#alaac19 post-conference: Mt. Vernon

Mt. Vernon is well-equipped to deal with hundreds of visitors every day.  Timed-entry tickets are for the twenty-minute house tour but you can spend as much time as you'd like seeing the grounds.  I didn't allow enough time to see the orientation movie before my 9:40 ticket and I had to hustle to get in line -- but fortunately they let me in with the 9:30 ticket holders just ahead of a group of twenty high school kids.  

Photography is not allowed inside the house. It would slow down the traffic flow!  

The grounds are magnificent.  The gardens are lush.  (Quince and apples in the kitchen garden.)  Washington considered himself foremost a farmer.  Mt. Vernon plantation consisted of five farms and woodlands.  His father built the original house in 1734 and Washington added two wings.  He and Martha had many houseguests in his post-presidential years.  

The outbuildings have been restored -- kitchen, stable, smokehouse, greenhouse, slave quarters.

My dad joked about George Birthington's Washday.  I have now seen George Birthington's Wash House. 

The Washington family vault was vandalized by souvenir-hunters.  George and Martha were removed and re-interred in an elaborate and much more secure tomb.







Restoration is ongoing.  This is the original siding -- not stone but wood milled to look like stone.  The last stripping and repainting was in 1980. 

I visited Mt. Vernon in 1974. Since then there have been many advances in archaeology and preservation techniques.  What is most notable is the cultural sensitivity and recognition of the enslaved people whose work made life on the plantation possible.  The museum has an excellent exhibit about the Washingtons and their slaves. Though they were relatively benevolent (both George and Martha wanted to free all of them),  the fact remains that they were still slaves.