Archive for the ‘Research/Lectures’ Category

Beginning on April 24th, Mount Vernon’s Archaeology Dept. will begin an underwater archaeology project in the Potomac River next to Mount Vernon. We asked our Archaeology Director, Esther White, to give us the scoop for our GWW readers.

GWW: What are the boats doing?

EW: Mount Vernon is partnering with the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), the Institute of Maritime History (IMH), the Maryland Historical Trust (Trust) and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) to conduct an archaeological survey of the Potomac River. The boats are using side scan sonar and a magnetometer to map the bottom of the river along Mount Vernon from Little Hunting Creek to the north, to Dogue Creek to the south.

GWW: What is side scan sonar? How about a magnetometer?

EW: The first is a sonar system used to map river or sea floors. The sonar detects objects protruding above the bottom. When stitched together these images provide a map of the river bed. By analyzing these maps nautical archaeologists can detect ship wrecks, wharves and other features under the water. A magnetometer measures magnetic fields to detect iron below the water.

GWW: What do they hope to find?

EW: The underwater survey is being done to see what’s there. IMH works to document and map stretches of the river and has chosen to partner with Mount Vernon to learn more about the waters around George Washington’s plantation. Shipwrecks are one thing the survey expects to document.

GWW: Any particular ship?

EW: The Federalist is one ship the crew would love to find. This boat was a gift from the merchants of Baltimore, MD in appreciation of Washington’s work with the Constitutional Convention. It was a fully rigged miniature ship, 15′ long, and was sailed to Mount Vernon by Joshua Barney, a Revolutionary War naval hero, in June 1788. George Washington recorded a hurricane in his diary on July 24, 1788. This severe storm succeeded in “driving the Miniature Ship Federalist from her Moorings, and sinking her.”

GWW: Will the underwater archaeologists scuba dive?

EW: If the archaeologists find anything of interest they might scuba dive to get a better look. This wouldn’t happen until later in the week.

GWW: What will happen to wrecks they find?

EW: Nothing immediately. The archaeologists will record the locations of the wrecks and other things they find. These archaeological sites will be registered with the Trust (Maryland controls the Potomac River) and the DHR (Virginia controls the mouths of the two creeks). In this way the archaeological sites will be preserved for the future.

Image by L. Toshio Kishiyama

Using George Washington’s personal journals and the Mount Vernon Ladies Association guest books, Mount Vernon’s historians are able to track the thousands of famous visitors that have visited Mount Vernon since the years when Washington himself would receive them at the door. Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson, Madison, and Patrick Henry, artists such as Jean Antoine Houdon and Charles Willson Peale, and even American lexicographer Noah Webster were amongst the hundreds of guests that the Washingtons would graciously welcome each year. In fact, much of what we know about Mount Vernon in the 1700’s is gleaned from the journals and letters of visitors who described everything from the music and food to the slaves and farms.

The American pilgrimage to Mount Vernon did not end at Washington’s death in 1799, however. Famous visitors have included the Roosevelts, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, Brigham Young, Prince Charles, Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, and Michelle Obama and her daughters. The Kennedys hosted a state dinner at Mount Vernon honoring the President of Pakistan in 1961. Countless celebrities from Barry Manilow to Harrison Ford have walked the same paths as Washington, all perhaps hoping to soak in a little bit of his greatness (admittedly, that’s just a guess). It’s clear that the hospitality of the Washingtons extends to Mount Vernon today, and the desire to see the home that Washington loved so dearly is still as strong as it was in the 18th century.

Three hundred years before enslaved cooks, Lucy and Nathan, prepared meals for hundreds of visitors a year at Mount Vernon, the kitchens at Hampton Court were the main stay of royal entertaining. Last week, Marc Meltonville, a “food archaeologist” in the Historic Kitchens of Hampton Court Palace, England gave Mount Vernon staff a fascinating “behind-the-scenes” tour of these Tudor kitchens, which have been the focus of in-depth research examining their usage through time since 1991. The kitchens, some may say like the King, were enormous! Fifty-five rooms once made up the complex, each with a purpose in sourcing, storing, preparing, cooking and serving food for a household of over 600. Today, Marc’s team views the resources of the historic kitchens as a laboratory, and their investigations embrace any and every aspect of social history in that space, which they then interpret through demonstrations to the Palace’s visitors and lucky colleagues in America!

Delving into history should engage all of our senses. There is a ton of great information on the project’s website that will draw your students into learning about history through their senses and their stomachs!

Many visitors and GWW readers do not know that Mount Vernon is owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Fifty years after Washington’s death, a group of women banded together to raise money and purchase Mount Vernon in order to preserve it for future generations (as you can see from the picture on the left, it was in pretty sorry shape- there was even an old ship mast holding up one end of the piazza). One of these brave women was Sarah Cornelia Tracy, a secretary to the regent, Ann Pamela Cunningham of South Carolina.

As the Civil War was descending on the nation, Sarah Tracy (and her sister as chaperone) moved into Mount Vernon to protect the estate and ensure absolute neutrality. She was left with little money, a crumbling house, and rumors swirling that Washington’s body had been removed from the tomb to the mountains of Virginia. At one point, she braved barricades, destroyed roads, and a night in a commandeered house, for promises of neutrality and supplies from General McClellan. For eight years, she served as doctor and manager at Mount Vernon while selling flowers, produce, and jewelry she made out of coffee beans in order to raise money. The Ladies Association also appointed a Superintendent to care for the estate, Upton Herbert, who was trapped at Mount Vernon through the war- as a Southerner he could not go to Alexandria, which was being held by Federal forces, and he could not go into Virginia without being conscripted into the Confederate forces. After Miss Tracy finally resigned in 1868, she married Mr. Herbert and they finally passed on the care of George Washington’s home to make their own home together in Burke, Va. More information about the preservation and archaeology of Mount Vernon can be found on our website.