Joe Richardson

Information about Joe Richardson’s birth and early life remains unclear. Martha Washington’s first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, was one of the wealthiest plantation and slave owners in Virginia. When he died in 1757, Martha received one-third of his property through dower property laws, including eighty-four enslaved people.¹ Joe was one of these individuals. He appears in a slave census taken at Mount Vernon in 1786, listed as a postilion, or person who rides a harnessed horse that also pulls the coach. This census also shows that he was married to a woman enslaved by George Washington named Sall. She was born around 1769, and it is likely Joe was around the same age.² 

Although the exact date of his arrival at the President’s House is unknown, letters suggest Joe may have joined President George Washington’s household in Philadelphia sometime in 1795.³ In his role as a postilion, he would have worn livery, a uniform including a woolen coat, vest, and breeches in the colors of Washington’s coat of arms: white and red.⁴ 

It ultimately remains unclear whether Joe primarily resided at Mount Vernon and briefly assisted in transporting the president to Philadelphia or whether he was a more permanent member of the presidential household. He appears in a letter from George Washington to his farm manager, William Pearce, in June 1795; “I wish you could find out the thief who robbed the meat house at Mount Vernon & bring him to punishment…Postilion Joe has been caught in similar practices…” In this letter, Washington debates whether Joe could have been the person who robbed the meat house, indicating that Joe was at Mount Vernon, rather than in Philadelphia. However, another letter from Washington on October 19, 1795, states that he was traveling to Philadelphia with Joe as postilion and that Joe became sick on the journey, slowing travel. It is unknown whether he just made this one trip with Washington, or whether he remained in Philadelphia.⁵ 

Joe appeared again on a slave census taken at Mount Vernon in 1799, as a dower slave employed in the Mansion House as a postilion.⁶ Following Martha Washington’s death in 1802, she bequeathed her enslaved people to her four grandchildren and Joe probably joined one of these households.⁷ In 1835, twelve people formerly enslaved at Mount Vernon returned to assist with landscaping around George Washington’s tomb. Joe Richardson was listed by a local newspaper as one of these individuals.⁸ Information about his death is unknown.