was of the full average height of women, and that in person she was compactly built and well proportioned. She possessed great physical strength and powers of endurance, and enjoyed through life robust health. Her features were strongly marked, but pleasing in expression; at the same time there was a dignity in her manner that was at first somewhat repellent to a stranger, but it always commanded the most thorough respect from her friends and acquaintances. Her voice was sweet, almost musical in its cadences, yet it was firm and decided, and she was always cheerful in spirit.

CHAPTER VI.

WASHINGTON returned from his visit to his mother on the evening of the 15th of April, and early the next morning he set out from Mount Vernon for New York, with Secretary Thomson and Colonel Humphreys, to be inaugurated President of the United States. After his inauguration, the multiplicity of cares and exhausting duties which burdened him sapped his vitality, and he was finally prostrated by a dangerous malady (a malignant carbuncle), which confined him. in his bed for several weeks, and almost ended his life.

The President had just recovered sufficient strength to ride out in his carriage when he received tidings of the death of his mother, on August 25, 1789. Although her departure was not unexpected, the announcement deeply affected him, for the tie of affection which bound these noble beings to each other was exceedingly strong. To his only sister, Mrs. Lewis, Washington immediately wrote:

"Awful and affecting as the death of a parent is, there is consolation in knowing that Heaven has spared ours to an age beyond which few attain, and favored her with the full enjoyment of her faculties and as much bodily strength as usually falls to the lot of fourscore. Under these circumstances, and the hope that she is translated to a happier place, it is the duty of her relatives to yield submission to the decrees of the Creator. When I was last at Fredericks

burg I took a final leave of my mother, never expecting to see her more."

The death of Mary Washington was felt as a solemn public event. The members of Congress and many other citizens put on the accustomed conventional mourning. The pulpits throughout the land noticed the event with much. feeling. At Fredericksburg, on the day of her funeral, all business was suspended. The weather was extremely warm, yet the heat did not deter the people from thronging St. George's Church, to which the body had been conveyed, and where the impressive funeral service of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America (then just established) was conducted by the Rev. Thomas Thornton, her pastor.

Her

From the church the remains of Madam Washington were borne on the shoulders of strong men to the place of burial which she had selected, followed by a large procession of relatives and friends. In that quiet spot all that was mortal of Mary, the mother of Washington, was laid, on Thursday, the 27th day of August, 1789, at the end of a pilgrimage on the earth of eighty-three years. She had lived a widow forty-seven years, and had always enjoyed the love and reverence of those who knew her most intimately. charities, steady and judicious, were never lavish nor ill considered, but were always sufficient for the occasion, and endeared her to the hearts of the poor. Her sympathetic and wise counsels to the afflicted and wounded soul, her constant cheerfulness of spirit beaming through her natural gravity and dignified demeanor, her unaffected piety displayed in actions rather than in words, her conscientious discharge of every duty imposed towards God and her fellow-creatures, and the habitual exercise of virtues which

AT THE BURIAL-PLACE OF MARY WASHINGTON.

71

mark the character of a true wife and mother, caused Mary Washington to be regarded as a model woman.

"Though a pious tear of affection and esteem is due to the memory of so revered a character," wrote one of her neighbors on the day of Mary Washington's funeral, "yet our grief must be greatly lessened from the consideration that she is relieved from the pitiable infirmities attendant on extreme old age. It is usual, when virtuous and conspicuous persons quit this terrestrial abode, to publish elaborate panegyrics on their characters, but suffice it to say that she conducted herself through this transitory life with virtue and prudence worthy of the mother of the greatest hero that ever adorned the annals of history. There is no fame in the world more pure than that of the mother of Washington, and no woman since the mother of Christ has left a better claim to the affectionate reverence of mankind."

The grave in which the remains of Mary Washington lie buried was long unmarked by any memorial. A quarter of a century after the funeral the Rev. Timothy Alden wrote: "Nothing distinguishes her grave but the verdure of the grass which covers it and a thrifty young cedar near it." Sixty years ago the adopted son of Washington wrote, in reference to the death of this beloved matron :

"Thus lived and died this distinguished woman. Had she been of the olden time, statues would have been erected to her memory at the Capitol, and she would have been called the Mother of Romans. When another century shall have elapsed, and our descendants shall have learned the true value of liberty, how will the fame of the paternal chief be cherished in story and in song! nor will be forgotten her who first bent the twig to incline the tree to

glory. Then, and not till then, will youth and age, maid and matron, ay, and bearded men, with pilgrim step, repair to the now neglected grave of the mother of Washington."

The brief sketch of Mary Washington by Mr. Custis from which the above sentences were taken, was published in the National Gazette, at Washington City, on the 13th of May, 1826. It attracted a great deal of attention at the time, and a project was set on foot for the re-entombment of the remains of the matron, and the erection of a suitable monument over them. This movement was begun in Virginia. It was estimated that the sum of $2000 would be sufficient for this purpose. Public sympathy in the undertaking was manifested all over the Union. The press everywhere discussed the subject. A New York journal proposed that the whole sum should be raised "by the efforts of American maids and matrons." The proprietor of the estate on which was the matron's grave corresponded with Mr. Custis on the subject, and the inhabitants of Fredericksburg got up a memorial.

This effort was spasmodic. Very soon the subject slumbered so profoundly in the public mind that it seemed to be forgotten. Seven years afterwards Silas E. Burrows, a patriotic and enterprising merchant of New York City, resolved to erect a monument to the memory of the mother of Washington at his own expense. He did not propose to disturb her remains, but to build the structure on the spot where she had willed her mortal relics should repose. Vigorous preparations for the task were begun, and on the 7th of May, 1833, the corner-stone was laid there, in the presence of a multitude of people.

The ceremonies on that occasion were impressive and