Ford remarks, some of the remedies tried savored of quackery.  In the diary, for February 16, 1770, we learn that “Joshua Evans who came here last Night put an iron Ring upon Patey and went away after Breakfast.”  Perhaps Evans failed to make the ring after the old medieval rule from three nails or screws that had been taken from a disinterred coffin.  At any rate the ring did poor Patty little good and a year later “Mr. Jno.  Johnson who has a nostrum for Fits came here in the afternoon.”  In the spring of 1773 the dark lady died.

Her death added considerably to Washington’s possessions, but there is every evidence that he gave no thought to that aspect of the matter.  “Her delicate health, or perhaps her fond affection for the only father she had ever known, so endeared her to the ‘general’, that he knelt at her dying bed, and with a passionate burst of tears prayed aloud that her life might be spared, unconscious that even then her spirit had departed.”  The next day he wrote to his brother-in-law:  “It is an easier matter to conceive than describe the distress of this Family:  especially that of the unhappy Parent of our Dear Patey Custis, when I inform you that yesterday removed the Sweet Innocent Girl [who] Entered into a more happy & peaceful abode than any she has met with in the afflicted Path she hitherto has trod.”

Before this John Parke Custis, or “Jacky,” had given his stepfather considerable anxiety.  Jacky’s mind turned chiefly from study to dogs, horses and guns and, in an effort, to “make him fit for more useful purposes than horse races,” Washington put him under the tutorship of an Anglican clergyman named Jonathan Boucher, who endeavored to instruct some of the other gilded Virginia youths of his day.  But Latin and Greek were far less interesting to the boy than the pretty eyes of Eleanor Calvert and the two entered into a clandestine engagement.  In all respects save one the match was eminently satisfactory, for the Calvert family, being descended from Lord Baltimore, was as good as any in America, and Miss Nelly’s amiable qualities, wrote Washington, had endeared her to her prospective relations, but both were very young, Jack being about seventeen, and the girl still younger.  While consenting to the match, therefore, Washington insisted that its consummation should be postponed for two years and packed the boy off to King’s College, now Columbia.  But Martha Washington was a fond and doting mother and, as Patty’s death occurred almost immediately, Jack’s absence in distant New York was more than she could bear.  He was, therefore, allowed to return home in three months instead of two years, and in February, 1774, was wedded to the girl of his choice.  Mrs. Washington felt the loss of her daughter too keenly to attend, but sent this message by her husband: 

“MY DEAR NELLY.—­God took from me a Daughter when June Roses were blooming—­He has now given me another Daughter about her Age when Winter winds are blowing, to warm my Heart again.  I am as Happy as One so Afflicted and so Blest can be.  Pray receive my Benediction and a wish that you may long live the Loving Wife of my happy Son, and a Loving Daughter of