Mrs. Washington
arrived in New York from Mount Vernon on May 27, 1789. She was met by the
President with his barge on the Jersey shore, and as the barge passed the
Battery a salute of thirteen cannon was fired. At the landing-place a
large company was gathered, and the coach that took her to her home was
escorted with military parade. The questions of etiquette had been settled
by that time, and she performed her social duties with the ease of a
Virginia gentlewoman always used to good society. She found them irksome,
however, as such things had long since lost their novelty. Writing to a
friend she said, "I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything
else." She was then a grandmother through her children by her first
husband. Although she preferred plain attire, she is described on one
occasion as wearing a velvet gown over a white satin petticoat, her hair
smoothed back over a moderately high cushion. It was the fashion of the
times for the ladies to tent their hair up to a great height. At one of
Mrs. Washington's receptions, Miss McIvers, a New York belle, had such a
towering coiffure that the feathers which surmounted it brushed a lighted
chandelier and caught fire.
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