When George Washington died in 1799, the inventory of Mount Vernon listed twelve spyglasses in the house: eleven in Washington’s study and one in the Central Passage. Why did Washington accumulate so many spyglasses?
Washington had numerous occasions to use a spyglass (or handheld telescope) over the course of his life. As Commander-in-Chief during the Revolution, he depended on the devices to monitor troop movements and the landscape. Military portraits of Washington during the American Revolution, such as John Trumball’s 1790 painting, often depict him holding or carrying a spyglass.
George Washington before the Battle of Trenton, by John Trumbull, ca. 1792-94. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
At Mount Vernon, Washington used a telescope to observe ships sailing by on the busy Potomac River. Benjamin Latrobe’s 1796 watercolor of the Washingtons and guests enjoying coffee on the piazza depicts an unidentified man (possibly Latrobe himself) peering through a spyglass at the vessels dotting the Potomac below.
Detail of man with spyglass.
View of Mount Vernon with the Washington Family on the Piazza, July 16, 1796, by Benjamin Henry Latrobe.
Most handheld telescopes in the eighteenth century were imported from England. They consisted of glass lenses mounted in a cylindrical case of wood, brass, or a combination of the two. The Mount Vernon collection includes several spyglasses with a Washington history, some of which surely helped George gain a new perspective on his surroundings.
Stay tuned for a post from our Collections Management staff on a creating a custom box for one of these spyglasses!
“New York City played an important role in the public life of George Washington, spanning the final five decades of the eighteenth century,” argues Michael D. Hattem, doctoral candidate in history at Yale University. Interestingly, Washington both “suffered his worst military defeat and experienced some of his greatest personal triumphs in New York, including the Continental Army’s triumphant re-entry into the city and his inauguration as the first President of the United States.”
Washington’s first visit to New York City occurred in February 1756 when he was on his way to Boston to discuss his military commission with Britain’s military commander in the colonies and the push toward war with France. Seventeen years later, in 1773, Washington returned to New York City, this time to enroll his stepson Jacky at King’s College. En route to Boston once again, to accept his post as the new head of the Continental Army, Washington made his third visit to New York City in 1775.
New York remained a vitally important location of strategic importance throughout the Revolution and Washington suffered a series of significant military defeats that led to British control of the city. While “Washington longed to recapture New York City and avenge his humiliating defeat…he did not return until the British forces evacuated on November 25, 1783.”
On April 25th and 26th George Washington Ohio Teaching Ambassador, Jason Anderson, brought 22 students from Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron, OH to Mount Vernon for a special program on archaeology. Why come all the way from Ohio to get your hands dirty with Mount Vernon’s archaeologists? This visit represented the culmination of a semester long class in which students read about and were tested on archaeology around the world as far back in time as ancient Egypt.
What really brought the class to life for the students, however, was that Mr. Anderson and Mount Vernon’s archaeologists worked very closely to craft a project based on real time, real world archaeology. Through a series of early morning Skype sessions, PowerPoints, videos, and written assignments, Luke Pecoraro, Karen Price, and Leah Stricker introduced the Hoban High seniors to the nuts and bolts of how historical archaeology gets done. While the hands-on archaeology component at Mount Vernon was a one-time only experience, our archaeologists are exploring a Skype-based distance learning model for future archaeology-related programming. When the students arrived at Mount Vernon and poured out of the bus, they were ready to not only hit the ground running, but to put their book and virtual learning to the test!
We know from Washington’s records that the South Paddock, now home to rare breed animals, was once the site of a carpentry shop, and later maps show an ice house in the 19th century. Over the course of two days, the Hoban High seniors joined our archaeology staff to begin a multi-year project to systematically survey the paddock – the fenced in area located just south of Mount Vernon’s Lower Garden. Numerous visitors to the estate, as well as the South Paddock’s resident ewes and lambs, stopped by to see what was going on as the students worked to unearth many artifacts dating to the 19th century, including plates and tobacco pipes.
Over the course of 200 years, work occurred in the paddock to support the Mount Vernon plantation. Archaeologists will continue the project by digging square holes every 20 feet, screening the dirt for artifacts, and recording their findings to document what survives of these plantation labors to provide a richer understanding of the estate over time.
Zerah Jakub Manager of Education Outreach and Leadership Programs Education Department
Special thanks to Eleanor Breen, Deputy Director of Archaeology, for contributing to this post
The mythology of wooden teeth remains one of the most widely held misconceptions surrounding George Washington’s life. However, as pointed out by William Etter in today’s featured encyclopedia entry, “While Washington certainly suffered from dental problems and wore multiple sets of dentures composed of a variety of materials–including ivory, gold, and lead–wood was never used in Washington’s dentures nor was it commonly employed by dentists in his era.”
But how did the mythology about Washington’s false teeth become so ingrained within the public’s consciousness? As Etter points out, while the true origin of the myth is difficult to discern, “the standard, and most likely, explanation…is that the ivory employed in the dentures fabricated for Washington by dentist John Greenwood became stained over time, giving them a grained, wooden appearance that misled later observers.”
Etter further argues that the wooden teeth myth “does reflect elements of truth” and remains resonant because it “remains the only myth associated with a major Founder that calls attention to the individual’s physical frailty…serves as a reminder of the genuine struggles Washington experienced as he sacrificed his health in public service.”
To celebrate our participation in the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Partners in Preservation grant competition, Mount Vernon hosted our first ever Preservation Weekend on May 4th & 5th with a number of special events held across the Estate.
Storyteller Nancy Dever performed “Saving Mount Vernon,” the story of the courageous women of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association who saved George Washington’s home from ruin in the 19th century. In the Hands-on-History Center, budding archaeologists uncovered dishes, clay dolls and marbles, gems, and coins in a mock dig and also had the opportunity to use microscopes to examine cicada wings and dollar bills close up.
Mount Vernon archaeologists led Behind-the-Scenes tours of our Archaeology Lab and special walking tours all weekend. Guests were able to view 50 objects that have been unearthed at Mount Vernon ranging from wine bottles to Native American projectile points and hike to the West Gate to see Mount Vernon from the same view that 18th century visitors experienced. A special “from the ground up” tour led by Eleanor Breen, Director of Archaeology, and Tom Reinhart, Architectural Historian, focused on the work and domestic spaces of the enslaved community at Mount Vernon and Washington’s plantation operation through the lens of the buildings and below-ground remains. Our curators treated guests to tours of the Donald W. Reynolds Museum focused on the objects related to Washington’s death and the period of national mourning that followed.
A huge thank you to all our staff and visitors who helped make Preservation Weekend a success! A special HUZZAH goes to the family of Jennie Ashton who surprised her with a visit from Wichita, KS for this event. Jennie, a Masters student in the Museum Studies program at the University of Kansas and George Washington fan, had the opportunity to “Meet Our Experts” and received an insider’s tour of the New Room.
If you are 13 years old and older, visit www.mountvernon.org/vote to register your email or Facebook account and increase our vote total by 50 points. You can vote once a day until May 10, 2013. Don’t forget to link your Twitter and Instagram accounts to your profile to gain 10 points for Mount Vernon, use the #MountVernon.
Mount Vernon recently invited K-12 schools nationwide to request framed portraits of George Washington to display in a respectful, prominent place.
The response was overwhelming: thousands of schools submitted letters! Along with the portrait, schools received curriculum materials to help explore our first president’s contributions.
