Free Martha Washington by Patricia Brady

short, raucous farce.
    Back at White House in April 1753, Patsy gave birth to Frances Parke Custis, named for both her grandmothers. The middle name Parke was given to all the Custis children as a condition of inheritance under Daniel Parke’s will. Ten months later, little Daniel fell ill with a fever. The warm, muggy air, sluggish streams, and swamps of the Tidewater bred swarms of mosquitoes, giving rise to numerous fevers. Everyone contracted malaria, but most people survived, suffering recurrent episodes of chills, sweating, and fever, known as the ague, throughout their lives. Daniel, however, died shortly after his second birthday.
    Death was a sadly commonplace family affair, and the little boy probably died in his mother’s arms. Patsy herself may have laid out the body of her son, washing and dressing him in a white linen shroud. Since corpses were not embalmed, the carpenter would have worked through the night to make the small hexagonal coffin, the common shape at the time. The family burial ground at Queen’s Creek, where the elder Daniel’s mother and sister lay, was a few miles from White House. So the family would have driven over to meet the minister and other mourners, all bundled up against February’s chill. Ropes creaked as slaves lowered the coffin into the cold ground; the parents would have thrown the first handfuls of earth and watched as their eldest child was buried. The next order to London included a “Tomb for my son,” no marble being available in Virginia.
    No doubt it was during this afflicting period that Patsy Custis developed her lifelong anxiety about her children, which went hand in hand with her intense love for them. She delighted in their company but was always fearful of illness, accident, or death. Losing her firstborn son—she always favored boys—forever made her an overanxious mama.
    At about the time of little Daniel’s funeral, Patsy became pregnant again, and John Parke Custis (called Jacky), named for both his grandfathers, was born in the fall of 1754. In the summer of 1754, while Patsy was pregnant, the colony of Virginia briefly took center stage in world affairs, leading the British Empire into yet another war against France. The rivalry for international power between Great Britain and France had been played out for the past half century in a series of wars that raged throughout Europe and around the world. Their respective colonies were the bargaining chips when peace treaties, usually short-lived, were made. This time, the competition began over the rich Ohio Valley, whose lands were marked out for conquest by both British and French colonists. The region lay to the west of the British colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania and to the south of French Canada—all bent on expansion. It was a question of who could get there first, seize the area, establish forts, make Indian allies, and bring in their own settlers.
    One of Governor Dinwiddie’s instructions was to block the French and encourage British settlement in the Ohio area. To affirm British claims, he sent out two small expeditions led by a little-known young officer named George Washington. These skirmishes against the French included the killing of a French officer who may or may not have been a diplomatic envoy, each nation affirming the opposite version. The incident set off a new war, which quickly spread to Europe and other European colonies. Called the Seven Years’ War in European history, it was known by Americans as the French and Indian War, signaling their developing sense of national priority.
    The French were always better at Indian diplomacy than the British, and they soon sent their Indian allies to attack Virginia’s frontier settlements—marauding, sacking, burning, killing, carrying off prisoners. British refugees poured back over the Blue Ridge Mountains with tales of terror. New Kent County was far from the western frontier and danger,