[2] Adapted from a description written by his comrade-in-arms, George Mercer.
The bride brought her husband a "little progeny" consisting of two interesting stepchildren; also property worth about a hundred thousand dollars, including many negro slaves, money on bond and stock in the Bank of England. Soon we find him sending certificates of the marriage to the English agents of the Custis estate and announcing to them that the management of the whole would be in his hands.
The dower negroes were kept separate from those owned by himself, but otherwise he seems to have made little distinction between his own and Mrs. Washington's property, which was now, in fact, by Virginia law his own. When Martha wanted money she applied to him for it. Now and then in his cash memorandum books we come upon such entries as, "By Cash to Mrs. Washington for Pocket Money £4." As a rule, if there were any purchases to be made, she let George do it and, if we may judge from the long list of tabby colored velvet gowns, silk hose, satin shoes, "Fashionable Summer Cloaks & Hatts," and similar articles ordered from the English agents she had no reason to complain that her husband was niggardly or a poor provider. If her "Old Man"--for she sometimes called him that--failed in anything she desired, tradition says that the little lady was in the habit of taking hold of a button of his coat and hanging on until he had promised to comply.
He managed the property of the two children with great care and fidelity, keeping a scrupulous account in a "marble colour'd folio Book" of every penny received or expended in their behalf and making a yearly report to the general court of his stewardship. How minute this account was is indicated by an entry in his cash memorandum book for August 21, 1772: "Charge Miss Custis with a hair Pin mended by C. Turner" one shilling. Her death (of "Fitts") in 1773 added about ten thousand pounds to Mrs. Washington's property, which meant to his own.
There can be no question that the fortune he acquired by the Custis alliance proved of great advantage to him in his future career, for it helped to make him independent as regards money considerations. He might never have become the Father of His Country without it. Some of his contemporaries, including jealous-hearted John Adams, seem to have realized this, and tradition says that old David Burnes, the crusty Scotsman who owned part of the land on which the Federal City was laid out, once ventured to growl to the President: "Now what would ye ha' been had ye not married the widow Custis?" But this was a narrow view of the matter, for Washington was known throughout the Colonies before he married the Custis pounds sterling and was a man of too much natural ability not to have made a mark in later life, though possibly not so high a one. Besides, as will be explained in detail later, much of the Custis money was lost during the Revolution as a result of the depreciation in the currency.