GEORGE WASHINGTON's MOUNT VERNON (Slide: Aerial View) When George Washington Died in 1799, His Mount Vernon Estate Was at Its Hi
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GEORGE WASHINGTON'S MOUNT VERNON (Slide: Aerial View) When George Washington 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 Potomac River and the Maryland 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 Virginia 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 Washington family since 1674, when Lord Culpeper, the proprietor of more than 2 million acres in the Northern Neck of Virginia, granted the wilderness tract along the Potomac to John Washington, 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 tobacco. 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 Edward Vernon, 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 Continental Congress 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: Martha Washington) ... 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 Philadelphia 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 Samuel Vaughan, 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.