Washington [392]
En route to New York, Martha had no better luck than her husband in escaping the hordes who competed to greet her. Nevertheless, as she got her first taste of being first lady—the term was not adopted until later administrations—she experienced a rising sense of excitement. Upon reaching the outskirts of Philadelphia, she was hailed by the state’s chief executive, and a cavalry honor guard conducted her into town. On May 27 the new president took time out from his duties to receive his wife at Elizabethtown, where she got the same tumultuous reception bestowed on him a month earlier. As Martha wrote appreciatively to Fanny, the welcoming committee had come “with the fine barge you have seen so much said of in the papers, with the same oarsmen that carried the P[resident] to New York.”73 Little Washy Custis was flabbergasted by the boat ride and by the grand parade that swept up the entire party the moment the big, burly governor of New York, George Clinton, received them on the Manhattan side. Meanwhile sister Nelly spent hours at the window on Cherry Street, transfixed by the fancy carriages passing down below.
No sooner had she arrived in the capital than Martha learned that she would be a prop in an elaborate piece of political theater. One day after her arrival, she had to host a dinner for congressional leaders, and the day after that, all of New York society seemed to cram into the Cherry Street mansion for her first reception—a function for which she had not been consulted. She was plunged into a giddy whirl of activity. “I have not had one half hour to myself since the day of my arrival,” she told Fanny in early June.74 She narrated this abrupt transformation with a note of quiet wonder: the woman who had been dubious about this new life sounded positively breathless with amazement. She had been taken in hand by a professional hairdresser, a novel experience for her. “My hair is set and dressed every day and I have put on white muslin habits for the summer,” she wrote home in early June. “You would, I fear, think me a good deal in the fashion if you could but see me.”75
The town was enchanted with Martha Washington, whose conviviality offset her husband’s reserve. She won over the toughest critic: the wife of the vice president, who found her the perfect republican counterpart of her husband. “I took the earliest opportunity . . . to go and pay my respects to Mrs. Washington,” Abigail Adams informed her sister. “She received me with great ease and politeness. She is plain in her dress, but that plainness is the best of every article . . . Her hair is white, her teeth beautiful, her person rather short than otherwise.”76 The favorable impression grew upon second viewing: “Mrs. Washington is one of those unassuming characters which create love and esteem. A most becoming pleasantness sits upon her countenance and an unaffected deportment which renders her the object of veneration and respect.”77
A pragmatic woman, Martha Washington resigned herself to the duties of a presidential wife, but a distinct touch of discontent lingered. She was quietly rebellious, chafing at her restricted freedom. In late October she unburdened herself to Fanny: “I live a very dull life here and know nothing that passes in the town. I never go to the public place. Indeed, I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else.” She complained of “certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from. And as I cannot do as I like, I am obstinate and stay at home a great deal.”78 Obviously there were limits to her acquiescence, and she adopted an increasingly satiric tone when talking about the fashionable people of New York. When she sent Fanny a watch, she described it as “of the newest fashion, if that has any influence on your taste.” Then she added tartly: “It will last as long as the fashion—and by that