George Steptoe Washington

George Steptoe Washington (August 17, 1771 – January 10, 1809) was a Virginia planter and militia officer who died at the age of 37 of tuberculosis.

George Steptoe Washington
Born(1771-08-17)August 17, 1771
Harewood, Berkeley County, Virginia, British America
DiedJanuary 10, 1809(1809-01-10) (aged 37)
Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
Occupation(s)Planter, Militia officer
Spouse
Lucy Washington
​
(m. 1793)​
Children4
Parent(s)Samuel Washington
Anne Steptoe
RelativesWashington family

He was a nephew of the first President of the United States George Washington, and one of the late President's seven executors. He was the grandfather of Eugenia Scholay Washington (1838–1900) who founded the lineage societies Daughters of the American Revolution and Daughters of the Founders and Patriots of America.[1][2]

Early life and education

George Steptoe Washington was born August 17, 1771, at Harewood, his father's plantation in Berkeley County, Virginia (now Jefferson County in West Virginia). He was the fourth of seven children (but the eldest surviving son) born to Samuel Washington and his fourth wife, Anne Steptoe, and like his father, would ultimately die young of tuberculosis.[3]

George Steptoe Washington was named for his uncle, President George Washington,[4] while his middle name reflected his maternal heritage. The family also included four brothers and two sisters (as well as several half-brothers and sisters): Ferdinand Washington (1767–1788), Frederick Augustus Washington (1768–1769), Lucinda Washington (1769–1770), Lawrence Augustine Washington (1774–1824), Harriet Washington (1776–1822), and Thomas Washington (1778–1838).[3]

After their father's death, he and brother Lawrence Augustine and sister Harriet, went to live with their uncle George Washington.[5] The future president paid for him and his brother to be educated at Georgetown academy,[4][6] According to historian Ron Chernow, "they were wild and uncontrollable and a constant trial to Washington".[7][8]

G.S. Washington studied law in Philadelphia with Edmund Randolph, and later briefly served as his uncle's secretary. who sent letters of encouragement and, occasionally of reproof.[9]

Marriage and family life

While in Philadelphia in 1793, George, who was twenty-two years of age, eloped with Lucy Anne Payne (1769–1846), a sister of future First Lady Dolley Madison. Lucy was only fifteen, and a member of the Society of Friends, who disowned her because of her marriage. The families reconciled, and later Lucy's mother Mary Coles Payne would bring the younger Payne children to Harewood to live with the Washingtons. The parlor of Harewood was the site of the marriage of James Madison and Dolley Payne Todd in 1794.[10] Together, George and Lucy had four children:[3]

  • George Steptoe Washington (1796–1796), who died in infancy.[3]
  • Samuel Walter Washington (1797–1831), a medical doctor who married Louisa Clemson (b. 1805) and had three daughters.[3]
  • William Temple Washington (1800–1877), who married Margaret Calhoun Fletcher (1805–1865) and had issue.[3]
  • George Steptoe Washington, Jr. (1806–1831), who married Gabriella Augusta Hawkins but had no children.[3]

Career

Although not yet of legal age when his father died in 1781,[11] George inherited Harewood plantation,[12] as well as other properties in what became West Virginia long after his death.

This Washington was also one of the seven executors responsible for executing his late uncle's last will and testament. Although the active executors were his cousins Bushrod Washington (son of John Augustine Washington, whose legal education General George Washington also helped pay for and who become the named heir to Mount Vernon plantation) and the late President's former secretary (and husband of his step-daughter Nellie Park Custis), Lawrence Lewis, George Steptoe Washington was also a named executor and received one of the late general's swords. The other executors were Martha Washington, William Augustine Washington (son of Augustine Washington Jr.), Samuel Washington (son of Charles Washington) and Nellie's brother George Washington Parke Custis (when he reached legal age).[13]

G.S. Washington operated of his Harewood plantation using enslaved labor. He also bought and sold a number of parcels of land in Virginia and elsewhere.[12] He also served as an officer of the local militia, albeit with the rank of Major (whereas other cousins were captains or colonels of their county militias).

Death and legacy

On January 10, 1809, George Steptoe Washington died of consumption at the age of thirty-seven in Augusta, Georgia, where he had gone to establish another plantation.

His widow subsequently married Judge Thomas Todd, who was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.[14] Their wedding was the first ever to be held in the White House. While Judge Todd died in 1826, Lucy died at the age of 74 in 1846.[3]

While Harewood exists today, in 1875, after the American Civil War, it was acquired by Richard Blackburn Washington (who traced his descent through John Augustine Washington rather than Samuel Washington), who had inherited the nearby Blakeley plantation, which he sold and moved to Harewood.[15]

Descendants

Through his son Samuel, he was the grandfather of Lucy Elizabeth Washington (b. 1823), who married John Bainbridge Packett (1817–1872) and had issue; Christian Maria Washington (1826–1895), who married Richard Blackburn Washington (1822–1910), a relative of hers and had issue; Annie S.C. Washington (1831–1911), who married Thomas Augustus Brown and had issue including Forrest Washington Brown (1855–1934), who married Emma Beverly Tucker.[16]

Through his son William, George Steptoe Washington was the grandfather of Jane Washington (b. 1834), who married Thomas Gascoigne Moncure (1837–1906) and had no issue; Lucy Washington (1822–1825), who died young; Millissent Fowler Washington (1824–1893), who married Robert Grier McPherson (1819–1899) and had issue; William Temple Washington, Jr. (b. 1827); Thomas West Washington (1829–1868); Eugenia Scholay Washington (1838–1900), a founder of the lineage societies, Daughters of the American Revolution and Daughters of the Founders and Patriots of America; and Ferdinand Steptoe Washington (1843–1912).[17][18]

References
  1. Glover, Lorri (2014). Founders as Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries. Yale University Press. p. 278. ISBN 9780300210750. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  2. Eugene E. Prussing, The Estate of George Washington, Deceased, (Boston: Little Brown, and Company 1927) p. 68
  3. Hardy, Stella Pickett (1911). Colonial Families of the Southern States of America: A History and Genealogy of Colonial Families who Settled in the Colonies Prior to the Revolution. Wright. pp. 523–524. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  4. Grizzard, Frank E. (2002). George Washington: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO. p. 4. ISBN 9781576070826. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  5. "From George Washington to George Steptoe Washington, 23 March 1789". founders.archives.gov. Founders Online. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  6. Ford, Worthington Chauncey (1891). WILLS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON AND HIS IMMEDIATE ANCESTORS. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Historical Printing Club. p. 106. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  7. Chernow, Ron (2010). Washington: A Life. Penguin Press. p. 464. ISBN 978-1-59420-266-7.
  8. Pingel, James A. (2014). Confidence and Character: The Religious Life of George Washington. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 148. ISBN 9781625648365. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  9. "I think it incumbent on me as your uncle and friend, to give you some advisory hints, which, if properly attended to, will, I conceive, be found very useful to you in regulating your conduct and giving you respectability, not only at present, but thro’ every period of life. You have now arrived to that age when you must quit the trifling amusements of a boy, and assume the more dignified manners of a man". George Washington to George Steptoe Washington, March 23, 1789, Mt. Vernon, Va., as found at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=350
  10. Washington, John Augustine (Washington Family Historian), "The Washingtons of Jefferson County", August 3, 2001, as found at http://biztechsource.com/justjefferson.com/09jaw.htm%5B%5D
  11. Hetzel, Susan Riviere (1896). The American Monthly Magazine. National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. p. 547. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  12. Wood, Don C. (March 5, 2009). "Harewood: A Washington Family Legacy". Berkeley County Historical Society. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  13. Prussing pp. 59, 68
  14. Green, Thomas Marshall (1889). Historic Families of Kentucky: With Special Reference to Stocks Immediately Derived from the Valley of Virginia; Tracing in Detail Their Various Genealogical Connexions and Illustrating from Historic Sources Their Influence Upon the Political and Social Development of Kentucky and the States of the South and West. R. Clarke. p. 192. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  15. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15."National Register". Archived from the original on 2010-12-04. Retrieved 2014-04-21..
  16. National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution 1901, p. 3.
  17. Brogan & Mosley 1993, p. 74.
  18. "The Four Founders", National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution website, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, archived from the original on April 4, 2013, retrieved March 3, 2015

Works cited
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