by Sarah Becker

Copyright (c)2026 Sarah Becker

July begins my 30th year with OTC Media, LLC.  Who da thunk our relationship would have lasted this long? In 1996, I was serving on the Board of Alexandria’s Convention and Visitors Association and was a member of the “Olympic Torch Committee” where I met fellow committee member Lani Gering. Lani was representing the Old Town Crier. The Olympic torch was passing through the city and she was searching for someone to help cover the event: my fellow Board members volunteered me.

One story led to another, including a well circulated column and a multi-year stint as guest curator for Mount Vernon’s Gardening Days. It was in those years that I learned the, often unspoken, history of Martha Washington.

Martha Dandridge Custis Washington was born June 2, 1731, in New Kent County, Virginia, the daughter of John Dandridge and his wife Frances. She was educated in domesticity: “in house-keeping, religion, music, needlework and dancing.”  Martha could read and write, but women then were bound by English common law, to British jurist Sir William Blackstone’s Law of Coverture..

Femme Covert is 16th century Anglo-French for “covered” or “protected” woman, In brief, married women were the legal property of their husbands. Twice married, in 1750 and 1759, Martha became her husbands’ property: the property of Daniel Parke Custis [1750-1757]] and George Washington [1759-1799]..

Martha’s marriage to Daniel Parke Custis, a Virginia gentleman 20 years her senior, lasted seven years. Together they had four children, a 17,500-acre plantation and 300 slaves. When Daniel died Martha’s inheritance from her father was not only returned, she also inherited a portion of husband Daniel’s sizable estate.

English common law “ensured the dower-rights of the widows of property-owning men.”  Bottom line: Martha, twice widowed, was accustomed “to command” in household and domestic matters. She was more than capable of managing money, plantations and slaves.

Martha “settled accounts, arranged for a power of attorney, and informed [others] of Daniel’s death,” author Patricia Brady wrote. “The tone of her letters is strikingly business like,..[S]he notified all that she would be handling the Custis estate.”

“In colonial society it was considered wildly eccentric to remain unmarried, and Martha could expect to turn over her responsibilities to a second husband sooner rather than later,” Brady explained. “Two or three marriages in a lifetime were the norm…A decent period of mourning was expected, but the timetable could be startlingly short to modern eyes. Baldly put, [Martha Dandridge Custis] was the colony’s ultimate marital prize, and she could expect single men to start calling soon after Daniel’s death,”

“Wealthy widows [Femme Soles] were the most economically and personally independent of all American women,” Brady continued. Martha’s top two suitors: the very wealthy Charles Carter, and the “sketchily educated, son of a second-tier planter” George Washington. Washington then was in the process of upgrading his 2,200-acre Mount Vernon plantation, a man mostly ready for marriage,

George Washington, born February 22, 1732, first asked Martha, the wealthier and more socially adept of the two, for permission to visit her at her plantation on March 16, 1758. It was a recognizance mission of sorts. Did Washington plan to stay overnight? Who knows, but Martha did invite him to return on March 25 to continue their conversation. Satisfied Washington resigned his commission in the ongoing French and Indian War [1754-1765] on June 31, 1758, ready to say “I do.”

George and Martha married approximately ten months after their courtship began, on January 6, 1759. It was in this marital moment that Martha’s legal and financial status again changed: from Femme Sole to Femme Covert. Her assets became his, her husband’s only to manage.

On April 7, 1759, George Washington relocated his new family to Mt. Vernon. Her 84 dower slaves also. He was, without a shadow of a doubt, in legal control.

“To Robert Cary & Co. Williamsburg May 1, 1759, Gentn

Letter from George Washington to Robert Cary & Co. (May 1, 1759

The Inclosd is the Ministers Certificate of my Marriage with Mrs Martha Custis—properly as I am told—Authenticated, you will therefore for the future please to address all your Letters which relate to the Affairs of the late Danl Parke Custis Esqr. to me, as by Marriage I am entitled…” George Washington

Washington’s income was grounded in a mix of military and innovative agricultural activities, He may have left his family at times –the Revolutionary War [1775-1783] and the Whiskey Rebellion [1791–1794 ], but his love for Martha and her two surviving children was always and forever.

Philadelphia, June 23d 1775: My dearest, As I am within a few Minutes of leaving this City, I could not think of departing from it without dropping you a line; especially as I do not know whether it may be in my power to write again till I get to the Camp at Boston—I go…in full confidence of a happy meeting with you sometime in the Fall…I retain an unalterable affection for you, which neither time or distance can change…Your entire, George Washington.

During the Revolutionary War Martha made eight winter trips to either New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania battlefields. She proved herself not only a faithful consort and on-site organizer but also a fund-raiser, seamstress and nurse. Revolutionary War soldiers were mostly untrained, without proper clothing. and supplies. Paychecks were often late; illness and injury life threatening.

Years later, in the fall of 1790, she proudly returned to Philadelphia as the wife of America’s first President. Known for her dancing and entertaining the President’s House [1790-1797[ was extremely well organized. Only deadly yellow fever outbreaks drove her to temporarily leave.

George Washington’s presidency ended in 1797. He declined the offer of a third term and the two of them returned to Mount Vernon until his death in 1799. If ever they argued it was probably about slavery.

Martha Washington seemed comfortable with the status quo. George, on the other hand, recruited free blacks to serve in the Continental Army. In fact, he freed his slaves upon his death. William ‘Billy” Lee was the first of his slaves to be emancipated–“for his faithful services during the Revolutionary War.”

But for the love of another good woman, the Washingtons’ Mount Vernon plantation might never have been saved. The restoration effort was born of a boat ride, specifically Alexandria-born South Carolinian Louisa Bird Cunningham’s 1853 Potomac River cruise. May we always remember George and Martha Washington’s service to country, and the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union. Mount Vernon’s Washington legacy proudly lives on. be it the Mansion and tours, the Farm and the Potomac River view.

About the Author: Sarah Becker started writing for The Economist while a graduate student in England. Similar publications followed. She joined the Crier in 1996 while serving on the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association Board. Her interest in antiquities began as a World Bank hire, with Indonesia’s need to generate hard currency. Balinese history, i.e. tourism provided the means. The New York Times describes Becker’s book, Off Your Duffs & Up the Assets, as “a blueprint for thousands of nonprofit managers.” A former museum director, SLAM’s saving grace Sarah received Alexandria’s Salute to Women Award in 2007. Email abitofhistory53@gmail.com