Frances "Fanny" Bassett Washington Lear

Frances "Fanny" Bassett Washington Lear was Martha Washington's niece, the daughter of Anna Maria Dandridge and her husband Burwell Bassett. She shared a close relationship with her aunt and George Washington, eventually living at Mount Vernon. She later married Washington’s nephew George Augustine Washington, and after his death Washington’s secretary Tobias Lear.

Early Life

Bassett was born in 1767. After the death of her mother Anna Maria in 1777, Martha Washington offered to take Fanny into the Washington household, writing to her grieving brother-in-law on December 22 that "my dear sister in her life time often mentioned my taking my dear Fanny if she should be taken away before she grew up -- If you will lett her come to live with me, I will with the greatest pleasure take her and be a parent and mother to her as long as I live."¹

However, as a result of the Revolutionary War and perhaps Colonel Bassett's reluctance to part with his daughter, it was not until the mid-1780s after George and Martha Washington returned to Mount Vernon, that Fanny would live at Mount Vernon on a regular basis. Bassett was very much a second daughter to Martha Washington whose daughter Martha “Patsy” Parke Custis had died in 1773 at the young age of seventeen. In fact, Martha Washington confided in a letter to one of her friends Elizabeth Willing Powel of Philadelphia, that Fanny "is a child to me, and I am very lonesome when she is absent."² Bassett was noted as a dutiful niece and was favored by her aunt and step-uncle. 

Marriage to George Augustine Washington

Fanny married George Washington's favorite nephew George Augustine Washington at Mount Vernon on October 15, 1785. At the time, George Augustine was employed as a manager of Mount Vernon. George and Martha gifted the newlyweds over two thousand acres of land. The couple made their home at Mount Vernon where they raised their three children. They assisted George and Martha Washington managing Mount Vernon and entertaining the hundreds of guests who came to visit each year. They were especially helpful in managing Washington’s affairs while he was away at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Marriage to Tobias Lear

Following the death of George Augustine Washington in 1793, Bassett subsequently married George Washington's friend and secretary Tobias Lear in 1795. They leased part of nearby River Farm from Washington. Their combined household consisted of Fanny’s surviving children with George Augustine, George Fayette Washington and Lawrence (Charles) Augustine Washington, as well as Lear’s son with is deceased wife Benjamin Lincoln Lear. Their marriage, however, was short-lived as Fanny passed away a few years later in March of 1796. After her death, Lear continued to care for her children with George Augustine Washington alongside his own. Subsequently, he inherited River Farm after the death of George Washington. 

Updated by Zoie Horecny, Ph.D., 21 July 2025

Notes:

1. "Martha Washington to Burwell Bassett, 22 December 1777," The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008.

2. "Martha Washington to Elizabeth Willing Powel, 18 January 1788," Martha Washington Collection, The George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. 

Bibliography:

Abrams, Jeanne E. Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health. New York University Press, 2015.

Anderson, Alicia K. et. al. The Papers of Martha Washington. University of Virginia Press, 2022.

Fraser, Flora. The Washingtons: George and Martha Partners in Friendship and Love. First Anchor Books, 2015.