Katy Jacobus
Cite this Page
"Katy Jacobus," White House Workers History Project, White House Historical Association, 2026, https://whha.whirlihost.com/Detail/workers/44.
- Position
- Laundress
- Years in President's House
- 1791 – 1793
- Legal Status
- Free Person
- Gender
- Female
- Race/Ethnicity
- White
- Presidency
- George Washington
- Biography
- Details of Katy Jacobus’s life outside of her work for President George Washington remain unclear.1 In 1789, her husband, Jacob Jacobus, was employed as a coachman in Washington’s New York household, but he left shortly after due to illness or injury.2 In March 1791, Jacob returned to Washington's employ to drive Martha Washington during President Washington’s tour of the southern states. At the same time, Katy joined Washington’s Philadelphia household as a washerwoman, replacing the previous washerwoman, Mary Helm.3 She earned $10.00 per month. Katy doesn’t appear in documents after 1793.
- It is difficult to know details about Katy’s life, because her legal first name is unclear. There is a 1788 record showing a Cath de Marees married to Jacob Jacobus with a son named Gerritt. “Cath De Marees in the U.S., Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989,” Ancestry, accessed September 8, 2025, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6961/records/300138999.
- 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),37, https://archive.org/details/privateaffairsof0000deca/page/124/mode/2up.
- “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.]
- Birthplace
- Unclear from Context
- Unclear from Context
- Related Workers
- Mary Wilson LoefflerHousekeeping and Laundry, circa 1790 – 1792
- Jacob JacobusTransportation, 1789, 1791
- Mary HelmHousekeeping and Laundry, 1791