Mary Helm
Cite this Page
"Mary Helm," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/42.
- Position
- Laundress
- Years in President's House
- 1791
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Presidency
- George Washington
- Biography
- Details about Mary Helm’s life outside of President George Washington’s household remain unknown. In February 1791, Mary was hired at the President’s House in Philadelphia to replace the previous washerwoman, Mary Wilson, who was promoted to housemaid. However, she left the household at the end of March 1791, after just two months, when Washington hired Katy Jacobus, the wife of his coachman, Jacob Jacobus, as the washerwoman.1
- “Tobias Lear to George Washington, 1 April 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-08-02-0027. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 8, 22 March 1791 – 22 September 1791, ed. Mark A. Mastromarino. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999, pp. 37–39.]; 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), 215, https://archive.org/details/privateaffairsof0000deca/page/124/mode/2up.
- Birthplace
- Unclear from Context
- Unclear from Context
- Related Workers
- Mary Wilson LoefflerHousekeeping and Laundry, circa 1790 – 1792
- Katy JacobusHousekeeping and Laundry, 1791 – 1793
- Jacob JacobusTransportation, 1789, 1791
- Mary Wilson