George Washington Parke Custis to George Washington, 17 June 1798

In response to George Washington’s letter of 13 June 1798, Custis hastened to assure his grandfather that the danger was past. The original manuscript copy of this letter has not been found, but it is included in Custis’s Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington. The “young lady in question” was […]

George Washington to George Washington Parke Custis, 13 June 1798

Despite Washington’s expressed belief in non-interference in the romantic lives of others, he was considerably less restrained in the advice he gave to his seventeen-year-old grandson George Washington Parke Custis in June 1798. At the time of the following signed letter, located in the Custis Papers at the Virginia Historical […]

Martha Washington to Frances “Fanny” Bassett, 29 Sept. 1794

After the death of her husband George Augustine Washington, a nephew of George Washington, in 1793, Fanny Bassett subsequently married George Washington’s secretary and close friend Tobias Lear. Before she accepted Lear’s proposal, Fanny sought the advice of George and Martha Washington. Although Fanny’s letter of 24 Sept. 1794 has […]

George Washington to Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis, 21 March 1796

The following letter, which will appear in a future volume of the Presidential Series, was first published in George Washington Parke Custis’s Recollections of Washington (Philadelphia, 1861), pp. 41-44. It was reprinted in John C. Fitzpatrick’s Writings of Washington, vol. 34, pp. 91-93. Both sources date the letter as 16 January 1795, but […]

George Washington to Thomas Law, 10 Feb. 1796

When Betsey Custis wrote her grandfather to announce her engagement to Thomas Law, an enterprising businessman with two children, Washington gave his “approbation” of the marriage, although the unexpected announcement came as a “Surprize” to him. Betsey’s letter, written on 1 February 1796 and received by Washington on Saturday, 6 […]

George Washington to Elizabeth “Betsey” Parke Custis, 10 Feb. 1796

When Betsey Parke Custis wrote her grandfather to announce her engagement to Thomas Law, an enterprising businessman with two children, Washington gave his “approbation” of the marriage, although the unexpected announcement came as a “Surprize” to him. Betsey’s letter, written on 1 February 1796 and received by Washington on Saturday, […]

George Washington to Elizabeth “Betsey” Parke Custis, 14 Sept. 1794

Washington gave cautionary advice on selecting one’s marriage partner to teenage granddaughter Betsey in the following letter, saying in part “Do not then in your contemplation of the marriage state, look for perfect felicity before you consent to wed. Nor conceive, from the fine tales the Poets & lovers of […]

George Washington to Burwell Bassett, 23 May 1785

Washington was noncommittal when his nephew George Augustine Washington, eldest son of his brother Charles, decided to marry Frances (“Fanny”) Bassett, daughter of Martha Washington’s sister Anna Maria Dandridge and her husband Burwell Bassett. Washington explained his philosophy to the father of the bride in a letter dated 23 May […]

George Washington to Sally Ball Haynie, 11 Feb. 1798

Washington’s advice to another young relative focused on a different aspect of courtship and marriage. Sally Ball Haynie, described as a “beautiful young girl,” was an impoverished niece of Washington’s mother. Both she and her mother, Elizabeth Haynie, who was probably the daughter of Mary Ball Washington’s half sister Elizabeth […]

George Washington to Lund Washington, 20 Sept. 1783

In 1783 Eleanor Calvert Custis, the widow of Martha’s son John Parke Custis, contemplated marriage to Alexandria physician David Stuart. Mrs. Custis sought to acquire the thoughts of her former in-laws on the subject but did so indirectly with the assistance of Lund Washington, the manager of Mount Vernon and […]