BEFORE TAKING ON THE BURDEN OF AMERICA, Washington had to deal with a piece of unfinished family business: the chronic discontent of his mother. Mary Washington, with her flinty independence, was still stewing with grievances. Right before John Augustine died in early January, she had written to him to complain of an absence of corn at her four-hundred-acre farm in the Little Falls quarter of the Rappahannock River. “I never lived soe pore in my life,” she insisted.26 Had it not been for succor from a neighbor and her daughter, Betty, she contended, “I should be almost starvd, butt I am like an old almanack, quit out of date.”27 After Mary’s wartime petition to the Virginia legislature, John Augustine, at George’s behest, had taken charge of her mismanaged property. This letter about her supposed poverty shows that she did not restrict her whining to her famous son. She had mixed feelings about allowing others to govern her business. When her late son-in-law, Fielding Lewis, volunteered to take over her business affairs, Mary Washington had shot back, “Do you, Fielding, keep my books in order, for your eyesight is better than mine, but leave the executive management to me.”28

News that Mary was again denigrating him drifted back to George, who wrote to her in mid-February and enclosed another fifteen guineas. In this stilted letter, Washington revealed that his relations with her had grown so frosty that the two hadn’t even communicated after Jack’s death. Indignant at his mother’s accusation that he was being stingy, he poured out his grievances, explaining in brutal detail the miserable state of his finances:

I have now demands upon me for more than 500£, three hundred and forty odd which is due for the tax of 1786; and I know not where, or when, I shall receive one shilling with which to pay. In the last two years, I made no crops. In the first I was obliged to buy corn and this year have none to sell and my wheat is so bad that I cannot neither eat it myself nor sell it to others, and tobacco I make none. Those who owe me money cannot or will not pay it without [law]suits . . . whilst my expenses . . . for the absolute support of my family and the visitors who are constantly here are exceedingly high; higher indeed than I can support, without selling part of my estate, which I am disposed to do rather than run in debt . . . This is really and truly my situation.29

Washington went on to protest that, despite their business agreement, he had received not a penny from his mother’s farm, even though he had paid 122 pounds in annual rent for her plantation and slaves; either Mary or her overseer had skimmed off the profits and forwarded nothing to him. Beyond that, he had given her more than 300 pounds in unpaid loans over a dozen years—all carefully documented in his ledgers. As a result of her accusations, he told her, “I am viewed as a delinquent and considered perhaps by the world as [an] unjust and undutiful son.”30 Once again Washington was preoccupied with a world that might sit in disapproving judgment upon him. To relieve his mother’s distress, he suggested that she hire out her servants and live with one of her children. In fact, shortly before his death, John Augustine had volunteered to take her in.

Anticipating her next request, Washington said that she was welcome to live at Mount Vernon, but he warned her that “in truth it may be compared to a well-resorted tavern, as scarcely any strangers who are going from north to south, or from south to north, do not spend a day or two at it. This would, were you to be an inhabitant of it, oblige you to do one of 3 things, 1st to be always dressing to appear in company, 2d to come into [it] in a dishabille or 3d to be, as it were, a prisoner in your own chamber.”31 This image of Mount Vernon as a crowded, noisy inn, swarming with strangers, was not exactly an inviting one, and Mary never came to live there. The letter is conspicuously devoid of warmth or family affection: Washington and his mother were simply locked in an unhappy business relationship. Washington’s reasons for dissuading his mother from living at Mount Vernon confirm that he perceived her as a coarse countrywoman who would be ill at ease in more polished society.

On March 7 Washington returned to Fredericksburg for what he imagined would be the “last act of personal duty”—that is, the last time he might see his aged mother.32 Then in late April, as he prepared to leave for Philadelphia, he was summoned to Fredericksburg by news that both Mary, who was apparently suffering from breast cancer, and his sister, Betty, were gravely ill. Even though his arm now rested in a sling from rheumatic pain, Washington made the urgent trip to Fredericksburg, telling Henry Knox that he was “hastening to obey this melancholy call, after having just bid an eternal farewell to a much loved brother.”33 In correspondence, Washington always sounded like the conscientious son, telling Robert Morris that he had been called to Fredericksburg for “the last adieu to an honored parent and an affectionate sister.”34

Although the trip proved a false alarm, Washington found his mother vastly changed, her illness having “reduced her to a skeleton, tho[ugh] she is somewhat amended.”35 Oddly, Washington had made no previous reference to her medical situation, which made her complaining far more comprehensible. Betty had improved as well and was now out of danger. One Fredericksburg resident was shocked by the transformation in Washington’s own appearance: “Gen[era]l Washington has been here to see his mother, who has been ill . . . The Gen[era]l is much altered in his person, one arm swung with rheumatism.”36 After a few days Washington returned to Mount Vernon, but the trip must have formed a sobering backdrop to his journey to the Constitutional Convention.

On May 9, 1787, shortly after sunrise, George Washington set off for Philadelphia. While his rheumatic misery had abated, he was beset by other complaints, including a violent headache and an upset stomach—perhaps the somatic expression of his dread about the convention. Until this time Martha Washington had been the loyal, submissive wife in dealing with her husband’s career. Now, as she saw George sentenced to life imprisonment in American politics, she began to rebel and decided to skip the Constitutional Convention. “Mrs. Washington is become too domestic, and too attentive to two little grandchildren to leave home,” Washington explained to Robert Morris, “and I can assure you, sir, that it was not until after a long struggle [that] I could obtain my own consent to appear again in a public theater.”37 This was a more independent Martha than the one who had rushed off to her husband’s winter camps despite her fears of travel and gunfire.

On Sunday, May 13, Washington arrived at Chester, Pennsylvania, and was escorted into Philadelphia by a long procession of dignitaries and a troop of light horse. Greeted by booming artillery and saluting officers, Washington must have been reminded of the worshipful attention he had generated during the war. Despite inclement weather, the sidewalks were densely packed with enthusiastic throngs. Noted the Pennsylvania Packet, “The joy of the people on the coming of this great and good man was shown by their acclamation and the ringing of bells.”38 Washington having shed his arm sling, the newspaper expressed joy in finding “our old and faithful commander in the full enjoyment of his health and fame.”39 Washington saw nothing incongruous about arriving in Philadelphia flanked by three of his slaves, Giles, Paris, and the durable Billy Lee; the fate of such slaves would form a contentious issue at the convention. Although James Madison hoped that the entire Virginia delegation would stay at the same lodging house, hard by the Pennsylvania State House, Washington succumbed to the entreaties of Robert Morris and stayed with him and his wife, Mary.