Giles

In November 1790, George Washington enclosed a thin strip of paper in a letter to his secretary Tobias Lear, who was setting up the new presidential household in Philadelphia. On it Washington wrote, “The whole length of this paper is the circumference of Giles cap measured at the bottom and on the inside . . . being the exact Band of the head. . . . To the black line drawn across the paper is the size of Paris’s cap.”¹

Giles and Paris worked as Washington’s enslaved postilions, men who rode and drove the horses that pulled his carriage. Washington had noticed that their hats were wearing out and asked Lear to commission two “handsome” new caps, “with fuller and richer tassels at top than the old ones have.”² These hats formed part of the white-and-red livery suits that Giles and Paris wore as they guided Washington’s coach, emblazoned with his coat of arms, through the busy streets of Philadelphia. Made of fine wool and decorated with woven tape (called livery lace), this distinctive uniform immediately identified Giles and Paris—and the other enslaved men who wore it—as the human property of George Washington.

The more senior of the two postilions, Giles had arrived at Mount Vernon in 1765 as the property of Lund Washington, the plantation manager and a distant cousin of George Washington. The latter officially purchased Giles in 1771 for £76.³ Giles’s exact age is unknown, but he was at least twenty years old in 1771. Described at various times as a “house servant” and a coachman, Giles was also a trusted messenger, delivering letters to and from Washington as far as Philadelphia and Williamsburg (each about 150 miles from Mount Vernon).

Giles’s position meant that he accompanied Washington on several high-profile trips, seeing far more of the country than most enslaved people. In May 1787 Giles was one of three enslaved workers who traveled with Washington to Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention. The others were Paris, the younger postilion, and William Lee, Washington’s valet. That summer, an observer recorded meeting “his Excellency General Washington taking a ride on horseback, only his coachman Giles with him.”⁴

Giles later returned to Philadelphia, by way of New York, as a postilion in Washington’s presidential household. In that capacity, he joined Washington’s tour of the southern states in the spring of 1791, driving the baggage wagon. However, he was severely injured at some point in the journey from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon. When approaching Annapolis, Maryland, Washington and his traveling party faced a difficult storm. Travelling by boat on the Severn River and unable to continue, those sailing the vessel carrying Washington chose to ground outside the channel to wait out the storm.⁵ The following day, they met with another small boat, which was loaded with Washington’s baggage, horses, chariot, and an unnamed coachman to transport them to the inn where Washington would be staying. Washington recorded this small sailing boat was “overset” and the coachman “narrowly escaped drowning."⁶ As Giles was assigned to drive Washington’s baggage wagon, he was likely the person who nearly drowned, and in the trauma of the accident, which involved horses and large equipment, he suffered a life-altering injury.

While the nature of Giles's injury is not certain, it was extremely unlikely he continued onto the vast remainder of the Southern Tour. Washington returned to Mount Vernon on March 31 and embarked for the rest of the tour on April 7. While at Mount Vernon, Washington hired another coachman named John Fagan. He was likely hired to replace Giles for the remainder of the tour.⁷ Giles possibly remained at Mount Vernon until his death, which the effects of his accident likely attributed to. It was unlikely that Washington would proceed with Giles if he was devastatingly injured.

Washington lamented Giles’ absence on the journey, finding himself dissatisfied with the work of other coachmen. He wrote to Tobias Lear, “the incapacity of Giles for a Postilion, who I believe will never be able to mount a horse again for that purpose,” which points to the severity of the injuries he sustained.⁸ Two months later, Martha Washington commented on Giles’ condition in a letter to her niece, “I am sorry for poor Giles, & fear he never will be well again.”⁹ Giles does not appear in any of Washington’s subsequent letters or accounts, so he likely died shortly thereafter. The nature of Giles’ injury and death underscores the dangers of working as an enslaved coachman or postillion, especially when enslaved by a family that travelled as frequently as the Washingtons. Only three years later, Austin, an enslaved waiter would die from an injury sustained from accident travelling by river from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon. 

Jessie MacLeod Associate Curator George Washington's Mount Vernon, Updated by Zoie Horecny, PhD, 6 February 2026

Notes:

If not specifically cited, biographical and genealogical information about enslaved people has been drawn from Washington’s 1786 and 1799 slave lists: George Washington, Diary, Feb. 18, 1786, and “Washington’s Slave List,” 1799, Founders Online, National Archives. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Digital Edition, ed. Theodore J. Crackel, Edward G. Lengel, et al. (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008)]; the Mount Vernon slavery database, which compiles references to the estate’s enslaved people; and the files of Mary V. Thompson, Mount Vernon’s research historian.

1. This strip of paper is now in the Mount Vernon collection (W-2079).

2.  George Washington to Tobias Lear, Nov. 17, 1790, National Archives, Founders Online, [Original source: The Papers of George Washington].

3.  Cash Accounts, Nov. 16, 1771, Ledger A, 1750 - 1772: pg.344, The George Washington Financial Papers Project,  [Original Source: Papers of George Washington].

4. Jacob Cox Parsons, ed., Extracts from the Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer, of Philadelphia, 1765–1798 (Philadelphia, Press of W.F. Fell, 1893), quoted in an editorial note, Diary, July 3, 1787, National Archives, Founders Online, [Original source: The Papers of George Washington].

5. “24 March 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives,

6. “25 March 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives.

7. “31 March 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives.

8.  George Washington to Tobias Lear, June 19, 1791, National Archives, Founders Online, [Original source: The Papers of George Washington].

9.  Martha Washington to Fanny Bassett Washington, Aug. 29, 1791, in Joseph E. Fields, Worthy Partner: The Papers of Martha Washington (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 233.