Just before school began this year (2017), we squeezed in one more George Washington-related location (after visiting
Valley Forge and his
Boston Headquarters). We visited his home,
Mount Vernon, just south of the nation's capital. My children were disappointed that there was no actual mountain involved, though they shouldn't have been because that meant a lot less climbing to get around.
Being early risers, we headed out early on Labor Day morning. The traffic was delightfully non-existent. We arrived just as the estate was opening. We had purchased tickets on line and had an easy time walking in and having a worker scan the bar code of our print out (we aren't quite savvy enough to use a QR code on our mobile phone).
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| View from parking (which was also good since we were early) |
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| Entrance for visitors |
The first place was the Ford Orientation Center with plenty of interesting and informative displays about Washington, the estate, and the history of the area. The kids weren't so interested so we went through quickly.
We did see a sculpture of the Washington family circa 1785. George and Martha are in their fifties. They had no children of their own but Martha had a son, John Parke Custis, whose children were raised by George and Martha after John died in 1781. The boy is George Washington Parke Custis and the girl is Eleanor Parke Custis.
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| George, Martha, and grandchildren |
A stained-glass display shows various important events in Washington's life. This photo is the closest I got to looking at it.
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| Probably a really awesome display |
The children were eager to try out
Agent 711 Revolutionary Spy Adventure, a mobile device app that lets visitors decode secret messages and eavesdrop on British soldiers to support the war effort. The first location is a nineteenth-century well house which had been erected near the mansion's kitchen in the 1870s. Historical research in the twentieth century revealed that Washington never built a well house at that location, so in order to preserve the way the estate was in 1799 (the year George died), the well was moved to the 12-acre field just outside the bowling green leading up to the mansion.
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| Well House |
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| Discovering a clue |
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| Bowling Green view of the Mansion |
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| Closer view of the mansion |
We still had a half hour before we were supposed to tour the mansion, so we worked on more of our spy mission. From the well we went to the Upper Garden greenhouse for the next clue.
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| Upper Garden greenhouse |
The garden is the typical combination of practical and ornamental plants that would support the house's kitchen and decor. Washington did have a lot of visitors back in the day.
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| Garden |
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| Growing things |
One tree in the garden, a pomelo, had some interesting fruit on it.
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| Pomelo tree |
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| Is this some sort of ingenious genetic variation? |
By the corner of the greenhouse we found a jug that helped reveal a hidden message written in Revolutionary-era invisible ink (at least that was the claim on the app). The kids enjoyed decoding and finding a new location to explore.
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| More spy stuff |
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| More garden stuff |
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| Growing grapes |
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| Cute shrubs |
Our next spy location was the Blacksmith Shop. On the way we saw a long building that had various uses. One room was the Women's Bunk Room, where ten to fifteen female slaves lived. They most likely worked at the mansion or the outbuildings where the sewing, cooking, and laundry was done. They may have had their children working and living with them.
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| Bunks of the women's bunk room (plus laundry) |
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| Fireplace and kitchen |
Next door is the shoemaker's shop with a few tools of the trade on display.
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| Shoemaker's shop |
The next room is the Stove Room. The building is on the back of the greenhouse and the stove room generated the heat needed to keep citrus and tropical plants growing in Virginia weather, especially the winters. A flue system distributed the heat through the greenhouse floor. Someone (typically a slave) would have to stay in the room from late fall to early spring to keep the fire burning.
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| The Stove Room |
The next room housed the male slaves who worked on the estate in various positions.
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| Men's Bunk Room |
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| Men's fireplace and kitchen |
A short walk down the path led us to the Blacksmith Shop which is still in use today. Currently, they make any of the iron work that is needed in the mansion or estate to replace worn-out original items. The men working there were very informative and chatty, making for an interesting visit. We did the same trick from our Williamsburg visit, asking about apprenticing our son as a blacksmith. The man said our son still had five or six years before he would be apprenticed.
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| Blacksmith shop |
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| Talking to a shop worker |
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| The smithy working his bellows |
Just outside the shop is a road with some of the support buildings.
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| Overseer's quarters, spinning house, salt house |
Time had come for our tour of the mansion, so we suspended our spy hunt (the next location was the ice house on the other side of the estate). The mansion was impressive, especially how well the tour was organized. Groups of ten to fifteen were taken in at a time. Each room had a docent who gave a five-minute description of the room and its function, along with historical anecdotes. The group then moved to the next room for the next five-minute description. The descriptions often started with, "Don't follow that other group into the next room!" Photography is not allowed in the mansion, so no pictures!
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| Waiting on the mansion tour |
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| View from the back porch |
One of the most interesting items on display was in Washington's office. He had a chair with foot pedals that worked a fan directly above the chair. This contraption was as close as they came to air conditioning in the 1790s!
The kitchen is a separate building (typical for the time--one doesn't want the heat and potential fire damage in the main house) and photography was allowed. One boy asked about Washington's diet. The docent said that Washington preferred soft foods like fish because of his dentures. They certainly served fancy, multi-course meals on a regular basis especially since visitors were common. The mansion typically served breakfast in the morning and dinner around 3 p.m., with a smaller tea-type meal in the evening.
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| The kitchen for the big house |
On the way to the ice house (where they stored ice from the river), we saw the stables and the coach house.
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| Stables |
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| Coach house |
The ice house provided a dramatic moment in the spy app--a chance to overhear British troops discussing their plans!
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| Ice house |
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| The next clue near the stables |
To send a message to the revolutionary spies, we had to find the laundry and hang it out in a certain order to show where the information was hidden.
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| Look for the laundry |
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| Approaching the basket |
We were nearing the final clues of the spy mission at the Wash House, where laundry was done.
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| Wash House |
The final bit was to find a worker with a red lanyard in the mansion circle. We found just such a person though my children were too shy to talk. I bravely asked, "Excuse me, are you wearing a red lanyard?" She said, "I think I know what you are looking for..." and gave us the final prize for completing our spy mission.
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| Mansion Circle |
After such a full morning, we had lunch at the estate's food court (which doesn't date back to the 1790s) and saw a bit of the other museum on the estate. Pictures inside the museum are not allowed, so I have none to show. We did get to see a couple of short movies describing Washington's life. We also saw his false teeth which were both fascinating and a bit horrifying. They were made from other human teeth, ivory, and animal teeth! It made me glad for modern dentistry.
I was amazed at this counter-relief depiction of George Washington (at the entrance of the museum exhibit, so I guess it was okay to take a picture?). From the front, it looks like a normal relief depiction of the first president of the United States. But closer examination or especially looking from the side reveals the true nature of the sculpture--indented rather than outdented!
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| George Washington |
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| Viewed from the right side |
The estate had a lot more we could have seen (like Washington's tomb, a pioneer farm, the slave memorial, the sixteen-sided barn, etc.) but the toddler was ready for nap time. We will probably visit again since it is not too far from home, at least when there isn't traffic.
A Man on the Inside (2024) created by Michael Shur based on the Chilean documentary The Mole Agent
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