Washington [324]
Sharp-eyed visitors noted how Martha Washington, in her cheerful, self-effacing way, facilitated social interactions, making her husband’s life easier. “As to his lady, she appears to me to be a plain, good woman, very much resembling the character of Lady Bountiful,” wrote Captain John Enys. She “is very cheerful and seems most happy when contributing towards the happiness of others.”45 Neither plain nor showy, she occupied a congenial middle ground. As a Rhode Island merchant noted, “Mrs. Washington is an elegant figure for a person of her years . . . She was dressed in a plain black satin gown with long sleeves” and a gauzy black cap with black bows. “All very neat, but not gaudy.”46 One snobbish female visitor professed shock at the doyenne’s unpretentious appearance. She and a friend had “dressed ourselves in our most elegant ruffles and silks and were introduced to her ladyship. And don’t you think, we found her knitting and with a specked [checked] apron on!”47
Among the major tourist attractions at Mount Vernon was Washington’s stable of Thoroughbred horses, especially those he rode during the war, who had earned a rest. Early in the war his steed of choice had been Blueskin, so named for its bluish-gray skin. In 1785 Washington gave the horse to a lady friend, Elizabeth French Dulany, adding an affectionate note of apology: “Marks of antiquity have supplied the place of those beauties with which this horse abounded—in his better days.”48 Even more renowned was his chestnut Nelson, who had served at Yorktown and withstood gunfire better than any other horse. After the war, Old Nelson was exempt from all work and able to graze to his heart’s content. “They have heard the roaring of many a cannon in their time,” one appreciative visitor said of these two horses. “. . . The General makes no manner of use of them now; he keeps them in a nice stable, where they feed away at their ease for their past services.”49
For the most part, Washington stuck close to home after his years of military exile and resigned from the vestry of Truro Parish, a position he’d held for twenty-two years. Some scholars have attributed this to political motives. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Anglican vestrymen still had to vow obedience to the “doctrine and discipline of the Church of England,” which had George III at its head.50 Obviously George Washington couldn’t submit to such a public pledge without provoking a brouhaha. During the next few years, as the Anglican Church distanced itself from its British roots and evolved into the Protestant Episcopal Church, Washington’s church attendance still remained intermittent. One explanation has been that a minister once chided Washington for failing to take communion, preaching that great men needed to set an example for the community. Perhaps taking umbrage, Washington continued to attend the church but avoided Sundays when communion was offered. One also wonders whether Washington didn’t feel an unseemly sense of being on public display at church, his presence attracting large crowds and adding to the already weighty burden of his celebrity.
After the war Washington was a far more voracious reader than generally recognized. Though hardly a Renaissance man on a par with Jefferson and Franklin, he pursued a broad range of interests throughout his life. Long an attentive reader of agricultural treatises and other books of practical