Martha Washington 1731–1802

Born Chestnut Grove, Virginia First Lady 1789–1797

Martha Dandridge Custis married George Washington in 1759, shortly after the death of her first husband, Daniel Park Custis. At twenty-seven, she had two young children in tow and had amassed tremendous wealth. Owning more than seventeen thousand acres of land, she and her family relied on a large, enslaved workforce, which at one point included her own half-sister, Ann Dandridge.

George Washington served as a general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War (1775–83), and the couple often stayed together in the winter encampments. In the years that followed the war, Martha Washington left her pleasant life at their Mount Vernon plantation, to support her husband while he served as president.

Gilbert Stuart painted Martha Washington from life in 1796, when the presidential couple was living in Philadelphia, which was then the nation’s capital. This painting is a copy based on Stuart’s original study, the “Athenaeum” portrait.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution