George Washington Papers

[Diary entry: 30 May 1771]

30. Reachd home—crossing at Boyd’s hole to the Widow Martin’s Landing & pass by Nangemoy Church & the Widow Elbecks to my own Ferry. Found Jacky Custis there.

widow martin’s landing: In 1774 Nicholas Cresswell visited “Mrs. Marsden, a widow lady in the neighbourhood” of Nanjemoy, Md. (CRESSWELL description begins Lincoln MacVeagh, ed. The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774–1777. New York, 1924. description ends , 17). The Nanjemoy (Durham) Parish Church, built 1732–36, stood a few miles northwest of Nanjemoy, near present-day Ironsides, Md. (RIGHTMYER description begins Nelson Waite Rightmyer. Maryland’s Established Church. Baltimore, 1956. description ends , 142–43). Sarah Edgar Eilbeck (d. 1780), widow of the merchant and planter William Eilbeck (d. 1765) and mother-in-law of George Mason, lived at the head of Mattawoman Creek about three miles southeast of present-day Mason Springs, Md. (W.P.A. [2] description begins W.P.A. Writers’ Project. Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State. American Guide Series. New York, 1940. description ends , 489).

Jacky’s presence at Mount Vernon was an occasion for some rejoicing. Without informing his mother or GW he had changed his mind about smallpox inoculation, had been inoculated in Baltimore 8 April, and was now fully recovered “without hardly one Mark to tell that He ever had it” (Jonathan Boucher to GW, 9 May 1771, DLC:GW).

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