This is the FCB podcast network. The breed us alve for tyranny, and they thought so when we were in. America and welcome back to the Growing Patriot podcast American History for Kids. A couple of episodes ago, we left off when George Washington was just resigning his military commission to get into politics. I mentioned that he was also marrying Martha Washington at the beginning of that next year, and that we would be doing an episode all about her here. It is the reason I wanted to do an episode about her too, was bea has Marrying Martha Washington changed George's life and set him on a whole new path. So it's important to understand who she is and where she comes from two in order to understand George's life. So let's dive in to the world of Martha Washington. Martha Washington was born as Martha Dandridge on June second, seventeen thirty one. If you're keeping track, that means that she was about a year older than her future husband, George. She was born on the Chestnut Grove Plantation in New Kent County, Virginia. Her dad, John Dandridge, came to Virginia from England about fifteen years before she was born, and he was kind of important in the area. He went on to be the clerk of New Kent County. He was a colonel in the local Malissa and was a vestryman and warden of his parish church. Her mom, Francis Jones, was also from a prominent Virginia family. Her father was in the House of Burgesses. They got married and Martha was the oldest of their eight children. She had a pretty normal upbringing for a upper class girl in Virginia. She learned music, dancing, sewing, and domestic skills that she would need to manage a household and maybe a plantation as a lady. Then when she was eighteen, she got to put those skills to use. That's when she got married. But no, it wasn't to George Washington. On May fifteenth, seventeen fifty eighteen year old Martha married thirty eight year old Daniel park Custom. He was a very wealthy planter and landowner and came from a really prominent family in Virginia. In fact, the Custis family was one of the wealthiest and socially one of the most important families in Virginia. They were such an important family that the groom's father initially didn't approve of Daniel marrying Martha. They had been courting for a couple of years before he finally approved of their marriage. They lived at a mansion called White House, No, not the same White House where the President lives today. It was a plantation in New Kent County, Virginia and part of an estate of seventeen thousand, five hundred acres. When they got married, they had four children together, Daniel park Custis Junior, Francis park Custis, John park Custis, who they called Jackie, and Martha park Custis, who they called Patsy. But only Jackie and Patsy lived past their chither childhood, and then, in the summer of seventeen fifty seven, just seven years after they got married, Daniel park Custis also died, and that left Martha an extremely wealthy widow while she was still in her twenties. As an extremely wealthy young widow, Martha could have had her pick of just about any man in Virginia, or she could have decided not to get married again at all. She had a lot of freedom being a widow with enough money to take care of herself, and a lot of very prominent men tried to court her, so what would she decide? Well, in the spring of seventeen fifty eight, she met a dashing young colonel named George Washington. He was only a younger son and just starting to gain a little bit of prominence. Now I said that this is when they met. We don't know for sure that they never met before, because they had similar social circles and New Kent County is near Williamsburg, so he would have been in that area doing political work, so they lived somewhat near each other. It's possible that they met casually before, but the spring of seventeen fifty eight is when they actually got to know each other, and that's when their romance kicked off. Martha and her children were visiting the Chamberlayinne family near Williamsburg when George Washington came by on his way there. The Chamberlaine family convinced him to stay for dinner and then to stay the night before continuing on to the capital city. History says that they like each other right away and started writing to each other, and then George visited a couple of times he was making a name for himself after the French in Indian War, as we talked about in the last episode, and about to begin a career in politics. She was a wealthy, young society woman, so she would bring social status to their relationship. On January sixth, seventeen fifty nine, they were married and moved to Mount Vernon, which would be their home for the rest of their lives, although they didn't always actually get to live there. For the first sixteen years of their marriage. Happily, they did mostly live at Mount Vernon. The Washingtons never had any children together, but they raised Jackie and Patsy, who are only four and two years old when the Washington's married. But then everything changed with the American Revolution. George Washington was now Colonel Washington, the commander of the Continental Army. Martha was now in her forties and traveled with him for the entire eight years of the war to be with him in his winter quarters, and America loved her for it. People named children for her and ships were even named for her too. After the war, Martha and George retired back to Mount Vernon, and they were so excited to be out of the public eye Patsy had died at the age of seventeen before the war started, and then Jackie died at yorktown of Camp Fever, leaving behind a wife and four children. They spent the next six years back at Mount Vernon, raising Jackie's youngest children, Nellie and Washee, and then everything changed again in seventeen eighty nine. That was the year George Washington was elected the first President of the United States of America. Neither of them really wanted to go back into public life, and Martha was worried about the limitations that she would have as first Lady rather than being the lady of George Washington of Mount Vernon, but they felt that it was their public duty, so she, Nellie and Washe all went with George Washington, and once again everyone loved her as first Lady while she entertained politicians, diplomats and others. And then after eight years, his time as president was over and they could retire for good at Mount Vernon. They spend the rest of their lives there, and when she died, the newspapers said that she was the worthy partner of the worthiest of men, and they were partners. The Washingtons were close companions and confidants. It also has to be said that Martha's financial backing and social status changed George's life and set him on a whole new path. So before we got too far into George Washington's life, I just wanted to do a quick episode to give you a little bit of background about her and now we can move forward with their lives together in the upcoming episodes. Thank you for listening. Remember that you can get more information about what we talked about in this episode and all episodes at Growingpatriots dot com. They create us out with Jarany stand Everything and they thought so well working America and OU
