How did George and Martha Washington meet?
What do we know about this consequential couple's first encounter and courtship?
Mount Vernon is open 365 days a year, including Christmas Day.
Within months of beginning their courtship, both George Washington and Martha Custis began to plan a future together.
As a young, attractive, wealthy widow, Martha Dandridge Custis probably enjoyed more freedom to choose her own destiny than at any other point in her life. She was only 26 years old, owned nearly 300 enslaved individuals and had more than 17,500 acres of land—worth more than £40,000. Because her husband had died without a will, she was the executor of his estate. However, upon her death, the estate would automatically transfer to their descendants. Freed from the strictures of coverture, she had many of the same legal rights as men: She could buy and sell property, make contracts, sue and be sued in court.
Yet Martha may not have reveled in this freedom. Effective though she was at managing the estate, Martha still considered financial matters to be primarily a man’s concern. Having had a happy first marriage, she probably craved the companionship and intimacy of the wedded state. Having grown up in a large family, she loved children and hoped to have more.
What do we know about this consequential couple's first encounter and courtship?
1. Martha Custis to Robert Cary and Company, 1758 in “Worthy Partner”: The Papers of Martha Washington, ed. Joseph E. Fields (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1994), 25-26.
This article was created out of the collaborative project of George Washington's Mount Vernon and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, and is made possible through the generous support of Donald and Nancy de Laski.