George Washington
Since he is typically considered by us by gazing at us out of somber portraits, unsmiling, almost clenching his famously inadequate teeth, few today realize that George Washington loved to dance. He not only loved it, he was by contemporaneous accounts very good at it, and was in continual demand on the dance floor by the ladies attending whatever event he went to where dancing was featured. During Washington’s day a typical dance or cotillion would begin at seven with a light repast, followed by dancing until ten when a sit down supper would be served. Then there would be more dancing well into the wee hours, ending with the departure of the guests with the arrival of the dawn. Washington would often remain until the end.
Washington attended balls and dances during his youth along the Potomac in Virginia. During the Revolutionary War dances for officers and their wives, and guests from the towns where the Continental Army was encamped were frequent. Washington attended as many as he could. Undoubtedly he needed distraction from the burden of his duties, and from the written accounts of other guests who attended these affairs he arrived early, stayed late, and danced with as many of the ladies present that he could.
Nathaniel Greene wrote of one such ball in 1779 that Washington attended and danced “…upwards of three hours without once sitting down,” in a letter to Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth. Of another, a Christmas Ball at the end of the year 1783, James Tilton wrote, “The General danced every set, that all the ladies might have the pleasure of dancing with him, or as it has since been handsomely expressed, get a touch of him.” Washington was described when attending other balls or similar affairs as being, “…unusually cheerful,” and “…dignified and graceful.”
George Washington left what would become the United States but once in his life, a trip to Barbados with his half-brother Lawrence in an attempt to improve the tubercular Lawrence’s health, in 1751. Although the trip did little to improve the health of George’s beloved older half-brother, it is apparent that the two at least had the opportunity to enjoy female company. In a letter to his father-in-law, William Fairfax, Lawrence wrote of Barbados, “we have no kind of bodily diversions here but dancing.”
As President of the United States, Washington toured the Southern states, and found himself honored with dances in Charleston and Savannah. Washington later commented on the “elegantly dressed ladies” which he found on both occasions. As President in New York, Washington was the guest of honor at balls, dances, and cotillions, attending as many as he could, and the developing partisanship in the government was soon finding fault with his appearance at many of them. Such was likely inevitable. George Washington was still attending dances in Alexandria, Virginia up to the year of his death, at the age of 67.
