George Washington, Debtor

Aside from being the hero of the American Revolution and serving as the first President of the United States, George Washington happened to be a very rich man, among the richest in the American colonies. He married Martha Custis, one of the wealthiest widows in Virginia, and lived on the enormous estate known as Mount Vernon.

But if you need any proof that even the wealthiest among us can have bad financial fortune, look no further than the Father of our Country. Like many Virginia planters during a down period in the colonial economy in the 1760s, Washington went substantially into debt with a British merchant named Robert Cary, on whom he depended to market his tobacco in London and the rest of the mother country.

A letter to Cary from September, 1765 notes the difficulty that Washington was having selling his tobacco at a profit and signals his frustration with the English merchants on whom he depended to sell his product.

“Can it be otherwise than a little mortifying then to find, that we, who raise none but Sweetscented Tobacco, and endeavour I may venture to add, to be careful in the management of it, however we fail in the execution, and who by a close and fixed corrispondance with you, contribute so largely to the dispatch of your Ships in this Country shoud meet with such unprofitable returns? Surely I may answer No!” Washington wrote in a 1765 letter to Robert Cary & Company.

He also depended on Cary to purchase and send goods to him from England, a practice that got expensive.

“ … and in the return of Goods; for many Articles of which I pay exceeding heavily; another thing I cannot easily Account for, unless it is on a Presumption that they are bought at very long credits which by no means ought to be the case; for where a Person has money in a Merchants hands he shoud doubtless have all the benefits that can result from that money, and in like manner where he pays Interest for the use of the Merchants shoud he be entitled to the same advantages, otherwise it might well be asked for what purpose is it that Interest is paid?” Washington wrote in a 1765 letter to Cary.

Washington would pull himself out of debt over the next several years. He changed his planting habits, switched from tobacco to wheat, cut down on the family spending, and yanked himself out of the spiral of debt. He finally came out of debt in 1773 the old fashioned way – inheriting money.