Sociability at Mount Vernon

Julia Ursyn Niemcewicz

Metchie J.E. Budka

Grassmann Publishing Co.

1965-00-00

published primary source

eng

Niemcewicz, Julia Ursyn. Under Their Vine and Fig Tree: Travels Through America in 1797-1799, 1805, with Some Further Account of Life in New Jersey. Elizabeth, N.J.: Grassmann Publishing Co., 1965.

5/21/1798: "I then went up to Mrs. Washington. She is the same age as the G[enera]l…, small, with lively eyes, a gay air and extremely kind. She had on a gown, with an even hem, of stiff white cotton, fitting very tightly, or rather attached from all sides with pins. A bonnet of white gauze, ribbons of the same color, encircling her head tightly, leaving the forehead completely uncovered and hiding only half of her white hair which in back was done up in a little pigtail. She was at one time one of the most beautiful women in America and today there remains something extremely agreeable and attractive about her….” (85)

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