The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers (52 page)

Even more unreverential was another book published in 1997,
American Scripture, Making the Declaration of Independence
by Pauline Maier, professor of history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Maier undertook to prove Jefferson was far from the sole author of the Declaration. Other members of the five-man committee, such as Benjamin Franklin, made important contributions, and the Continental Congress as a whole spent hours adding and subtracting clauses. Moreover, Maier uncovered in her research dozens of similar declarations issued by towns and state legislatures during the period when, in John Adams’s words, the sentiment for independence became a “torrent” sweeping the reluctant Congress into the decision to break with the mother country. The Declaration, in short, was “the work not of one man but of many.”

Maier found additional evidence to support her conclusion that the later worship of Jefferson and the Declaration, above all Abraham Lincoln’s reverential tribute to it in the Gettysburg Address, was the product of similar mass emotions. Like the fervor of 1776, they were generated by political turmoil that “prepared” American hearts to receive the document as gospel truth. In Maier’s view, Jefferson becomes a sort of unconscious plagiarist by taking credit for the Declaration. Sally Hemings and Jefferson’s other personal flaws go unmentioned in this demolition.
¹²

That same year (1997), Annette Gordon-Reed, an African-American lawyer on the faculty of New York Law School, published
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, An American Controversy
. Gordon-Reed had grown up in a Texas town where views on blacks and slavery had not changed very much since the Civil War. She had gotten interested in Jefferson when she read Winthrop Jordan’s
White Over Black
. The movie
Jefferson in Paris
had focused her attention on Jefferson and Sally Hemings. She brought to her subject a sharp intelligence and a readiness to take on Jefferson’s defenders, no matter how weighty their academic prestige.

Going Fawn Brodie one better, Gordon-Reed called Samuel Wetmore’s ghostwritten version of Madison Hemings’s life “the Rosetta Stone” of the puzzle and argued that white scholars were much too quick to dismiss black testimony. Essentially she maintained that what was at issue was not absolute proof, which can probably never be achieved, but of “controlling public impressions of the amounts and nature of the evidence.”

Douglas Adair as well as subsequent biographers of Jefferson have argued that overseer Edmund Bacon was an objective eyewitness, with
no ax to grind.
¹³
Gordon-Reed dug out the 1862 volume in which Bacon’s recollections were first published. The last chapter had been omitted in a version published in the next century. In this missing chapter, Gordon-Reed found strong statements condemning the South for the Civil War and argued that the book was trying to reclaim Jefferson as an icon of a reunited America. She noted that Bacon proudly recalled a friend saying the overseer would “go into the fire if Thomas Jefferson asked him to.” In short, he, too, was motivated to “shade the truth” about Sally Hemings.
¹⁴

Many historians were impressed by Gordon-Reed’s book. Charles B. Dew of Williams College called it “the definitive work on the Thomas Jefferson–Sally Hemings issue.” In the media and in the historical community, there was a growing sense that it would not take much more evidence to convince a great many people that Jefferson and Sally had a relationship. In Charlottesville, Virginia, Dr. Eugene Foster was hard at work taking blood samples for his study of Jefferson-Hemings DNA.

BOOK ONE
: George Washington

THE AGONIES OF HONOR

1.
The New York Herald
, March 30, 1877, p. 2, col. 5.

2.
The Papers of George Washington
, Colonial Series (hereafter
PGWCL
), University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 1983–6:12, source note. The biographer who discovered the original letter was Bernard Knollenberg,
George Washington, The Virginia Period, 1732–1775
(Durham, NC, 1964).

3. Peter R. Henriques,
Realistic Visionary, A Portrait of George Washington
(Charlottesville, VA, 2006), 68. In his biography of Washington, Fitzpatrick wrote that claiming it was a love letter to Sally “requires an imagination unresponsive to the niceties of honor and good breeding.” John C. Fitzpatrick,
George Washington Himself, A Common Sense Biography
(Indianapolis, 1934), 110.

4. Wilson Miles Cary,
Sally Cary, A Long Hidden Romance of Washington’s Life
(New York, 1916) (privately printed), 13–18.

5. Ibid., 20 (note).

6. Ibid., 50. Sally Fairfax writes of the family’s “impression that my husband’s mother was a black woman.” Also see James Thomas Flexner,
George Washington
, vol. 1,
The Forge of Experience
(Boston, 1965), 27.

7. Cary,
Sally Cary
, 23–24.

8. Douglas Southall Freeman,
George Washington
, vol. 1 (New York, 1948), 33, 43, 71, 73.

9. Ibid., 103.

10. Flexner,
Washington
, vol. 1, 19–20.

11. Ibid., 21.

12. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 1, 193–94 ff.

13. Ibid., 264–66.

14. Ibid., 261.

15. Flexner,
Washington
, vol. 1, 242.

16. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 2, 87.

17. Rupert Hughes,
George Washington, The Human Being and the Hero
, vol. 1 (New York, 1926), 203, 226–27. Also see Flexner,
Washington
, vol. 1, 162. Washington’s letter implies “he was staying away from Belvoir, that his feelings were hurt.”

18. GW to Sally Fairfax, November 15, 1757,
PGWCL
, vol. 5, 36.

19. GW to Sarah Fairfax, February 13, 1758,
PGWCL
, vol. 5, 93.

20. Flexner,
Washington
, vol. 1, 184–85.

21. Henriques,
Realistic Visionary
, 74.

22. GW to Col. Stanwix, March 4, 1758,
PGWCL
, vol. 5, 102.

23. Peter R. Henriques, “Major Lawrence Washington Versus the Reverend Charles Green: A Case Study of the Squire and the Parson,”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
100 (1992), 233–64.

24. Flexner,
Washington
, vol. 1, 193.

25. Ibid.

26. Washington to Martha D. Custis, July 20, 1758,
PGWCL
, vol. 5, 301.

27. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 2, Appendix II, 404–6.

28. Washington to Sally Fairfax, September 25, 1758,
PGWCL,
vol. 6, 41–43.

29. Knollenberg,
George Washington
, 167, note 21.

30. John C. Fitzpatrick,
Writings of George Washington
(hereafter
WGW
), vol. 2, 170–71. Washington asked that the suit be shipped “as soon as possible.” Also see Patricia Brady,
Martha Washington, An American Life
(New York, 2005), 63.

PARTNER IN LOVE AND LIFE

1. For relative money values, see Economic History Services, http://www.eh.net/hmit. For the lawsuit, see Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 3, 225, 282.

2. Henriques,
Visionary Realist
, 88–89.

3. Brady,
Martha Washington
, 31.

4. George Washington Parke Custis,
Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington
(Philadelphia, 1861), 20.

5. Ibid.

6. Brady,
Martha Washington
, 55.

7. GW to John Alton, April 5, 1759,
PGWCL
, vol. 6, 200.

8. GW to Robert Cary & Co, May 1, 1759,
PGWCL
, vol. 7, 315–18.

9. GW to Richard Washington, September 20, 1759,
PGWCL
, vol. 6, 359.

10. Joseph E. Fields, ed.,
“Worthy Partner,” The Papers of Martha Washington
, with an introduction by Ellen McCallister Clark (Westport, CT, 1994), 149.

11. Rev. Jonathan Boucher to GW, August 7, 1768,
PGWCL
, vol. 8, 122–25.

12. Ibid.

13. GW to Benedict Calvert, April 4, 1773,
PGWCL
, vol. 9, 209.

14. B. Calvert to GW, April 18, 1773,
PGWCL
, vol. 9, 215.

15. GW to Burwell Bassett, August 28, 1762,
PGWCL
, vol. 7, 147.

16. John Parke Custis to Washington, July 5, 1773,
PGWCL
, vol. 9, 264.

17. Washington to Myles Cooper, December 15, 1773,
PGCWL
, vol. 9, 406–7.

18. Rupert Hughes,
George Washington, The Rebel and the Patriot, 1762–1777
(New York, 1927), 164. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 3, 306–7.

19. Some historians cite a letter supposedly written by Pendleton, in which he wrote that Martha talked to them “like a Spartan to her son going to battle,” urging them to “stand firm” against the British. This letter has never been found. It appeared for the first time in a nineteenth-century biography. She may have had such sentiments. Certainly her husband had them and probably discussed them with her.

20. GW to MW, June 18, 1775,
Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary Series
(hereafter
PGW
RV
), vol. 1, 3.

21. GW to MW, June 23, 1775,
PGW
RV
, vol. 1, 27.

FROM GREAT SOMEBODY TO LADY WASHINGTON

1. Fields, ed.,
“Worthy Partner,”
from MW to Elizabeth Ramsay, December 30, 1775, 164.

2. Mercy Otis Warren to Abigail Adams, April 17, 1776,
PGW
RV
3, 75n.

3. Paul K. Longmore,
The Invention of George Washington
(Berkeley, CA, 1988), 204.

4. John Parke Custis to GW, June 10, 1776,
PGW
RV
2: 484–86.

5. Flexner, vol. 2,
George Washington and The American Revolution
, 359.

6. Elswyth Thane,
Mount Vernon Family
(New York, 1968), 48–58.

7. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 5, 281–82.

8. Fields, ed., “
Worthy Partner
,” John Parke Custis to MW, October 12, 1781, 187–88n.

9. GW to Lafayette, November 15, 1781, “I arrived…to see poor Mr. Custis breathe his last.” Fitzpatrick, ed.,
WGW
, vol. 23, 340.

10. GW to JAW, January 16, 1783, Fitzpatrick, ed.,
WGW
, vol. 26, 41–45.

11. Miram Anne Bourne,
First Family: George Washington and his Intimate Relations
(New York, 1982), 101–2.

12. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 6, 211. One senator, previously hostile to GW, wrote: “It was a great dinner, and the best of the kind I ever was at.”

13. Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch, July 12, 1789. Stewart Mitchell, ed.,
New Letters of Abigail Adams
(Boston, 1947), 15.

14. Stephen Decatur Jr.,
Private Affairs of Washington From the Records and Accounts of Tobias Lear, Esq., His Secretary
(Boston, MA, 1933), 62. Also see Bourne,
First Family
, 130.

15. Brady,
Martha Washington
, 181.

16. “
Worthy Partner
,” MW to Fanny Bassett Washington, October 23, 1789, 219. MW to Mercy Otis Warren, December 26, 1789, 223–24.

17. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 7, 231.

18. David Freeman Hawke,
Paine
(New York, 1974), 319–20.

19. Thomas Fleming, ed.,
Affectionately Yours, George Washington, A Self Portrait in Letters of Friendship
(New York, 1967), 243–44.

20. Patricia Brady, ed.,
George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly
(Columbia, SC, 1991). Introduction, 7. Also see Unger,
Unexpected George Washington
, (Hoboken, NJ, 2006) 256–57.

21. MW to Lucy Knox, undated, 1797, Fields, ed., “
Worthy Partner
,” 304–5.

22. Elizabeth Willing Powel to GW, March 11, 1797, Dorothy Towhig, ed.,
Papers of GW Retirement Series
(hereafter
PGWRet
), vol. 1, 28–30.

23. GW to Elizabeth Willing Powell,
PGWRet
, vol. 1, 51–53.

24. GW to Sarah Fairfax, May 16, 1798, Fitzpatrick,
WGW
, 36, 262–66.

25. MW to SF, May 17, 1798, Fields, ed.,
“Worthy Partner,”
314–15.

26. Ibid., Introduction, xxv, 1797 letter to Tobias Lear.

27. EWP to MW, January 7, 1798, Fields, ed., “
Worthy Partner,
” 311–12.

28. Freeman,
Washington
, vol. 7, 620–25. Also see Henriques,
Realistic Visionary
, 187–204. Many people, including this writer, consider the latter the best account of Washington’s death.

29. Fields, ed.,
“Worthy Partner,”
xxxi.

30. Ibid., xxvii.

THE OTHER GEORGE WASHINGTON SCANDALS

1. Nigel Cawthorne,
The Sex Lives of the Presidents
(New York, 1998).

2. Allen French, “The First George Washington Scandal,”
Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings
, Vol. 65 (1935), 460–74, citing Public Record Office, AD1: 485–689.

3. Worthington Chauncey Ford,
The Spurious Letters Attributed to Washington
(Brooklyn, NY, 1889), Introduction, 1–13. The letters are reprinted in full in this book.

4. Ford,
Spurious Letters
, 69–76.

5. Troy O. Bickham, “Sympathizing with Sedition? George Washington, the British Press and British Attitudes during the American War of Independence,”
William and Mary Quarterly
, January 2002, Third Series, vol. 59, no. 1, 101–122.

6. Ford,
Spurious Letters
, 26–29.

7. John Thornton Posey,
General Thomas Posey, Son of the American Revolution
(East Lansing, MI, 1992), 14.

8. Ibid., 14–18.

9. John C. Fitzpatrick, “The George Washington Scandals,” Bulletin No. 1 of the Washington Society of Alexandria, 1929, 4–5. This is the
Scribner’s
article “with some additions.”

10. Posey,
General Thomas Posey
, 272–75.

11. Linda Allen Bryant,
I Cannot Tell a Lie
(Lincoln, NE), 2004, xii.

12. Ibid., 15.

13. Ibid., 20.

14. Ibid., 41–42.

15. Mount Vernon Fact Sheet on West Ford, 2000, 1–2. Mary Thompson, the research historian at Mount Vernon, has done a very thorough study of Washington’s travel data for 1784–1785. It confirms that Washington never visited Bushfield between 1783 and his brother’s death in 1787.

16. Joel Williamson,
New People, Miscegnation and Mulattoes in the United States
(New York, 1980), 49ff. Peter Henriques has kindly given me a copy of a speech he gave in 2005 about West Ford and his relationship to John Augustine Washington’s family. He shows convincingly that the probable father was William Augustine Washington,
John’s third son. William and Venus were about the same age. William died tragically at age seventeen when a gun held by a friend accidentally discharged. West Ford later named his son William.

17. Cawthorne,
Sex Lives
, 25. Fitzpatrick,
The George Washington Scandals
, 5–6.

BOOK TWO
: Benjamin Franklin

THE SINS OF THE FATHER

1. Extracts from the diary of Daniel Fisher, 1755.
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
, vol. 17, 1893, 276–77.

2. Sheila L. Skemp, Benjamin Franklin, and William Franklin,
Father and Son, Patriot and Loyalist
(New York, 1994), 18.

3. Benjamin Franklin,
Autobiography
(New York, 1948), 96. All of the preceding narration is from this source.

4. William H. Mariboe,
The Life of William Franklin
, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1962, 19–24. A half dozen opinions are considered here.

5.
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
(hereafter
PBF
), vol. 2, 353–54.

6. BF to Catherine Ray, March 4, 1755,
PBF
, vol. 5, 503–43.

7. Ibid.

8. BF to Catherine Ray, September 11, 1755,
PBF
, vol. 6, 184.

9. BF to Jane Mecom, June 1748,
PBF
, vol. 3, 303.

10. Sheila L. Skemp,
William Franklin, Son of a Patriot, Servant of a King
(New York, 1990), 24–25.

11. W. Strahan to Deborah F., December 13, 1757 and January 1758,
PBF
, vol. 7, 297, 369.

12. WS to DF, December 13, 1757,
PBF
, vol. 7, 295–98.

13. BF to DF, June 27, 1760,
PBF
, vol. 9, 174.

14. Claude-Anne Lopez,
The Private Franklin, The Man and his Family
(New York, 1975, 83–84). In 1770, when Polly married a young doctor named Hewson, Mrs. Stevenson asked Franklin to give her away at the wedding ceremony.

THE OLDEST REVOLUTIONARY

1. BF to Margaret Stevenson,
November
2, 1772,
PBF
, vol. 14, 299–300.

2. The
Craven Street Gazette
is printed in full in
PBF
, vol. 17, 220–26. A good sample of it can be read in David Freeman Hawke,
Franklin
(New York, 1976), 280–89.