Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I drove on to Mount Vernon, George Washington's home for most of his life. Washington
deserves his fame. What he did in running the Colonial army was risky and audacious,
not to say skillful. People tend to forget that the Revolutionary War dragged on for eight
years and that Washington often didn't get a whole lot of support. Out of a populace of 5.5
million, Washington sometimes had as few as 5,000 soldiers in his army-one soldier for
every 1,100 people. When you see what a tranquil and handsome place Mount Vernon is,
and what an easy and agreeable life he led there, you wonder why he bothered. But that's
the appealing thing about Washington, he is such an enigma. We don't even know for sure
whathelookedlike.Almostalltheportraitsofhimweredoneby,orcopiedfromtheworks
of, Charles Willson Peale. Peale painted sixty portraits of Washington, but unfortunately
he wasn't very hot at faces. In fact, according to Samuel Eliot Morison, Peale's pictures of
Washington, Lafayette and John Paul Jones all look to be more or less the same person.
Mount Vernon was everything Williamsburg should have been and was not-genuine, inter-
esting, instructive. For well over a century it has been maintained by the Mount Vernon
Ladies'Association andwhataluckythingitiswehavethem.Amazingly,whenthehouse
was put up for sale in 1853, neither the federal government nor the state of Virginia was
prepared to buy it for the nation. So a group of dedicated women hastily formed the Mount
Vernon Ladies' Association, raised the money to buy the house and two hundred acres of
grounds, and then set about restoring it to precisely as it was in Washington's day, right
downtothe correct pigments ofpaint andpatterns ofwallpaper.Thank GodJohnD.Rock-
efellerdidn'tgetaholdofit.Todaytheassociation continuestorunitwithadedicationand
skill that should be models to preservation groups everywhere, but alas are not. Fourteen
rooms are open to the public and in each a volunteer provides an interesting and well-in-
formedcommentary-and issufficiently clueduptoansweralmostanyquestion-onhowthe
roorn was used and decorated. The house was very much Washington's creation. He was
involvedinthedaintiestquestionsofdecor,evenwhenhewasawayonmilitarycampaigns.
It was strangely pleasing to imagine him at Valley Forge, with his troops dropping dead of
coldandhunger,agonizingoverthepurchaseoflaceruffsandteacozies.Whatagreatguy.
What a hero.
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