Patty Channing
Cite this Page
"Patty Channing," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/31.
- Position
- Maid
- Years in President's House
- circa 1792 – 1794
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Presidency
- George Washington
- Biography
- Patty Channing worked at the President’s House in Philadelphia for President George Washington. Patty regularly appears in household account books between 1793 and 1794. Patty likely worked as a housemaid. According to one account, a “Patty Channon,” likely a misspelling of Channing, took the place of previous housemaid Mary Wilson in the fall of 1792. There is another instance where “Martha Channing” appears in a household account in 1793. Since Patty was often a nickname for Martha, it is likely this is the same individual. She earned $5.00 per month.1 Additional details about Patty Channing’s life are currently unknown.
- “Washington’s Household Account Book, 1793-1797,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1906, Vol 30. No. 1, 164, accessed September 16, 2025, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20085330.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default:97d1606ae6dc5356bc621d4039790628&ab_segments=&initiator=recommender&acceptTC=1; “Washington’s Household Account Book, 1793-1797,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1905, Vol 29. No. 4, 391, accessed September 16, 2025, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20085306.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default:91eb922c9fb2e34b038cc6b9a74d2c73&ab_segments=&initiator=&acceptTC=1; Stephen Decatur, Jr., Private Affairs of George Washington, from the records and accounts of Tobias Lear, Esquire, his secretary, (New York: De Capo Press, 1969), 300, https://archive.org/details/privateaffairsof0000deca/page/124/mode/2up.
- Birthplace
- Unclear from Context
- Unclear from Context
- Related Workers
- Polly Glenncirca 1795
- Mary Wilson
- "Polly washwoman"Housekeeping and Laundry, circa 1796
- Polly Channingcirca 1793