Washington [56]
In 1758 Washington’s aspirations still outstripped his means, and he resorted to ruses to make his abode seem more opulent. Unable to afford a stone house, he employed a method known as rusticated boards that created the illusion of a stone exterior. First plain pine boards were cut and beveled in a way that mimicked stone blocks. Then white sand from the Chesapeake Bay was mingled with white paint, which lent the painted wood the rough, granular surface of stone. In many respects, Mount Vernon is a masterpiece of trompe l’oeil. Washington used another sleight of hand on his study walls, a technique called “graining” that transformed cheap, locally available woods, such as southern yellow pine or tulip poplar, into something resembling expensive imported hardwoods, such as mahogany or black walnut.
Mount Vernon’s history is inseparable from that of its resident slaves, who toiled in its shadows and shaped every inch of it. The mansion renovation absorbed a vast amount of human labor: sixteen thousand bricks were forged for two new chimneys that arose at either end of the house, and slaves scoured nearby woods for the white oak that underlay roof shingles. For more specialized work, Washington typically hired a white craftsman or indentured servant to supervise skilled slaves as assistants. By the late 1750s Washington had assembled an expert team of seven slave carpenters. During the remodeling, overseer Humphrey Knight assured Washington that he didn’t hesitate to apply the lash, if necessary, to these enslaved artisans: “As to the carpenters, I have minded ’em all I posably could and has whipt ’em when I could see a fault.”4 It was a relatively rare example in Mount Vernon annals of an overseer confessing that he whipped slaves, a practice Washington grew to abhor, though he condoned it on rare occasions.
AS GEORGE WASHINGTON introduced new splendor at Mount Vernon, he needed a wife to complete the pretty scene, and Martha Dandridge Custis made her timely appearance. Their speedy courtship began in mid-March 1758, right after Washington journeyed to Williamsburg to consult Dr. John Amson, who allayed his medical fright by reassuring him that he was recovering from dysentery. Relieved and elated, Washington rode off to nearby New Kent County to stay with his friend Richard Chamberlayne, who introduced him to his neighbor, the widow Custis. Her husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had died the previous July, as had two of her children in early childhood. She now lived with her four-year-old son John Parke (called Jacky) and two-year-old daughter Martha Parke (called Patsy) in baronial splendor on the Pamunkey River at a bucolic mansion known, prophetically enough, as the White House. Family legend suggests a spontaneous romance between George and Martha, but the mutual attraction may well have been anticipated. Though this was their first documented meeting, their social circles must have crisscrossed in the small, clubby world of the Williamsburg elite.
On leave from the Virginia Regiment, Washington courted Martha with the crisp efficiency of a military man laying down a well-planned siege. He spent that first night at the White House before returning to Williamsburg—he tipped the servants liberally to strengthen his image as a wealthy suitor—and dropped by twice more during the first half of 1758. A brisk competition had already arisen to snare the wealthy widow. A prosperous tobacco planter and widower named Charles Carter, who was nearly twice her age, had grown enamored of the short, attractive woman with the “uncommon sweetness of temper,” as he saw it.5 Carter had sired a dozen offspring in his previous marriage, and Martha, twenty-six, may have been intimidated by the prospect of being stepmother to this numerous brood. Carter faced stiff competition from Washington, a tall, handsome, young military hero with room both in his heart and in his home for a wife and two children. To a solitary, anxious widow, George Washington could only have appeared manly, rock-solid, and utterly fearless.
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