Approaching Mount Vernon

Approaching Mount Vernon Dennis J. Pogue Revised March 2012 George Washington’s plan for the layout of his Mount Vernon estate incorporated fashionable ideas in architecture and landscape design borrowed from various English sources, wedded with the natural advantages of the lush Virginia countryside and its breath-taking views of the Potomac River. Over a period of four decades, Washington enlarged and embellished his house during two separate major campaigns of building, constructed a new set of outbuildings to complement the expanded dwelling, and completely reorganized the surrounding gardens and grounds to create an appropriate setting for a tasteful country gentleman’s seat. The final design of Mount Vernon is best considered as an ensemble, where the architectural and landscape components were meant to form a seamless whole.1 Two visitors’ accounts testify to the success of Washington’s labors, with one traveler remarking in 1788 that Washington “seems to be laying out his grownds with great taste in the English fashion,” and another 10 years later concluding that even though the general had “never left America – after seeing his house and his gardens one would say that he had seen the most beautiful examples in England of this style.”2 Washington’s interests in creating the appropriate landscape setting for his home, and for reinventing Mount Vernon as the very model of a modern agricultural enterprise, led him to extend the plan outward to the far boundaries of his 8,000-acre holding. The layout of the road system, the configuration of the farms and the fields, the placement and arrangement of outlying slave quarters and agricultural buildings, the creation of scenic vistas, even the design of fences and gates, all had their place in Washington’s thinking. 1 These activities and interests all reflect Washington’s deeply held belief in the symbolic power of appearance, and in his conviction that the look of a man’s property, as with a nation’s public buildings and internal improvements, was a true indication of their owners’ character.3 One element of the overall design for the estate to which Washington devoted particular attention was the management of the approach to the Mansion. Washington was a firm believer in the lasting importance of first impressions, and in this case that concern was translated into a careful consideration of the experience of his visitors as they entered his estate. Over the years, Washington carried out a number of improvements to the approach, including building a new road and cutting “vistos” (vistas) -- or cleared swaths through the woods -- through which travelers could glimpse the Mansion in the distance. The written accounts of various visitors to the estate beginning in the 1780s provide the basis for assessing the success of Washington’s endeavors. They also record changes that occurred during George Washington’s lifetime, as well as during the subsequent ownership of the property by the Washington heirs and, since 1860, by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.4 Mount Vernon’s location on the Potomac River meant that it was possible that visitors could arrive by boat, but in practice that does not appear to have been a common occurrence. After passing through miles of farm fields and woodlands, visitors came to the Mansion House Farm by entering through what is now referred to as the West Gate. During this period the road from Alexandria (eight miles north of Mount Vernon) to Colchester (10 miles to the south) divided into an inland, or “back” road, and a “river” road, as it passed through the Mount Vernon vicinity. Following the line of least 2 Figure 1. The road system in the Mount Vernon vicinity, circa 1760 (Mitchell 1987); the “back” and “river” roads, the road to the ferry, and the road from the ferry to Mount Vernon and then reconnecting with the “river” road, all in red. topographical resistance, the inland road was laid out along a generally north-south running ridge; the river road provided a more convenient link with major waterfront land holdings, like Mount Vernon, crossing several streams at the first fording places above their junction with the Potomac River. In earlier years, travelers following the river road to Mount Vernon from the south would turn onto a smaller road or lane near 3 Washington’s gristmill that led to Posey’s ferry landing, then turned onto a second road and proceeded north to the West Gate entrance to the Mount Vernon estate. If coming from the north, visitors would travel the river road until they reached Gum Springs, the crossing point over Little Hunting Creek, where they turned onto the road leading to West Gate. By circa 1770 a more direct link for travelers coming from the south was provided by a road (in later years referred to as Mount Vernon “avenue” or “lane”) running in a direct line from a point on the river road north of Washington’s gristmill almost due east to Mount Vernon’s West Gate. 5 This system remained virtually unchanged until the 1840s when a new road was laid running from Alexandria that connected to the northern boundary of the estate.6 The account of Hamilton Staples, who visited Mount Vernon in June 1797, indicates the bucolic character of the experience: “The situation of Mount Vernon is pleasant, very nigh the Potomac, not on any post road. We passed a number of gates and long tracts of wood before we came to the most cultivated parts of the General’s farm.”7 Another visitor, Joshua Brookes, who came to Mount Vernon in February 1799, commented that, “Two miles before you reach the house is the first gate, four of which you pass through, very indifferent ones except the last [West Gate] which is painted white.”8 During George Washington’s lifetime and for the next half-century after his death, the accounts of visitors to Mount Vernon almost always mention the West Gate, and usually remark upon their first view of the Mansion as occurring at that spot. The account of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Powel of their visit in October 1787 is representative of many: “The approach to this Seat is very pleasing. At the Entrance from the Road you have a View of the House at the Distance of near a Mile.”9 The Powel’s shared with 4 many visitors in misjudging the distance between the gate and the Mansion, which actually is roughly 7/10ths of a mile, but they all were struck by the sudden appearance of the building framed on the imposing hill in the distance, and the pleasing aspect that it presented. Figure 2. The Mansion on its “eminence” viewed from the west, with the Potomac River in the distance, circa 1797 (by George Perkyns). Vistas which served as avenues through which attractive scenes could be viewed were features that were highly encouraged by any number of proponents of the English “naturalistic” school of landscape design.10 Records indicate that Washington was engaged in establishing “vistos” as early as 1785, when he entered in his diary that he, “Began to open Vistos throw[sic] the Pine grove on the Banks of H[ell] Hole.”11 While absent from Mount Vernon in 1792-93 serving his first term as president, Washington directed his farm managers in creating two vistas: the first on the east front of the 5 Mansion overlooking the Potomac River, and the second facing the West Gate and beyond. In a letter to Whitting, dated November 18, 1792, Washington alluded to the first vista -- which he remarked that he had opened when he was last at Mount Vernon -- positioned “in a line with the two doors” (presumably between the east front doorways to the study and the large dining room). Washington was interested in investigating the possibility of channeling water from the springs that emerged all along the steep slope between the Mansion and the shoreline, to create a pond presumably to serve as an added aesthetic element. Capturing and redirecting the streams along the route Washington proposed turned out to be more difficult than he had anticipated, however, and the water feature never materialized.12 Figure 3. The current vista from the east front of the Mansion looking out over the Potomac River to the Maryland shoreline three-quarters of a mile beyond. 6 At the same time that the improvements to the east vista were being considered, Washington called for laying out a second vista connecting the west front of the Mansion with the West Gate. As early as 1787 visitors had remarked upon seeing the Mansion in the distance from “the Entrance from the Road,” so the vista that was laid out beginning in 1792 must have served to embellish the view rather than establish it for the first time.13 Whitting described his progress on this project, and provided insight into his thinking as to the final outcome, in a letter he sent to Washington in January 1792. After reporting that he had “Grubbd the Visto through to the White Gate” at a width of 40 feet, he proposed that opening the vista to 100 feet wide, with “Ever Greens & some Other trees” planted in a line along each edge of the opening would “look very well.” Whitting also suggested that extending the vista some distance (“to the extremity of the hill leading to Muddy hole Branch”) also would improve the prospect, but he alluded to possible issues in creating a proper terminus for the view. One idea that he pitched to his employer was to plant “a large Clump of Ever Greens … on each side and Something like an Obelisk fixd in the Centre where it terminates.” In support of this proposal, Whitting remarked that he had “seen this done when no farther prospect could be Obtaind and it has lookd very well.”14 No record exists of Washington’s reaction to Whitting’s ideas, and the two men continued to correspond about the vista, and to consider different options for its exact route, until the farm manager’s untimely death the following year.

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