Washington's Wuthering Heights Story - Dr Savage
Just like the horror of Percy Bysshe Shelley's wife telling the story of Frankenstein through the correspondence of letters, so too is this horror of a woman's 2nd marriage to a bad man told in a series of letters.
And like Emily Brontë's story, Wuthering Heights, of a man turned unbelievably cruel, so too is this story of a woman's 2nd marriage to a Dr Savage.
Correspondence tells us of Mrs Savage's plight. She was formerly Margaret Green. Her first husband Dr Green died in 1765 and left a large estate. She then married a Dr William Savage. But there was a stipulation. He would of course take over her estate but with the condition she gets paid a 100 lbs annually. He gets the estate, but renegs on the deal of a 100 lbs annually to his wife. He is known to beat her and terrorize her daring to asking for the 100lbs annually. Why is this letter to George Washington? GW is one of the trustees designated to distribute the estate. He knew well her first husband, Dr Charles Green. That couple came to Mt Vernon many times. But her first husband was not without controversy. He was accused in a very publicized court trial of being a pedophile. He was accused by Ann Fairfax, who later grew up to marry George Washington's older half brother, Lawrence. Now the former Mrs Green is living in hell with her second husband, Dr Savage.
This letter is one of many where Mrs Green waffles on pushing for that 100lbs. Founders Online thinks it is because she was being threatened, so she kept changing back and forth her desire for that 100lbs of independence.
His old aid de camp, George Mercer writes to him of her current plight.
Who was George Mercer?
He was a Captain whose company helped build Fort Loudoun in Winchester VA. He was aide de camp to Colonel George Washington. Later he became a Lt Colonel and then represented Frederick County with GW in the House of Burgesses. Later still he was trying to become Governor of Vandalia, a proposed colony that never came to be.
He's in Dublin now visiting family.
And so was Mrs Savage.. Because the deceased Green had estate there in Ireland.
Mercer starts off his letter with mercy needed for the poor 70 year old Mrs Savage.
“I wrote you from hence about two Months since, at the Request of Mrs Savage, praying you to do, what her own Letter now she says repeats, and enforces. [That is her request for the annual 100lbs.]
I believe the poor Woman has but a bad Time of it,
as she is amongst other Things, at the tender Age of three score & ten,
denied the Use of Pen Ink Paper & Romances,
and a frequent Use of the Strap is substituted in the Place of those Amusements” (18 Dec. 1770).
This case dragged on forever.
In fact it went on over 33 years.
Dr Savage died in 1784 when the estate was all but depleted for our poor Mrs Savage.
BTW
Where was GW at the time of Mercer's letter?
GW had just completed his journey to the Ohio and Kanawha - October 5, 1770 to December 1, 1770 to look at the Promised Land of Lt Gov Dinwiddie's 1754 Proclamation. All of this was happening while the Boston Massacre jiury trials were going on. October to December 1770.
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Compiiled by Jim Moyer Moyer 1/19/2025, researched 2021, updated 2/25/2024, 1/19/2025
Table of Contents
No attribution can be found.
A woman looking not so happy while working flax.
Story of 2nd marriage
with Dr Savage
George Mercer's 18 Dec 1770 letter from Ireland:
This story as told by Founders Online:
1. This letter marks the beginning of a long, frustrating affair in GW’s life which continued to plague him as late as 1798. See GW to George Deneale, 22 April 1798, DLC:GW. When the Rev. Charles Green died in 1765 he left his property in Ireland to the heirs of his two sisters, who resided in Ireland, and his sizable estate in Virginia to his aging widow, Margaret (d. 1782).
Green made out his unwitnessed will almost ten years before his death, and in it he referred to a “Deed of Trust to Collo. Catesby Cocke Richd Osborn & William Ramsay for the use of my wife, by wch I settled sundry tracts of land & Sixteen Slaves some of which are since dead. I will that the said Deed have its full & proper effect, & not only so—but I give and bequeath further unto my loving wife Margaret Green & to her heirs for ever all the Land which I shall die possessed of in Virginia to sell or dispose of as she pleases also all my personal Estate whatsoever and Debts Bonds Bills &c.” He went on to recommend that his wife sell his effects and move back to Dublin to live. If she preferred to remain in Virginia, however, and if she remarried, she was to make provision for her sister Mary Bolan (Fairfax County Will Book B-1 [1752–67], 398–99).
Green’s irregular will was admitted to court on 19 Aug. 1765 on the evidence of five witnesses who swore to Green’s handwriting, and the court, “of their own knowledge,” affirmed the handwriting. GW and George William Fairfax were named Mrs. Green’s securities. GW’s bond of security from Mrs. Green, dated 19 Aug. 1765, is in the Order Book for 1765–66 at ViFaCt. Mrs. Green then brought into court the deed of trust referred to in the will, recorded in court 26 Dec. 1749, “on which there is an indorsemt of Sevl Negro Slaves made by the Testator in his own hand writing since the Execution of the sd Deed . . . the Court present together with the witns who proved the will of the sd Chas Green knowing the same to be his hand writing it is ordd to be recorded” (Fairfax County Order Book [1765–66], 30–31). Green made this deed of trust “for and in consideration of her giving up her Right to a certain Settlement in Trust made on her before Marriage by which she might claim as Jointure after the death of the said Charles Green one half of the Rents” of several houses and land “in or near the City of Dublin in the Kingdom of Ireland” (deed of trust from Charles Green to Catesby Cocke, Richard Osborn, and William Ramsay, 20 Dec. 1749, Fairfax County Deed Book B-1 [1746–50], 523–25).
Mrs. Green’s troubles began shortly after her marriage, probably early in 1767, to Dr. William Savage, a physician practicing in Dumfries. GW gives a concise account of the Savage affair almost twenty years later in a letter to Mrs. Anne Ennis: “The circumstances attending that unfortunate Lady & her Estate are these. Her first husband, the Revd Chas Green, left all his property real & personal to her, estimated at about £5000 current money of this State: not in trust, as you set forth, but at her absolute disposal. When she was about to enter into her second marriage, with Doctr Savage, she previously thereto made this Estate over to him, securing an annuity of £100 currency, for the term of her life, if it should be demanded: And it was this sum, which was secured to her by a trust bond to Bryan Fairfax Esqr. & myself” (15 Nov. 1786, DLC:GW). According to Thomas Brereton, William Savage and Thomson Mason passed bond for £5,000 about 1 Jan. 1767 to pay the annuity to Mrs. Savage (letter to GW, 12 April 1786, DLC:GW). GW’s letter to Anne Ennis continued: “The unhappy differences which soon arose, & occasioned a separation between the Doctor & her, obliged Mr Fairfax & myself, in order to obtain support for Mrs Savage, to put the Bond in suit.”
GW and, first, George William and, later, Bryan Fairfax acting as trustees for Mrs. Savage were responsible for seeing that her annuity of £100 each year was paid by Dr. Savage out of Green’s estate.
For years the two trustees tried to make Savage comply with the terms of his bond and pay the money due her. Savage, however, persisted in his refusal to pay, declaring that his wife had affirmed her willingness to forgo her annuity, while Mrs. Savage frequently wrote to GW and Fairfax begging for her money.
What seemed to them to be Mrs. Savage’s inconsistent behavior
over the matter, at one time insisting to GW and others that she wished to have the money and at other times, according to Dr. Savage’s assertions, declaring that she was willing for him to retain it, kept GW and Fairfax uncertain whether or not they should insist on payment. GW in particular wrote several letters admonishing Mrs. Savage to take a firm stand on whether or not she was willing for her husband to pay her annuity. He and Fairfax seem to have been unable to contemplate the likelihood that Mrs. Savage’s actions arose from threats and even physical abuse by her husband, that she almost certainly wished to force Savage to pay the annuity but was afraid to say so publicly.
Dr. Savage left for Ireland in the late summer or fall of 1768, taking his wife with him. Harry Piper, the Scottish factor in Alexandria for the British firm of Dixon & Littledale, wrote on 12 Sept. 1768 to John Dixon, Mrs. Savage’s representative in Britain: “Doctr Savage & his Wife I am told is gone, or are going to Ireland, both of them they live a most wretched life together” (Harry Piper Letter Book, ViU).
Savage evidently lived with his wife in Ireland for a short while before he returned to Virginia in the fall or winter of 1771. During this time, GW’s old comrade-in-arms George Mercer, while visiting his family in Ireland, wrote GW: “I wrote you from hence about two Months since, at the Request of Mrs Savage, praying you to do, what her own Letter now she says repeats, and enforces. I believe the poor Woman has but a bad Time of it, as she is amongst other Things, at the tender Age of three score & ten, denied the Use of Pen Ink Paper & Romances, and a frequent Use of the Strap is substituted in the Place of those Amusements” (18 Dec. 1770, DLC:GW).
While they were residing abroad Mrs. Savage sent a power of attorney back to Virginia to at least three people to act in her behalf, one of whom was Thomas Montgomerie. GW and Fairfax then found themselves in the position of receiving money for four years’ annuity from Dr. Savage through his agent Montgomerie and handing it back to Montgomerie as Mrs. Savage’s agent.
Harry Piper wrote to Dixon & Littledale on 4 Jan. 1772: “With regard to Mrs Savage’s affairs, I am really sorry to find I am greatly disappointed, I expected to have got some Money to remit her, but on examing her Power of Attorney to Mr Montgomerie, it orders him to receive the Money for the use of Doctr Savage, this discovery was never made ’till after receipts were past between Mr Montgomerie & Messrs Washington & Fairfax for £400 for 4 Years Annuity, to be sure Mrs Savage must know that she had sent such a Power, indeed Mr Montgomerie says had he observed it before, he would not Acted under it, but now he is forewarned by Savage (who is now in the Country,) not to pay the Money to any body but himself agreeable to Power of Attorney—I believe there is another £100 due the 1st of this Month which Colo. Washington has promised to try to get for me, tho’ probably it may not be paid without a Suit, for it appears as if Doctr Savage were determined she shall never get any thing if he can prevent it” (Harry Piper Letter Book, ViU).
After her husband returned to Virginia Mrs. Savage was living in great want in Ireland, dependent on the charity of friends. In February 1772 GW sent Mrs. Savage a bill of exchange for £53, from his own funds, to pay off her most pressing debts. Although he informed her that he would reimburse himself from her annuities when the doctor finally released them, he undoubtedly knew by this time that there was a real doubt that anything could be expected from Savage. On 15 June 1772 Piper wrote Dixon & Littledale again: “I imagine Mr Montgomerie will try to get the receipts distroyed that passed between him & Messrs Washington & Fairfax on Accot of Mrs Savage, in that case a Suit will be commenced agt the Doctr for the whole sum [i.e., the amount of the annuities, including the £400 which Montgomerie paid to Mrs. Savage’s trustees in 1771 on Savage’s behalf and which the trustees paid back to Montgomerie for Savage’s use], I am pretty certain that Colo. Washington will not spare him, but he will pay nothing ’till he is compelled” (Harry Piper Letter Book, ViU). On 8 Nov. 1772 Piper noted that he believed the receipts for the £400 had been destroyed and the suit against Savage would be for the full amount of the annuities.
A judgment against Savage was finally obtained in 1774 for the full amount of over £600 (see summary of the case of GW and Bryan Fairfax against William Savage and Thomson Mason, 18 May 1772–17 May 1774, ViMtV), but Savage carried the case to the General Court where it was thrown into chancery. Piper added, “when it will be determ’d I know not, but fear it will be a long time” (4 Aug. 1774, Harry Piper Letter Book, ViU).
Shortly after his return to Mount Vernon at the end of the Revolution, GW received from his attorney Edmund Randolph a letter of 19 Feb. 1784 saying:
“I left the form of an answer in Savage’s suit against you and Mr B. Fairfax with the latter gentleman, in hopes of receiving it executed in a proper manner, that I might put the most expeditious end to the business.” After some further correspondence on the matter, Randolph wrote GW on 15 May 1784: “Dr Savage is dead, and his suit has abated. If the injunction be not renewed by his executor, it will be in your power to proceed on the old judgment [presumably that of 1774].”
Randolph went on to say that he believed it would be “necessary to give the executor time, until the succeeding court, to determine, whether he will revive it or not, such being the rule of the chancery.”
GW continued to receive requests regarding claims under Mrs. Savage’s will. In answer to one of the last of these, GW wrote on 20 Aug. 1797 to the Rev. Newburgh Burroughs:
“from the year 1774 until the beginning of the year 1784, it was not in my power to attend to hers [Mrs. Savage’s], or any private concerns of my own, being absent from this state (Virginia) eight years of the time; during the whole of which, and for sometime after, I believe there was a suspension of all law and all justice, except such as proceeded from a sense of honour, the last of which was no trait in the character of Doctr Savage, husband of the Lady, for of all ingrates he was the most ingrateful“
While alive, and the Courts were open, he had recourse to all the Chicanery of Law, and all the subterfuge of Lawyers to avoid paying her annuity; and since his death, his Estate, if any, for there are various opinions concerning it, and much contention arising therefrom, would render it uncandid were I not to add, es⟨pe⟩cially as the heirs of his Security (also dead) have pleaded the want of Assetts that it is my opinion . . . that little is to be expected from the prosecution of this business.“
The Suit is still going on, but without sufficient means to support it from hence, and the circumstances already mentioned, it has too much the appearance of throwing away good money after bad, to proceed” (NN: Washington Collection).
Dr. Savage seems to have moved to Edenton, N.C., about 1772 and was active during the Revolution, serving as a commissioner for navigation and pilotage for Edenton and shipping in goods for the American army. He was called by the governor of North Carolina “a Gentn. of great merit and friend to American freedom” (N.C. State Records, 11:496, 12:610, 24:125).
For other letters dealing with the Savage affair, see especially GW to Sarah Bomford, 20 Sept. 1772, 28 Aug. 1774, 15 Mar. 1785, to Thomas Brereton, 20 April 1786, to William Ellzey, 3 Oct. 1769, to Anne Ennis, 15 Nov. 1786, to Francis Moore, 11 Oct. 1783, to Hannah Moore, 28 Feb. 1785, to Harry Piper, 27 Jan. 1772, to Margaret Savage, 28 June, 4 July 1768, 5 Sept. 1771, 20 Sept. 1772, 15 April 1774, to William Savage, 27 May 1767 and 28 June 1768, Sarah Bomford to GW, 27 Sept. 1773, 25 May 1774, 28 April 1776, Bryan Fairfax to GW, 20, 30 July 1768, 16 April 1770, 3 Aug. 1772, 21 May 1774, Thomas Montgomerie to GW, 5 Oct. 1769, Francis Moore to GW, 25 Sept. 1783, Hannah Moore to GW, 20 Jan. 1785, Margaret Savage to GW, 19 Aug. 1772, and William Savage to GW, 25 May 1767, 3 July 1768, in DLC:GW; Harry Piper to Dixon & Littledale, 13 Mar. 1769, 27 Jan., 3 Nov. 1770, 30 Aug., 27 Nov. 1771, 24 Oct. 1772, all in the Harry Piper Letter Book, ViU. See also Diaries, 2:181–82, 2:228, 3:81, and Papers, Presidential Series, 1:363–65, 2:28–29.
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Soiurce is Founders Online:
Story of 1st marriage
with the accused pedophile Dr Green
Washington, Fairfaxes, Carlyles and Rev Charles Green
The Rule of Thumb
Was there a Rule of Thumb?
If you look at this caricature of Judge Buller, who became known as ‘Judge Thumb‘ holding a bundle of long sticks(faggots) with a thumb on the end it is dated 7th November,1782, so just after the case above had been heard, you will see the wording in the bubble, being shouted by the man ‘murder hey, it’s law you bitch, it’s not bigger than my thumb’.
But this states the Rule of Thumb might not be so exact or allowed in all cases.
Judge Buller’s quote, IF the newspaper reports of September 1782, are correct and accurately reported, was :
At the last Assizes at W_____r, a man was tried for having beat his wife, so that she was supposed to die of the contusions and bruises. The prisoner was allowed counsel; and in defence of the man it was alleged, that a husband had the legal power of chastening his wife.The judge objected to the pertinence of the allegation, because the prisoner used a faggot. It is allowed that a husband may correct his wife, but not with a faggot.The council asked what size the stick should be, which might be so applied?Judge Buller put out his hand and said,‘Of the size of my thumb’.All the Ladies of W_____r sent messages to his lodgings, to obtain the exact measure of his Lordships thumb; and the lawyers have given their opinion, that if a husband should use a stick differing in dimension the breadth of a hair from Judge Buller’s thumb, an action will lie, and heavy damages be recoverable by the wife.
This newspaper article, if correctly quoted, we would take to mean literally the size of Judge Buller’s thumb i.e about 6cm in length and around 7cm circumference and not a stick the thickness of his thumb as became part of folklore.
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There had apparently been a case of a man beating his wife to death with a pestle*, this however would have been considerably larger than a thumb and capable of inflicting severe damage due to its weight.
In the 18th century a mortar and pestle was often made from metal or wood and could be considerably larger than the size of a thumb as can be seen in this image in which the pestle is metal and some 20cm in length and so would have been capable of inflicting serious injury, or in that particular case death.
If he didn’t literally mean his thumb, then it could be argued that what he was actually saying was that no man had the right to beat his wife.
The Norfolk Chronicle a month later on 12 October 1782, helpfully clarified the legal position as set down by Judge Blackstone:
As many laughable allusions have been introduced into the papers relative to a late judicial decision respecting an assault tried at ‘Nisi Prius’ in the country, and what a husband is legal warranted to chastise his wife with. The following is the Law relative to that matter, as laid down by the late Judge Blackstone:The husband by the old Law might give his wife moderate correction; for as he is to answer for her misbehaviour, the law thought it reasonable to entrust him with this power of restraining her by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his servants or children, for whom the master, or parent, is also liable in some cases to answer. But this power of correction was confined within reasonable bounds, and the husband was prohibited from using any violence to his wife.The Civil Law gave the husband the same, or a larger authority, over his wife, allowing him for some misdemeanours to beat his wife soundly with whips and cudgels. But with us, in the politer reign of Charles the Second, this power of correction began to be doubted, and a wife may now have the security of the peace against her husband, or in return husband against his wife. Yet the lower ranks of people, who were always fond of the old common law, still claim and exert their ancient privileges; and the courts of law will permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty, in case of any misbehaviour. (Blackstone, Volume 1, p.444).
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