“I accompanied young Custis to Mount Vernon”

In sharing his story about hearing George Washington threaten to lead “Virginia riflemen” against the king’s troops in 1773, Benjamin Galloway included circumstantial details about the event.

The version he sent to the Hagerstown Torch Light in 1818 explained that he was invited to spend Christmas in 1772 at Mount Vernon as a friend of Washington’s stepson, John Parke Custis, from Annapolis. The reprinted story began:

A few days after I arrived at Mount Vernon, Lord Sterling and Captain [Edward] Foye, (the latter being the then secretary to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia) being on their way from Williamsburg to New York, called on Col. Washington, with whom they sojourned for three or four days, the weather being very tempestuous and sleety.

In his letter to the Washington Republican in 1822, Galloway prefaced his anecdote with this scene-setting:

Whilst I was a student at law, in the city of Annapolis, and the late Mr. John Parke Custis, was a pupil under the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, of the same place, by permission of his father-in-law [i.e., stepfather], the then Colonel George Washington, I accompanied young Custis to Mount Vernon, and passed the last week of the year (I think) 1772, and the first week of 1773, at said place. Lord Sterling and Captain Foye, the latter of whom was at that time private secretary to Lord Dunmore, the then governor of the Ancient Dominion, (Virginia was so called at that day,) being on the way from Williamsburg to the city of New York, stopped at Mount Vernon, and continued there during three days, the weather being very tempestuous and snowy.

The second telling also stated that “the Rev. Walter Magowan,…who had resided some years before in the Mount Vernon family as a private tutor to young Custis,” was also present.

Those paragraphs offer multiple names to assess. I was particularly struck by the presence of William Alexander, Lord Stirling (1726–1783), who lived in New York. Why would Galloway have run into him?

So I tested that claim against George Washington’s diary. His entries for the start of 1773 say:

Jany. 1st. Dined at Belvoir and returnd in the Afternoon. Found Mr. Grafton Dulany, Mr. Ben. Gallaway, Mr. Sam Hanson & Mr. Magowan and Doctr. Rumney here.

2. Doctr. Rumney went away after Breakfast. Lord Sterling & Captn. Foy with Colo. [George William] Fairfax came to Dinner. The latter went away afterwards. The other Gentlemen stayd.

So far Galloway’s memory proves remarkably correct. Forty-five years before his anecdote first appeared in print, the young man did spend the turn of the year 1773 at Mount Vernon. And the other guests there included:

• Lord Stirling, who was traveling around Virginia selling lottery tickets.
• Capt. Edward Foy, secretary to Lord Dunmore and traveling companion for Stirling.
• the Rev. Walter Magowan, former tutor and now clergyman in Virginia.

Washington’s diary didn’t mention his stepson Custis, but of course that eighteen-year-old was then a resident, not a guest. According to the Washington Papers editors, Grafton Dulany was one of Custis’s schoolmates in Annapolis, so he had brought chums home for the holidays.

TOMORROW: Looking in the newspapers.