The boys didn’t last long in Georgetown. They ran up such bill that the General took them out of the school and sent them to a more modest one in nearby Alexandria where he could keep his eye on them. There, as he put it , they would receive the „kind of education which would be the most extensively useful to people of the lower class of citizens, namely, reading, writing, and arithmetic” He was not enthusiastic about the aristocratic curriculum of Greek and Latin which the Custis children where receiving from private tutors.
In Alexandria, the boys boarded at the home of the Widow Dade but they were often invited to Mount Vernon to spend the night. The General would send his horses to pick them up before supper. Once they their uncle and aunt by bringing along their dancing master , Mr. John B. O’Kelly.
As the boys grew older they got to be too much for the Widow Dade , and arrangements were made for them to live with Colonel Samuel Hanson, an old army man. But even the Colonel had difficulties with them. In the spring of ’88, he complained that young George (age sixteen) AWOL for three nights. When Washington heard about this, he wrote his nephew an angry letter beginning:
Mount Vernon, May 5, 1788
Dear George:
I yesterday received a letter from Mr. Hanson, informing me that you slept from home three nights successively, and one contrary to his express prohibition. Complaints of this nature are extremely painful to me, as it discovers a degree of impropriety in your conduct, which, at your time of life your good sense and discretion ought to point out to you and lead you to avoid. Although there is nothing criminal in your having slept with companion of good manners and reputation as you say you have , yet your absenting yourself from your own lodgings under that pretence may be productive of irregularities and disagreeable consequences; and I now insist upon it, in the most pointed terms, that you do not repeat it without the consent and approbation of Mr. Hanson. . . .
The General went on to advise his nephew to avoid “those customs which may tend to corrupt your manners or vitiate your heart.” If young George persisted in going down the road to ruin, his uncle threatened to use ”means to regulate your behaviour, which will be disagreeable to us both.” (He could never threaten the Custis children like this.)
Not long afterward, when Lawrence (at fourteen) got into a scrape. Colonel Hanson confined him to quarters. This was s a routine punishment, and news of it would not have reached Mount Vernon if young George had not unlocked the door and let his brother out. So the Colonel informed their uncle, who immediately sent another blistering note to his nephew:
Mount Vernon, August 6, 1788
Dear George:
I was with equal pain and surprise that I was informed by Colo. Hanson on Monday last, of your unjustifiable behaviour in rescuing your brother from that chastisement, which was due to his improper conduct; and which you know, because you have been told it in explicit language, he was authorized to administer whensoever he should deserve it. Such refractory behaviour on your part, I consider as an insult equally offered to my self after the above communications and I shall continue to view it in that light, till you have made satisfactory acknowledgments to Colo. Hanson for the offence given him. . . .
The second paragraph of this letter softened the tone of the first somewhat. Apparently, the boys had tried to explain their side of the story. Their uncle assured them that he too wanted to see justice done but only after a “fair and candid representation of facts.”
He would not moved by their „vague complaints.” However, he rote the Colonel a firm letter mentioning some bruises Lawrence said he had received, and reminding him that young brothers were supposed to be „treated footing of Friendship,” not as „mere School boys.”
When Washington was elected President, he was careful to leave everything in order at Mount Vernon, including his two nephews. In a long memorandum to his farm manager (another nephew), he directed him to continue their support and to see that they were „decently and properly provided with Clothes from Mr. Porter’s Store.”
He also left a final letter of „advisory hints” for the boys. This was addressed to George, as the elder:
Mount Vernon, March 23, 1789
Dear George:
As it is probable I shall soon be under the necessity of quitting this place, and entering once more into the bustle of public life, in conformity to the voice of my Country, and the earnest entreaties of my friends, however contrary it is to my own desires or inclinations, 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. . . .
The first and great object with you at present is to acquire, by industry, and application, such knowledge as your situation enables you to obtain, as will be useful to you in life. … I do not mean by a close application to your studies that you should never enter into those amusements which are suited to your age and station: they can be made to go hand in hand with each other, and, used in their proper seasons, will ever be found to be a mutual assistance to one another. . . . One thing, however, I would strongly impress upon you, vizt. that when you have leisure to go into company that it should always be of the best kind that the place you are in will afford; by this means you will be constantly improving your manners and cultivating your mind while you are relaxing from your books; and good company will always be found much less expensive than bad. . . . I cannot enjoin too strongly upon you a due observance of oeconomy and frugality, as you well know yourself, the present state of your property and finances will not admit of any unnecessary expense. The article of clothing is now one of the chief expences, you will incur, and in this, I fear, you are not so oeconomical as you should be. Decency and cleanliness will always be the first object in the dress of a judicious and sensible man; a conformity to the prevailing fashion in a certain degree is necessary; but it does not from thence follow that a man should always get a new Coat, or other clothes, upon every trifling change in the mode, when perhaps he has two or three very good ones by him. A person who is anxious to be a leader of the fashion, or one of the first to follow it will certainly appear in the eyes of judicious men, to have nothing better than a frequent change of dress to recommend him to notice. . . .
Much more might be said to you, as a young man, upon the necessity of paying due attention to the moral virtues; but this may, perhaps, more properly be the subject of a future letter when you may be about to enter into the world. If you comply with the advice herein given to pay a diligent attention to your studies, and employ your time of relaxation in proper company, you will find but few opportunities and little inclination, while you continue at an Acadimy, to enter into those scenes of vice and dissipation which too often present themselves to youth in every place, and particularly in towns. If you are determined to neglect your books, and plunge into extravagance and dissipation, nothing I could say now would prevent it; for you must be employed, and if it is not in pursuit of those things which are profitable , it must be in pursuit of those which are destructive.
As your time of continuing with Mr. Hanson will expire the last of this month and and I understand Dr. Craik has expressed an inclination to take you and Lawrence to board with him, I shall known his determination respecting the matter; and if it is agreeable to him and Mrs. Craik to take you, I shall be pleased with it, for I am certain that nothing will be wanting on their parts to make your situation agreeable and useful
to you…
Should you or Lawrence therefore behave in such a manner as to occasion any complaint being made to me, you may depend upon losing that place which you now have in my affections, and any future hopes you may have from me. But if, on the contrary, your conduct is such as to merit my regard, you may always depend upon the warmest attachment, and sincere affection of Your friend and Uncle.
/s/ G. Washington
Despite the demands of government and busy social life, President Washington kept in close touch with the schooling of George and Lawrence. And, for once, he had couse for complaints. Under the shrewd eye of Dr. James Craik—Washington’s personal physician— and warm smile of Mrs. Craik, the boys did very well. At least, that is what the Doctor wrote the General. And the General wrote him back:
To be continued.
Part Ist: