Martha Washington

Martha Washington was the first First Lady of the United States as the wife of President George Washington — although the title "First Lady" was not yet in use during her 1789–1797 tenure. She was born Martha Dandridge on June 2, 1731, in New Kent County, Virginia, British Colony of Virginia, into an English-Welsh planter family. Her father John Dandridge was a Virginia colonial-administrator and small Virginia tobacco-plantation owner, and her mother Frances Jones was the daughter of a wealthy Williamsburg merchant family.

Her early education at home — typical of 18th-century Virginia gentry-class daughters — launched her early-life path. Her May 15, 1750 first marriage to Daniel Parke Custis (a wealthy Virginia tobacco-plantation owner who was 21 years her senior) at age 18 produced four children — although only two (John "Jacky" Parke Custis and Martha "Patsy" Parke Custis) survived early childhood. Her July 8, 1757 widowhood at age 26 — when Custis died of an undiagnosed illness — left her one of the wealthiest widows in colonial Virginia, with approximately 18,000 acres of plantation land and 285 enslaved persons.

Her January 6, 1759 second marriage to George Washington — a 26-year-old Virginia militia colonel who was approximately one year her junior — produced her subsequent 40-year marriage to Washington across his 1759–1775 Virginia plantation career, his 1775–1783 Continental Army Commander-in-Chief service across the American Revolutionary War, his 1783–1789 Mount Vernon retirement, and his 1789–1797 service as the first U.S. President.

Her 1789–1797 service as the first First Lady — at the New York-and-Philadelphia-based U.S. Presidential residences — produced the foundational American social-protocol practices for subsequent First Ladies. Her 1789–1797 weekly Friday-evening levée receptions at the New York-and-Philadelphia-based U.S. Presidential residences were attended by approximately 50–100 invited guests across the early-American social elite. The 1799 death of George Washington at age 67 produced her 1799–1802 widowhood at Mount Vernon. She died on May 22, 1802, at age 70, at Mount Vernon, of "severe fever." Her 1799 will instructed the manumission of her 153 dower slaves on her 1802 death — although the manumission did not actually occur due to legal complications across her Custis estate.

Her name Martha derives from the Aramaic Martha meaning "lady" or "mistress" — the New Testament name of the sister of Mary and Lazarus. Martha was the fifth-most-popular American girls' name in 1880.