On a trip last week to visit our daughter and to speak about Patrick Henry, I caught a bad cold. On the day I was to make my presentation about one of my favorite founding fathers, I began to lose my voice. I made it through my presentation okay, but my cold and cough got worse. It began to remind me about George Washington.

In December, 1799, George Washington rode out about his beautiful plantation at Valley Forge to mark some trees which needed to be chopped down or trimmed. He kept riding in the midst of snow and sleet. As George returned home, his neck was wet with melted snow and he began to be hoarse.

Martha suggested he take some remedy against the malady. He refused saying, “No,l you know I take nothing for a cold. Let it go as it came. I’ll be all right.” Well, he wasn’t all right. He got worse.

Between 2 and 3 the next morning he wakened Martha saying he was very “unwell.” She sent for doctors. They came. They administered ointments, and began to “bleed” him as was the practice at the time. The doctors administered more remedies, continued the “bleeding” and tried all they could think of. It was all to no use.

At about 4 the next afternoon, George Washington asked for his own two hand-written wills to be produced. He reviewed them. Approved of one and asked Martha to burn the other.

At about 5 that day, George told his good friend, Dr. James Craik, “I die hard, but I am not afraid to go. I believed from my first attack,  that I should not survive it; my breath cannot last long.” And later: “I am just going. Have me decently buried.” He passed on between ten and eleven o’clock that night. He was 67 years old.

One of the greatest and most beloved men in history passed away on that December 13, 1799. Martha remarked that he didn’t intend “to quit the theatre of this world” until the new century had been rung in.

George Washington’s life ended in that century in which he had profoundly played the starring role. His friend Patrick Henry, had also died in June of that same year. Henry was only 63.