For further reading on the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar check out this page.

And here's the plot synopsis for Shakespeare's very confusing Twelfth Night.

[Transcript]

Hello, and welcome to America’s First Ladies. I’m your host, Risa Weaver-Enion.

Episode 1.3: Mrs. Custis, from Newlywed to Widow.

Last week we learned about Pasty Dandridge’s childhood and eventual marriage to Daniel Custis, a wealthy landowner 20 years older than she was. When we left off, Patsy and Daniel had moved to their new home, White House, which was only about 4 miles from Patsy’s childhood home at Chestnut Grove.

Patsy was now a very wealthy woman, thanks to her husband. In addition to the plantation home, they also owned houses in Williamsburg and Jamestown, close to 18,000 acres of land, nearly 300 slaves, and several thousand pounds sterling in English Treasury notes and cash. To put it in today’s parlance, they were hella rich.

Considering the age difference and the large difference in their families’ wealth, Patsy and Daniel could have had a challenging marriage. But they didn’t. They actually had a very happy marriage. Patsy was thrilled to be a wife, and couldn’t wait to be a mother. Daniel was quite ready to enjoy marital bliss after a lifetime without a mother and with a difficult father.

It also helps that Daniel was a good steward of their wealth. He didn’t gamble or rack up debts, and he made good investments. He even had enough ready cash at his disposal that he was able to make loans to other Virginia planters when they needed something to tide them over before receiving the proceeds of selling their tobacco.

Let’s talk a bit about how trade between the colonies and England worked at this time. By the mid-1700s, the Virginia gentry had stopped relying on making everything themselves and had started buying things—lots of things—from England and Scotland. The planters would write out orders for what they wanted, and the ships carrying their tobacco harvest each year would take the orders to England along with the tobacco.

Each planter worked with an agent in England. These agents were known as factors, but I’m using the more familiar term “agent.” The agent was responsible for selling the planter’s tobacco, and then the agent would purchase the items listed on the order using the proceeds from selling the tobacco. You can see how there would be a lot of room here for dishonesty, so it was important to try to find a trustworthy agent to work on your behalf. And even then, the colonists still had to deal with substandard goods being pawned off on them. The snobbery of the British toward their American colonies was staggering.

Daniel kept good records of his annual orders, so we know the sort of things the Custises ordered: China, satin suits, nutmeg, scythes, axes, chairs, tablecloths and napkins, fabric, tea sets, serving dishes, and flatware. Interestingly, chairs were a status symbol, and the wealthy would make a show of having not only enough chairs to go around the dining room table, but also extra chairs lined up against the walls of the dining room and hallway.

The dining room itself was also a relatively new idea. Previously meals had been served in the main room of the house, some sort of parlor or hall. But having a separate room used only for dining was a new luxury.

And you know what else was new? The fork! People had been eating only with knives, stabbing their food and biting it right off the point. By the 1750s, wealthy households were using forks, and it was a sign of wealth and status to have individual flatware sets for each person at the dining room table.

Patsy didn’t have to wait long to become a mother. On November 19, 1751 (about 18 months after she and Daniel were married), Patsy gave birth to their first child, a boy named Daniel Parke Custis, after his father. 

Childbirth was generally managed by women. The pregnant woman’s female relatives such as her mother and aunts were usually present, along with a midwife and housemaids. Childbirth took place at home, because there were no hospitals yet. After giving birth, a new mother was “confined” for about a month. She would rest in bed, nurse her child, and recover from the physical ordeal of childbirth. 

I should say that a wealthy new mother had the luxury of this extended recovery/confinement. Patsy had the benefit of slave labor to run the household while she recovered. Because the Custises had close to 300 slaves, they could afford to allocate some of them to household duties instead of field work. And the baby would have been assigned a slave nursemaid to handle diaper changes and baths. But Patsy likely breast-fed her children personally, as most women of means did.

Patsy and Daniel Sr. both doted on baby Daniel. They were thrilled to be parents, and equally thrilled to welcome their first daughter in April 1753, about 17 months after Daniel Jr. was born. The girl was named Frances Parke Custis, after both her grandmothers, Frances Dandridge and Frances Custis.

Attentive listeners will have noticed that both baby Daniel and baby Frances had the same middle name: Parke. Daniel Sr. also had the middle name Parke, and this is thanks to a quirk of inheritance.

Daniel’s mother had been named Frances Parke before she married Daniel’s father John Custis. Frances Parke’s father (also named Daniel) made it a condition of his will that no one could inherit unless they carried the name Parke. So all the Custis children and grandchildren had the middle name Parke. (That’s P-A-R-K-E for those who care.)

Baby Frances was nicknamed Fanny, which was a common nickname for Frances. In fact, both Patsy’s mother and Daniel’s mother had gone by Fanny. 

So to re-anchor us, it’s mid-1753 and Patsy and Daniel have two children, Daniel Jr. and Fanny. Sadly, 10 months later, in February 1754, Daniel Jr. died of a fever at the age of 2. He was buried at the family burial ground called Queen’s Creek, a few miles from White House. Daniel’s mother and sister were also buried there.

Fever was a very common ailment in colonial times, especially in swampy Virginia. Basically everyone contracted malaria at some point in their lives, but most people survived it. After baby Daniel’s death, Patsy developed an intense fear for the health of her children and children more generally that she would carry throughout her life.

Shortly after burying little Daniel, Patsy became pregnant again. She gave birth to their third child, another boy, in the fall of 1754. They named him John Parke Custis after both of his grandfathers, but he was called Jacky or Jack his entire life.

In 1756, Patsy gave birth to her fourth and final child, a girl named Martha Parke Custis. And you’ll never guess what her nickname was…Patsy! Because that’s not confusing at all!

Around the same time that Patsy gave birth to baby Patsy, Patsy’s mother gave birth to her ninth child—the one I previously mentioned who was born after Patsy had married and left home. Considering that Patsy’s mother was 46 at the time this ninth child was born, it was a bit of a surprise. Unfortunately, Patsy’s father John dropped dead of a stroke shortly after this surprise baby, leaving Patsy’s mother widowed with multiple children still to look after. Patsy’s eldest surviving brother, who was 22, took over management of Chestnut Grove, but Daniel also started adding items for the Dandridge family to his annual orders from England.

Patricia Brady’s book Martha Washington: An American Life provides a short list of some of the things he ordered around this time, including, “fashionable hats, leather and silk shoes, a quilted cap, stays, an expensive Dolly, necklaces, kid gloves, ten shillings’ worth of toys, ribbons for the girls, and a saddle and bridle for Jacky.”

But tragedy wasn’t finished with Patsy Custis just yet. In April 1757, just before her fourth birthday, little Fanny Parke Custis died. No one says what killed her, but it was most likely some sort of illness. She was buried next to her brother in the family plot at Queen’s Creek.

And just when you think the Custis family has had all the death they can stand, on July 4, 1757, both Daniel Sr. and Jacky fell ill with fevers. Patsy sent for medicine from Williamsburg but it didn’t help, so she sent for one of Williamsburg’s best doctors. Colonial medicine wasn’t super effective. There was no such thing as antibiotics back then, and most doctors thought illness could be cured by purging the patient of bad blood. They literally put leeches on sick people to suck the blood out of them. Honestly, it’s a miracle anyone survived treatment by doctors back then.

Based on the medicinal pastes that the doctor prepared and placed on Daniel and Jacky’s gums and tongues, it’s supposed that they were sick with some sort of throat infection, such as scarlet fever, strep, diphtheria, or quinsy. Amazingly, Jacky survived. But Daniel died on July 8. He was buried next to his mother, sister, and two of his children at Queen’s Creek.

Patsy was now a widow at age 26, with a huge estate and two children to look after. She couldn’t afford to spend time in grief though. Within two weeks of Daniel’s death, she had taken up the record-keeping and preparation of orders for items from England.

Interestingly, Daniel had died intestate, which simply means he hadn’t made a will. In a time period when people died suddenly and often at an early age, it’s a little odd that such a conscientious business man hadn’t made a will, but it worked out in Patsy’s favor.

Under English common law, which governed the colonies, widows of property-owning men automatically inherited one-third of their husband’s estate, with the remainder going to surviving children. Conveniently, Daniel and Patsy had two surviving children, so Jacky inherited one-third of the estate and little Patsy inherited the remaining one-third.

Our Patsy only had the right to her one-third of the estate during her lifetime. After her death, her one-third would revert back to the larger estate and be divvied up among any heirs remaining at that point. Remember back in episode 1.1 when I described the dower slaves that Patsy brought to her marriage with George? They were part of the one-third of Daniel’s estate that Patsy was able to enjoy the benefit of while she was alive. 

Because Jacky and little Patsy were minor children, their portions of the estate had to be administered separately and controlled by an estate administrator. Detailed records had to be kept of every expense and allocated appropriately to the relevant portion of the estate. When Patsy bought clothes or anything else for Jacky, the cost of those items was subtracted from his share of the estate. And the same for little Patsy. 

If Daniel had made a will before he died, it’s quite possible he would have assigned a trustee or administrator for the estate. Patsy’s estate and the children’s estates would have been managed by this trustee, and Patsy would have had no control over any of it.

But Daniel didn’t make a will, and didn’t assign any trustees for the estate. Many young widows in Patsy’s situation would have turned to other male family members for help, but her father was dead, her father-in-law was dead, Daniel had no brothers, and Patsy’s brothers were all younger and even less experienced than she was. So she did it herself.

She settled accounts, and wrote letters to all of Daniel’s British business contacts letting them know that Daniel had died and that she would be managing the Custis estate going forward. She requested an updated account from each agent and told them that she expected them to sell her tobacco at a good price, making it clear that she would go elsewhere if she felt taken advantage of.

She even continued Daniel’s practice of making loans with interest to local planters who needed the cash, keeping meticulous records of each transaction. Patsy may have been a young widow, but she had common sense, experience managing a large household, and plenty of money. And back then, as now, money made all the difference.

But as well as Patsy was doing with managing the large Custis estate, it wasn’t something she wanted to do forever. Widows and widowers generally didn’t stay single for long. Most men who lost a wife needed a new wife to take care of their household and children. And most women who lost a husband needed a new husband to provide for them.

Patsy was doing fine on her own and technically didn’t need a new husband to provide for her, but she was still young, and she wanted to marry again and have more children. She loved children and loved being a mother. Having lost two of her four children to early deaths, she expected to have more children to enrich her life.

As a wealthy widow, Patsy would have had no shortage of suitors. The Virginia gentry were a gossipy bunch, and everyone would have known exactly how much money she controlled in the Custis estate. She was the most eligible widow in the colony.

Quoting again from Patricia Brady’s Martha Washington: An American Life, 

“As an intelligent woman, though, she had to be careful in her choice of a second husband. At this time, she was a feme sole in English common law, free to make her own decisions about her property. Wealthy widows were the most economically and personally independent of all American women. As soon as she married however, she would become a feme covert, her legal status, wealth, children, and place and manner of life controlled by her husband. Colonial husbands enjoyed almost unlimited legal power over their wives, even in the event of a separation. Overbearing or spendthrift stepfathers were unfortunately commonplace, a danger to be avoided by a woman with beloved children and their wealth to protect.”

By March 1758, 10 months after Daniel’s death, Patsy had two serious suitors: Charles Carter and George Washington.

Charles Carter had some things in common with Daniel Custis. For one, he was very wealthy, controlled thousands of acres of tobacco plantation land, and he was a member of the elite. He also was a similar age as Daniel, being 49 to Patsy’s 26. He was already a widower twice over. His second wife had died about six months before he began wooing Patsy. 

Patsy didn’t necessarily want to marry another much older man. It was kind of a “been there, done that” situation. And what’s more, Charles Carter had a dozen living children! Ten of them were still living at home and ranged in age from 2 to 20. Charles’s two eldest daughters were already married, and the eldest was almost Patsy’s age. Charles even had a grandson already. Even though it was surely flattering to Patsy that Charles was genuinely in love with her, he wasn’t what she was looking for in a second husband.

Enter Colonel George Washington. He was not wealthy and did not come from an elite family. But he also wasn’t old enough to be Patsy’s father. In fact, he was 8 months younger than Patsy, having been born February 22, 1732. And here’s a little fun fact about George Washington’s birthday—he was actually born on February 11, 1732, but when England switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, the calendar shifted, and the old February 11 became the new February 22. George always celebrated his birthday on the 22nd.

George was a colonel in a colonial regiment of the British Army. He very much wanted to be commissioned as an officer in the regular Army, not just a colonial regiment, but the British looked down on the colonists and didn’t think any of the colonial regimental soldiers were worthy of being real British Army officers.

George also had a plantation in Northern Virginia along the Potomac River called Mount Vernon. It had come to him in a complicated way. George’s mother had been his father’s second wife, so he had several elder half-siblings. When George’s father died, Mount Vernon was inherited by George’s half-brother Lawrence. But then Lawrence died in 1752, leaving Mount Vernon to his daughter, and then to George, if his daughter failed to grow up and produce heirs of her own. As fate would have it, the girl died two years after Lawrence, so George did inherit Mount Vernon several years before he married Patsy Custis.

However, Lawrence’s widow had the right to live at Mount Vernon and enjoy its benefit for her lifetime. She was remarried and had moved to her new husband’s home in a different county, so she agreed to lease Mount Vernon to George. She died in 1761, just a couple of years after George and Patsy moved to Mount Vernon, so it belonged to him outright from that date forward.

Because of his military duties, George could not live at and take care of Mount Vernon full time, so he hired his younger brother Jack to manage the plantation when George was away. By the time Patsy Custis was Virginia’s most eligible widow, George was so frustrated with his lack of advancement in the British Army, he was ready to give up his military commission and become a full-time planter. He was working on a construction project to expand the house at Mount Vernon and was ready to find a wife.

I also should note that George was almost certainly in love with a woman named Sally Fairfax, who was married to George William Fairfax. The Fairfaxes were related to members of the British aristocracy and were fabulously wealthy. They lived just a bit downriver of Mount Vernon at their plantation called Belvoir. George’s older brother Lawrence had married a Fairfax, which is how George first came to know the family. 

It was obviously very inconvenient for George to be in love with a married woman and to be close friends with that woman’s husband. It’s really hard to know what, if anything, ever happened between George and Sally Fairfax. But George had good reason to want to settle down and marry so he could get over his feelings for Sally.

George Washington and Patsy Custis met at the home of William Chamberlayne, a New Kent County neighbor of Patsy’s and a mutual connection. It’s entirely possible that Patsy and George had crossed paths at an earlier time when both of them were in Williamsburg for court sessions, but if they did, there’s no record of it. 

The name of Colonel Washington was certainly known generally among the planters of Virginia because of his military actions against the French during the French and Indian War, which lasted from 1754 until 1763 and was still going on at the time Patsy and George met in 1758. This war was called the Seven Years War in Europe, but some quick math will tell you that 1754 to 1763 is nine years, not seven. This isn’t because Europeans are bad at math, but because the war in Europe didn’t start until 1756. This war was wide-ranging, and battles were fought in various places all over the world. It all ended via treaties signed in 1763.

While we’re on this tangent about the French and Indian slash Seven Years War, I might as well tell you the main reason Colonel George Washington was so well known, because it’s actually quite relevant to General George Washington’s success in the Revolutionary War. 

The fighting in Virginia took place on the western frontier of Virginia, on the border with what was known as the Ohio territory. The British were trying to gain a foothold over this territory with new colonial settlements, but the French and their Indian allies kept attacking the settlements. 

In 1755, Britain sent General Edward Braddock to America with a force of British regulars. George Washington’s colonial regiment was attached to General Braddock’s force, and they attempted to attack the French on the frontier, but they ended up being ambushed, taking heavy casualties, and losing their commander when General Braddock was killed in the fighting. 

The only saving grace in this debacle was that Colonel Washington cleverly led the surviving soldiers to safety. It was the first in what would become a long line of successful retreats in George Washington’s military career. It may not be the most glamorous thing to be known for, but you can’t underestimate how valuable it is to salvage your men and materiel after losing a battle. This is how the American revolutionary soldiers were able to continually re-group and outlast the British Army despite losing battles against them repeatedly.

Anyway, back to George and Patsy. They were so enamored of each other that they talked for over 14 hours. They talked all afternoon, through dinner, into the evening, late into the night, and then again the next morning after presumably having gotten at least a little sleep. By the time they parted company, Patsy had extended an invitation for George to visit her a few weeks later at White House.

If we had George and Patsy’s correspondence from this time, we would have so many more details about how their courtship unfolded. Curse you, 1799 version of Martha Washington! As it is, historians have pieced things together from other existing primary sources.

George and Patsy met in March 1758. On May 5, George placed an order for a ring with a jeweler in Philadelphia, and that was probably an engagement ring. The engagement was likely agreed upon when George visited Patsy at White House a few weeks after their first meeting. George was still in the colonial regiment, so he was traveling back and forth between the skirmishes taking place on the western frontier of Virginia and civilized life in the eastern portion of the colony.

He was also laying the groundwork for retirement from the regiment. In July he was elected as a burgess for Frederick County, where he owned land. Think of burgesses sort of like members of our present-day House of Representatives. Each colony had a colonial legislature to vote on matters of colonial importance, and the members of the legislature, the burgesses, represented landowners in their county much like current-day U.S. representatives represent the voters of their district. But remember that these are still colonies, and all the important decisions are made by members of the English Parliament in London, thousands of miles away.

Because of the delay between engagement and marriage necessitated by George’s military service, Patsy had time to order wedding clothes from England and plan the celebration. Despite the fact that this was going to be Patsy’s second wedding, there was no reason not to make a party out of it, like any good Virginian would do.

Part of Patsy’s preparation for the wedding would have been getting the house ready to accommodate the large number of guests who would attend. She and the household slaves would have been busy making up extra sleeping pallets, washing and drying extra bedding, and stocking up on firewood, candles, and soap (which means making the candles and soap and having someone chop the firewood; it’s not like they could make a Costco run for this stuff). 

There also would have been a great deal of baking, roasting, and smoking of meats, plus brewing beer, making cordials, and importing lots of wine, Madeira, port, rum, brandy, and whiskey. The house was probably seasonally decorated with pine boughs, holly, mistletoe, and ivy.

In December 1758, George officially resigned his commission in the colonial regiment. He and Patsy were married at White House on January 6, 1759. January 6 is also a holiday called Twelfth Night. We don’t really celebrate it in modern America, but the British colonists in America definitely celebrated it, because it was (and still is) celebrated in Great Britain.

Twelfth Night is based on a pagan holiday celebrating mid-winter. It’s a festive time at the end of the more somber religious Christmas holidays. It was a popular time for parties, balls, and weddings in Virginia. It’s also a Shakespeare play.

Patricia Brady gives us a detailed description of Patsy’s wedding day look: “The bride was opulently attired in a deep yellow brocade overdress enhanced by silver lace at the neck and sleeves; the skirt opened in front to show a petticoat of white silk interwoven with silver. Her dark hair was probably entwined with her favorite pearls, and her tiny shoes were purple satin with silver trimmings.”

Helen Bryan, in her book Martha Washington: First Lady of Liberty, describes George’s likely outfit for us: 

“It is said he wore a suit of blue cloth with a white satin waistcoat, with gold buckles on his knee breeches and shoes, and gloves on his large hands. It is likely his clothes were uncomfortably tight on that occasion, because they often were. He complained that though he sent his exact measurements to England, the English tailors seemed to have difficulty making clothes large enough to suit his build, possibly not believing that the measurements of such a colonial giant of a man could be accurate.”

As I briefly mentioned in episode 1.2, George Washington was 6-foot-3, and 200 pounds. He was a strapping man with excellent posture. Seated astride a horse, he looked magnificent. He towered over tiny 5-foot-tall Patsy.

The wedding was officiated by the Reverend David Mossom from St. Peter’s Church, using the service outlined in the Church of England prayer book. Helen Bryan provides a vivid description of the afternoon and evening: 

“At dinner in mid-afternoon and throughout the festivities, the couple and their guests would have feasted on food available at that time of year or traditionally prepared especially for Christmas celebrations, such as cured hams, oysters, river fish, crayfish, crabs, wild turkeys, spiced fruit, gingerbread, and plum cake. The occasion would have called for a long series of toasts, preceded by the customary loyal toast to their sovereign, King George II. Following the toasts to the bride and groom, and then toasts to everyone and everything else possible, the party, now much the worse for the toasts, would have moved on to the entertainment. As Martha and George were both fond of music and the whole colony loved dancing, it was almost certainly part of the entertainment, as were parlor games such as ‘Pawns for Redemption.’”

It’s interesting to note that there’s a well-known painting by Julius Brutus Stearns called The Marriage of Washington. It supposedly shows George & Patsy’s wedding taking place in a church, but it was painted almost 100 years after the real wedding and gets most of the details of the day wrong. There’s no reason to think Patsy and George were married anywhere other than at White House, which was the custom of the time and of the family.

Patsy’s children were also at the wedding. Jacky was about 4 years old, and little Patsy was about 2 ½. They would have been in the care of their slave nurse, and there were probably lots of other children who had come with their parents to the wedding.

You might be struck—I know I was—by how much more detail we have about Patsy’s wedding to George than her wedding to Daniel. I think it’s safe to assume that if George had remained a Virginia planter instead of becoming the hero of the Revolution and the first President of the United States, there wouldn’t have been as much interest in preserving the records of his wedding and marriage. And we certainly wouldn’t be here reviewing the details of his wife’s life.

Next week, we’ll join George and Martha, no longer going by Patsy, at home in the early days of their marriage. 

Thanks for listening to this episode. It was produced by me. The music is by Matthew Dull. If you could do me a favor and give the podcast a rating or a review, it would be ever so helpful, thanks!