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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

MRS. WASHINGTON TO MRS. SARAH FAIRFAX. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XIII (1794-1798) [1892]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. XIII (1794-1798).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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MRS. WASHINGTON TO MRS. SARAH FAIRFAX.

Mount Vernon, 17 May, 1798.

Whether you are indebted to me, or I to you a letter, I shall not (because it would not comport with that friendship I have always professed, and still feel for you to enquire;) but I shall proceed having so good an opportunity as is afforded by Mr. Fairfax’s voyage to England, to assure you that although many years have elapsed since I have either received or written one to you, that my affectionate regard for you has undergone no diminution, and that it is among my greatest regrets, now I am again fixed (I hope for life) at this place, at not having you as a neighbor and companion. This loss was not sensibly felt by me while I was a kind of perambulator, during eight or nine years of the war, and during other eight years which I resided at the seat of the general government, occupied in scenes more busy, tho’ not more happy, than in the tranquil employment of rural life with which my days will close.

The changes which have taken place in this country, since you left it (and it is pretty much the case in all other parts of this State) are, in one word, total. In Alexandria, I do not believe there lives at this day a single family with whom you had the smallest acquaintance. In our neighborhood Colo. Mason, Colo. McCarty and wife, Mr. Chichestor, Mr. Lund Washington and all the Wageners, have left the stage of human life; and our visitors on the Maryland side are gone and going likewise. These, it is true are succeeded by another Generation among whom your niece, Mrs. Herbert, has a numerous offspring; and as she, Mrs. Washington of Fairfield, and your nephews, Thomas and Ferdinand Fairfax are (as I am informed) among your correspondents, it would perhaps be but an imperfect repetition of what you would receive more correctly in detail from them, to relate matters which more immediately concern themselves: I shall briefly add, however, that Mrs. Washington has just lost another daughter, who lately married Mr. Thomas Fairfax and is the second wife he has lost, both very fine women.

With respect to my own family, it will not I presume, be new to you to hear that my son died in the fall of 1781. He left four fine children, three daughters and a son; the two eldest of the former are married, and have three children between them, all girls. The eldest of the two, Elizabeth, married Mr. Law (a man of fortune from the East Indies, brother to the Bishop of [blank]; the other, Martha, married Mr. Thomas Peter, son of Robt. Peter of Georgetown, who is also very wealthy. Both live in the federal city. The youngest daughter, Eleanor, is yet single, and lives with me, having done so from an infant; as has my grandson George Washington, now turned of seventeen, except when at college; to three of which he has been—viz—Philadelphia, New Jersey and Annapolis, at the last of which he now is.1

end of vol. xiii.

[1 ]The draft of this letter is in Washington’s writing.