George Washington: Farmer Part 8

On January 19th of this year he began laying out his grounds on a new plan. This plan, as completed, provided for sunken walls or "Haw has!"

at the ends of the mansion, and on the west front a large elliptical lawn or bowling green such as still exists there. Along the sides of the lawn he laid out a serpentine drive or carriage way, to be bordered with a great variety of shade trees on each side and a "Wilderness" on the outside. At the extreme west, where the entrance stood, the trees were omitted so that from the house one could see down a long vista, cut through the oaks and evergreens, the lodge gate three-quarters of a mile away. On each side of the opening in the lawn stood a small artificial mound, and just in front of the house a sun-dial by which each day, when the weather was clear, he set his watch. A sun-dial stands on the same spot now but, alas, it is not the original. That was given away or sold by one of the subsequent owners.

This same spring our Farmer records planting ivy, limes and lindens sent by his good friend Governor Clinton of New York; lilacs, mock oranges, aspen, mulberries, black gums, berried thorns, locusts, sa.s.safras, magnolia, crabs, service berries, catalpas, papaws, honey locusts, a live oak from Norfolk, yews, aspens, swamp berries, hemlocks, twelve horse chestnut sent by "Light Horse Harry" Lee, twelve cuttings of tree box, buckeye nuts brought by him the preceding year from the mouth of Cheat River, eight nuts from a tree called "the Kentucke Coffee tree," a row of sh.e.l.l bark hickory nuts from New York, some filberts from "sister Lewis." His brother John sent him four barrels of holly seeds, which he sowed in the semicircle north of the front gate; in the south semicircle, from the kitchen to the south "Haw ha!"; and from the servants' hall to the north "Haw ha!"

Nor did he neglect more utilitarian work, for in April he grafted many cherries, pears and other fruit trees. Such work was continued at intervals till his death.

In raising fruit, as in many other things, he was troubled by the thieving propensities of the slaves. September tenth of this year he records that because of the scarcity of apples and the depredations that were being committed "every Night upon the few I have, I found it necessary (tho much too early) to gather and put them up for Winter use."

The spring of 1785 proved an exceptionally dry one and he was forced to be absent from home several days, leaving the care of the trees and shrubs to his careless lazy servants. He records that they _said_ that they watered them according to directions, but he seems to doubt it. At all events, "Most of my transplanted trees have a sickly look.--The small Pines in the Wilderness are entirely dead.--The larger ones in the Walks, for the most part appear to be alive (as yet)--almost the whole of the Holly are dead--many of the Ivy, wch. before looked healthy & well seem to be declining--few of the Crab trees had put forth leaves; not a single Ash tree has unfolded its buds; whether owing to the trees declining or any other cause, I know not.... The lime trees, which had some appearance of Budding when I went away, are now withering--and the Horse chestnut & Tree box from Colo. Harry Lee's discover little signs of shooting.--the Hemlock is almost entirely dead, & bereft of their leaves;--and so are the live Oak.--In short half the Trees in the Shrubberies & many in the Walk are dead & declin[in]g."

Nevertheless he refused to be discouraged and proceeded to plant forty-eight mahogany tree seeds brought by his nephew, George A.

Washington, from the West Indies. He also set out a "Palmetto Royal" in the garden and sowed or planted sandbox trees, palmettos, physic nuts, pride of Chinas, live oaks, accacias, bird peppers, "Caya pepper,"

privet, guinea gra.s.s, and a great variety of Chinese gra.s.ses, the names of which, such as _"In che fa," "all san fa" "se lon fa,"_ he gravely set down in his diary.

The dry weather continued and presently he notes that all the poplars, black gums and pines, most of the mulberries, all of the crab apples and papaws, most of the hemlock and sa.s.safras, and several of the cedars are dead, while the tops of the live oaks are dead but shoots are coming up from the trunks and roots. The Chinese gra.s.ses are in a bad way, and those that have come up are almost entirely destroyed either by insects or drought. None of this gra.s.s survived the winter, though he took the trouble to cover it with straw.

During the fall of 1785 and spring of 1786 he sowed the lawn with English gra.s.s seeds, replaced the dead trees in the serpentine walks and shrubberies, and sent two hundred and fifteen apple trees to his River Plantation. He made the two low mounds already mentioned and planted thereon weeping willows. He set out stocks of imported hawthorns, four yellow jessamines, twenty-five of the Palinurus for hedges, forty-six pistacia nuts and seventy-five pyramidical cypress, which last were brought to him by the botanist Michaux from the King of France. As 1786 was one of the wettest summers ever known, his plants and trees lived better than they had done the preceding year.

During this period and until the end of his life he was constantly receiving trees and shrubs from various parts of the world. Thus in 1794 he sent to Alexandria by Thomas Jefferson a bundle of "Poccon [pecan] or Illinois nut," which in some way had come to him at Philadelphia. He instructed the gardener to set these out at Mount Vernon, also to sow some seeds of the East India hemp that had been left in his care. The same year thirty-nine varieties of tropical plants, including the bread fruit tree, came to him from a well wisher in Jamaica. At other times he sowed seeds of the cuc.u.mber tree, chickory and "colliflower" and planted ivy and wild honeysuckle. Again he once more planted pecans and hickory nuts. It can hardly be that at his advanced age he expected to derive any personal good from either of these trees, but he was very fond of nuts, eating great quant.i.ties for dessert, and the liking inclined him to grow trees that produced them.

In this, as in many other matters, he planted for the benefit of posterity.

In order to care for his exotic plants he built adjoining the upper garden a considerable conservatory or hothouse. In this he placed many of the plants sent to him as presents and also purchased many others from the collection of the celebrated botanist, John Bartram, at Philadelphia. The structure, together with the servants' quarters adjoining, was burned down in December, 1835, and when the historian Lossing visited Mount Vernon in 1858 nothing remained of these buildings except bare walls crumbling to decay. Of the movable plants that had belonged to Washington there remained in 1858 only a lemon tree, a century plant and a sago palm, all of which have since died. The conservatory and servants' quarters have, however, been rebuilt and the conservatory restocked with plants such as Washington kept in it. The buildings probably look much as they did in his time.

One of the sights to-day at Mount Vernon is the formal garden, which all who have visited the place will remember. Strangely enough it seems impossible to discover exactly when this was laid out as it now stands.

The guides follow tradition and tell visitors that Washington set out the box hedge, the princ.i.p.al feature, after his marriage, and that he told Martha that she should be mistress of this flower garden and he the master of the vegetable garden. It is barely possible that he did set out the hedges at that time, but, if so, it must have been in 1759, for no mention is made of it in the diary begun in 1760. In April, 1785, we find by his diary that he planted twelve cuttings of the "tree box" and again in the spring of 1787 he planted in his shrubberies some holly trees, "also ... some of the slips of the tree box." But of box hedges I can find no mention in any of the papers I have seen. One guess is about as good as another, and I am inclined to believe that if they were planted in his time, it was done during his presidency by one of his gardeners, perhaps Butler or the German, Ehler. They may have been set out long after his death. At all events the garden was modeled after the formal gardens of Europe and the idea was not original with him.

East of the formal garden lies a plot of ground that he used for agricultural experiments. The vegetable garden was south of the Bowling Green and separated from it by a brick wall. Here utility was lord and a great profusion of products was raised for the table. Washington took an interest in its management and I have found an entry in his diary recording the day that green peas were available for the first time that year. Evidently he was fond of them.

The bent of our Farmer's mind was to the practical, yet he took pride in the appearance of his estate. "I shall begrudge no reasonable expense that will contribute to the improvement and neatness of my farms," he wrote one of his managers, "for nothing pleases me better than to see them in good order, and everything trim, handsome, and thriving about them; nor nothing hurts me more than to find them otherwise."

Live hedges tend to make a place look well and it was probably this and his pa.s.sion for trees that caused Washington to go in extensively for hedges about his farms. They took the place of wooden fences and saved trees and also grew more trees and bushes. His ordinary course in building a fence was to have a trench dug on each side of the line and the dirt thrown toward the center. Upon the ridge thus formed he built a post and rail fence and along it planted cedars, locusts, pines, briars or thorn bushes to discourage cattle and other stock. The trenches not only increased the efficiency of the fence but also served as ditches.

In many places they are still discernible. The lines of the hedges are also often marked in many places by trees which, though few or none can be the originals, are descended from the roots or seeds of those trees.

Cedar and locust trees are particularly noticeable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: First page of the Diary for 1760]

In 1794 our Farmer had five thousand white thorn sent from England for hedge purposes, but they arrived late in the spring and few survived and even these did not thrive very well. Another time he sent from Philadelphia two bushels of honey locust seed to be planted in his nursery. These are only instances of his activities in this direction.

Much of what he undertook as a planter of trees failed for one reason or another, most of all because he attended to the business of his country at the expense of his own, but much that he attempted succeeded and enough still remains to enable us to realize that by his efforts he made his estate attractive. He was no Barbarian or Philistine. He had a sense of beauty and it is only in recent years that his countrymen, absorbed in material undertakings, have begun to appreciate the things that he was enjoying so long ago.

"The visitor at Mount Vernon still finds a charm no art alone could give, in trees from various climes, each a witness of the taste that sought, or the love that sent them, in fields which the desolating step of war reverently pa.s.sed by, in flowers whose root is not in graves, yet tinged with the lifeblood of the heart that cherished them from childhood to old age. On those acres we move beneath the shade or shelter of the invisible tree which put forth whatever meets the eye, and has left some sign on each object, large or small. Still planted beside his river, he brings forth fruit in his season. Nor does his leaf wither."

CHAPTER XI

WHITE SERVANTS AND OVERSEERS

In colonial Virginia, as in most other new countries, one of the greatest problems that confronted the settlers was that of labor. It took human muscle to clear away the forest and tend the crops, and the quant.i.ty of human muscle available was small. One solution of the problem was the importation of black slaves, and of this solution as it concerned Washington something will be said in a separate chapter.

Another solution was the white indentured servant.

Some of these white servants were political offenders, such as the followers of Monmouth, who were punished by transportation for a term of years or for life to the plantations. Others were criminals or unfortunate debtors who were sold in America instead of being sent to jail. Others were persons who had been kidnapped and carried across the sea into servitude. Yet others were men and women who voluntarily bound themselves to work for a term of years in payment of their pa.s.sage to the colonies. By far the largest number of the white servants in Washington's day belonged to this last-mentioned cla.s.s, who were often called "redemptioners." Some of these were ambitious, well-meaning people, perhaps skilled artisans, who after working out their time became good citizens and often prospered. A few were even well educated.

In favor of the convicts, however, little could be said. In general they were ignorant and immoral and greatly lowered the level of the population in the Southern States, the section to which most of them were sent.

Whether they came to America of their own free will or not such servants were subjected to stringent regulations and were compelled to complete their terms of service. If they ran away, they could be pursued and brought back by force, and the papers of the day were full of advertis.e.m.e.nts for such absconders. Owing to their color and the ease with which they found sympathizers among the white population, however, the runaways often managed to make good their escape.

To give a complete list of Washington's indentured servants, even if it were possible, would be tedious and tiresome. For the most part he bought them in order to obtain skilled workmen. Thus in 1760 we find him writing to a Doctor Ross, of Philadelphia, to purchase for him a joiner, a brick-layer and a gardener, if any ship with servants was in port. As late as 1786 he bought the time of a Dutchman named Overdursh, who was a ditcher and mower, and of his wife, a spinner, washer and milker; also their daughter. The same year he "received from on board the Brig Anna, from Ireland, two servant men for whom I agreed yesterday--viz--Thomas Ryan, a shoemaker, and Cavan Bowen a Tayler Redemptioners for 3 years service by Indenture." These cost him twelve pounds each. The story of his purchase of servants for his western lands is told in another place, as is also that of his plan to import Palatines for the same purpose.

On the day of Lexington and Concord, but before the news of that conflict reached Virginia, two of his indentured servants ran away and he published a lengthy advertis.e.m.e.nt of them in the Virginia _Gazette_, offering a reward of forty dollars for the return of both or twenty dollars for the return of either. They were described as follows:

"THOMAS SPEARS, a joiner, born in _Bristol_, about 20 years of age, 5 feet 6 inches and a half high, slender made. He has light grey or blueish colored eyes, a little pock-marked, and freckled, with sandy colored hair, cut short; his voice is coa.r.s.e, and somewhat drawling. He took with him a coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of light brown duffil, with black horn b.u.t.tons, a light colored cloth waistcoat, old leather breeches, check and oznabrig shirts, a pair of old ribbed ditto, new oznabrig trowsers, and a felt hat, not much the worse for wear. WILLIAM WEBSTER, a brick maker, born in _Scotland_, and talks pretty broad. He is about 5 feet six inches high and well made, rather turned of 30, with light brown hair, and roundish face.... They went off in a small yawl, with turpentine sides and bottom, the inside painted with a mixture of tar and red lead."

In the course of his business career Washington also employed a considerable number of free white men, who likewise were usually skilled workers or overseers. He commonly engaged them for the term of one year and by written contracts, which he drew up himself, a thing he had learned to do when a boy by copying legal forms. Many of these papers still survive and contracts with joiners and gardeners jostle inaugural addresses and opinions of cabinet meetings.

As a rule the hired employees received a house, an allowance of corn, flour, meat and perhaps other articles, the money payment being comparatively small.

Some of the contracts contain peculiar stipulations. That with a certain overseer provided: "And whereas there are a number of whiskey stills very contiguous to the said Plantations, and many idle, drunken and dissolute People continually resorting the same, priding themselves in debauching sober and well-inclined Persons the said Edd. Voilett doth promise as well for his own sake as his employers to avoid them as he ought."

Probably most readers have heard of the famous contract with the gardener Philip Bater, who had a weakness for the output of stills such as those mentioned above. It was executed in 1787 and, in consideration of Bater's agreement "not to be disguised with liquor except on times hereinafter mentioned," provided that he should be given "four dollars at Christmas, with which he may be drunk four days and four nights; two dollars at Easter to effect the same purpose; two dollars at Whitsuntide to be drunk for two days; a dram in the morning, and a drink of grog at dinner at noon."

Washington's most famous white servant was Thomas Bishop, who figures in some books as a negro. He had been the personal servant of General Braddock, and tradition says that the dying General commended him to Washington. At all events Washington took him into his service at ten pounds per year and, except for a short interval about 1760, Bishop remained one of his retainers until death. It was Bishop and John Alton who accompanied Washington on his trip to New York and Boston in 1756--that trip in the course of which, according to imaginative historians, the young officer became enamored of the heiress Mary Phillipse. Doubtless the men made a brave show along the way, for we know that Washington had ordered for them "2 complete livery suits for servants; with a spare cloak and all other necessary tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs for two suits more. I would have you choose the livery by our arms, only as the field of arms is white, I think the clothes had better not be quite so, but nearly like the inclosed. The tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and facings of scarlet, and a scarlet waist coat. If livery lace is not quite disused, I should be glad to have the cloaks laced. I like that fashion best, and two silver laced hats for the above servants."

When the Revolution came Bishop was too old to take the field and was left at home as the manager of a plantation. He was allowed a house, for he had married and was now the father of a daughter. He lived to a great age, but on fair days, when the Farmer was at home, the old man always made it a point to grasp his cane and walk out to the road to see his master ride by, to salute him and to pa.s.s a friendly word. He seems to have thought of leaving Mount Vernon with his daughter in 1794, for the President wrote to Pearce: "Old Bishop must be taken care of whether he goes or stays." He died the following January, while Washington was away in Philadelphia.

Custis tells an amusing story of Bishop's daughter Sally. Following the Revolution two of Washington's aides-de-camp, Colonels Smith and Humphreys, the latter a poet of some pretensions, spent considerable time at Mount Vernon arranging the General's military papers. One afternoon Smith strolled out from the Mansion House for relaxation and came upon Sally, then in her teens and old enough to be interesting to a soldier, milking a cow. When she started for the house with the pail of milk the Colonel gallantly stepped forward and asked to be permitted to carry it. But Sally had heard from her father dire tales of what befell damsels who had anything to do with military men and the fact that Smith was a fine-looking young fellow in no way lessened her sense of peril. In great panic she flung down the pail, splashing the contents over the officer, and ran screaming to the house. Smith followed, intent upon allaying her alarm and ran plump into old Bishop, who at once accused him of attempting to philander with the girl, turned a deaf ear to all the Colonel's explanations, and declared that he would bring word of the offense to his honor the General, nay more, to Mrs. Washington!

In great alarm the Colonel betook himself toward the Mansion House pondering upon some way of getting himself out of the sc.r.a.pe he had fallen into. At last he bethought himself of Billy Lee, the mulatto body servant, and these two old soldiers proceeded to hold a council of war.

Smith said: "It's bad enough, Billy, for this story to get to the General's ears, but to those of the lady will never do; and then there's Humphreys, he will be out upon me in a d--d long poem that will spread my misfortunes from Dan to Beersheba!" At last it was decided that Billy should act as special amba.s.sador to Bishop and endeavor to divert him from his purpose. Meanwhile Bishop had got out his old clothes--c.u.mberland c.o.c.ked hat and all--of the period of the French War, had dressed with great care and, taking up his staff, had laid his line of march straight to the Mansion House. Billy met him midway upon the road and much skirmishing ensued, Billy taking two lines of attack: first, that Smith was a perfect gentleman, and, second, that Bishop had no business to have such a devilishly pretty daughter. Finally these tactics prevailed, Bishop took the right about, and a guinea dropped into the amba.s.sador's palm completed the episode.

In due time Sally lost her dreadful fear of men and married the plantation carpenter, Thomas Green, with whose shiftless ways, described elsewhere, Washington put up for a long time for the sake of "his family." Ultimately Green quitted Washington's service and seems to have deserted his wife or else died; at all events she and her family were left in distressed circ.u.mstances. She wrote a letter to Washington begging a.s.sistance and he instructed his manager to aid her to the extent of 20 but to tell her that if she set up a shop in Alexandria, as she thought of doing, she must not buy anything of his negroes. He seems to have allowed her a little wood, flour and meat at killing time and in 1796 instructed Pearce that if she and her family were really in distress, as reported, to afford them some relief, "but in my opinion it had better be in anything than money, for I very strongly suspect that all that has, and perhaps all that will be given to her in that article, is applied more in rigging herself, than in the purchase of real and useful necessaries for her family."

By his will Washington left Sally Green and Ann Walker, daughter of John Alton, each one hundred dollars in "consideration of the attachment of their father[s] to me."

Alton entered Washington's service even before Bishop, accompanying him as a body servant on the Braddock campaign and suffering a serious illness. He subsequently was promoted to the management of a plantation and enjoyed Washington's confidence and esteem. It was with a sad heart that Washington penned in his diary for 1785: "Last night Jno. Alton an Overseer of mine in the Neck--an old & faithful Servant who has lived with me 30 odd years died--and this evening the wife of Thos. Bishop, another old Servant who had lived with me an equal number of years also died."

The adoption of Mrs. Washington's two youngest grandchildren, Nelly Custis and George Washington Custis, made necessary the employment of a tutor. One applicant was Noah Webster, who visited Mount Vernon in 1785, but for some reason did not engage. A certain William Shaw had charge for almost a year and then in 1786 Tobias Lear, a native of New Hampshire and a graduate of Harvard, was employed. It is supposed that some of the lessons were taught in the small circular building in the garden; Washington himself refers to it as "the house in the Upper Garden called the School house."

Lear's duties were by no means all pedagogical and ultimately he became Washington's private secretary. In Philadelphia he and his family lived in the presidential mansion. Washington had for him "a particular friendship," an almost fatherly affection. His interest in Lear's little son Lincoln was almost as great as he would have bestowed upon his own grandson. Apropos of the recovery of the child from a serious illness he wrote in 1793: "It gave Mrs. Washington, myself, and all who knew him sincere pleasure to hear that our little favourite had arrived safe and was in good health at Portsmouth--we sincerely wish him a long continuance of the latter--that he may be always as charming and promising as he now is--that he may live to be a comfort and blessing to you--and an ornament to his Country. As a token of my affection for him I send him a ticket in the lottery that's now drawing in the Federal City; if it should be his fortune to draw the Hotel, it will add to the pleasure I feel in giving it."

Truly a rather singular gift for a child, we would think in these days.

Let us see how it turned out. The next May Washington wrote to Lear, then in Europe on business for the Potomac Navigation Company, of which he had become president: "Often, through the medium of Mr. Langdon, we hear of your son Lincoln, and with pleasure, that he continues to be the healthy and sprightly child he formerly was. He declared if his ticket should turn up a prize, he would go and live in the Federal City. He did not consider, poor little fellow, that some of the prizes would hardly build him a baby house nor foresee that one of these small tickets would be his lot, having drawn no more than ten dollars."

Lear's first wife had died the year before of yellow fever at the President's house in Philadelphia, and for his second he took the widow of George A. Washington--f.a.n.n.y--who was a niece of Martha Washington, being a daughter of Anna Dandridge Ba.s.sett and Colonel Burwell Ba.s.sett.

This alliance tended to strengthen the friendly relations between Lear and the General. In Washington's last moments Lear held his dying hand and later penned a n.o.ble description of the final scene that reveals a man of high and tender sentiments with a true appreciation of his benefactor's greatness. Washington willed him the use of three hundred sixty acres east of Hunting Creek during life. When f.a.n.n.y Lear died, Lear married Frances Dandridge Henley, another niece of Mrs. Washington.

Lear's descendants still own a quilt made by Martha Washington and given to this niece.