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APPENDIX B "The unfortunate and most unhappy John Price Posey. ... " The year 1769 had been one of disaster for Captain John Posey. While his numerous creditors were rapidly tightening their legal tentacles around his estate in Virginia, he sought financial redemption in Maryland by marriage to Elizabeth Adair, whom he cheerfully advertised to the world as "a person ... oflarge fortune."! But the lady stubbornly resisted all his efforts to gain access to that fortune , and when he returned to his hapless children and deteriorating household at Rover's Delight, he was soon imprisoned for non-payment of debt. Upon his release, although drinking heavily and fighting publicly with his new wife, he was forced to face up to reality. He put up the bulk of his property and estate for sale at a public auction, which left him stripped of all his possessions other than an empty house and a narrow tract of riverfront land containing his ferry landing. The year ended with Elizabeth Adair Posey's sudden death, and the departure to the frontier of his oldest boy, Thomas, to make his own way in life. (See Chapter One.) Although proceeds from the auction sale had been sufficient to discharge nearly all of the captain's indebtedness to his largest creditor and benefactor, George Washington, very little was realized to apply to his many other pressing obligations. Legal action by these creditors in Fairfax County resulted in his being again briefly jailed for debt in the spring of 1770.2 Shortly after his release, he returned to Maryland to settle the estate of his late wife Elizabeth, and thus to acquire in death what he had failed to obtain in her lifetime. But his premarital expectations of her "large fortune" proved to be 278 AppendixB largely illusory, as the claims filed against her estate in probate court exceeded her assets. His Administrator's bond was declared forfeit, and the five slaves formerly owned by Elizabeth, which he had put up as security on his bond, were sold. But the bondsman purchased the slaves at a price Posey protested was far below their market value, leaving a deficit still remaining in the estate, and the captain was committed to debtors' prison in Queenstown. He could have escaped imprisonment by accepting the bondman's offer of £90 for Negro Jack, an accomplished manservant loaned by Washington to Posey after he was forced to sell all his own slaves. But Captain John refused to betray the trust of his longtime friend, and he sent Negro Jack back to Mount Vernon, assuring Washington that "I have all my Life acted honest and is determined to doe so, Lett me suffer ever so much."3 Pouring out all his troubles in a letter written to Washington from his prison cell in Queenstown, he passed along another interesting piece of information to the squire of Mount Vernon. All of his current financial problems could have been solved months ago, he confided, had he seized an opportunity to marry an "old widow woman of this County," whose wealth was more than sufficient to clear all his debts and assure him a comfortable old age. The widow was willing, and he himself was favorably inclined toward the match, despite the fact that "she is as thick as she is high-And gits drunk at least three or foure (times) a weak-which is Disagreeable to me." The captain, himself no slouch as a tippler, could perhaps overlook that flaw-but another characteristic proved fatal to the charms of his intended bride. It was the widow's "Viliant Sperrit when Drunk," which reminded him all too vividly of the last Mrs. Posey, that finally impelled him to reject the marriage and choose imprisonment over a debt-free life of ease. "I beleave 1 shu'd Run all Resk's-if my last wife had been (an) Even temper'd woman, but her Sperrit, has Given me such (a) Shock-that 1 am afraid to Run the Resk Again, When 1 see the object before my Ey(e)s (it) is Disagreeable.'" The bemused Washington, reading this passage in his comfortable study, and probably thanking his Deity for the demure and gentle personality of his own wife Martha, was not unsympathetic to Posey's plight. He promptly dispatched the captain's son, John Price Posey, to Maryland with the £12 needed to gain his father's release from prison.5 But Captain Posey may later have bitterly regretted his...

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