George Washington: His Final Days

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At 3:00 p.m. a schooner on the Potomac fired a salute, and the procession to the gravesite commenced, led by troops from Alexandria, whose band played a dirge. Four lieutenants in the Virginia militia carried the black-draped coffin. Clergymen, representatives from the Masonic Order, approximately 100 militiamen, Washington’s closest neighbors, and his horse, led by two postilions, accompanied the family downhill. The ceremony at the tomb included both the Episcopalian Order of Burial and full Masonic rites, after which 11 nearby cannon blasted a deafening, smoky salute.

As news of Washington’s death reached beyond the Potomac, memorial services were held in every state, as well as in France and Holland, the two European nations that had recognized the United States during the War of Independence. When word arrived in Philadelphia, President Adams ordered a period of official mourning, and the clerk of the House of Representatives entered in that body’s journal: ‘Our Washington is no more.’ A few days later

Congress resolved to have Washington’s remains transferred to the Federal City and buried beneath a marble monument in the Capitol. Martha consented, but funds were not appropriated for 30 years, and the project was never undertaken.

Observances of Washington’s death varied. Local pastors conducted simple services in many small towns. College presidents preached funeral sermons on many campuses. Most cities held elaborate commemorative services. An Episcopalian bishop presided at the memorial in Williamsburg, while a Catholic bishop conducted a solemn mass in Washington’s memory at St. Peter’s in Baltimore. In Boston, which Washington’s Continental army had liberated from British occupation in March 1776, nearly a quarter of the city’s 30,000 inhabitants processed through the streets. Philadelphia reproduced the ceremony conducted at Mount Vernon, with military units accompanying a coffin and riderless horse to a Lutheran church for a mock funeral. Citizens paid their respects to the soldier whom they mourned as the man most responsible for the American victory in the War of Independence and to the leader who never abused the power entrusted to him.

This article was written by John Ferling and originally published in the December 1999 issue of American History Magazine.

John Ferling, professor of history at the State University of West Georgia, is the author of biographies of Washington and John Adams and Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in the American Revolution.

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