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Home , Augustine Washington, Bushrod Washington, John Washington, Mount Vernon, Washington family

GEORGE 'S

(Slide: Aerial View) When died in 1799, his Mount Vernon estate was at its highest point of development. In the 45 years since he had become master of Mount Vernon, Washington had completely transformed the small plantation he had inherited from his older half brother, Lawrence. This aerial view shows the estate as it appears today, and we believe, as it appeared during the final years of General Washington's life. Mount Vernon's preservation is the achievement of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, which has owned the estate since 1858. Over the years, the goal of the Association has been to restore Mount Vernon to its original condition and to present it to the public.

(Slide: East Front) Today our visitors see Washington/s 500 acre "Mansion House Form," the formal pleasure grounds of the 8,000 acre plantation that existed in the 18th century. The Mansion House itself, seated on a high bluff with a commanding view of the and the shoreline beyond,is the focal point in a village-like setting of outbuildings, formal gardens and grounds .. This neat and elegant estate was the creation of George Washington, who personally designed and laid it out.

(Slide: Houdon Bust) Washington is of course best remembered for his services as ~ommonder-in-Chief and president, but at Mount Vernon we celebrate -2- the memory of the farmer and family man. There are many monuments to George Washington. The visitor to Mount Vernon can discover the complex and passionate man behind the austere, remote historical figure. The land which would become Mouot Vernon had been in the since 1674, when Lord Culpeper, the proprietor of more than 2 million acres in the of Virginia, granted the wilderness tract along the Potomac to , the great-grandfather of George.

(Slide: 1674) This is the original 1674 land grant which is now' in the Mount Vernon collection. It is signed by both John Washington and Lord Culpeper. The document also bears annotations in the hand of George Washington, who kept it carefullY filed among his paners. For three generations,the Washingtons held the Mount Vernon tract ~s investment property, while living at their ancestral home at Pope's Creek on the southern reaches of the Potomac. It was at Pope's Creek that George Washington was born in 1732 .. The wilderness plantation on the upper Potomac was managed and improved by a series of overseers and tenant farmers who paid their rent to the Washingtons with hogsheads of . The Washingtons did not actually live at Mount Vernon until after George himself had been born. His father, Augustine, moved his family to the more northerly plantation in 1735, when George was only 3 years old. They only stayed about 3 years before

...... _._._------3- returning to Pope's Creek, but it seems likely that George would have had some early childhood memories of the place which would become his beloved home.

·(Slide: West Front) It was also during this period that the first. home, a simple farmhouse, was built on the site where the Mansion stands today. In a sense, this first house still stands, for it beoame the nucleus of the greatly expanded plantation house which George Washington designed and built. Augustine died when George was only 11 and George, a younger son by a second marriage, received only a modest inheritance from his father's estate. The northern plantation became the home of his half-brother, Lawrence.

(Slide: Portrait of Lawrence Washington) This portrait of Lawrence Washington hangs in the study at Mount Vernon. Lawrence, who moved there with his young familY, actually named the estate Mount Vernon, after Admiral , under whom he had served during a brief stint in the British Navy. It seems clear that from his youth, George Washington's greatest ambHion was to be a Virginia planter, a gentleman former and the patriarch of a large estate, like his father and grand- fathers before him.. He was prepared for such a role by both inclllinationand heritage. However, the little property he had inherited was for too small to suoport him and when his formal education ended at the age of 16, Washington was faced with the necessity of making his way in the world. (Slide: Virginia Colonel by Charles Willson Peale) He turned to surveying, which was then a lucrative and respectable career for young gentlemen without much property. His surveying took him west to map the unexPlored wilderness beyond the mountains. It was this experience that set the stage for Washington's future greatness, for when the French and Indian War broke out in the 1750's, Washington was one of the few Virginians of his class who had any first hand knowledge of the western regions where the war would be decided. At the age of only 23, he was appointed colonel in command of all the Virginia forces. Twenty years later when the assembled to pick a commander-in-chief for the armies of united America, the experienced former colonel seemed the only logical choice. This portrait of the Virginia Colonel by Charles Willson Peale shows Washington in his British uniform. Painted in 1772, when the subject was 40 years old, it is the earliest known portrait of George Washington. Lawrence Washington died in 1752 and after the end of the French and Indian War, George inherited Mount Vernon and became, finally, the master of a large plantation. In 1759, he married Martha Dandridge Custis, . . .

(Slide: ) ... a widow with 2 young children, seen here in a portrait painted a few years before their marriage. George brought his bride to Mount Vernon and immediately started the work of enlarging the house, building the many outbuildings, laying out the gardens and grounds and expanding his farms. Washington had resigned from the military and shortly after his marriage he wrote to a friend: -5-

"1 am now, 1 believe, fixed at this seat with an agreeable consort for life and 1 hope to find more happiness in retirement than I had ever experienced amidst a wide and bustling world;" Washington had no idea how lmpermanent this retirement would be; in the forty years to come, duty would keep him away from Mount Vernon for almost twenty. Nevertheless, the continuing refinement of his home was an activity that would absorb him for the rest of his life. Even during some of the most critical periods of the Revolution, Washington found time to write a weekly letter of instruction to his overseer at Mount Vernon and he expected to receive a detailed weekly report in return.

(Slide: Mansion evolution) This series of drawings illustrates the evolution of the little farmhouse Washington inherited to the elegant Mansion that stands today. The work was done in stages, some of it while Washington was away during the Revolution, and took almost 30 years to complete.

(Slide: Peale, Washington Before Princeton) General Washington, shown here as commander-in-chief in this 1780 portrait by Peale, resigned his commission in 1783 and returned to Mount Vernon in time to personally oversee the finishing touches to the Mansion and grounds. The period between the Revolution and the Presidency was one of intense activity at Mount Vernon. The Mansion was completed and, in 1787, the crowning touch ... (Slide: Cupola with dove of peace) -6-

This weather vane in the shape of a dove of peace was ordered by Washington from and placed atop the Cupola. At the same time, Washington was laying out the two formal gardens flanking the bowling green in front of the house.

(Slide: Flower Garden) The "Upper" or flower garden to the north of the bowling green was devoted to ornamental plants - flowering trees and shrubs and boxwood parterres. It was in this garden that Washington later built a handsome greenhouse ...

(Slide: Flower Garden, showing greenhouse) .. for his exotic plants, palms and tropical fruit trees, many of which he received as gifts from his admirers. Across the way was the kitchen ga rden . . . (Slide: Kitchen Garden) ... where food for the table was cultivated. Washington's carefully preserved intructions to his gardeners ... (Slide: Kitchen Garden) . . . have prOVided the evidence for the accurate restoration of both gardens.

(Slide: Vaughan Plan) This isn plan of the f ormcl grounds of the Mansion House Farm drawn by , an English admirer of George Washington, in 1787. Here we can clearlY see Washington's carefully balanced layout of the buildings and grounds. The Mansion is the focal point, looking out over the Potomac River to the East and the sweeping -7-

expanse of the Bowling Green to the West. The Bowling Green is delineated by serpentine walks and formal gardens on either side. The neat line of outbuildings along the north and south lanes kept the hustle and bustle of plantation activities out of sight but convenient to the Mansion House. Mr. Vaughan was good enough to leave us a key to his plan, which has been useful in identifying these buildings today. (Slide: South Lane) Mount Vernon is unique in that almost all of its service buildings hove survived since Washington's time.

(Slide: Interior Family Kitchen) This is the interior of the Family Kitchen, one of the circle dependencies. Fires of varying intensities would be kept going around the clock in the massive fireplace, watched over by a cook and his assistants who hod quarters in the loft above. There was usually a great number of people in the household to be .fed, with Mrs. Washington's children and later grandchildren in residence and any number of nephews, nieces, secretaries and guests (invited and uninvited).

(Slide: Latrobe teo party) Washington one time compared his house to a "well resorted tavern" and in 1797 wrote to a friend, "Unless someones pops in uN expectedly -- Mrs. Washington and myself will do what I believe has not been done within the last twenty years by us -- thot is to set down to dinner by ourselves." -8-

Dinner was served in mid-afternoon and according to comtemporary descriptions was a sumptuous affair. In February, 1799, a guest of the Washingtons named Joshua Brooks noted in his Journal that the dinner table at Mount Vernon was laid out with a leg of boiled pork at the head and a goose at the foot, along with roost beef, cold boiled beef, mutton chops, hominy, cabbage, potatoes, pickles, fried tripe, onions, and~ he notes, "etc." A second course consisted of mince pies, tarts and cheese after which the table cloth was removed and port, madeira, two kinds of nuts, apples and raisins were served. Washington was especially fond of madeira and at the end of such a meal would often raise his glass to toast "All our friends." (Slide: 1792 West Front) So much of Mount Vernon's history is the story of Washington'S long absences from home. Throughout his public career he yearned to be back at Mount Vernon tending the form. At the end of the presidency in March of 1797, he retired from public life for the third and final time, and for the tWO and one-half years that remained to him, he was at last able to enjoy a degree of tran- quility he had so long desired. In that year he wrote to an English friend, "At the age of sixty-five I am recommencing my agricultural pursuits and rural amusements; which at all times have been the most pleasing occupation of my life, and the most congenial to my temper, notwithstanding a small proportion of it has been spent in this way." .(Slide: 1792 East Front) -9-

He was able to devote himself to farming until the day he died. On December 12, 1799, following his inflexible routine, he rose at 5, long before the rest of the household and went down- stairs to the Study where he answered correspondence and took breakfast before starting out on his daily horseback tour of the farms. It was a stormy day. His diary entry for the 12th reads: "About 10 o'clock it began to snow, soon after to Hail and then to a settled cold Rain. Mercury 28 at Night." Washington rode out through this cold rain and when he returned. 5 hours later his clothes were soaked through, and he had obviously taken a chill. Early the next morning, however, he was at his desk again writing out his instructions to his form manager, James Anderson. In the closing paragraph of the last letter he ever wrote, Washington told Anderson of some of the observations of his final inspection of Mount Vernon: "Such a Pen as I saw yesterday at Union Form would, if the cottle were kept in it one week, destroy the whole of them. They would be infinitely more comfortable in this, or any other weather in the open fields; Dogue Run Form pen may be in the same condition. It did not occur to me as I passed through the yard of the born to look into it. 1 am your friend, etc. G. Washington"

Washington died the following night.

(Slide: Old Tomb) -10-

He was buried in the old family vault on the hillside southeast of the Mansion. Martha Washington lived until 1802 and was buried beside him. (Slide: New Tomb) Several years later. the family erected a new. more formal tomb on the estate. according to instructions left in Washington's will. and in 1836 the bodies of George and Martha Washington were transferred to the marble sarcophagi where they remain today. The death of the Hashingtons signalled the beginning of hard times for Mount Vernon. (Slide: 1793 map) This map. surveyed and drawn by Washington in 1793. shows the entire estate with the Mansion house and formal living area. as well as the outlying farms with cultivated fields and woodlands. Washington's principal heir was his nephew. Judge . who had been appointed to the Supreme Court by President Adams. To Bushrod went the Mansion House Farm. containing the house. gardens and outbuildings with the surrounding fields and woods. a total of 4000 acres. of which less than half was actually under cultivation. George Washington himself had been struggling for .years to make his farms more productive. Even under his energetic and farsighted management. there were years when farming revenues did not meet the heavy expenses of running the large household. With only half the acreag~ available to him. ·it was clear that Bushrod faced a formidable task maintaining the estate. Bushrod Washington was owner of Mount Vernon from 1802 to 1829. -11-

(Slide: Birch watercolor) This watercolor view of the east front of the Mansion was made while Bushrod was living at Mount Vernon. Despite his best efforts, Mount Vernon declined sharply during his ownership. The farms grew less and less productive every year and crowds of uninvited visitors, drqwn to the house and grave of Washington, were both an annoyance to the family and a threat to the safety of the Mansion. After Bushrod's death, Mount Vernon passed to another nephew, this time with only 1000 acres conveyed with the Mansion. By 1850, the situation was becoming desperate. This photograph taken in 1855 .. (Slide: 1855 photograph) ... shows the distressing condition of Washington's home. The Mansion had not been painted in many years and the sagging Piazza was propped UP with tree trunks and old ship's masts. The out- buildings were collapsing, the gardens were choked with weeas and even Washington's tomb was in need of repair. was unfairly criticized for neglecting Mount Vernon, but in truth they were doing everything they could with their severely limited means. John , a great-grandnephew of George Washington who was the owner of the estate at this time, realized that something would have to be done quickly if Mount Vernon were to be saved. On the advice of friends, he approached the U.S. Government. In 1846, the first of many bills was introduced in Congress for the purpose of buying Mount Vernon and preserving it as a national shrine. There was considerable discussion, both in Congress and in the press, over what 'use the government could make of Mount Vernon. It was proposej that Washington's home be made into an asylum for old soldiers, an -12- experimental farm or a national cemetery. Private speculators offered to buy the estate to convert it into a resort hotel, but John Augustine Washington refused. One helpful gentleman suggested that since the Mansion was in such poor condition, it should be demolished and a permanent marble replica put UP in its place. However, nothing ever came of these attempts to interest the government in the restoration of Nount Vernon. There was simply no understanding of in the at this time since there had been no real attempts at preservation before the struggle to save Mount Vernon. Nor was there any precedent for government intervention in what seemed to many to be a private matter. A bill for the preservation of Mount Vernon introduced in the Virginia legislature was also voted down. It seemed that Mount Vernon might be completely lost.

(Slide: Mount Vernon from the river) In 1852, a South Carolina ladY, returning home from a stay in

Philadelphia, saw Mount Vernon ,by moonlight from the deck of a steamboat on the Potomac. Even in the half light, the desolation of the dId house was woefully apparent. It was a disgrace to the nation, she wrote the next day in a letter to her daughter, that the home of America's greatest citizen should be allowed to fall into ruin. If the men of the country would do nothing, she went on, then the·women ought to. Reading the letter, the daughter resolved: "I.shall do it." And so the remarkable Ann Pamela Cunningham entered the scene.

(Slide: Ann Pamela Cunningham) -13-

She was approaching middle age, unmarried and an invalid who still suffered greatly from the riding accident which had crippled her 20 years before. Yet for the rest of her life, she devoted herself, with almost tireless energy, to the cause of Mount Vernon. Miss Cunningham was the founder and first regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, which was itself the first national historic preservation movement and the first national women's organization in the U.S. Miss Cunningham's plan was simple but at the same time completely unprecedented. She brought together a group of talented women, shown here assembled ... (Slide: Vice Regents on Piazza) ... for a meeting at Mount Vernon. There were 19 Vice Regents representing individual states with local organizations of ladY managers reporting to each. As Regent, Miss Cunningham served as chairman of the board and the organization of the Association is essentially the same today, Beginning in 1853, the Association set out to raise the very considerable sum of $200,000 to buy Mount Vernon from John Augustine Washington, restore it and open it to the public. It is difficult for us today to understand how revolutionary this scheme must have seemed to some contemporary observers. Nothing of the sort had ever been attempted before, much less·by a group of women. In an age when a proper lady's name appeared in the press only 3 times - when she was born, when she was married and when she died - Miss Cunningham and her .lodies wrote letters to editors, circulated petitions and gave public lectures. When Mr, Washington was first approached by the Asso- ciation, he flatly refused to sell to a women's organization. Later, in lengthy private talks, Miss Cunningham persuased him to reconsider. -14-

The Association appealed directly to the American people, soliciting the small gifts of citizens from all walks of life. The Ladies sponsored lectures, balls and sold souvenirs, such as these

lithograph views of the Mansion . , -e

(Slide: Bennett, East Front)

... and tomb to help raise money, The campaign to save Mount- Vernon caught the imagination of the people and gifts poured in. Preserved today in the Archives at Mount Vernon are subscription books recording thousands, . , (Slide: Bennett, Tomb) , .'. of individual contributions of 50 cents or one dollar. In 1858, on the fifth anniversary of the founding of the- Association, the Ladies were able to buy Mount Vernon. They immediately began work on the house and, within a few months, Washington's home was opened to the public.

(Slide: Bennett, West Front) Although the work was interrupted by the Civil War, the Association had begun the process of restoration which has continued to this day, (Slide: Perspective map) In the 125 years since Mount Vernon became a national shrine, tens of mi 11ions of visitors have passed through the f1ansion, strolled the lawns and gardens, and stood before the Tomb. Today, Mount Vernon is Widely acknowledged to be the nation's most authentically restored plantation complex and the level of visitation, -is-

about one million a year, is the highest of any historic house in America. Using a detailed inventory prepared at the time of Washington's death, the Association has been able to acquire and return to the Mansion many of the original familY possessions, such as this tea service ... (Slide: Tea Service) · .. of Martha Washington's, now on display in the West Parlor. When original items are not available, the rooms have been furnished with appropriate period pieces, again using the inventory as a guide. A separate museum on the grounds houses specialized collections of glass, ceramics, silver and clothing which would be lost to the visitor's eye in the larger room settings of the Mansion. The outbuildings have been restored and equipped with the tools and furnishings of the period . . . (Slide: Family kitchen) · .. giving visitors an idea of the wide range of activities necessary to support a self-sufficient plantation community, The preservation work of the Association has even extended to the surrounding countryside. In recent years, the sweeping vista of the Maryland shore across the Potomac from Mount Vernon . , . (Slide: Overview) · .. was threatened by industrial development. In 1974, through the efforts of the Association and other conservation groups, the shoreline was set aside as a national pork to save the view which once delighted the Washingtons. ___ •••• ----- ...lImli1ll------15-

(Slide: Mount Vernon with Rainbow)

It is difficult to convey with photographs the true atmosphere of Mount Vernon. One can almost feel the presence of George Washington himself as one passes through his boxwood hedges, peers into his study and sits on his piazza to look out across the river. 1 would imagine many of yOU have visited Mount Vernon over the years and 1 hope all of yOU will have a chance to visit us again and share in the spirit of this place that was George Washington's beloved home.

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