General Notes

Eskridge Family Portraits
The Virginia Historical Society is steward of the largest portrait collection in the South and is committed to its preservation for future generations of Virginians. Recently the Society received a private gift from the Eskridge family to conserve two fragile portraits in our collection. George Eskridge (d. 1735) of Westmoreland County, a prominent burgess, and his first wife, Rebecca Bonum Eskridge (d. 1715), were painted by an unidentified Virginia artist sometime after their marriage in 1680. Late seventeenth-century colonial American portraits are rare. Late seventeenth-century colonial American portraits painted by colonial Americans are even rarer: there were very few known portraitists active in the colony at this time.
These early and unusual paintings descended in the Eskridge family until they were given to the Society in 1914. Before their recent conservation, the original surfaces of the portraits were hidden beneath large areas of inept nineteenth-century repainting intended to repair minor damage. The cleaned paintings reveal that the Eskridges, as English gentry, were quick to display and enjoy the finery that wealth can buy. At the same time, the Eskridges wear notably somber expressions in their portraits, perhaps evidence of the difficult conditions of early settlement, where human life was fragile and the economy uncertain.

George Eskridge was selected by Mary Hewes to be the guardian of her daughter, Mary Ball, who became in turn the mother of George Washington. By Eskridge family tradition, Mary Ball Washington named her son out of devotion to George Eskridge.

The Eskridge family gathered at the Society recently for a Family Association meeting and to view the conserved portraits of their ancestors.


From History Notes: The Newsletter of the Virginia Historical Society

Number 24 (Autumn 1996),

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The family in America begins with George Eskridge of Westmoreland County,
Virginia. The earliest record bearing his name in that county, which so far
has been discovered, is that of 1696, but there is one in Northumberland
County of 1689 (?), when he was made the executor of the will of Mr. Patrick
Spence, and the guardian of his sister, Mary.
There is a tradition that he came to Virginia in 1667, in charge of a
vessel, bringing the bricks from which the first house was built, but as there
seems to be no record of the date of building the house, no dependence can be
put in that tradition. There is a record in the office of the Northumberland
Court House which may prove that he was here as early as 1678, but until those
records are in condition to be seen, we must take the later dates. (This
being in 1927)
In 1696 Col. George Eskridge was residing, with his wife, Rebecca Bonum,
in Westmoreland County. In that year he was made executor of the will of his
brother-in-law, William Rust, Jr., who had married Margaret Bonum, sister to
the wife of George Eskridge. There is hardly a page in the old Order Books of
Westmoreland Co., from that time until his death in 1735, on which his name
does not appear in connection with the affairs of the State. He must have
been in one of the two counties earlier that 1639, for he would hardly have
been chosen executor of a will and guardian of a daughter, had he been a new
resident of that section. He was chosen Attorney for many prominent men, and
as guardian for numbers of orphans. He was one of the most prominent men of
his day, and a very successful lawyer. The Court apopointed him to assist the
executors in the will of "King" Carter.
Among the minors for whom George Eskridge was guardian, was Mary Ball,
the mother of Gen. George Washington. In "AN UNWRITTEN CHAPTER IN THE EARLY
LIFE OF MARY WASHINGTON", written by Dr. G. W. Geale in the Virginia
Historical Magazine, he says.
"The mother of General Washington, as all the world know, was Mary Ball,
youngest daughter of Capt. Joseph Ball, of Lancaster Co., Va., and only child
of his second marriage with a widow Johnson. Much obscurity has rested on
this Mrs. Johnson- her maiden name, parentage, and history after Capt. Ball's
death. Indeed the only clue as to her identity as far as is known has been a
single clause in Capt. Ball's will of June 25, 1711, naming "Eliza. Johnson,
daughter of my beloved wife". Within a few weeks of the date of the above
will, Mary Ball's father died, leaving her fatherless ere she had attained her
fiftth birthday. Despite the accounts of her biographers and the fictitious
letters that have entered into them, the succeeding years of her life until
her marriage on March 6, 1730, were mainly spent in a Northumberland home to
which she was taken within a year of her father's death. This was brought
about by her mother's marriage for the third time to Capt. Richard Hews, a
vestryman of St. Stephen's parish, and a prominent business man in the above
county. Her mother had had, by her first marriage, two children--John and
Elizabeth Johnson--who became the close associates of her youngest daughter,
and who appear to have held her in tenderest affection.
The shadow of death that had fallen on the home of Mary Ball in
Lancaster, also descended swiftly on the one in Northumberland, Capt. Hews
having died within a year after his marriage to her mother. His inventory
filed March 17, 1713, by his widow, Mary Hewes. Numerous entries in the
Northumberland records during the succeedidng seven years, show the
enterprising and businesslike character of this mother of the most eminent of
American women.
In the summer of 1721, Mrs. Hews died, and on July 29th of that year her
will was placed on record. The present writer having discovered it among the
Northumberland archives has faithfully transcribed it. It is seldom that a
document of this kind, maternal affection, having other and older children to
share its bequests, so concentrates itself upon a youngest daughter, and she a
child of thirteen summers. Perhaps of all tributes laid at the feet of Mary
Washington has been more heartfelt or significant of her worth than the
legacies of her mother's last will and testament, written as they were all
unconsciously of her future distinction.