Frances Bassett

     Frances Bassett was born on 19 December 1767 in New Kent County, Virginia. She was the daughter of Burwell Bassett and Anna Maria Dandridge Bassett, Anna was the sister of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington. She was also known as Fanny. She was Martha Washington’s favorite niece. In 1784, several years after Fanny’s mother (Martha’s sister) died, Fanny moved to Mount Vernon to make it her permanent home. Martha Washington wrote that Fanny “is as a child to me, and I am very lone some when she is absent.”

Another frequent and long-term visitor to Mount Vernon was George Washington’s nephew, George Augustine Washington (1758-1793). During the Revolution, Major George Augustine Washington was aide-de-camp to General Lafayette.

Fanny married George Augustine WASHINGTON, son of Charles WASHINGTON and Mildred THORNTON, on 15 October 1785 in Mt. Vernon, Virginia. They continued to live at Mount Vernon after the wedding. A few months later, George Washington made George Augustine Washington manager of Mount Vernon. He remained in that position through the first several years of George Washington’s Presidency. However, poor health forced him to give up the job. Eventually, Fanny and George Augustine purchased a house in Alexandria.

When George Augustine died in February 1793, George Washington invited Fanny and her three small children to make their home at Mount Vernon, but she elected to remain in Alexandria, living in Washington’s town house (reconstructed at 508 Cameron Street) for a little over a year in 1794-95. Their two sons, George Fayette Washington (1790-1867) (named after Lafayette) and Lawrence Augustine Washington (b. 1791), inherited 2,000 acres in George Washington’s will – they were “double nephews,” being blood grandnephews of both George and Martha Washington.

George died on 5 February 1793 in Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, Virginia, leaving Frances WASHINGTON as a widow.¹

Frances Bassett died on 25 March 1796 in Virginia at age 28.² She was buried in Mount Vernon Estate, Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, Virginia.²