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MOUNT VERNON LADIES' ASSOCIATION
excavate george washington's whiskey distillery
MOUNT VERNON, VIRGINIA
I learn something new about George Washington every time I volunteer
with the archaeologists!
—Betsy Alexander, archaeology volunteer
34 | You'd think by now they'd have already excavated everything on George Washington's
Mount Vernon estate. Yet, according to Eleanor Breen, an archaeologist and volunteer coordin-
ator for Mount Vernon archaeological projects, there will be artifacts to dig up for years to
come.
If it weren't for volunteers, much of the 500-acre site (in the 18th century, Mount Vernon
comprised 8,000 acres) would still be a mystery. Since 1987 when a permanent archaeology
program was established on the estate, volunteers (with the help of their professional ment-
ors) have uncovered everything from tobacco pipes and wig curlers to forks made from animal
bones.
All of this was accomplished without help from your tax dollars. Mount Vernon receives
no funding from the U.S. government. Instead, the “First Home” is maintained by the Mount
Vernon Ladies' Association, the oldest historic preservation organization in the United States.
The association was founded in 1853 by Ann Pamela Cunningham, a South Carolina
woman disabled after falling from a horse. Cunningham's mother, while taking a tour down
the Potomac River, was shocked to see Mount Vernon's peeling paint, overgrown weeds, and
columns so rotten that the famous portico was propped up with a sailing mast. She wrote a
letter to her daughter describing the unacceptable condition of the first President's home, ex-
horting her to do something.
The governments of both the United States and Virginia had already turned down the offer
to purchase Mount Vernon, and there was even some talk of demolishing the home. Cunning-
ham decided that if the men of the country (at that time, women didn't even have the right to
vote) wouldn't renovate the historic site, the women would. Within five years, her women's
group raised $200,000 and bought the mansion, the outbuildings, and 200 acres. There's an
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