two War, while Lee was commanding the armies other children who died very young). Patsy of the Confederacy, the property was confis- died at the age of 17 during an epileptic sei- cated by the Union Army; the mansion was zure. John Parke Custis served during the used as a headquarters and the surrounding Revolutionary War as Washington’s aide-de- parkland as a burial ground. The estate is camp and died of camp fever shortly after the now Arlington National Cemetery, the war ended, leaving four little children. The nation’s chief military cemetery. THE PRESIDENT’S WIFE Name at birth—Martha Dandridge Martha Washington grew up in Virginia Date of birth—June 21, 1731 on a small plantation and at the age of 17 Place of birth—New Kent County, Va. married a wealthy planter twice her age, with whom she had four children. She was Mother—Frances Jones Dandridge widowed at 26 and married George Washing- Father—Colonel John Dandridge ton less than two years later. They were in Father’s occupation—Planter their forties when the Continental Congress First marriage—Daniel Parke Custis, June asked George to lead the war of independence 1749, Dandridge estate, New Kent County, against Britain. From 1775 until the war’s Va. (d. July 8, 1757) Second marriage—George Washington, January 6, 1759, Custis estate, New Kent County, Va. Children from first marriage—Daniel Parke Custis, b. 1751, d. 1754; Frances Parke Custis, b.1753, d. 1757; John Parke Custis, b. 1754, d. 1781; Martha Parke (“Patsy”) Custis, b. 1756, d. 1773 Children from second marriage—None Religion—Episcopalian Date of death—May 22, 1802 Age at death—70 years, 355 days Place of death—Mount Vernon, near Alex- andria, Va. Burial place—Mount Vernon, Va. Years older than the president—246 days Years she survived the President—2 years, 159 days Courtesy of The Library of Congress Martha Washington, wife of George Washington 5 Facts About the Presidents end, Martha joined her husband each year in greeted by a 13-gun salute and cries of “Long the army’s winter camp, where she spent her live Lady Washington!” This was the first time doing what she could to ease the suffer- time that the spouse of a President was ing of sick and freezing soldiers, sewing accorded public honors. shirts and knitting socks for them, patching their torn clothes, and encouraging other THE WASHINGTONS AND THEIR officers’ wives to do likewise. GUESTS Martha Washington outlived two hus- bands, all four of her children, and numerous Although Martha Washington was never siblings, nieces, and nephews, but succeeded consulted by her husband in matters of gov- in maintaining her equanimity and amiabil- ernment, she was his partner in matters of ity. “I am still determined to be cheerful and state ceremony and entertainment, though happy in whatever situation I may be,” she like all First Ladies she received no compen- once wrote to her friend Mercy Warren, “for I sation for the services she performed. The have also learned from experience that the Washingtons hosted weekly receptions for greater part of our happiness or misery dignitaries and members of Congress, with depends on our dispositions and not on our the President holding one reception for men circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one on Tuesday afternoons and his wife holding a or the other about with us in our minds, mixed-sex “drawing room” on Friday eve- wherever we go.” nings. The practice of calling on socially important people and receiving them in turn THE FIRST LADY was observed punctiliously by the Washing- tons: the President maintained regular call- The wife of the nation’s first President was ing hours twice a week and received visitors known as Lady Washington even before her every day but Sunday, while Mrs.