PREFACE

The story of Martha Washington's life has not been an easy one to tell, so largely has she, as a distinct personality, been overshadowed by the greater importance of the figure that has stood beside her. As the wife of Washington she has always been presented upon the pages of history ; and thus, with true wifely devotion, would she have chosen to stand. Hence, in writing of Mrs. Washington, except during the early years of her life in Williamsburg, the author has unconsciously drawn the picture of husband and wife together as they appeared to her mind. By this means have come to us some glimpses of Washington as husband, host, and country gentleman, which have added not a little to the charm of a personality that has sometimes seemed remote and solitary in its greatness.

At the outset of her task the biographer was confronted with a serious difficulty from the apparent inadequacy of material, in the form of personal and family letters, all of Mrs. Washington's letters to her husband and his to her having been destroyed at her own request, while some of

her nieces completed the holocaust by making a bonfire of nearly all the family letters. In the pursuance of this work there has, however, come to light so much of interest in contemporaneous descriptions, and from family traditions of Mount Vernon handed down from one generation to another, while the few letters of Mrs. Washington's that have escaped destruction are so characteristic, that it seems possible to present the bare outline of facts, long known to the world, clothed with some charm of individuality and some warmth of human interest.

If it shall be the writer's good fortune to give to readers of to-day a satisfactory picture of Mrs. Washington as she appeared in her own home, and in the official life that claimed so much of her time, she will feel that the many hours passed in research and inquiry have not been spent in vain.

For much valuable assistance and the use of some original letters, the writer makes grateful acknowledgments to General Charles W. Darling, Corresponding Secretary of the Oneida Historical Society; to Dr. Emory McClintock and Mr. Edmund D. Halsey, of the Washington Association of Morristown, N.J.; to Mr. Curtis Guild, of Boston; to Miss Frances A. Logan, Mr. Ferdinand J. Dreer, and Mr. Charles Henry Hart, of Philadelphia; to Mr. David S. Forbes,

of Fredericksburg, Virginia; to Mr. Charles W. Coleman and Dr. Lyon G. Tyler, of Williamsburg, Virginia; to Mrs. Martha Custis Carter, of Washington, D. C.; and to Mrs. Sally Nelson Robins and Mr. W. G. Stanard, of Richmond.

To Mr. William S. Baker, of Philadelphia, especial thanks are due, not only for the valuable information gained from his Itinerary of General Washington during the Revolution, but for the use of the sheets of his most interesting unpublished volume upon Washington after the Revolution. The list is long, but the courtesies shown to the writer during the preparation of these pages have been many.

Among authorities consulted have been the various lives of Washington, especially those of Irving, Sparks, and Lodge; also Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, by G. W. P. Custis; The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by W. C. Ford; Topogra phy of Washington's Camp of 1780, by Emory Me Clintock, LL.D.; the Story of an Old Farm, by Andrew Mellick; Mary and Martha Washington, by Benson J. Lossing; Mrs. Ellet's Women of the Revolution; Griswold's Republican Court; Martha J. Lamb's History of New York; the History of New York, by William L. Stone; the Letters and Diaries of John Adams; the Letters of Abigail Adams, and of Charlotte