ENTRY

Hercules (b. ca. 1754)

SUMMARY

Hercules had been the longtime enslaved chef of George Washington when he ran away from Mount Vernon in 1797. Born about 1754, he was a ferryman as a young man and possibly owned by Washington’s Fairfax County neighbor Captain John Posey. When Posey fell into debt, Washington purchased Hercules. At Mount Vernon Hercules trained as a chef and by 1786 estate records identify him as the mansion’s chief cook. Late in 1790, Hercules and his thirteen-year-old son, Richmond, joined President Washington in Philadelphia. Hercules labored as chief chef in the President’s House, with Richmond as his assistant. Described by George Washington Parke Custis as a “celebrated dandy” who ran a strict and clean kitchen, Hercules used the proceeds from selling kitchen slops to purchase nice clothes. On a visit home to Mount Vernon in 1796, Richmond was accused of stealing money. Soon after, Hercules was demoted to working as a farm laborer, and Washington worried that the two were planning to run away. In February 1797 Hercules did flee the estate, without his son. The steward of the President’s House later wrote to Washington that the chef had been sighted in Philadelphia, but Hercules was never found. He disappeared from the historical record.

Early Years

The East Front of Mount Vernon

Hercules, often referred to in Washington’s records as Herculas, was born probably about 1754. Historians have calculated that year based on the fact that in 1770 he appeared for the first time on a list of tithable enslaved people belonging to George Washington. Enslaved people first became tithable—meaning the state or county could tax their owners on their value—when they were sixteen.

Nothing is known of Hercules’s parents or family, although he may have been born on the estate of Captain John Posey, Washington’s neighbor in Fairfax County. A heavy drinker, Posey played cards with Washington and the two were friends. After falling deeply into debt, Posey mortgaged to Washington in 1765 twenty-six enslaved people, including Hercules. In 1770, Posey leased to Washington land that contained a ferry operated by Hercules and another enslaved man, Jack, and two years later Washington purchased it. At some point, Washington came to own Hercules. It is possible, meanwhile, that Hercules turned sixteen while with Posey. Ferrymen were exempt from levies and so no record would have been made.

By 1777, Hercules married Alice, an enslaved seamstress, and the couple produced three children: Richmond, Evey, and Delia. Alice, also known as Lame Alice, died in September 1787.

President’s House

Washington's House

Hercules trained to be a chef, and a Mount Vernon slave census, dated February 18, 1786, identifies him as the mansion’s chief cook. Three years later, George Washington was elected president, and for a little more than a year he lived in New York, the federal capital. He returned home on August 30, 1790, for an extended visit. In the meantime, the capital had moved to Philadelphia, where the Washingtons traveled in November. This time they took with them Hercules, who had been tapped to serve as chief chef in the President’s House.

Eight other enslaved people made the trip, including Martha Custis Washington‘s personal attendant, Oney Judge, and Hercules’s thirteen-year-old son, Richmond. In a letter to his personal secretary, George Washington groused that Richmond was joining the president’s household staff “not from his appearance or merits I fear, but because he was the Son of Herculas & his desire to have him as an assistant.” Father and son lived together on the fourth floor of the President’s House.

George Washington Parke Custis

George Washington Parke Custis, the president’s stepgrandson, lived with the Washington family during this time. His memories of Hercules are vivid and affectionate, if also highly sentimental. “The chief cook,” he wrote in Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington (1859–1861), “would have been termed in modern parlance, a celebrated artiste.” Describing Hercules as “dark brown,” average sized, and muscular, Custis noted that the cook “glories in the cleanliness and nicety of his kitchen” and was generally treated with “much respect.” He went on to suggest that while “homely in person,” Hercules was a “celebrated dandy” for how well he dressed. His clothes, according to Custis, were purchased from the approximately $200 per year he earned selling kitchen slops.

In the spring of 1791 George Washington learned that Pennsylvania law complicated his ability to hold slaves in the state. Passed in 1780, “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery” required that any slaves living in Pennsylvania for six uninterrupted months be freed. In a letter to his secretary, dated April 12, 1791, Washington ordered that his slaves be sent back to Virginia before their six months expired in May, and then returned to Philadelphia. It is unclear whether he was aware of a 1788 amendment to the Pennsylvania act that prohibited exactly this means of subverting the law. There also was some confusion at the time over whether federal officials were exempt from the law’s requirements and, if they were not, whether Pennsylvania would enforce them in such a politically sensitive situation.

Whatever the case, Washington took no chances, explaining to his secretary that the movement of his slaves ought to be accomplished “under pretext that may deceive both them and the Public.” Washington worried that should his slaves learn of the law they might be tempted by freedom. He also noted that all but two of his slaves in Philadelphia, including Oney Judge but not Hercules, were dower slaves, meaning that they had come to the marriage with his wife and were technically owned by the estate of her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. Should he lose them, Washington wrote, he would be forced to reimburse the Custis estate. In May 1796, Judge ran away from the President’s House while the family ate a dinner presumably cooked by Hercules.

Freedom

Hercules himself ran away early in 1797. Historians long argued that he had become attached to life in Philadelphia, and fled because Washington’s term was set to end on March 4. However, in 2009, the Mount Vernon historian Mary V. Thompson uncovered records that demonstrated a different motivation. In November 1796, perhaps while on one of their regular trips home, Hercules’s son Richmond was caught stealing money at Mount Vernon. Within a month, according to the records found by Thompson, Hercules was no longer working as a chef but as a common laborer.

In a letter to his farm manager, dated November 14, 1796, Washington wondered whether Hercules had been involved in the theft. “I hope Richmond was made an example of, for the Robbery he committed on Wilkes Saddle bags,” the president wrote. “I wish he may not have been put upon it by his father (although I never had any suspicion of the honesty of the latter) for the purpose perhaps of a journey together.” Washington ordered that they be carefully watched, lest they attempt to escape.

Hercules may have been planning an escape with his son all along. Or the loss of his privileges as the mansion’s chef may have prompted him to run. But run he did, alone, sometime on February 21 or 22, 1797. (February 22 was Washington’s sixty-fifth birthday.) In a March 10 letter, Washington indicated his belief that Hercules may have returned to Philadelphia by urging his secretary to enlist the help of Frederick Kitt, steward of the President’s House, in the search.

In April Louis Philippe, duke of Orléans and later the king of the French, visited Mount Vernon. In his diary he noted that his manservant interviewed Hercules’s six-year-old daughter about the former chef’s whereabouts. (Hercules may have married again after his wife’s death.) The servant “ventured that the little girl must be deeply upset that she would never see her father again; she answered, Oh! sir, I am very glad, because he is free now.”

Negros Belonging to George Washington in his own right and by Marriage

By early the next year Hercules still hadn’t been found. On January 10, 1798, Washington wrote directly to Frederick Kitt, asking him to look for his slave. Five days later Kitt responded that he had “been making distant enquiries about Herculas” and had heard only that he was in Philadelphia. On January 29, Washington urged Kitt to continue the search, but Hercules was never captured.

Washington’s last will and testament, signed July 9, 1799, manumits his own slaves, which included Hercules, but not the dower slaves owned by the Custis family, which included Hercules’s children. As a result, Hercules legally became free in 1801, although the historical record does not indicate anything about his life or death after 1798.

MAP
TIMELINE
ca. 1754
Hercules is born enslaved, possibly on the Fairfax County estate of Captain John Posey.
1765
Captain John Posey, a neighbor of George Washington, mortgages to Washington twenty-six enslaved people, including Hercules.
April 23, 1770
Captain John Posey, a neighbor of George Washington, leases Washington 7 acres of land bordering Mount Vernon.
July 16, 1770
Hercules first appears in historical record in George Washington's "Memorandum List of Tithables." He and a man named Jack are indicated to be ferrymen at the Home Farm.
1772
George Washington purchases from his neighbor Captain John Posey land that contains a ferry.
1777
By this date Hercules and Alice (also known as Lame Alice) are married at Mount Vernon. They will have three children.
February 18, 1786
The Mount Vernon slave census lists Hercules as working as the chief cook of Mansion House.
September 1787
Alice, the wife of Hercules dies, and Martha Washington gives three bottles of rum as a mourning gift.
November 1790
President George Washington and his family move to Philadelphia, site of the new federal capital.
April 5, 1791
In a letter to George Washington, Tobias Lear informs the president of a Pennsylvania law that complicates his holding of slaves in the federal capital.
April 12, 1791
In a letter to Tobias Lear, George Washington asks his secretary to temporarily relocate his slaves from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon.
May 21, 1796
Oney Judge, the enslaved body servant to Martha Custis Washington, escapes from the President's House in Philadelphia while the family is eating dinner.
November 1796
Richmond, the son of George Washington's enslaved cook Hercules, is caught stealing money at Mount Vernon.
January 1797
Hercules is back at Mount Vernon, and working as a laborer rather than a chef.
February 21—22, 1797
Hercules escapes from Mount Vernon.
March 4, 1797
George Washington's second term as U.S. president ends and he retires from public life.
March 10, 1797
In a letter to Tobias Lear, George Washington asks his secretary about apprehending Hercules, his runaway enslaved chef.
April 1797
Louis Philippe, duke of Orléans, visits Mount Vernon.
January 10, 1798
In a letter to Frederick Kitt, steward of the President's House in Philadelphia, George Washington urges him to look for his runaway slave Hercules.
January 15, 1798
Frederick Kitt, steward of the President's House in Philadelphia, writes George Washington that his slave Hercules is in that city.
January 29, 1798
In a letter to Frederick Kitt, George Washington urges him to continue the search for Hercules.
July 9, 1799
George Washington signs his last will and testament, which manumits his slaves but not the dower slaves owned by the Custis family.
1801
Hercules, once enslaved by George Washington, is munumitted. Hercules had run away in 1797 and was never found.
FURTHER READING
  • Abbot, W. W., et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1987– .
  • Louis Philippe. Diary of My Travels in America. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1977.
  • MacLeod, Jessie and Mary V. Thompson. Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon, Virginia: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, 2016.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
Wolfe, Brendan. Hercules (b. ca. 1754). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hercules-b-ca-1754.
MLA Citation:
Wolfe, Brendan. "Hercules (b. ca. 1754)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 07 Jun. 2023
Last updated: 2022, June 16
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