47 Ibid., vol. 5, 5-31-1776.
48 Ibid., vol. 32, 1-27-1793.
49 Ibid., 28, 1-5-1785.
50 Ibid., vol. 30, 8-29-1788.
51 Ibid., 4, 3-31-1776.
52 Ibid., 28, 9-5-1785.
53 Ibid., vol. 24, 8-7-1782. To John Price Posey.
54 Ibid., vol. 30, 8-31-1788. To Annis Boudinot Stockton.
55 Ibid., vol. 27, 8-21-1783. To the Magistrates and Inhabitants of the Borough of Elizabeth.
56 Ibid., vol. 13, 10-12-1778. To Reverend Alexander McWhorter. “Besides the humanity of affording them the benefit of your profession, ...it serves to prepare them for the other world....”
57 Ibid., vol. 25, 11-16, 1782. To the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. “In return for your kind concern for my temporal and eternal happiness, permit me to assure you that my wishes are reciprocal.” WGW, vol. 36, 6-4-1798. To Reverend William Linn. “...grateful for the favourable sentiments you have been pleased to express in my behalf; but more especially for those good wishes which you offer for my temporal and eternal happiness; which I reciprocate with great cordiality....”
58 Washington here refers to his step-daughter Patsy Custis. WGW, vol. 3, 6-20-1773. To Burwell Basett.
59 Ibid., vol. 27, 1-5-11784. To Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. This passage implies continuing fellowship with a friend who was a Christian clergyman in the “happier clime.”
60 Ibid., vol. 30, 9-13-1789 To Elizabeth Washington Lewis.
61 Ibid., vol. 28, 3-30-1785. To Lucretia Wilhemina Van Winter. vol. 28, 10-1-1785. To Jonathan Trumbull; vol. 30, 12-23-1788. To Reverend William Gordon. vol. 36, 8-29-1797. To George Washington Parke Custis.
62 Ibid., vol. 27, 11-2-1783. Farewell Orders to the Armies of the United States. At the death of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, Washington wrote to his son Jonathan Trumbull Jr. on October 1, 1785: “My dear Sir:... You know, too well, the sincere respect and regard I entertained for your venerable fathers public and private character, to require assurances of the concern I felt for his death; or of that sympathy in your feelings for the loss of him, which is prompted by friendship. Under this loss however, great as your pangs may have been at the first shock, you have every thing to console you. A long and well spent life in the Service of his Country, placed Govt. Trumbull amongst the first of Patriots. In the social duties he yielded to none. and his Lamp, from the common course of Nature, being nearly extinguished, worn down with age and cares, but retaining his mental faculties in perfection, are blessings which rarely attend advanced life. All these combining, have secured to his memory universal respect and love here, and no doubt immeasurable happiness hereafter.” WGW vol. 28, 10-1-1785. Washington had “no doubt” that the “immeasurable happiness” of the “hereafter” was secured for his respected and loved fellow friend and patriot.
63 Ibid., vol. 35, 3-30-1796. To Tobias Lear.
64 PGW Series 2 Letterbooks Philadelphia United Episcopal Church to George Washington, March 2, 1797 Letterbook 40, Image 290-291 of 307
65 See letters between Washington and the Reformed Church of Kingston. In chapter on “Washington and Prayer.”
66 WGW vol. 29, 2-11-1788 to Benjamin Lincoln.
67 Ibid., vol. 34, 12-16-1795 to Citizens of Frederick County, VA.
68 Ibid., vol. 35, 3-3-1797.
69 PGW 2:179-181.
70 WGW, vol. 30, 6-22-1788. To Reverend John Lathrop.
71 Ibid., vol. 1, 9-6-1756 to Lt. Col. Adam Stephen; vol. 25, 11-16-1782; to ministers of the Reformed Church in Kingston.
72 Ibid., vol. 37, 3-25-1799.
73 Ibid., vol. 29, May 5, 1787.
74 Ibid., vol. 29, 2-25-1787. To Marquis de Lafayette.
75 Rhodehamel, George Washington: Writings, 1050.
76 Hale, Contemplations Moral and Divine, p. 10.
77 Reverend Nathanael Spinkes, The Sick Man Visit ed. (London, 1745), p. 395-96.
78 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
79 George Washington’s will was signed on July 9, 1799. A contemporary copy, made by Albin Rawlins, one of his secretaries, also bears the same date. See, Prussing, The Estate of George Washington, Deceased, (Boston, 1927) pp. 36, 40.
80 Martha Washington was ill during this period. Her illness necessitated visits by Dr. James Craik on September 1st and the 6th. Diaries, 6: 363,366. The text is taken from Lossing, Mary and Martha, p 324-326. Lossing states the letter was sent to a “kinswoman in New Kent,” and that he obtained the text from the letter at Arlington House. The letter seems consistent with the facts.” Joseph E. Fields, A Worthy Partner, pp. 321-22. Lossing’s account of this says:
The long and eventful period of the sweet earthly companionship enjoyed by Martha Washington with her husband was now drawing to a close. At near the end of the year in which the happy wedding occurred at Mount Vernon, the spirit of Washington departed from the earth. The story of that departure is familiar to all my readers, and I will not repeat it here in detail.
For several months before that event Washington appears to have had at times a presentiment of near approaching death. In July he executed his last will and testament. He also prepared, in minute details, a system for the management of his estate, for the guidance of whomsoever might have charge of it. That paper was complete four days before he died, and was accompanied by a letter to his manager, Mr. Lear, giving him special direction, as if the writer was about to depart on a long journey. He seems to have communicated his forebodings to Mrs. Washington, who, early in the autumn, when she was recovering from a severe illness, wrote a kinswoman in Kent:
“At midsummer the General had a dream so deeply impressed on his mind that he could not shake it off for several days. He dreamed that he and I were sitting in the summer-house, conversing upon the happy life we had spent, and looking forward to many more years on the earth, when suddenly there was a great light all around us, and then an almost invisible figure of a sweet angel stood by my side and whispered in my ear. I suddenly turned pale and then began to vanish from his sight and he was left alone. I had just risen from the bed when he awoke and told me his dream saying, ‘You know a contrary result indicated by dreams may be expected. I may soon leave you.’ I tried to drive from his mind the sadness that had taken possession of it, by laughing at the absurdity of being disturbed by an idle dream, which, at the worst, indicated that I would not be taken from him; but I could not, and it was not until after dinner that he recovered any cheerfulness. I found in the library, a few days afterwards, some scraps of paper which showed that he had been writing a Will, and had copied it. When I was so very sick, lately, I thought of this dream, and concluded my time had come, and that I should be taken first.” (Autograph letter at Arlington House, dates “September 18, 1799)
81 WGW, vol. 37, 11-12-1799.
82 An important fact that we must consider is why Washington did not do what his mother and various others of his progenitors had done, namely, place a testimony of trust in Christ in their last will and testament. Washington did not do this. From this some would infer that he was not a Christian, and that it thus stands as a proof of a belief in Deism. And as to his death without the presence of a clergyman, and thus the reception of the Eucharist, we find that this question was raised by Washington’s grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. GWP Custis in Recollections asks the question, “It may be asked, Why was the ministry of religion wanting to shed its peaceful and benign luster upon the last hours of Washington? Why was he, to whom the observances of sacred things were ever primary duties throughout life, without their consolations in his last moments? We answer, circumstances did not permit. It was but for a little while that the disease assumed so threatening a character as to forbid the encouragement of hope; yet, to stay that summons which none may refuse, to give still farther length of days to him whose ‘time-honored life’ was so dear to mankind, prayer was not wanting to the throne of Grace. Close to the couch of the sufferer, resting her head upon that ancient book, with which she had been wont to hold pious communion a portion of every day, for more than a half a century, was the venerable consort, absorbed in silent prayer, and from which she only arose when the mourning group prepared to lead her from the chamber of the dead. Such were the last hours of Washington.” p. 477.
83 Consider here Washington’s approval of Benjamin Stephens’ sermon that was preached at Lord Pepperell’s funeral, that taught that even though great men are called “gods” in the Bible, they are reminded by the Scriptures that will also die like men. Stephens sermon has already been mentioned in chapter two, note 14 and was considered in the chapter on Washington’s Clergy and Sermons.
