Episode 31 - Vile Names and Ill Language

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 31 - “Vile Names and Ill Language”
Published on March 22, 2023

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. This is Women's History podcast where we feature eighteenth and early nineteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention as we think they should. I'm your host, Katherine Gehred. This is week four of my multi-part series on Martha Washington's in-laws. So everyone, we did it, we finally made it to Martha Washington's actual father-in-law. This is John Custis, IV. He's probably the person who I'm most guilty of taking over party conversations and trying to get people to understand what he's like. John Custis, IV, is pretty well known in Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia. He was an incredibly wealthy man with a lot of property, but he's probably most well known for his tombstone, you can actually still see his tombstone, it's hard to read. I'm gonna read you the section of his will, where he requests what is eventually put on the tombstone, he writes, "Under this marble tomb lies the body of the Honorable John Custis, Esquire of the city of Williamsburg aged 71 years, and yet lived but seven years, which was the space of time he kept a bachelor's house at Arlington, on the eastern shore of Virginia." And then it says in his will, "This inscription put on this stone by his own positive orders." He then gave very specific burial instructions, including that he wanted his real dead body and not a sham coffin to be taken to be buried with his father and grandfather. And then he says, "If my son should ungrateful or obstinately refuse or neglect to comply with what relates to my burial in every particular that I borrow and cut him off from any part of my estate, either real or personal, and only give him one shilling Sterling." It's just good that like in his will, he calls his son ungrateful and obstinate. So, he's pretty much saying that, even though he died at 71, and then as well, he just puts a blank, but we know he died at 71. He was only truly alive for the eight years before he got married when he lived as a single man as a bachelor. So, it is an insult to his wife, to be put on his actual tombstone for everyone to see forever, and it's also insulting to both of his children. So, he's basically forcing his son to pay money to inscribe an insult to himself on a tombstone. Otherwise, he's only going to get one shilling. That tells you quite a bit about John Custis. He was very wealthy, he was eccentric, he was just famously stingy with this huge amount of wealth that he did have, and also loved gardening. So we're gonna get into a little bit of all of that. So who was John Custis? He was born in 1678, in Northampton County, Virginia, and he again, he's the fourth John Custis his family's been in Virginia for a long time. He also was educated to England like William Byrd, and Daniel Parke, but unlike William Byrd and Daniel Parke he doesn't seem like he really tried to stick around. He studied the tobacco trade. He didn't dally and all this other stuff, politics or poetry or whatever. He studied the tobacco trade, and then he came back to Virginia to grow tobacco. After his father died, he inherited about 550 acres of land in Northampton County, and a three story brick house that had belonged to his grandfather that was called Arlington. You may recognize the name, Arlington. But it's not the exact same house as the house that Robert E, Lee eventually lived in. What happened was Robert E. Lee, when he got married, he married Martha Washington's great granddaughter, Mary, who was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, who had named his Custis estate family home, Arlington, after this former property. I just love history. So now, Arlington carries all this meaning but it goes back to cranky old John Custis, living in a three story brick house on the eastern shore of Virginia, as a bachelor. He inherits 550 acres of property, he ends up acquiring 3,250 more acres. That's not all that he ends up getting. But that's just on his own. He is massively expanding on this property. He also becomes a member of the House of Burgesses, he becomes very politically active, he makes a name for himself. In 1706, he married Francis Parke in a double wedding with William Byrd the second, it is not a happy marriage. Just like Byrds, we have actual have written documentation that this was not a happy marriage. For one thing, his tombstone, the document that I'm going to read is not actually a letter. This is a legal document, a marriage agreement between John and Frances Custis that was saved in Virginia county records. So, it seems as though their marriage had reached such a negative boiling point that they had to actually go see like a Justice of the Peace and write up an agreement of how they will behave to each other in order to make this livable for either of them. Before I read this agreement, though, I would like to point out that John Custis while he seems like a very irascible person did love gardening, he kept up a correspondence with a pretty well known London gardener named Peter Collinson. I am not a gardener, but if you are one of these people who's very interested, you might recognize that name, and John Custis turned his own city garden in Williamsburg into one of the best, most diverse, famous pretty gardens in Virginia. There's a quote that I particularly like and one of his letters, he says, "I'm a great admirer of all the tribes striped, gilded and variegated plants, and especially trees, I am told those things are out of fashion, but I do not mind that. I always make my fancy my fashion." So, he makes his fancy his fashion, but doesn't have a great relationship with his wife, so here is the original draft of an agreement on file in Northampton County, Virginia. Here's the document, and the date for this is 1714.

"Articles of agreement betwixt Mr. John Custis and his wife. Whereas some differences and quarrels have arisen between Mr. John Custis of York county and Francis, his wife, concerning some money, plate and other things taken from him by the said Francis, and a more plentiful maintenance for her. Now to the end, and all animosities and unkindness may cease and a perfect love and friendship that may be renewed bitwixt them they have mutually agreed upon the following articles this blank day of June, Anno Domini 1714. First, first it is agreed that the said Francis shall return to the said John, all the money, plate, and other things whatsoever that she has taken from him, or removed out of the house upon oath and to be obliged never to take away by herself or any other, anything of value from him again, or run him in debt without his consent, nor sell, give away, or dispose of anything of value out of the family without his consent, upon the condition that the plate and damask linen shall not be given or disposed of by the aforesaid John from the said during her life, and the said, John doth covenant said plate and linen to be delivered by the set Frances to the set, John shall be given to the children of the said John, by the set Frances immediately after her decease. Second, that Francis shall henceforth forbear to call him the said John any vile names or give him any ill language, neither shall he give her any, but to live lovingly together and to behave themselves to each other as a good husband and good wife ought to do, and that she shall not intermeddle with his affairs, but that all business belonging to the husband's management shall be solely transacted by him, neither shall he inter meddle in her domestic affairs, but that all business properly belonging to the management of the wife shall be solely transacted by her. Third, that the set John shall pay all the debts he has already contracted out of the debts now due to the estate and the money he has received, if there will be sufficient to pay them, and that he shall enter into bond to Philip Ludwell in the sum of 1000 pounds, that from hence forward, he shall keep true and perfect accounts of all the prophets and disbursements of his whole estate in any part of Virginia that he is now possessed of, and also of all the estate he shall at any time hereafter, by her means, be possessed of at any part of the world, and shall produce the same amounts yearly, if it be required upon oath, and that after all debts hereafter necessarily accruing for buying clothes, tools, and all the necessary for the servants and plantations, paying quittance, and making necessary repairs of his whole estate, and also all other necessary charges accruing for the use and benefit of the estate which is to descend to the child of the said, Frances are deducted and paid, he shall freely and without grudging, allow one full body, or half of the clear produce of his whole estate as aforesaid annually to the set Frances for clothing herself, and the children with a reasonable proportion thereof, and the remainder to be laid out in the education of the children and for furnishing and providing all things that are necessary for housekeeping that are to be brought from England and physic so long as the said Francis shall live peace quietly with him, and that he shall allow for the maintenance and family, one bushel of wheat for every week, and a sufficient quantity of Indian corn and as much flesh of all kinds as the stocks of cattle, sheep, and hogs of his whole estate will afford without impairing them, if so much shall be necessary and sufficient quantity of cider and brandy, if so much be made on the plantation, provided that nothing herein contained shall be construed to the bar the said John of the free command and use of anything that shall be provided for housekeeping. So, as he does not sell any of it without her consent, provided also that the condition of his bond be that if the said Frances do exceed the allowance here and expressed in these articles, run him in debt, or break any of them, the bond to be void, and the allowance to cease. Fourth, that the said John shall allow the said Frances to keep in the house and do the necessary work in and about the same servants she now half visit Jenny, Queen, Pompey, and blank or such others in their stead, and also Billy Boy, or little Roger and Anthony, or such another in his stead to tend the garden, go of errands or with the coach, catch horses, and do all the other necessary works about the house, and if any of them die, the said John shall put others in their stead. Fifth, that the set John shall allow the said Frances 15 pounds of wool and 15 pounds of fine dressed flax or 15 pounds of wool in lieu thereof every year to spin for any use in the family she shall think fit. Sixth, that the said Frances she'll have free liberty to give away 20 yards of Virginia cloth every year to charitable uses. If so much remain after the servants are clothed. [That part is italicized or underlined.] Seventh, that the said Francis shall have free liberty to keep a white servant if she shall think fit out of the above allowance, so as the said servant be also subject to the said John. Eighth, and for as much as one half of the clear produce of the tobacco being to be taken on the sale of it and the clothing and the other necessaries to be bought in England and that it will generally be at least 12 months before an account of sales can be had from thence and an invoice sent to thither, therefore, for the supplying of the present wants of the said Francis, the children, and house in manor and for the use of force said the said John shall allow to the said Francis 50 pounds in money, if there shall be so much left remaining of the debts now due to the estate and money now on hand, after all the debts already contracted by him or her shall be paid as aforesaid. Ninth, that the said Francis shall render a true account under oath to the said John, if he shall require it, how the said 50 pounds and also the clear profits yearly are expended and laid out. I do not remember Mr. Custis mentioned any sum for the bond, Mrs. Custis named 1000 pounds, but I do not know what he said to it."

Okay, so again, we've got a little bit of that 18th century language in there, but you kind of get the gist of what I mean, this is like, once again, in a time period where divorce was quite difficult. This is a type of legal agreement that would prevent marital distress. The part where they do talk about that neither of them can call each other any vile names, is the part that's probably most often quoted, you can just see this couple just bickering at each other, right? And it's documented in a legal document that they were calling each other vile names. And it starts with Francis being the one calling him vile names. What appears to have started this fight is that Francis has stolen all of the silver plate and is insisting that it go to her children, and that her husband can't sell it or give it away. And the arrangement is okay, you give the plate silver back because plate silver is money back then it is both a family heirloom, something that you could use, but it's also money. Like it's that is silver that is like wealth and property that you would want to pass on to your children, and so Francis is trying to make sure that this is something that she can keep control of, and pass on to her kids. This document lays a pretty clear line about gender roles, that she's not allowed to enter meddle with his affairs of selling tobacco, he'll do all that business, but he has to allow her to do her domestic business. And, I think this is interesting, because John Custis has been trained in the tobacco trade, which basically Virginia is a colony to England. They're under the mercantile system. They can't just sell the tobacco any way they want. They have to sell it to a merchant in England, and then the merchants sell the tobacco anywhere in the world. And then whatever money they get for that, they sell sent back to the planter, taking off a hefty amount of taxes and fees and things like that. So, that's how all of this is still making England richer, and you could send off your tobacco and not know how much money you're gonna get from it, it would be sold by the merchants for however much they ended up getting. And you were stuck with whatever they sold it for, which is something that caused a lot of fights. And so John Custis would sell his tobacco every year to England, and then have to wait for almost a full year to get anything back. And if they wanted to buy goods from England, or goods from anywhere in the world, because this is heavy Imperial times, they could put that order in also with the merchants in England. So you'd say hey, here's all this tobacco, send me back furniture, cloth, dresses, shoes, buckles, whatever, and you would wait for like a full year before he got that back. But another interesting thing that could happen is you could send your tobacco and your order for stuff. And then the tobacco doesn't sell for enough to pay for all of the stuff you're ordering, and so then you could go into debt. You could also be spending money based off of how much money you think your tobacco is going to sell for, then not get that much money back and then go into debt. So this is there's a lot of ways to go very deep in debt, as a Virginia tobacco planter. Barred from this, as the woman managing the household who's really not allowed to take part in any of the business side of it, you just want your stuff. You want your clothes, you want the goods that you're ordering from England, and you're married to this man, and in Francis's case, John Custis, who has thousands of acres of property, you get sort of used to a certain type of life, that you will keep ordering and ordering more things, you don't see the the financial side of how deeply in debt that people are getting. So I think that's something along these lines has happened. And that plate silver is like cash money, that they're a family that's been dealing a lot in credit in the abstract. But silver is cash money, and John wants it and Francis wants it and they're fighting it out.

But they're basically laying out here is an allowance that she is allowed to live within, that she shouldn't exceed. It doesn't seem like she's demanding money for really fancy things. She's saying that necessary repairs. A lot depends on is this John Custis saying, okay, here are the things you're allowed to spend money on stop spending too much money? Or, is this Francis saying you're not giving me any money to even do the basic work that I need to do to manage this house. I can't tell from this document what the situation is. But, this is definitely a financial disagreement that has caused a lot of this discord. The fourth section, where they talk about John allowing Francis to keep some slaves they say servants, but that always means slaves at this time period, Jenny, Queen, Pompey and someone else, Billy Boy, or little Roger and Anthony. So, those are the enslaved house servants, the fact that it has to be written out that she can have enslaved people to work in the house for her that seems a little unusual. Maybe John had not been permitting her to have a staff inside the house, which would technically be the white woman is sort of in charge of the enslaved staff who work in the house that's well within her realm, which allows a white slave holder to do a lot of damage to the people over whom she has complete control. But from this situation, it looks like there was some sort of dispute over that. There's money for wool and flax for clothes, and then he says Francis, she'll have free liberty to give away 20 yards of Virginia cloth every year to charitable uses, if so much remains after the servants are clothed. So, feeding and clothing enslaved people was part of the job of the slaveholder like that goes into it, and you'll see it mostly plantations, like housings horrible. Clothing is terrible. Sometimes people are wearing wooden shoes, because they're trying to maximize the profit they can get. So, they've they've bought these people, but they don't really want to feed or clothe or take care of them. That was one of those things that if there was kind of a honorable guide to what it was like to be a quote unquote, good slave holder at this time it was that you kept your slaves, well clothed and fed. And that doesn't seem to be happening here. And this isn't the only time that the issue of clothing servants comes up in documents related to John Custis, later when Daniel Parke Custis is managing land on his own,  John Custis finds out that he has not been clothing his slaves in a way that John Custis considers to be correct, and he almost disinherit Daniel. So another thing to add to sort of the complicated John Custis, IV, story is that John Custis is one of those people who had children with an enslaved woman. Her name was Alice. He refers to her in paperwork as a negro wench, Alice, but with a woman named Alice. He has a son who he names after himself, John Custis, and he frees his son, and he actually leaves his son property, this mixed race son, which was not unheard of. It was not common, but at this time period, early ish, mid 1700s. It wasn't completely unheard of at all. I've heard seen a lot of different ways historians look at this. Some historians take it as like a further insult to his white son that he had a child with a enslaved woman, and then he names that son after himself, while his son that he had with his wife is named after the grandfather that he hates. You could also make the argument that he just really loved his child and decided to acknowledge him, which is not unheard of either. So, he's a complicated person. So John Custis, does at least appear to have some interest in making sure that the people he enslaves are well clothed and well fed. Even though in just about every other aspect of his life, he is incredibly stingy with his money. So that's interesting. Finally, the last point in the list is that Francis will have to write out an account of what she spends to make sure that they're not overspending, and figuring out all the debts and everything like that. So, I just think this is an interesting document. It tells a little story of a marriage at a certain point in time. This is after Daniel Parke's death, so part of what is causing this financial strife is that John Custis had married Francis Custis expecting to get a lot of money out of it, and in fact, he got saddled with debts. And, it seems as though he may have taken out some of the frustration of that on his wife, by not allowing her to spend as much money as she felt she needed to manage the household, to the extent that she actually stole silver, to make sure that she would have something to give her children. Not a great situation. There are a lot of anecdotes about other moments in this famously miserable marriage. And I'm going to share one that I have not been able to back up fact, but it's a good anecdote, so I'm going to share it. And this is a quote directly from Patricia Brady's very good biography of Martha Washington. "While driving together in a gig and arguing furiously, John turned the team towards the shore of Chesapeake Bay and drove out into the water. Francis demanded to know where they were going, and her angry husband replied to hell, madam, she is said to have responded. Drive on sir. So Francis Custis ends up dying and 1715, less than a year after this marriage agreement was written, so how long people were actually keeping these financial documents or whether he had even got paid for the tobacco he sold before that point. Who knows? She was only 28 years old. She left behind a son and a daughter. Her son is Daniel Park Custis and her daughter is Francis Parke Custis.

Next time on Martha Washington's in-laws, we're going to talk about Daniel Parke Custis's multiple attempts to marry and John Costas is constant and repeated squashing of those attempts, the plate silver is going to come up again, and finally, Martha Dandridge young, pretty Martha Dandridge is going to enter into this complicated family history and put her little mark in it. So, thank you very much for listening. I will leave references to things for further reading in the show notes. I am, as ever, your most obedient and humble servant.