NO TRUMPETED FANFARES HERALDED GEORGE WASHINGTON’S retirement from the presidency on March 4, 1797. “Much such a day as yesterday in all respects,” he wrote in his diary, referring to the weather, which was crisp and clear. He spent much of his remaining time in Philadelphia packing furniture and cleaning out his desk, or receiving small parting gifts such as a brace of antique Turkish pistols from a local wine merchant. To his old friend Elizabeth Willing Powel he sent his coach horses, in symbol of his return to the life of a humble farmer who no longer needed to parade ostentatiously. Washington’s avowed purpose of spending the remainder of his life “seated under my own Vine and fig tree . . . in peaceful retirement, making political pursuits yield to the more rational amusement of cultivating the Earth” nevertheless belied his intention to get back to work—and hard. At his request, the experimental farmer William Hamilton dispatched a shipment of plants timed to meet the former president upon his arrival at Mount Vernon. Washington also sent Scottish agriculturalist Sir John Sinclair some pamphlets on the use of manure accompanied by a letter musing hopefully on the establishment of a board of agriculture in the United States. True to form, he was looking ahead, not behind.1
George and Martha left Philadelphia on March 9 for their journey home. They were buffeted by a blustery winter wind, and Martha suffered from a cold she had caught before they left. While she coughed and sneezed by his side, George worried about a bundle of her correspondence that he had accidentally left behind in his presidential desk (Willing Powel saved the letters for him). Still, the couple’s mood was relaxed as Mount Vernon came into view. They both liked to be busy, and there was plenty to do. “We are like the beginners of a new establishment,” George wrote to Willing Powel on March 26, “having every thing in a manner to do. Houses and every thing else to repair. Rooms to Paint—Paper—Whitewash &ca &ca—But although these things are troublesome, & disagreeable as they will involve us in a good deal of litter & dirt, yet they will serve to give exercise to the mind & body.” Within a few days of stepping out of his carriage, he was probably feeling better than he had for years.2
The estate had not been totally neglected, since he had visited it regularly during his presidency. The farm managers and overseers who had managed it in his absence, however, were an uneven lot. He had been forced to fire some of them for incompetence. In 1793, he had let Anthony Whitting go after three years because he “drank freely—kept bad company at my house and in Alexandria—& was a very debauched person. . . . [T]his I take to be the true cause why Mr Whiting did not look more scrupulously into the conduct of the Overseers, & more minutely into the smaller matters belonging to the Farms.” Other managers were well-intentioned but could barely understand the detailed instructions he plied them with.3
In desperation, Washington resorted to platitudes—some derived from the Scottish Highlanders whose legendary thrift he so admired. “There is one rule—& a golden one it is—that nothing should be bought that can be made, or done without,” he had lectured Whitting before firing him. “People are often ruined before they are aware of the danger, by buying every thing they think they want; conceiving them to be trifles—without adverting to a scotch addage—than which nothing in nature is more true—‘that many mickles make a muckle.’” “Frugality & oeconomy are undoubtedly commendable and all that is required,” he told another. Washington often summed up by brandishing one of his favorite adages: “A penny saved, is a penny got.” He might as well have quoted Chaucer for all the good it did.4
Washington had acquired a competent new farm manager shortly before he retired, hiring Scottish farmer James Anderson (no relation to the agricultural reformer) in October 1796. The two had their disagreements, but Anderson was a hard worker and a creative entrepreneur in his own right. Shortly after Washington returned to Mount Vernon, Anderson suggested erecting a distillery not far from the gristmill in order to produce and sell whiskey. Washington considered the proposal carefully before responding that although distilling was “a business I am entirely unacquainted with . . . from your knowledge of it and from the confidence you have in the profit to be derived from the establishment, I am disposed to enter upon one”—that is, provided “the Distillery shall not appear upon a fair estimate, to be too expensive.”5
Anderson took to the business of planning the distillery with an enthusiasm that might have made Washington—who abhorred alcoholism—a tad suspicious. Laying out the steps toward getting production under way, the Scotsman pointed out that he would have to transfer his own abode adjacent to the distillery: “the place of Action, as most of the business will be done at that particular Spot.” Fortunately, he was reliable. Construction began in the fall of 1797, with slaves and workers erecting a still house and malting house and digging a cellar for storage. Anderson oversaw the construction or purchase of the needed equipment, including troughs, boilers, and copper stills. Knowing that Washington would insist upon it, he also kept a detailed and strictly accurate account of his expenditures. There were no significant cost overruns.6
Washington’s micromanaging oversight and continuing addiction to platitudes on thrift and economy might nevertheless have tempted Anderson at times to abandon the whole business and return to Scotland. By December construction was well advanced, but His Excellency could not refrain from chiding his farm manager for underestimating the time it took to lug tools and lumber to the construction site. “The man who does not estimate time as money will forever miscalculate,” he lectured. Worse, it seemed to Washington that Anderson was trying to accomplish too many things at once, without adequate planning, and talking too much about his intentions before he got down to work. “System in all things is the soul of business,” he wrote. “To deliberate maturely, & execute promptly is the way to conduct it to advantage. With me, it has always been a maxim, rather to let my designs appear from my works, than by my expressions.” Anderson griped freely, and eventually told Washington directly that his constant interference had “thwarted” his plans for finishing the distillery. However tiresome his lectures may have become, however, Washington was always fair. He reassured the prickly Scotsman—and overlooked his impertinence—and the work reached a successful conclusion by the spring of 1798.7
The venture paid off. Anderson’s care in constructing the distillery—reinforced by Washington’s annoying oversight—ensured that the operation was constructed and operated economically. The general could also thank his own foresight in checking to ensure that there was a market for the distillery’s product. Before granting approval for construction to commence, he had consulted his former wartime aide-de-camp John Fitzgerald—who ran his own successful molasses-distilling venture—to ascertain whether whiskey could be sold locally at a significant profit. Fitzgerald correctly assured him that it could. In 1799, the distillery produced an impressive eleven thousand gallons of whiskey that profited Washington $7,500. He passed on the distillery to his family as a going concern, renting it to his nephew Lawrence Lewis in the fall of 1799.
While Mount Vernon echoed to hammers and saws, Washington pondered his western lands and his slaves. In time he came up with a possible solution to the problems posed by both. Not many years earlier he had seized upon every opportunity to snatch up territory from Kentucky to western Pennsylvania and Ohio. The prospect of a rapid development of Potomac navigation added urgency to his campaign, and he hoped to see the fruits in his lifetime. To George Mason’s son John, now director of the Potomac River Company, Washington wrote on January 2, 1798, reiterating his passionate belief in expanding western navigation: “To the United States, it holds out the desirable advantage of perhaps the most direct & easiest communication between the Waters of the Atlantic States and the Western country,” while “To the Stockholders, the completion of the work promises an ample increasing, and secure interest.”8
By the mid-1790s, though, it had become clear that the golden dream of westward expansion and commerce would not be realized for years, perhaps decades—eventually coming to fruition with the Erie Canal and other schemes. In the meantime, many clung heedlessly to the golden dream, continuing to pour money into obviously mismanaged ventures that unfortunately included the Potomac Company. When it came to business, though, Washington was no idle dreamer but a hard-headed realist. In 1796, he hatched plans to sell off his western lands and rent his outlying Mount Vernon farms. With the proceeds he hoped “to liberate a certain species of property which I possess, very repugnantly to my own feelings.” He meant his slaves.9
Despite all of Washington’s talents as an entrepreneur, enslaved men, women, and children had by their labor played a vital role in creating his wealth. Time had taught him to view their continued bondage as a grave moral injustice. It was his conception of a moral economy, though, that led him to decide that slavery as a system was not only bound to fail but would, so long as it existed, hinder the growth of national prosperity. In his farewell address, Washington had spoken of a “community of interest” that bound the country together. Echoing John Locke, he believed that men created their own wealth. Their industry enhanced their morality, and vice versa. Fundamentally, though, they produced because it was in their interest to do so. They could enjoy the fruits of their labor, invest their earnings, become more prosperous, and enrich themselves, their families, and their communities.
What incentive did the enslaved have to produce, except their masters’ cruelty? As he had told Arthur Young in June 1792: “Blacks are capable of much labour, but having (I am speaking generally) no ambition to establish a good name, they are too regardless of a bad one; and of course require more of the masters eye than” did free workers. He saw the principle in action himself as, year after year, he struggled to motivate enslaved farm workers who “feel no interest in the Crop.” The conclusion was inescapable: enslaved labor was not really free labor. Moreover, by undermining the basic principles of industry, such labor morally degraded not just the slaves themselves but those who owned them. That had certainly seemed true in the case of Whitting, who “finding it a little troublesome to instruct the Negros, and to compel them to the practice of his modes, he slided into theirs.” It was for this reason above all that Washington came to believe that he needed to free them—albeit, true to the principle of interest, in a way that did the least harm either to the enslaved or to his estate.10
Advertisements for these land sales and rentals first appeared on February 1, 1796. Washington was not terribly particular about buyers so long as they seemed trustworthy for payments. But he was unwilling to rent out his Mount Vernon farms to just anyone. He wanted the farms not just maintained but improved. The object was not just to “make the remainder of my days . . . as free from care and trouble as possible,” and “to reduce my income (be it little or much) to a certainty,” but “to see my farms in the hands of a number of tenants . . . who are professed farmers, who understand and will cultivate them in the manner most approved in England.” Ideally, he hoped “to get associations of farmers from the old countries, who know how (from experience & necessity) to keep the land in an improving state rather than the slovenly ones of this, who think (generally) of nothing else, but to work a field as long as it will bear any thing, and until it is run into gullies & ruined.”11
The best farmers came from Great Britain, especially Scotland, and to them he initially directed his appeals. Washington nevertheless realized that the prospect of dozens of tidy Scottish farmers settling around Mount Vernon was far-fetched, and imagined that in their absence freed slaves could till the fields at modest rents. This would particularly have to be the case if, as he anticipated, he ran into legal obstacles that prevented him from freeing the Custis dower slaves who had in many cases intermarried with his own and produced families.
The dream remained a dream. Though Washington found purchasers for some of his western lands, they turned out without exception to be ne’er-do-wells who signed contracts but never sent a penny in payment. And although he received a few inquiries about rentals, there were no firm commitments. In 1798 English farmer Richard Parkinson inspected some of the land, only to conclude that the soil quality was too poor for his requirements. Reluctantly, then, Washington approached the end of the century with no firm plan for his estate’s future.
He did not, however, sit inactive, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for rent payments. The years 1797–1799 were in fact among the most active of his life, if not necessarily the happiest. He hoped to spend the vast bulk of his time working the central Mount Vernon farms and ensuring that his remaining enterprises were passed down, profitable and unencumbered, to his heirs. However, a series of troublesome distractions—personal, local, and national—hindered his efforts to achieve these goals and sometimes even entirely prevented him from tending to business.
Though renovated, the Mount Vernon gristmill required a competent miller to run it efficiently. Unfortunately, Washington’s longtime miller Joseph Davenport, who had run the operation since 1785, died suddenly in 1796. His replacement, Patrick Callahan, the general complained, was “far from being an industrious man” and demanded an increase in wages that Washington refused to grant. He was willing to offer a good miller annual wages of just over $166 plus “ample” food and wood, a milk cow, a cooper’s shop, and a modest house near the mill. Plenty of men would have accepted such terms, but evidently no one of any ability, forcing Washington in 1799 to turn to Davenport’s predecessor, William Roberts, whom he had fired back in 1785 for being “an intolerable sot.” Inventor William Booker, who knew both Roberts and the general, warned Washington that the miller was still “very fond of strong drink, and when Intoxicated, is very troublesome.” He had lost two wives and been thrown repeatedly into prison, all because of his alcoholism. Washington nevertheless gave Roberts a second chance after extracting from him a promise to renounce “Speretus Licquers . . . to the Day of My Death.” Alas the poor man showed up at Mount Vernon in the fall of 1799 half-dead from drink and unable to work, leaving the gristmill under temporary management.12
Such were among the hazards of running an estate. Nothing, however, could stifle Washington’s ambition to maximize his production. In addition to pestering Anderson endlessly about the distillery, the general sent him extraordinarily detailed plans for crop management, labor allocation, building, sales, and so on, enjoining him to “pursue strictly the means that are to carry them into effect.” Every day, so far as he was able, the aging general rode the bounds of his estate, retiring in the evenings to dine, read the newspaper, and prepare accounts, reports, and other documents regarding the workings of his farms.13
Washington also continued to experiment vociferously with new tools and technologies. Booker had received a patent for an innovative threshing machine, and built one for Mount Vernon in the summer of 1797. It failed to work to the general’s satisfaction, forcing Booker to return the following summer to repair the device. In the spring of 1798, the general learned about a new wheat scythe, or cradle, being used on the eastern shore that allowed harvesters to catch and lay the grain by hand. Intrigued, he purchased copies of the machine and paid for an expert to train his agricultural workers in its use. He also recalled a new device that he had seen at a “Manufactory of Machines for raking Meadows” in Philadelphia, and ordered a copy for Mount Vernon. Just as in the late 1760s, the estate echoed to the sounds of construction and the clack and rattle of a variety of oddly shaped machines.14
The ongoing construction of the Federal City continued to occupy Washington even after his retirement from the presidency. The excruciatingly slow pace of building conspired with instances of inefficiency and even corruption to infuriate him. At least, though, he could step back and leave the worst problems for President John Adams and his administration to solve. This gave Washington time to concentrate on his own investments in two lots north of the Capitol that he purchased for just over $600 in September 1798. He bought the lots purely for profit. Over the next year his contractors constructed two three-story brick houses on the lots. They performed their work so well—of course under the general’s strict oversight—that he assessed the lots’ total value in 1799 at “$15,000 at least.”15
Just as the appearance of political factions marred Washington’s second term, the slow but inexorable descent of the United States into involvement in international conflict marked the years that followed his retirement. This was for Washington both cause for bitter regret and bad for business. The ill-fated XYZ Affair of 1797–1798, in which French foreign minister Talleyrand demanded bribes from an American diplomatic delegation to Paris, ignited a fury of anti-French feeling in the United States. Washington joined in condemning the French government but was no war hawk; and when the Adams administration called upon him in July 1798 to take the helm of an army formed to repel an expected French invasion, he could barely conceal his disgust. Washington agreed to command the army, but only on condition that he remained at Mount Vernon until such time as an enemy force actually landed. This military absurdity—which would have left Washington entirely unprepared to command the army if an actual war (as opposed to a quasi-war) transpired—is a reflection of the desperation with which he wished to avoid conflict, both for his own and the country’s sake. No invasion occurred, but at the time the general bitterly begrudged the many hours he had to waste on routine army administration in the waning years of his life.
Business and politics did not distract Washington from his responsibilities as a family man and, more specifically, a step-grandfather. His step-grandson George Washington Parke Custis, not wholly affectionately nicknamed “Washtub,” was a source of endless frustration. In 1797, the seventeen-year-old boy abandoned a place at Princeton that his family had painstakingly secured for him in preference for loafing at Mount Vernon, riding, and hunting. Washington’s mind revolted at the idea of his heirs squandering his inheritance in idle pleasures, and labored diligently to whip Washtub into shape. “Rise early,” he lectured the boy, “that by habit it may become familiar—agreeable—healthy—and profitable.” Punctual, well-dressed appearance at all meals was essential. For the rest of his days at Mount Vernon, the general expected young Custis to devote himself to study, with breaks for light exercise in the afternoons. Only on Saturdays could the boy take time for riding, shooting, or “proper amusements” as opposed to time spent “running up & down stairs, & wasted in conversation with any one who will talk with you.”16
Washington’s words no doubt echoed his mother’s practical advice, as well as his continuing regrets for his neglected education. They also reflected his studied opinions about the importance of learning to individuals and society. A “well grounded knowledge,” he told Custis, would ensure “your respectability in maturer age; your usefulness to your country; and indeed your own private gratifications.” Moreover, although he of necessity had been largely self-taught, Washington was no fan of self-guided learning. “It is from the experience and knowledge of preceptors,” he wrote, “that youth is to be advantageously instructed.” Unfortunately young Custis remained stubbornly intractable, and fled the general’s discipline just as he, as a boy, had fled his mother’s firm oversight. Washington’s determination that no one of his heirs would be permitted to look on inherited wealth with a sense of entitlement, however, would inform the writing of his will.17
BY THE BEGINNING OF 1799, Washington sensed that he was approaching the end of his life’s term. After dreaming that Martha had died, he conjectured that it might actually portend his own passing. “I may soon leave you,” he told her. With the war scare finally fading, he turned the army over to Alexander Hamilton—still young, and a sucker for hard work—and turned his sights wholly back to Mount Vernon. Much work remained to be done. Early that summer, though—watching his crops sprout for what he thought might be the last time—Washington sat in his study to compose two documents: a complete list of his slaves, and a Last Will and Testament.18
The connection between the two documents became apparent in the will’s fourth paragraph. After mandating that all of his few debts be “punctually and speedily paid” and that Martha have full use of the estate, Washington decreed that “Upon the decease of my wife, it is my Will & desire that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right, shall receive their freedom.” The very young and the old and infirm, he specified, must be “comfortably cloathed & fed by my heirs while they live,” whereas orphan children would be “bound by the Court.” While under the court’s care, he carefully prescribed, they ought “to be taught to read & write; and to be brought up to some useful occupation.” Every particle of his instructions regarding his slaves, he enjoined, should be “religiously fulfilled” by his heirs. For his longtime body servant Billy Lee, Washington granted immediate freedom plus an “annuity of thirty dollars during his natural life.”19
The bulk of the will dealt with the disposal of Washington’s landed property. It was immense. At Mount Vernon his estate sprawled over 7,600 acres. Elsewhere, in Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, and the Northwest Territory, he held a staggering 50,975 acres worth, by his estimate, $444,803. In addition, he held interest in 4,000 acres of the Dismal Swamp worth $20,000; lots in the Federal City, Alexandria, Winchester, and Bath, Virginia, worth $24,332; stocks and bonds worth $25,212; and livestock worth $15,653. This brought him to a round total of $530,000. But that was really just a start. In addition to his many possessions—from which he bequeathed the best keepsakes to his many friends—and various small debts owed to him, there were his many active enterprises: his mills, his fishery, and his distillery, among other endeavors. Recent estimates have put their value at about $250,000, putting his total worth at around $780,000. In 1799 there was no Forbes list of the richest men in America—but it is safe to guess that Washington likely would have come in among the top one hundred. The potential of his estate, though, was even greater. Managed carefully, it could be built into not just one but several substantial fortunes.
Remarkably, Washington chose not to pass on the bulk of his estate intact to a few primary heirs. Instead, while leaving Martha in control of his estate during her lifetime and after bequests to charitable educational institutions, he equally divided the residue of the estate among her grandchildren and the surviving descendants of his brothers and sisters—twenty-three people in all. He left no explanation for doing so, but his motives are not difficult to fathom. Caring equally about every member of his family, he wished to give each of them the financial resources to make their way in the world. At the same time, he did not wish to doom any of them to complacency. Believing as he did that industry was inextricable from morality, Washington sought to provide his relations with opportunities to produce their own wealth. It was the richest gift he could imagine.
Composing the will’s final lines and signing his name, Washington set his sights on the future. Although he had experienced forebodings of his death earlier that year, with his will complete he looked on that eventuality with equanimity. The date of his demise was beyond his control. What he could still control was the land on which he stood and lived—the core of his Mount Vernon estate. In early December 1799, looking forward to the new century due to arrive in a few weeks, he prepared a detailed plan for the work to be performed over the next three years at the estate’s three major farms: River, Union, and Muddy Hole. He laid out how, where, and what kind of crops were to be planted, how they were to be fertilized, and how livestock were to be fed and penned. He designated repairs to be made to outbuildings, and fences to be laid. Finally, he pointed out the principles upon which his overseers and laborers should work. “Every attentive, and discerning person, who has the whole business of the year laid before him, can be at no loss to lay it out to advantage,” he wrote. Men should be guided by “the Wiseman’s saying ‘that there is a time, and a season for all things’ and that, unless they are embraced, nothing will thrive; or go on smoothly.” With these plans and principles in mind, he was eager to see what the future would bring. In 1800, he planned to take the management of his farms entirely on his own shoulders.20
It was not to be. Four days after he completed the plan for his farms, Washington’s own season arrived. On December 12, he rode out to inspect the farms. The skies poured rain, snow, and sleet, but his mind was preoccupied with his future plans, and he ignored the chill creeping under his collar and down the back of his neck. That night he attended dinner without changing his clothes. The next day it snowed heavily and so he stayed indoors, working at his desk and reading the newspapers. He had developed a sore throat but elected to “let it go as it came.” The following night, however, he woke up with his throat dangerously inflamed. His condition continued to weaken throughout the rest of the morning and into the day despite medical intervention that included, according to the backward standards of the time, controlled bleeding.21
By afternoon Washington knew he was dying. His first thought was to make certain that Martha had his most recent will. Then he ordered a distraught Tobias Lear to carry on with the copying of his correspondence, and to “arrange my accounts & settle my books.” His last words, uttered after begging that he not be placed in the vault less than two days after his death—to ensure against premature burial—were “Tis well.” Martha echoed his words. “Tis well,” she said, speaking firmly. “Tis All now over. I have no more trials to pass through. I shall soon follow him!” Two years later, she did follow. But before then, she enacted a crucial provision of her husband’s will before it actually came due. She freed his slaves.22
Martha, like George, had not died at rest—but doing.