Archive for June, 2011

Some postcards are a little cryptic, and this one’s no exception. Sent from Washington, D.C., on May 16, 1909, it has a few indiscernible words and ambiguous punctuation, but one thing is clear: The individual who sat down to pen this letter had a pretty good time exploring the Mansion and Martha Washington’s bedroom while he or she was here.

We’ve made our best guess as to the text and put any illegible portion in brackets. Feel free to chime in below in our comments section with your thoughts on the postcard’s wording. We think it reads as follows:

[May 16th]

Dear Lizzie,

[We were] in this room having the time of our life

Love to all

[illegible] & Mr T

Background Info: The postcard was published by B.S. Reynolds, a company that was based in Washington, D.C., and that made nearly 100 views of Mount Vernon between 1908 and 1955, plus postcards of other Washington-area buildings. The postcard pictured here has a one cent stamp. This note and nearly 950 others are part of the Barbara L. Anderson Postcard Collection that was donated to the Mount Vernon library in 2010.

Submarine warfare isn’t the type of combat that generally comes to mind when one thinks of the Revolutionary War, but then again the United States only had one type of submarine back then … and it generally failed.

Although Mount Vernon doesn’t have an original submarine – or even a replica – it does have a correspondence between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson about the submarine, which was created by a man named David Bushnell in 1775. The letter goes as follows:

Paris July 17. 1785.

Sir

Permit me to add, what I forgot in my former letter, a request to you to be so kind as to communicate to me what you can recollect of Bushnel’s experiments in submarine navigation during the late war, and whether you think his method capable of being used successfully for the destruction of vessels of war. It’s not having been actually used for this purpose by us, who were so peculiarly in want of such an agent seems to prove it did not promise success. I am with the highest esteem Sir Your most obedt & most humble servt

Th: Jefferson

The aptly-named one-man submarine that Jefferson speaks of was called the Turtle because it resembled two tortoise shells joined together. The contraption was invented after Bushnell, then a student at Yale University, discovered that gunpowder could explode underwater. Constructed from oak, iron bands and pitch, the Turtle was approximately 7 feet tall, with an air supply lasting about 30 minutes, and it was maneuvered using a hand-powered propeller.

As for Jefferson’s query on whether submarine navigation was a “method capable of being used successfully for the destruction of vessels of war,” Washington replied that while he thought it was “an effort of genius,” there were many dangers faced by the operator, and these had led to failure.

In the end, the Turtle was not a successful creature, as is exemplified in its first tour in battle.

On the night of September 6, 1776, the Turtle attacked the British HMS Eagle in New York harbor. Once on the underside of the ship, the Turtle attempted to drill a hole in the hull to secure a time-delay explosive, but it turned out the hull was copper-plated and impenetrable. As the submarine retreated it was spotted by the British and the Turtle‘s captain released a torpedo, alarming the British who retreated. Attempted attacks on British ships continued to fail through 1777, when the project was abandoned.

Jefferson’s letter will be on display through August 14 in the Bringing Them Home exhibition in the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center.

Object Spotlight is a regular feature on George Washington Wired that highlights some of the household belongings that Washington came into contact with. Assistant Curator Jill DeWitt contributed to this report. Check out Mount Vernon’s eMuseum to find more of Washington’s belongings.

Jefferson’s letter: Purchased with funds donated by Dorothy McIlvain Scott, 2002 [MS-5672]

Question: What’s better than coming to Mount Vernon? Answer: Coming to Mount Vernon on a boat! Today’s Washington, D.C., LivingSocial deal is admission to Mount Vernon plus a round-trip ticket aboard the Spirit of Mount Vernon cruise ship, which takes you from Southwest Washington straight to the estate to the tune of a narrated riverfront tour.

In past centuries visitors paid as much as a quarter to see the first president’s house. At half off you’re still going to have to pay a little more than that ($24 to be exact), but as Washington compatriot Benjamin Franklin might have said, 50 percent saved is 50 percent earned.

Most of us are familiar with Presidents Day, which is celebrated on the third Monday of February, but far fewer of us realize that the day is officially titled Washington’s Birthday. Knowing a little something about how calendars work, it’s also pretty apparent that we’re rarely celebrating Washington’s Birthday on the actual day of his birth.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) wants to change that. On June 21 he introduced a bill to have Washington’s Birthday celebrated on … Washington’s birthday, Feb. 22.

“Today many states, the media, advertisers and the general public have abandoned recognition of Washington’s Birthday and replaced it with a commercial ‘shopping holiday’ that leaves American history and patriotism by the side of the road,” Wolf said in a statement. “The holiday was far more meaningful when it revolved around George Washington, and schools were able to focus on his sterling example of character and leadership.”

Mount Vernon, a nonpartisan association that is ever the fan of Washington, agrees.

In 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes signed legislation creating a holiday for Washington, D.C., federal workers and in 1885 the day was extended to all federal workers. In 1968 the Uniform Holiday Bill was signed creating three-day weekends for federal employees by shifting Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Columbus Day to Mondays.

After a bill is introduced in Congress there is plenty of opportunity for it to flounder. Even if the observance of Washington’s Birthday stays the same, it’s a good reminder to remember who we’re celebrating.