4. Set out with Mrs. Washington & Miss Custis (attended by Mr. Custis) on a Visit to Mr. Boucher &ca. Breakfasted at Mr. Wm. Digges’s (the Horses & carriage being got over the day before) and dined at Mr. Bouchers with Govr. Eden and Mr. Calvert & his two Daughters.
In June, Jonathan Boucher had married Eleanor Addison (1739–1784) of Oxon Hill, niece of his benefactor Rev. Henry Addison. The Washingtons had intended to pay their respects to the newlyweds earlier in the summer but had been prevented by “Harvest, Company, and one thing or another” (GW to Boucher, 18 Aug. 1772, DLC:GW). Benedict Calvert’s two eldest daughters were Elizabeth (Betsey) Calvert (born c.1752) and Eleanor (Nelly) Calvert (1754–1811). Unknown to the Washingtons or the Bouchers, Jacky Custis was at this time courting Nelly Calvert. When their romance did become known several months later, Boucher was shocked: “Never . . . had I the most distant Suspicion of any such Thing’s being in Agitation,” he wrote GW. “You will remember, I always thought, that He was enamoured of Miss Betsey [Calvert]; tho’ even in that, I suspected not, that there was any Likelihood of its be coming so serious, without my first knowing more of it” (8 April 1773, DLC:GW).