Along with Martha's biological family noted above, George Washington had a close relationship with his nephew and heir Bushrod Washington, son of George's younger brother John Augustine Washington. Bushrod became an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court after George's death.
As a young man, Washington had red hair. A popular myth is that he wore a wig, as was the fashion among some at the time. Washington did not wear a wig; instead, he powdered his hair, as represented in several portraits, including the well known unfinished Gilbert Stuart depiction.
Washington suffered from problems with his teeth throughout his life. He lost his first adult tooth when he was twenty-two and had only one left by the time he became President. John Adams claims he lost them because he used them to crack Brazil nuts but modern historians suggest the mercury oxide, which he was given to treat illnesses such as smallpox and malaria, probably contributed to the loss. He had several sets of false teeth made, four of them by a dentist named John Greenwood. Contrary to popular belief, none of the sets were made from wood. The set made when he became President was carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory, held together with gold springs. The hippo ivory was used for the plate, into which real human teeth and bits of horses' and donkeys' teeth were inserted. Dental problems left Washington in constant pain, for which he took laudanum. This distress may be apparent in many of the portraits painted while he was still in office, including the one still used on the $1 bill.The Smithsonian Institution states in "The Portrait - George Washington: A National Treasure" that
- 'Stuart admired the sculpture of Washington by French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon, probably because it was based on a life mask and therefore extremely accurate. Stuart explained, “When I painted him, he had just had a set of false teeth inserted, which accounts for the constrained expression so noticeable about the mouth and lower part of the face. Houdon’s bust does not suffer from this defect. I wanted him as he looked at that time.” Stuart preferred the Athenaeum pose and, except for the gaze, used the same pose for the Lansdowne painting.'
One of the most enduring myths about George Washington involves his chopping down his father's cherry tree and, when asked about it, using the famous line "I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet." It, along with the story of Washington skipping a silver dollar across the Potomac River, was part of a book of stories written by Mason Weems that made Washington a legendary figure beyond his wartime and presidential achievements. While Weems did interview people who had known Washington as a youth, he also is known to have attributed stories about other people to Washington, casting a cloud over all Weems's tales.
Slavery
On the death of his father in 1743, the 11-year-old inherited 10 slaves. At the time of his marriage to Martha Custis in 1759, he personally owned at least 36 (and the widow's third of her first husband's estate brought at least 85 "dower slaves" to Mount Vernon). Using his wife's great wealth he bought land, tripling the size of the plantation, and additional slaves to farm it. By 1774, he paid taxes on 135 slaves (this does not include the "dowers"). The last record of a slave purchase by him was in 1772, although he later received some slaves in repayment of debts. Washington also used white indentured servants.
Before the American Revolution, Washington expressed no moral reservations about slavery, but in 1786, Washington wrote to Robert Morris, saying, "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery." In 1778, he wrote to his manager at Mount Vernon that he wished "to get quit of negroes". Maintaining a large, and increasingly elderly, slave population at Mount Vernon was not economically profitable. Washington could not legally sell the "dower slaves," however, and because these slaves had long intermarried with his own slaves, he could not sell his slaves without breaking up families.
As president, Washington brought seven slaves to New York City in 1789 to work in the first presidential household. Following the transfer of the national capital to Philadelphia in 1790, he brought nine slaves to work in the President's House. At the time of his death, there were 317 slaves at Mount Vernon— 123 owned by Washington, 154 "dower slaves," and 40 rented from a neighbor.
It has been argued that Washington did not speak out publicly against slavery, because he did not wish to create a split in the new republic, with an issue that was sensitive and divisive. Even if Washington had opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, his veto probably would have been overridden. (The Senate vote was not recorded, but the House passed it overwhelmingly, 47 to 8.)
Religion
Washington was a member of the Anglican Church, which had 'established status' in Virginia (meaning tax money was used to pay its minister). He was a member of and served on the vestry (lay council) for Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia and for Pohick Church near his Mount Vernon home. According to historian Paul F. Boller Jr., Washington practically speaking was a Deist who had a profound belief and faith in "Divine Providence" or a higher "Divine Will" derived from a "Supreme Being" who controlled human events and as in Calvinism the course of history followed an orderly pattern rather than mere chance. In 1789, Washington claimed that the "Author of the Universe" actively interposed in favor of the American Revolution. However, according to Boller, Washington never made attempts to personalize his own religious views or express any appeal to the aesthetic side of biblical passages. Boller states that Washington's "allusions to religion are almost totally lacking in depths of feeling."
In a letter to George Mason in 1785, Washington wrote that he was not among those alarmed by a bill "making people pay towards the support of that [religion] which they profess," but felt that it was "impolitic" to pass such a measure, and wished it had never been proposed, believing that it would disturb public tranquility.
Washington frequently accompanied his wife to church services; however, there is no record of his ever taking communion, and he would regularly leave services before communion...with the other non-communicants (as was the custom of the day), until, after being admonished by a rector, he ceased attending at all on communion Sundays. As president he made a point of being seen attending services at numerous churches, including Presbyterian, Quaker and Catholic, to show his general support for religion. Washington was known for his generosity. Highly gregarious, he attended many charity events and donated money to colleges, schools and to the poor. As Philadelphia's leading citizen, President Washington took the lead in providing charity to widows and orphans hit by the yellow fever epidemic that devastated the capital city in 1793.
On November 4, 1752, George Washington was initiated into Freemasonry in Fredericksburg lodge. At his inauguration in 1789, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York administered his oath of office. On September 18, 1793, he laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol wearing full Masonic Grand Master regalia. Washington had a high regard for the Masonic Order and often praised it, but he seldom attended lodge meetings. He was attracted by the movement's dedication to Enlightenment principles and fraternalism; the American lodges did not share the anti-clerical perspective that made the European lodges so controversial