Archive for the ‘George Washington’ Category

As with many locales across the United States, Mount Vernon has seen a vast array of temperatures this winter. February started with a bang as the mercury soared to 71, although today, little more than a week later, afternoon temperatures hovered around 45.

George Washington was an avid recorder of thermal readings, which at some points he noted nearly every day in his diaries, as anyone who has ever thumbed through one can attest. Several thermometers, such as the decorative one pictured above, were available at Mount Vernon for those seeking to quantify the heat or cold that pervaded life to a much larger extent in the 18th century than today.

It turns out, however, that people who were recording temperatures in early America weren’t necessarily jotting down readings taken outdoors. According to an insightful webpage by the National Archives, one 18th-century secretary of the Royal Society of London recommended taking meteorological temperatures “in a room which faces the north, where there is very seldom if ever any fire in the fireplace.”

It’s not known where Washington was taking his readings — sometimes he was likely outside, sometimes likely inside. This becomes very clear when he would note, for example, a drop in temperature but make several recordings throughout the day in which the temperature stayed mostly the same.

It would appear that Washington’s strengths laid more in founding nations and winning wars than recording temperatures, a practice in which he and his early American cohorts seem to have been somewhat ill-advised.

Even if the fall foliage in Mount Vernon’s education center exhibit featuring a young George Washington is made of synthetic material, it’s not immune to the hazards of fading color. To spruce up the dusty leaves that frame our Washington-as-young-surveyor scene, we hired an exhibit company to give the forest canopy a fresh spray of paint.

Washington’s wax head and hands, which were fashioned to be the most lifelike replicas in existence, had to be removed due to their delicate nature, and what remained of Washington’s body was covered so as not to collect falling dust.

Spray painting faux leaves is only the tip of the exhibit iceberg for Luke, who arrived at Mount Vernon to tend after our vegetation. He’s also looked after many a landscape in addition to the likes of dinosaurs and giant bees during his career caring for various museums’ displays. Recently he even created fake pine cones for a live tarantula exhibit at the Maryland Science Center. As fascinating as we find our dust to be, it might not make his list of weirdest work projects.

January is one of the chilliest times of the year, which also means that here at Mount Vernon, it’s one of the most overlooked by visitors, who neither stop by for vacation nor pop by for neighborly visits during this coldest of months. It also means January is ideal for having the estate to yourself. Discover the five best reasons to get to Mount Vernon before February and the busy Presidents Day season begins.

1) Visit the estate without disruption: Attendance in January usually hovers around 20,000 to 25,000 visitors, which means there are six or seven times fewer bustling people than during busy months such as May. Lines are shorter and the estate’s sweeping panoramas are that much more stranger-free for your picture-taking purposes.

2) Scouting-oriented children get in free: All Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Camp Fire members wearing their uniform or official pen get into the estate for free through February 17 — not a bad treat after a long season of cookie sales. They can also complete activities toward patches and pins.

3) It’s a romantic time of year chez Washington: George and Martha, the happy colonial couple, were married on January 6; it was a day referred to back then as Twelfth Night, which marked the end of the Christmas season. For current-day Americans, Christmas is long gone by January 6, but not the Washingtons’ anniversary.

4) Hot cider abounds: The Mount Vernon Inn is a place filled with the adjective delicious. Add hot cider to the menu and you’ve got yourself a warm treat to enjoy beside one of the inn’s several fireplaces.

5) There’s always snow here: Even if it’s not snowing much outdoors this winter, it snows every day in our Revolutionary War Theater, where film-watchers have an immersive experience when real “snow” falls on the audience as Washington crosses the Delaware.

How did the Washingtons ring in the new year? Celebrating January 1 was more of a Dutch than British tradition, so the Washingtons’ New Year’s festivities were likely at their peak during the period of George Washington’s presidency when the first family lived in New York City, which had been settled by the Dutch.

In 1790 Mrs. Adams, who was the wife of Vice President John Adams, wrote that “the New Years day in this state, & particularly in this city [New York City] is celebrated with every mark of pleasure and satisfaction. The shops and publick [sic] offices are shut. There is not any market upon this day, but every person laying aside Buisness [sic] devote[s] the day to the social purpose of visiting & receiving visits. The churches are open & divine service performed begining [sic] the year in a very proper manner by giving Thanks to the great Governour [sic] of the universe for past mercies, & imploring his future Benidictions [sic]. There is a kind of cake in fashion upon this day call’d New Years Cooky. This & Cherry bounce as it is calld [sic] is the old Dutch Custom of treating their Friends upon the return of every New Year.”