Betty Washington Lewis

American, 1733 - 1797

BiographyElizabeth “Betty” Washington Lewis was born June 20, 1733, on the estate Pope’s Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia and raised from 1738 at Ferry Farm across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg, Virginia. She was the second child and only surviving daughter of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington and the sister of George Washington, the first President of the United States. As a member of Virginia’s gentry, she most likely received a traditional education of both practical and ornamental skills. She attended a school taught by the Reverent James Marye with her four older brothers and learned such domestic arts as sewing, knitting, embroidery, dancing, and horsemanship. At the age of 16, in 1750, Betty married her second cousin, Fielding Lewis (1725-1781), who was a merchant, plantation owner, member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and a colonel in the American Revolution. In 1752, Fielding Lewis purchased 1,300 acres on the outskirts of Fredericksburg and began to develop a grand Georgian estate, “Milbrook,” which later owners named Kenmore. As Fielding was often away from home due to his public service, Betty managed the plantation and her gardens, attended to their children, and made Kenmore a center of local hospitality. The Lewises were staunch defenders of the revolutionary cause and supported the war effort by providing supplies from their store, purchasing and building ships, and operating a gun manufactory to produce weapons. Their financial support of the war left them in extensive debt, however, and forced Betty during her widowhood to sell land, rent out her slaves, and run a school at Kenmore in order to support her family.

Betty and Fielding Lewis had 11 children together, 5 of which survived into adulthood; and they also raised 2 children from Fielding’s previous marriage. Betty continued to reside at Kenmore until 1795 or 1796, and she died at her daughter’s home, Western View, in Culpepper, Virginia, on March 31, 1797.

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