George Washington Wired

Edward Savage’s career was defined by his relationship to George Washington, argues Lydia Mattice Brandt, assistant professor of art history at the University of South Carolina. Remarkably, Savage “painted at least seven portraits of Washington and two of Martha Washington,” including the famed 1798 portrait The Washington Family, the only contemporary painting that showed Washington at Mount Vernon.

Resting on the table in Savage’s 1798 portrait of the Washington Family are Pierre Charles L’Enfants’s plans for the new Federal City.

As described by Brandt, “By depicting Washington dressed in his military uniform surrounded by his family and with his hand resting on evidence of his greatest presidential achievement, The Washington Family echoes the comparison between Washington and the Roman general Cincinnatus so familiar to late eighteenth-century Americans.” In addition to George Washington, the portrait also includes Martha Washington, Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis, and George Washington “Washy” Parke Custis congregated around a table at Mount Vernon. Behind the family is an enslaved servant believed to be Washington’s valet, Christopher Sheels.

The East Front of Mount Vernon is one of two views of Mount Vernon that Savage painted between 1787-1792. In this view, The Dove of Peace weathervane is visible atop the mansion cupola.

Savage also famously painted two small canvases of the east and west fronts of the Mount Vernon mansion. These canvases “are the earliest known images of the plantation, were widely exhibited during Savage’s lifetime, and most likely inspired a host of other early views.”

To learn more about Edward Savage, visit the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.

Adam D. Shprintzen, Ph.D.
Editor, Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington

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George Washington’s Mount Vernon is competing for a $100,000 grant to support the restoration of the Large Dining Room, or “New Room” as it was known to Washington. As one of the 24 finalists in the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Partners in Preservation competition, Mount Vernon needs your votes in order to win this prestigious competition. Help us restore the Large Dining Room’s grand Palladian window and the detailed fireplace, add a more authentic wallpaper border on the walls, and document the room using the most advanced tools available.

The winner of the $100,000 grant is the finalist with the most votes at the end of the competition. 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, every day from now until the competition ends on May 10, 2013.

By linking your Twitter and Instagram accounts to your profile you can gain 10 points for Mount Vernon each time you Tweet or post a photo using #MountVernon.

Construction of the Large Dining Room began in 1776 and due to the outbreak of the American Revolution it took nearly 13 years to complete. Throughout the war, labor was in short supply, as were the materials needed to finish such a grand room. Though George Washington was away from his beloved Mount Vernon for most of the war, his thoughts were never far away.

On September 30, 1776, just 2 weeks after the Battle for Harlem Heights, and with “…the enemy within a stone’s throw…” of the Continental Army, Washington responded to a letter from his cousin and farm manager, Lund Washington:

My time, in short, is so much engrossed that I have not leisure for corresponding, unless it is on mere matters of public business. I therefore in answer to your last Letter of the 18th shall say…The Chimney in the new room should be exactly in the middle of it — the doors and every thing else to be exactly answerable and uniform — in short I would have the whole executed in a masterly manner…”

To experience preservation in action, join us May 4-5, 2013 for Preservation Weekend. Go behind-the-scenes with staff from our archaeology, preservation, and collections staff on special tours of the Mount Vernon estate; see the restoration of the Large Dining Room, or New Room, firsthand as you tour the mansion; and participate in preservation-themed activities for children in the Hands-on-History room in the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center.

There are only 10 more days to vote so be sure to register your account today and share with your family, friends, and students.

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This post is Part 2 of our 2 part series on Spring preparations in the fields and gardens at Mount Vernon. Part 1 appeared on Tuesday April 16th.

Last week we blogged about plowing the fields at Mount Vernon to prepare for the Spring planting. This week we look at the other side of Washington’s agricultural pursuits, his gardens.

When not overseeing the work in his cultivated fields, Washington took time to admire and record the beauty of the flowering trees and shrubs around his estate. On February 22, 1785 he wrote in his diary, “I also removed from the Woods and old fields, several young Trees of the Sassfrass, Dogwood, & red bud to the Shrubbery on the No. Side the grass plat.” The grass plat mentioned is the bowling green to the west of the house. Two trees he was particular fond of were the Dogwood and Redbud. In his landscape redesign of 1785 Washington highlighted the two flowering trees by planting, “…a circle of Dogwood with a red bud in the Middle close to the old Cherry tree near the South Garden Ho[use].” In April 1785, he recorded the progress of his favorites, “The Dogwood buttons were just beginning to open as the redwood [or bud] blossom for though they had appeared several days the blossoms had not expanded.”

In Mount Vernon’s pleasure garden the bulbs and fruit trees have burst into bloom.This past March was unseasonably cool and by the end of the month the bulbs were just starting to sprout and the peas were just poking their heads above the ground; then spring exploded. The first two weeks of April saw daily temperatures move from 50-60 degrees to 80-90 degrees causing the gardens to bloom seemingly overnight.

From now until the garden is turned for winter it will change in its appearance weekly. A stroll along the upper garden’s paths would have been a highlight for 18th century visitors to Mount Vernon. Today, our visitors marvel over many of early blooming heirloom tulips that date from the 1700s. Though these tulips hug the ground unlike the more familiar, and taller, tulips common today, they are just as colorful.

Stay tuned to the George Washington Wired blog for monthly updates on our gardens throughout the summer months!

J. Dean Norton
Director of Horticulture
Department of Horticulture

The grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin Bache served as the editor and publisher of the Philadelphia-based newspaper the General Advertiser, known popularly as the Aurora. As described in today’s featured digital encyclopedia entry by Frank Casale, Assistant Professor of History at Morgan State University, Bache was trained in the craft of printing by his famous grandfather. However, as Casale explains, “while Bache did enjoy modest success as a printer, it was as a newspaper man that he became famous.”

George Washington, who was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, was a constant target of Bache’s editorial scorn. As argued by Casale, Bache believed that Washington was “too ready to accept accolades, which lead Bache to fear Washington was assuming aristocratic airs of acting in a tyrannical manner.” In addition, Bache was a supporter of closer French-American relations and “criticized what he perceived as Washington’s hostility to French diplomacy and his overtures towards reconciliation with England.”

Read more about Benjamin Franklin Bache, by visiting the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington.

Adam D. Shprintzen, Ph.D.
Editor, Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington