umbers of slaves and indentured
workmen. In 1749 he paid taxes on seven blacks and seven whites. In 1782
he owned twenty-one blacks, four horses and a coach. His will, dated the
month before his death, enumerated seven slaves by name, specifying
special considerations for two, _viz_: "that they may be better cloathed
both in Winter and Summer than is common for slaves, and that they be
particularly taken good care of as a reward for their long and faithful
services."

William Ramsay married Ann McCarty, daughter of Dennis McCarty Sr. and
his wife Sarah Ball, who was a kinswoman of George Washington and sister
of Mrs. George Johnston. Ann McCarty Ramsay was one of those women of
the day who by the laws of the land lost their property and identity
with marriage. Yet, when this retiring, gentle person was called upon to
raise funds in Alexandria and Fairfax County, no modern matron working
for bond drive or Red Cross ever did a more successful work. Thomas
Jefferson, as Governor of Virginia, in a letter from Richmond written on
August 4, 1780, to General Edward Stevens, attached a list of "female
Contributions, in aid of the War, Probably in 1780." Among the thirteen
ladies who gave their watch chains, diamond drops and rings is the name
of "Mrs. Anne Ramsay (for Fairfax), one halfjoe, three guineas, three
pistareens, one bit. Do. for do. paper money, bundle No. 1, twenty
thousand dollars, No. 2, twenty-seven thousand dollars, No. 3, fifteen
thousand dollars, No. 4, thirteen thousand five hundred and eighteen
dollars and one third."[63]

This excellent wife took her Presbyterian husband into the Established
Church and we find Washington crediting him with L33 for pew No. 20 in
Alexandria (Christ) Church in January 1773. But the Presbyterian citadel
of learning was the choice over William and Mary College when time came
for the eldest son, William Jr., to prepare for a professional career.
The strict discipline of Old Nassau was more to the liking of Scottish
conservatism than the laxness reported among students and faculty at the
Williamsburg institution. At Princeton young William studied medicine
under Dr. Benjamin Rush. In 1775, after joining the General in winter
headquarters at Cambridge, Mrs. Washington wrote the family that she had
seen young Ramsay as she passed through Princeton and that "he was very
well but did not talk of comeing home soon."[64] Maybe this was a
woman's subtle way of breaking the news of young