Washington DC - Mount Vernon

We finally made it to Washington DC. This is going to be a really busy next two weeks as we have lots that we want to see and we are expecting a visit from our friend, Nancy. I have had a very hard time trying to upload the pictures to the Blog, even though we supposedly have WiFi here at the Cherry Hill RV Park. There are over 300 sites here and the park is almost full so I guess with everyone trying to use the WiFi, it is sporadic at best, so I will post as soon as I can get the pictures uploaded.

We decided on our first day here, to take an all-day Grayline bus tour of the city which included Washington Embassy Row, Arlington National Cemetery, Mount Vernon , Georgetown, and the Lincoln, Vietnam, Korean, and Iwo Jima Monuments. During the first week here, we have gone back to many of these points numerous times, so each of them will have their own posts, but the first one is going to encompass our visit to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, located about 16 miles outside Washington DC.

Mount Vernon was the home of George and Martha Washington from the time of their marriage in 1759 to the time of his death in 1799. Despite long absences for military and public service, Washington diligently expanded his plantation from 2,000 to 8,000 acres and the mansion from six rooms to twenty-one. Washington's home has what is called a "Bowling Green" in the foreground of the mansion which reflects Washington's admiration for formal English landscapes and also opened up a broader vista to the west. The grass was regularly cut with scythes and smoothed with a roller to keep the surface firm and even. The outside of the mansion is wood, made to look like stone. Long pine boards are grooved and beveled to create the appearance of masonry. The boards were then varnished and painted and fine sand was thrown on the wet paint. This process was called rustication and George Washington used this technique when he expanded the mansion in 1757-59.

We learned many new things about George Washington while we were visiting Mount Vernon. First of all, he was very aware of the importance of controlling sanitation. His "necessary" (an outdoor privy) encouraged the centralized collection of waste. Human waste was deposited in large wooden drawers below the seats. The drawers were removed and the waste was then recycled as a fertilizer in the gardens. (Probably more than you wanted to know on that subject!)

Secondly, he was a conservationist. A working plantation made great demands on the surrounding forests - wood was continuously in demand for fires used in cooking, heating and cleaning and lumber was also required to construct buildings, fences, barrels, tools, and countless other 18th century necessities. Still Washington demanded that fallen timber be used as much as possible and he worked diligently to protect habitats for a large deer population as well as other endangered animals.

While we remember him as a great military and political leader, he was first and foremost a visionary farmer. By the mid 1760's, Washington had switched his main cash crop from tobacco to wheat. He knew that wheat did not deplete the soil as quickly as tobacco and because the British did not regulate the sale of wheat as closely as tobacco, he had more markets to sell wheat in. He introduced a seven year crop rotation plan and experimented with soil enhancers to increase the productivity of his fields. He experimented with over 60 crops and selected the best six- wheat, corn, potatoes, buckwheat, oats, and grasses. He also built a 16 sided treading barn. Long frustrated by the inefficiency of threshing grain outside, Washington designed this circular barn so that wheat could be tread indoors by horses and mules walking in a circular path. From the treading floor on the second level, the loose grain fell between slatted floorboards to the level below, where it was gathered, cleaned, and sent to the gristmill to be ground into flour. Washington's design was the only one of its kind.
George and Martha had as many guests as 65 to 70 a week stopping by their plantation. Some spent the night and some simply stopped by to discuss the news of the world with Washington. He was said to have received three newspapers and each time someone stopped by, he would ask them to read aloud a particular story out of the paper and give Washington his viewpoint on the story. In this way, he not only got his newspapers read to him, but he also learned the feelings of the guests on particular subjects. George never had any children of his own, but raised Martha's two young children from a previous marriage - John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis. In 1781 when John Parke Custis died, George and Martha raised the two young grandchildren as their own.

George and Martha Washington, along with twenty other family members were originally interred in the old vault at Mount Vernon; however in accordance with his will, a new tomb was erected . The Washingtons were moved to the new tomb in 1831.
The Mount Vernon tour included a walk thru the house, set up just as it would have been during Washington's tenure there and more than a dozen outbuildings which functioned as a kitchen, slave quarters, smokehouse, wash house, etc. It also includes 25 galleries and theaters at the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center which includes more than 500 orginal artifacts that represent Washington's remarkable life. George especially enjoyed the long back porch that looked out to the Potomac River.We saw many other things on the tour and the next blog will be that of Arlington Cemetery where we saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the Kennedy gravesites. Hope you know a little bit more about our first President, George Washington now and that you'll join us on the rest of the Washington tour. Til then, stay happy!