Memorials | George Washington | Mount Vernon | Virginia

(Photo credit: Mount Vernon, courtesy Roger Wolstadt, Flickr Creative Commons)

Mount Vernon is a pretty popular name in America. Depending on which source you look up, you’ll find between 20 and 24 towns and municipalities called Mount Vernon all over the States. And there are hundreds of streets named Mount Vernon—including the one I live on. The popularity of this name isn’t hard to figure out: It comes from the fact that Mount Vernon was, and remains, the name of George Washington’s plantation home. It’s where he lived. And it’s still around today.

Mount Vernon stands overlooking the banks of the Potomac River, about 18 miles south of Washington, DC (which itself is no coincidence—Washington played a key role in the locating and construction of the nation’s capital, a story I’ll have to come back to sometime). Today the buildings and the surrounding area all look beautiful, thanks to the efforts of its non-profit making owners, the wonderfully anachronistically named Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. Yes, Mount Vernon remains a privately owned property, independent of the federal government. There are no park rangers working at this site. The home’s income is derived from the sales of tickets and merchandise to visitors and from charitable donations.

The property covers about 500 acres, including the historic buildings and surrounding gardens as well as George and Martha’s tomb, a visitor center, education center and other adjacent lands.

When my wife and I stopped by, we were of course confronted with the visitor center, known as the Ford Orientation Center. This is a fairly new building, spacious and bright, though it has a strangely empty feel to it. There is a “Mount Vernon in Miniature” display—essentially a scale reproduction—in the main lobby. That’s interesting enough for a minute or two, but we didn’t want to dwell too long looking at a big dolls’ house when the real thing is only a few steps away.

Having made it through the orientation film we headed over to the house itself. It’s actually something of a miracle that it’s still there at all. Construction of Mount Vernon was started in 1757 and continued in phases. The building reached its maximum extent in the 1770s. Following Washington’s death in 1799, however, the whole plantation passed through the hands of various relatives, none of whom had the means to maintain the estate. After about 50 years of this one of George’s descendants finally gave in and tried to sell it off. Neither the U.S. government nor the Commonwealth of Virginia was interested, and the house languished without a buyer for another 10 years. Then, in 1858, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association managed to acquire the house and some of the grounds for posterity and save it from complete dilapidation or destruction.

The tour of the house was very well organized as we were taken from the main line at the front through a side room for a quick introduction before being shepherded to the rear, where the house overlooks the river. The view there was magnificent and the land opposite looked, for the most part, as if it had been untouched by modern development. That is no accident. A couple of the guides told us about how back in the 1950s an oil company was looking to set up an oil refinery on the opposite shore. This led to a campaign to permanently protect the land over there from development. That effort eventually led to the federal government’s purchase of 4000 acres of land in the “viewshed” of Mount Vernon. That land today is Piscataway Park, Maryland, run by the National Park Service. Its prime reason for being is to allow for a view from Mt Vernon that is unsullied by modern industrial appendages. Not bad.

A great deal of effort has been taken to make sure the look and feel of the building and grounds are as accurate as possible. Living history staff and volunteers are on hand, for example around the farm and in the nearby smith’s shop. They are not “in character;” they talk to you like a normal person, which is always a relief.

From the rear of the Mount Vernon small groups of about a dozen at a time are led through the house. Rather than having a single tour guide lead each group, the house has tour guides at key stations throughout, and groups are directed from one to the next. This is a more efficient system for high volume traffic when only small groups can be fed through a site at any one time. It wasn’t a particularly busy day when we visited, so the pressure was off, but it seemed like a well-run operation. (I wonder what the place is like during the peak months of April and May, when school trips to Mount Vernon can be overwhelming.)

The museum and education center was also pretty impressive. It’s another 2006 addition, split into two sections, which is a good idea. You can do all the “old-fashioned” museum artifacts in one bite. We did that first, on the advice of a volunteer, and that was the best move. There are some amazing original pieces of Washington’s life in there. We then jumped over to the technologically enhanced, interactive, whiz-bang sound-and-light stuff that makes up the other part of the center. This is also the side that inevitably will attract the school groups. This side has interactive screens, lifelike wax dummies of George Washington (I’d seen these when they had been on display at Philly’s National Constitution Center one time), and plenty of video presentations displaying different events from Washington’s life. Many of these are a bit over the top, verging on the hagiographic. We were left in no doubt that George Washington was clearly awesome in almost every way. His negatives were not exactly hidden, but they were definitely underplayed. Anyway, the biggest whiz-bang studio, depicting events from Washington’s command of the Continental Army, shows scenes of winter encampments that include actual snow (artificially produced, of course) falling from the ceiling. The school kids will get a big kick out of that, especially when it’s warm outside. One original artifact that made it over to the whiz-bang side is Washington’s set of false teeth—always a subject of fascination.

Overall, I was impressed by the professionalism shown by the staff at Mount Vernon. All the tour guides looked and acted professionally and courteously. They seemed knowledgeable about their subject. But I think the experience also verged on the hagiographic—that is, the emphasis on the man was a bit less critical than I would’ve liked. And the ever-contentious issue of slavery is still being downplayed. I missed the more nuanced approach I think the park service might have taken if it had been in charge. Still, the experience is more satisfying than at other founders’ homes, such as Jefferson’s Monticello or Madison’s Montpelier, both of which are also in the hands of private foundations. Also, we can’t forget that the park service didn’t start getting into the historic house preservation business till well into the 20th century, by which time Mt Vernon probably would have been long gone had it not been for the Mt Vernon Ladies Association.

After we’d done Mount Vernon we stopped at the Mount Vernon Inn Restaurant next door, also part of the complex. I had a go at the Mount Vernon Harvest Ale, which was pretty good. We tried the peanut and chestnut soup, which was amazing. We also tried a couple of appetizers: the Hoe Cake and the fried Brie.

Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sources:

George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Available at http://www.mountvernon.org/

Kees Van Oostrum. Internet Movie Database. Available at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0887635/?ref_=tt_ov_dr