William Ramsay married Ann McCarty, daughter of Dennis McCarty Sr. and his wife Sarah Ball, who was a kinswoman of George Washington and sister of Mrs. George Johnston. Ann McCarty Ramsay was one of those women of the day who by the laws of the land lost their property and identity with marriage. Yet, when this retiring, gentle person was called upon to raise funds in Alexandria and Fairfax County, no modern matron working for bond drive or Red Cross ever did a more successful work. Thomas Jefferson, as Governor of Virginia, in a letter from Richmond written on August 4, 1780, to General Edward Stevens, attached a list of "female Contributions, in aid of the War, Probably in 1780." Among the thirteen ladies who gave their watch chains, diamond drops and rings is the name of "Mrs. Anne Ramsay (for Fairfax), one halfjoe, three guineas, three pistareens, one bit. Do. for do. paper money, bundle No. 1, twenty thousand dollars, No. 2, twenty-seven thousand dollars, No. 3, fifteen thousand dollars, No. 4, thirteen thousand five hundred and eighteen dollars and one third."[63] This excellent wife took her Presbyterian husband into the Established Church and we find Washington crediting him with L33 for pew No. 20 in Alexandria (Christ) Church in January 1773. But the Presbyterian citadel of learning was the choice over William and Mary College when time came for the eldest son, William Jr., to prepare for a professional career. The strict discipline of Old Nassau was more to the liking of Scottish conservatism than the laxness reported among students and faculty at the Williamsburg institution. At Princeton young William studied medicine under Dr. Benjamin Rush. In 1775, after joining the General in winter headquarters at Cambridge, Mrs. Washington wrote the family that she had seen young Ramsay as she passed through Princeton and that "he was very well but did not talk of comeing home soon."[64] Maybe this was a woman's subtle way of breaking the news of young William's plans to follow the Continental cause wherever it might lead. As surgeon in the army, he served throughout the Revolutionary War. Following the custom, the elder William Ramsay placed his second son in trade with the firm of Jennifer & Hooe in Dumfries. From Alexandria, on December 5, 1774, he sent young Dennis, then a lad of eighteen years, the following letter brimming with sound parental advice and Scottish business acumen: Dear Dennis