Object Spotlight: Washington’s Weathervane
George Washington certainly lived before the existence of weather.com, but that didn’t stop him from tracking the weather 24 hours a day from his own home.
Washington designed a weathervane in the shape of a dove of peace and had it constructed by architect Joseph Rakestraw for the top of the Mansion’s cupola in 1787.
Washington, who was in Philadelphia when the weathervane arrived in Virginia, was quite concerned with its installation and wrote to his nephew George Augustine Washington that, “Great pains … must be taken to fix the points truly; otherwise they will deceive rather than direct-(if they vary from the North, South, East, and West)-one way of doing this may be by my Compass being placed in a direct North line on the ground at some distance from the House.”
Since its installation the weathervane has been restored a number of times, with the first documented treatment occurring in 1946, when the entire weathervane was repaired and repainted. Later, the dove would be removed and replaced by a replica for preservation purposes, but the rest of the original weathervane has remained on top of the Mansion. The most recent conservation treatment (as seen above) was completed in 2008, when five separate components of the weathervane including the mast, ball, directional, dove and cap were treated. The goal was both to protect the weathervane from degradation due to exposure as well as improve its appearance.
You can see the original dove, up close and personal, in the Washingtons at Home Gallery at Mount Vernon’s Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center, where it is protected from the corrosive elements of air pollutants, wind, rain and snow.
Object Spotlight is a regular feature on George Washington Wired that highlights some of the household belongings that Washington came into contact with in his daily life.
Weathervane: Transferred to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association through the generosity of John Augustine Washington III, 1860, W-2492
April 15th, 2011 at 11:14 am
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