- Good afternoon. I'm Adam Erby. I'm Curator of Fine and
Decorative Arts here at George Washington's Mount Vernon. It is a pleasure to be back here with you for another
edition of Mansion Mondays. Today, we're in the Washington bedchamber, one of the most important
and sacred rooms in the house and I want to talk to you a
little bit about this space. Before I want to get started,
I want to thank a member of the audience out there today, a lady named Natalie Larson, who made me this wonderful
mask with George Washington on it for me to stay safe
during the coronavirus epidemic. So, hope everyone at home is staying safe. So, we'll get started. So, we're in the Washington bedchamber, which, as we all know, is the bedchamber in which George Washington
passed away in December of 1799. This room was built, added to the mansion, beginning in the early 1770s. In it was the beginning of a private, it was part of a private wing
that the Washingtons built in the 1770s when they expanded
the mansion on either side. On this one side, the
south side of the mansion, they added a servants' hall,
which is in the basement, George Washington's study,
which is immediately below us, the Washington bedchamber
and up above us are what are called lumber rooms, which were used for storage in the period. So, and then on the north
side of the mansion, the Washingtons added the new room, which we will be going and
exploring on another one of these Mansion Mondays,
hopefully sometime soon. The purpose of this wing really was to pull the Washington's private lives out of the central core of
the mansion and move them, and give them privacy, to the south side. The Washington bedchamber,
that I'm standing in today, was always referred to
during the 18th century, during the Washingtons' lives
as Mrs. Washington's chamber. And the reason for that is, this is really where she ran the
affairs of the household. From this room, she oversaw
the daily keeping of the house, she also oversaw a number
of enslaved servants. She oversaw her reading and
writing and whatever she needed to do at her writing
desk, which you see here. She got dressed at her dressing table, which you also see in the room. And this was really the
nucleus, the core of the house, from which she ran her daily operations. George Washington had
his own separate space and that was in the study downstairs. So, in the morning, he got up,
went downstairs to the study and that's where he would
have gotten dressed, his clothes were kept down there. He would have gotten dressed with the help of an enslaved valet in
that particular space. Now, the Washington bedchamber, so Martha also used these two closets here to keep items that were
particularly precious or valuable, under lock and key. Things like clothing, her clothing would have been kept in here. But also bed hangings
likely would have been in these spaces as well as spices, expensive spices that she
would have needed to distribute to enslaved people to use
in cooking and other things. So, these two doors back
here would remain under lock and key and Martha Washington, or one of the enslaved house maids, would have kept the keys at all times. Now, this space is particularly
important and evocative and has been well-recognized since George Washington passed away in here on December 14th, 1799. It's one of the rooms that survives with some of the most original
furnishings in the house. The bed, which you see here, the bedstead, the wooden elements of this bed are the
original wooden elements for the bed that the Washingtons bought in the 1790s in Philadelphia, and brought here with
them after the presidency. And is the one in which
Washington passed away. So, after George Washington
passed away in December of 1799, Martha moved to the third
floor of the mansion and that's where she stayed
for the rest of her life, stayed in the bedchamber up there and she left this one closed
and never went back inside. But immediately after that, after Martha Washington passed away, this space became a site of pilgrimage. So, you see people coming here throughout the 19th century
wanting to see the room in which George Washington died. And that is particularly evocative. But the room after Martha
Washington passed away, the furnishings in this
space were distributed to the grandchildren or
purchased at auction. And so, in reconstructing
this room and figuring out what this room looked like, we have one really evocative
image of the space. And if Sarah wouldn't mind
pulling that up right now, we'll talk about it for a second. This is a painting done by
John Gadsby Chapman in 1835. John Gadsby Chapman was a
Alexandria artist who was working on a series of paintings
about the Washington family. And Chapman probably was looking to do one of these heroic scenes of
George Washington's death, and this painting was
probably preparatory for that. So, at that point in the 1830s, everything from this space had been distributed, so Chapman went to each of
Martha Washington's grandchildren and asked them what they had from the room and where it was placed in the room. And he painted and he came here, painted the room as it
appeared at the time and then he painted each
of the individual objects into there at the direction
of the grandchildren, the people who really
remembered the space. So, this painting is our most
important documentary piece of documentation of how a
space in the mansion appeared during the Washingtons' lifetimes. He put this on display at the
National Academy of Design in 1835 and this piece actually came into the Mount Vernon collection in just a few years ago, probably 2017. So, the most important piece
in it, in that painting and we can move back to
the room, is the bedstead. The bed is a typical Philadelphia bed, out of the late 18th century. You can see the wonderful
turned posts on the end. So, it's fairly typical but
just made more important because of who used it and who died in it. It's a little bit wider
and a little bit longer than ordinary beds would have been. And the textile that you see
on it is what's called dimity. Dimity is a white cotton fabric that was very popular in the 18th century. At that point in the late 18th century, in the Neoclassical Era, at that point, having
something that was white, that was pure white, signified wealth because you had the labor force and you were sufficiently
separated from work, that you were able to keep this bed clean. So, keeping the white
fabric was very prestigious in the time period. So, Martha Washington gave
this bed away to her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis in her will and she called it, "The bed I caused to be
made in Philadelphia." As we've been doing restoration
work here in the mansion, we found over the years a
mouse nest in behind the walls of the bedchamber, and in that nest there was a little fragment
of this white dimity fabric, indicating its use nearby. Very, very popular in the time period. Beds in the 18th century were some of your most valuable objects
you could have purchased, because of the expense of textiles that were used on the beds. The raw material was very
expensive for textiles and the amount of labor that went into making these textiles
was absolutely extraordinary, because you're hand-weaving
all of this material on a loom. And so, the beds were very expensive. They had mattresses built
up, usually of horsehair. Horsehair, for the elite bedsteads, horsehair on the bottom and then more, a lighter feather mattress on top to give a little bit more comfort. And then these bed
hangings could be closed and it would keep you warm in the winter, when your body heat would keep you warm, by generating in that particular space. So, beds in the period were very important and you see different
beds throughout the house and there was a hierarchy to these beds. Some are better because of the fabric that they're made out of, some are a little bit more elite and your more elite
guests would have gotten the more elite bedstead. But, this one is a very simple,
Neoclassical white dimity. One little museum secret I'll
share with you is that we, today, do not use horsehair
mattresses for these beds, because they remain covered up. The horsehair oftentimes pests come and infest the horsehair. So, what we've used instead
is actually packing peanuts that are in a sack that
makes up the mattress and it gives us the look that we need and it's not something
that attracts pests. So, that's a little insider
bit about these beds, and that's true of all
the beds in the mansion. Moving around the room, some of the other original furnishings that I really enjoy are, this is Martha Washington's writing desk. This writing desk was purchased for her by George Washington in 1789. It was previously owned by
the Marchioness de Bréhan, who was a relative of the French Minister to the United States in the early days of the Washington presidency. When the Minister was recalled, he sold off all the
furnishings in his house, including this one and the
Washingtons purchased most of those and used them
during the presidency. At this point, Parisian, or French furniture was very popular in the period and so it would have,
these would have been some of those fashionable items
available in New York, which is where the
capital was at the time. So, George Washington
purchased this desk for Martha and she used it in
here, in the bedchamber, after they came back from the presidency between 1797 and 1799 on
George Washington's death. This piece has, it folds
out for a writing surface, just here, there are two doors so you could have kept
your letters inside, and there are a couple of drawers in here. And there's a wonderful, evocative story about that the Washington
correspondence was preserved by Martha Washington and then after George Washington's death, presumably, she burned
all the correspondence between them to keep everything, all of their personal
correspondence, private. It would have been kept in this desk. That was except for two
letters that slipped behind one of the drawers in this desk,
and those letters were found by Martha Washington's granddaughter, Martha Parke Custis Peter, whose portrait you
actually see just above. Those were found by
Martha Parke Custis Peter sometime in the early 19th century. The two letters are very
evocative and very sentimental. They were letters when
George Washington found out he'd been elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army and writing back to tell Martha that he had been
elected Commander in Chief. And the next one was to tell
Martha that he had been, he was going to Boston to
take up the troops in Boston and take command of the military. And in that second letter,
we own the second letter, the first letter owned by Tudor Place, and he calls Martha
Washington "my dearest." And he says that, the very
last line is very sentimental, he said, "I retain an
unalterable affection for you "that neither time nor
distance can separate us." So, it's a really wonderful letter, it's actually in the
Washington Library today and it's really evocative to think of Martha Washington
writing these letters, using this desk, towards
the end of her life. There's another piece in this room that's also particularly evocative, of another earlier time in Martha's life, and that is the dressing
table that you see here. It's a much earlier piece of furniture than anything else in the room. It was made by a
Williamsburg cabinet maker, a man named Peter Scott, in 1754. And so, it's a specialized
piece of furniture and Martha Washington would
have gotten dressed sitting in front of this
particular dressing table. So, she would have kept all
of her various toiletries in the drawers and she
would have used this on a daily basis as she got dressed. It's very neat and plain, is what the English would
have called the style of it, 'cause there's not a whole
lot of ornament to it. Well, this piece was purchased by Martha Washington's first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, in 1754. And it's one of the pieces
that Martha brought with her when she moved here to Mount
Vernon with George Washington. I've always thought that this piece was
particularly interesting that it remains in the bedchamber, in the Washington's bedchamber, as memento of those earlier
days for Martha Washington. And so, it's one of our,
again, precious relics. It and the writing desk
descended to the granddaughter, Martha Parke Custis Peter at Tudor Place and it came back here
years ago from that house. Other really important portrait, they're wonderfully important portraits. So, the only room in the house that you see family portraiture, other than the front parlor,
which is also a central space for Martha Washington, is up here in the Washington bedchamber. This is where Martha, again,
showed off her family. And so, we have wonderful portraits here of Martha Parke Custis Peter
on the left, and Eliza... Well, she becomes Martha
Parke Custis Peter later. And Eliza Custis on the right. Those are two original
portraits by a English artist by the name of Robert Edge Pine. And over on this side are the other two Custis grandchildren. These are George Washington
Parke Custis on the right and Eleanor Parke Custis on the left. The originals of these portraits are owned by Washington and Lee
University and you can see them if you go out there, they're on view but they've graciously allowed us to create a reproduction of these. So, these are the four children
of Martha Washington's son, John Parke Custis, or Jacky. Martha had had two kids that
lived to relative adulthood. Jacky and Patsy, Patsy lived to be 16. Jacky lived on to have children, he married Eleanor Calvert
and had these four children. Jacky passed away in 17... Right after the Battle
of Yorktown, in 1781, and the Washington's raised
the two youngest children, Nelly and George Washington
Parke Custis as their own. They were very close to all four of them and the Custis grandchildren, in a way, carried on a lot of the Washington legacy. They own a lot of the objects, some of them were raised
by the Washingtons, so you see a very close family connection. These are all painted by an artist, an English artist by the
name of Robert Edge Pine. Pine came over to the United States after the American Revolution and he had, during the American Revolution
while he was in England, he created a painting
and a print supportive of the American cause, really
over the British cause. And he complained, towards
the end of the war, that he lost all of his
business because of that print. So, he came over here to America, he was, entered the United States. He was good friends with
George William Fairfax and some of the other
politically English men who were supportive of the American cause. And lots of these people wrote
letters to George Washington, encouraging them to
patronize Robert Edge Pine when he came here to America. So, he arrives here in
the mid 1780s, comes down to Mount Vernon to paint the
most famous man in America. George Washington allows
himself to be painted, but he also commissions four portraits of the Custis grandchildren
from Robert Edge Pine and these are two of the four. The other two, as I said,
are at Washington and Lee. And Pine has an interesting technique that I've never really seen
used by another artist. So, Pine would come to a patron's house and paint an individual's
face on a small piece of canvas about like this. Then, he would take the canvas home to his wife and children, who would sew it into a larger canvas and they
would fill in the background. So, you see that in each of these four, you can't actually... Ours have been treated very well, so you can't actually see the lines, but in some of the Robert
Edge Pine paintings that are out there, if
they've been relined you can see the impression coming through. So, it was a real family
enterprise for him to create these paintings. One thing I want to say at this point is, if you have questions, please
feel free to write them in in the comment section
and we'll get to those in just a few minutes. Other original objects in this space, we have this wonderful French
bidet that belonged to Martha. It was an unusual furniture form to have a bidet in 18th century America. It was very French. And again, this is one of the pieces purchased by the Washingtons from the French Minister,
the Comte de Moustier. Martha brought it back here with her, we can see that we see
it listed on the manifest of the ship it came back on. It came back here and was
used in probably this closet, or it could have been
either one of the closets. And so she would use it there. By the 18th century, however,
they lost the connotation and there weren't a whole lot
of bidets in America, again. And they thought, in the 19th century, the owners of it thought
it was a shoe box. So, it was very much
advertised, when it came back to Mount Vernon, it
came back as a shoe box but we quickly recognized what it was. One other piece to point
out is this chest-on-chest, which is a stand-in, it's the only piece of case furniture, really large piece of case furniture that
you see in the mansion. And it would have been, you
see closets in the house to hold clothes, but this
would have been probably to hold lots of Martha
Washington's clothes and linens. This is not an original
piece to Mount Vernon, this piece is actually one that we purchased to
represent the original. The original is at Tudor Place, again, the home of one of the granddaughters and the original piece, it still survives. It belonged, initially, to
George William and Sally Fairfax at neighboring Belvoir Plantation. And they, George Washington
bought the piece, after the Fairfaxes moved back to England, just before the American Revolution. And they kept the chest-on-chest
in their bedchamber as a sort of memento of the Fairfax family and their, really their best friends. One other piece, couple
other pieces to point out in this space are this French clock that you see on the mantel piece. This is the only clock
that I can find referenced to the Washington's actually owning. So you know tall case clocks are what some people call Grandfather clocks, I can find no reference to the Washingtons owning any of those. We do see the Washingtons owning watches and this French clock. We're not exactly sure when
in the 1790s they got it, but this is the clock that was here in the room when Washington passed away. And then down below we have a fireback, which is a cast iron element that is meant to reflect
heat out into the room and protect the brick work. And that cast iron piece
has Washington's crest from his coat-of-arms and
it also has his initials in a cypher there. Before I turn it over to questions, let's head outside of the
room for just one second. So, (footsteps walking) one of the really important aspects of this room is that it was cut off from the main body of the house. And, as you all know, there
were many, many guests coming to Mount Vernon really in
the 1770s, 1780s, and 1790s. So the door that you see back
here, that was not there. That wasn't put in place
until the 19th century. We had probably had a
closet here and so access to the Washington bedchamber
was really from downstairs. And so, you would have come upstairs to the Washington bedchamber, so if enslaved servants needed to make it to the Washington bedchamber,
they would have come in the side door here, come upstairs and come into the Washington bedchamber. They also could have gone
upstairs to the third floor and come through a back
way and so the service in the area was cut off a little bit from the main body of the house. And that gave the Washingtons
the privacy that they needed. A lot of people ask, "Why
did Martha Washington move "to the third floor of the mansion "after George Washington passed away? "It just seems like
such a different space, "not as nice, obviously as
the Washington bedchamber." What I always said about that
is that she probably moved to the third floor because
she got a similar amount of privacy on the third floor because the second floor
remained really the center of hospitality, the
Washington's bedchambers for the Washington's guests. With that, I will turn
it over for questions. (footsteps clicking on floor) - [Moderator] Great,
Adam, we have a question from Instagram from Katelyn,
"Weren't people allowed "to stay in the mansion in the past "and why and when did that end?" - That's a very good question. People were, well, certain
people were allowed to stay in the mansion until
the early 20th century. So, we have a board called the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, who owns and operates Mount Vernon. And before they had separate
buildings to house... Mount Vernon is a little bit remote and would have been very
remote in the 19th century. It's not near any hotels or anything and wouldn't have been at the time. So, when the board came here to meet in their twice yearly
meeting called Council, they would have stayed in
the rooms, in the mansion. They would have stayed in
the rooms in the mansion and also stayed in rooms in
some of the outbuildings. Each of these rooms in
the mansion was assigned to a particular board member, what we call the Vice Regent, and she was responsible for furnishing it. And because this is such a
central room to the house, the Vice Regent from
Virginia had this room. And she is the one who would have stayed in this space during those times. And so, we still have, in
the past year we've had some of the mattresses that remained around from that time in the collection. So, it was really the
board members who stayed in the house and that changed
in the early 20th century when we built various spaces, including there's a building
built, an office building, that housed the ladies and we called where the ladies stay today, quarters. - [Moderator] Great. And we got a question from
Susanne who would like to know, "The Washington bedroom I saw "on the tour six years ago
did not look as nice as this. "Has it been refurbished or redecorated?" - That's a good question. And that is six years ago, it
should have looked like this. It was last redone, I
believe, in 2005 or 2006, that's when you got the
most current iteration of the white dimity bed
hangings that you see here. So, it was last redone about that time. It is due for another redo
in the next few years, hopefully before 2026. What we found, the most
recent research we found, is that there was wallpaper in this room. Often you see these
fabulous white dimity beds that are sort of the calm tone in a room with a much louder wallpaper. And so, there are fragments of what we think might be
the original wallpaper who were found in the late 19th and early 20th century in the room. And we hope to reinstall a reproduction of that wallpaper in that space
and it'll change the feeling of the room quite a bit. But that's up and coming. - [Moderator] So, Adam, Emily would know, "Was a canopy bed like that
popular in Washington's time? "Was it a mark of wealth and status?" - Yes. So, having a four poster bed, with these curtains, was a
mark of wealth and status. Again, one of the most expensive objects you could have bought
for an individual room, there are, you see, lots of low post beds in the 18th century that don't
have the elaborate curtains, it would have been quite a bit cooler in those during the winter. And then you also see both enslaved people and white servants living
out on the plantation, who would have just slept on a pallet that was basically on the floor. So, it really is a hierarchal system. - [Moderator] And Adam, Joan has noticed about the carpeting, "Wouldn't they have had
a solid carpet or wood?" - The carpeting that
we have in here today, we know that there was
carpet in this space and this is a popular
pattern called list pattern that you could have had in the period. This is what was chosen in 2006. This is something we will explore again as we're looking at the room. The wood, the Washingtons
often did have carpeting in the rooms and then you see in some of the other bedchambers, often what they had was
just two little strips of carpet that were right next to the bed, called bedside carpet. So, when you got out of bed, your feet didn't get cold immediately. So, that's one of the
research questions we have, but this is a very appropriate pattern for the 1790s in America. - [Moderator] And, Adam, we
have a question on the tea set. - The tea set's not in here right now, but I know exactly what
you're talking about. What's the question? - [Moderator] Is it a
replica or original piece? - The tea set that is in
here sometimes is a set that belonged, that has
a history of being given to one of the grandchildren,
by the Marquis de Lafayette. And it's just not currently
set up in the room, we have a little bit
different scenario set up in this space right now. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Bethany would like to know, "How old is Mrs. Washington's
dressing table and the bed?" - So, the bed itself was made in the 1790s and that's just the wooden
elements of the bed. There are different parts of
a bed in the 18th century. The bedstead, which we think of today as the most precious element, is actually would have been one of the least expensive
elements in the period. The Washington's was made out of mahogany. What they would have
called the bed is actually the mattresses that would
have been on the bed, and those have long since been gone. And then the bed hangings,
or the bed furniture is what they would have been
called in the period, those are the hangings
that you see on the bed. The dressing table was made
in 1754 in Williamsburg. It's one of the few pieces
of Virginia furniture you'll see in the house. George Washington mostly
acquired his furniture either from England or from Philadelphia, but the earlier generation, the Custis', Martha Washington's first husband, acquired a number of
pieces in Williamsburg. So, this is one of the
few Virginia made pieces, made in Williamsburg by
a guy named Peter Scott. - [Moderator] And Adam, a
new question from Alice. "How long is the bed?" - How long is the bed, I
should have looked that up. It's a little bit longer than usual, it's a little bit more than six feet. It's longer than what
Washington would have needed, but we'll respond to
that question afterward on a comment and I can give
you the exact dimensions of the bed. - [Moderator] They could find
it on our collections online. - You can find it on the
collections online, exactly. - [Moderator] And Melissa
would like to know, "When Martha went to the third
floor, did the space resemble "this bedroom closets to keep
the spices and belongings "and the fireplace? "Or was it difficult for her to get "to the third floor as she aged?" - That's a good question. From all accounts we
have Martha Washington, she was coming up and
down the stairs really until her final illness. Coming down and taking her
meals in the dining room. The spice closet, I'm not exactly sure where that would have been. There's another closet
up on the second floor that the Washingtons
called the sweetmeat closet and that's where they kept all their really expensive china, ceramics. And so, she could have
kept the spices up there. But I don't know, we don't
entirely have the answer to that question. Neither Martha's private inventory nor George's private inventory
lists all the spices, so we're working from period
practice in figuring out that these are the spices
that would have been kept. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Fred would like to know, "Was it typical for the
walls to be plain white?" I guess you did answer some of this. "There are so many other
that are filled with color." - Exactly, so as we're
doing this research, we're finding that basically every space that had plain plaster
walls in the mansion, with one real exception,
was covered with wallpaper when the Washingtons could get wallpaper. The dining room downstairs,
the one that's bright, bright green, that has plaster walls. It doesn't have wallpaper but that bright green imitates a
green, verde gris wallpaper. So, every space in here, and
so you'll see more wallpapers, creeping into these spaces
in the next few years as we're able to get to
these additional bedchambers. The Washingtons started
buying wallpaper in the 1750s. It was a new and fashionable
thing at that point and they'd buy it about every ten years, replacing wallpaper in
the house until 1797, when they really come back and redo the mansion one last time. You see a lot of Neoclassical or we sometimes in America we
call it Federal wallpapers. - [Moderator] And Adam,
a question from Kelly, "The two closets in the room, would one be "for Martha's personal items,
clothing, shoes and jewelry "and the other filled
with household items? "Or how would they have been used?" - That's a good question
and it's one we don't know, entirely know the answer to. Presumably this closet here
with all the wonderful shelving, that would have been where things were kept under lock and key. The other one may have been Martha Washington's dressing room. But it's a little bit unusual because several of our sources... The sources have the
dressing table out here, which you would expect to
have the dressing table in the dressing room. And then that painting, as you remember, has the dressing table out here. So, it may have been that
this room was also just used as a closet where things
were kept under lock and key. But again, this is something we need to do further research on to
figure out a little bit more. It may be that we'll never be able to figure it out because the
evidence might not be there. - [Moderator] Adam,
Sherry would like to know, "Are there any pieces
that are not in the room "that are in the original inventory?" - There are a few piece that
are in the original inventory that are not in the room. Particular examples of that
are, there are a few prints, there's one of General Knox
that we know was in the room. The original of that is
owned by Tudor Place, we have to get a replica
in here at some point. Another one is the Countess of Huntingdon, there's an image of her. There were another two family pictures, we don't know exactly what those were. But we know that these four were here. There was also a chair that went with the French dressing table that we're working on figuring
out a little bit more about. And then there's some drawings and various things hanging on the walls. Pretty much what you see is what was in the room in the 18th century. - [Moderator] Adam, a question from Nancy, "Which piece in the bedchamber is "of the most historical value?" - Well, I think you sort
of have to say with that that the bed, it is the bed in
which George Washington died, it has the most historical value. It's hard to say what has the most, because you've got, you have the bed in which George Washington died, you've got Martha
Washington's writing desk and you have this
wonderful dressing table. All of them tell different
stories, and to me, all of them are equally
important in telling the story of the Washingtons at Mount Vernon. - [Moderator] Adam, a
question from Gloria, "What time would they retire at night?" - My recollection of when they retired is about nine o'clock in the evening. But I'd have to do a little
bit more research on that. I certainly know that
George Washington was up by sun-up, so he needed to get his rest. And so, he was up by sun-up and in the winter a little bit before. And then Martha would get
up and go run the affairs of the house in the
morning, get breakfast, work with the enslaved cooks on breakfast and get breakfast served
between seven and seven-thirty. That was an everyday practice. Then Martha would come back here between nine and 10 o'clock in the morning and read Scripture and
the Book of Common Prayer and pray and reflect on the day. So, those are a few of the,
those are some data points I know off the top of my head. But I think probably
between nine and 10 o'clock in the evening. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Cindy would like to know, "What is the small object on
the mantel next to the clock?" - Yes, so that is a candle snuffer, it's not really a snuffer,
it's a candle nipper. And basically, in the 18th century, the candle itself burned, you didn't have self-consuming
wicks like you do today. And so, every time, as
the candle burned down, the wick stayed up and
you had to snip the wick off the top of the candle. So, you see those in a lot of these inventories in these houses. Let me show another one that
I really like over here. This is another example, this is called a chamber
stick because it was meant to be taken to the bedchamber. This is a silver example. We know the Custis family
owned a couple of these, but it had both a
snuffer that you see here that can be taken off and
it's all very compact, you can carry it on this little stand. And then you have the little
nippers to cut the wicks, or wick trimmers is what they would have been called in the period. So, you got both of those
things in a very compact form. - [Moderator] And Adam,
a question from Kimberly, "Would the mantels be that bare normally?" - Mantels be that bare? - [Moderator] Only a few objects. - Only a few objects on it, I think absolutely, it would have been. It depends on the space as to whether the mantel would have been bare. This one, we have it listed and it's really only
the clock that you see on the inventory for this particular space and the chamber stick
might have been there. But in other spaces,
like in the front parlor, you see a set of five
garnitures, or vases, on the piece, on the mantel. So, it really depended,
based on this sort of stature in which you were trying
to show off in the space whether it would be more or
less elaborate on those spaces. - [Moderator] Adam,
Bethany would like to know, "Did Martha have anything from Daniel?" Parke Custis.
- Daniel Parke Custis. So, when Martha came here to Mount Vernon, she brought with her a number
of objects that were used to furnish their house in New Kent County, White House Plantation. And there's a listing of that
in the Washington papers. So, we know that there's
objects very specifically. This is one of the ones that's
listed, the dressing table. On the third floor there is a marble top slab table
called a sideboard. And then there are sets of prints of flowers and of fruits that,
for the months of the year that you see reproduced a lot, they're called the Thurber prints and she brought those
with her and they were, there were 12 of each, one for each month, both fruit and flowers. And those were in two display areas, two probably initially in the parlor and the dining room in the house. So, there were beds, there were linens, lots of things brought with Martha. And she had the use of these
things for the course of, she inherited some of it
outright and she had the use of a lot of it over
the course of her life. So, there are numerous
Custis pieces you'll find throughout the house, here and there, that remained in the house throughout the Washington's lives. - [Moderator] Adam,
Betsy would like to know, "What did George die of?" - George died of something called quinsy, what they called it in the 18th century and my understanding it
was called epiglottis. And epiglottis is an inflammation
of a gland in your throat. And really it swelled up and suffocated Washington
at the end, unfortunately. But without the advent
of modern day antibiotics like penicillin, they
wouldn't have been able to cure it in the 18th century. So, it was a, unfortunately,
slow and painful death that Washington suffered from with the epiglottis or the quinsy. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Carolyn would like to know, "When you source unoriginal
furniture and items, "where do they come from?" - (laughing) That's a good question. We're always on the lookout for furniture that resembles what the Washingtons owned. Each of these projects that
you see in the mansion, you'll see some element that's introduced that is a piece of furniture. So, sometimes we use,
we try as much as we can to use antiques that are similar to the ones the Washingtons owned. So, we send out to a
network of antiques dealers and auction houses what we're looking for, for say, chairs, using
Washington's documentary evidence. A lot of furniture in the
mansion doesn't survive, really from the central core of the house, so we have had to use
Washington's documents to try to find similar examples. Another way we've done that is like in the front parlor,
we used reproductions. If we have really great
documentary evidence and we're not able to
find on the marketplace, pieces of furniture that are close enough to what the Washingtons had, we oftentimes will make reproductions. And the front parlor,
with the back stools, which are the chairs and the
sofa we did reproductions. So, it's a mix. We're always out there looking. We're always looking
at comparable examples that we see out in other
museums that are documented and we want to be able to use those to make the most authentic appearance for the mansion that we possibly can. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Amanda would like to know, "What are the photos in the round frames?" - These are prints, engravings, that are Washington
originals and they're scenes from a popular novel of the period called
"The Sorrows of Werther." And they are among, they
are prints that are listed in the Washington probate inventory and it's thought that these are among them, very
sentimental sort of scenes that the Washingtons had
in this particular space. In their original frames. (thumping) - [Moderator] And Adam,
Daniel would like to know, "What route would the General
have taken to his office?" - To his office? So, George Washington would
have gotten up in the morning, we're not sure which side
of the bed he slept on. He would have gone out
into this little passage, gone downstairs and gone through the little vestibule
right into the study. And there's a closet back there where his clothing would have been kept, but his enslaved valet would have also brought the clothing out for him. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Ashley would like to know, "If Martha Washington
moved to the third floor "after George Washington's death, "what use did their bedchamber have? "And did they allow guests to use it?" - That's a good question. My understanding is the bedchamber stayed under lock and key. But I would need to do
a little more research into that to figure it out. It was certainly a space that
Martha never went back into. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Samuel would like to know, "When was the fireplace last used? "The 19th century?" - I presume it would
be in the 19th century, that would be my guess. But we don't know, we'll have
to go back to the minutes of the board and find out when that was. I'm sure they tell us when they closed up, when they capped off the chimneys and were no longer using it. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Joy would like to know, "What room did Lafayette's son stay in "when he lived at Washington's?" - That's a good question. And so, in the bedchambers in
the central core of the house, certainly it would have been one of the central core bedchambers. But which one, we don't exactly know. There are only a few instances where we do know a
person would have stayed in a particular bedchamber. Lafayette, we know that because it's commemorated by
his portrait in there. Eliza Parke Custis, one
of the granddaughters, she engraved her name in
one of the window panes. And then there's a Eleanor
Custis, or Nelly Custis, stayed in one particular bedchamber and she may have had her
first child in there. So, those are three bedchambers
we know where people stayed, but the rest it's really difficult to say. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Roger would like to know, "Was the bedroom placed strategically "so that the Washington
could see the closet farm, "old tomb and fishing wharf?" - That's a good question. I think it was placed down here mainly out of the way that the house unfolded. I don't think it was placed strategically. One thing that was said
in the 19th century, there was a different idea of where Martha Washington's bedchamber was. It was thought that it was
the lumber room just above us. The thing that was said at the time was that it was there so that
Martha could see the tomb in which George Washington
was laid to rest. And it actually turned
out not to be that room. I don't think there are
particular viewsheds that they're looking at here. There might be viewsheds that
are more based on service and people, how in surveillance, so what's going on on the plantation, landscape at a given time. So you can see down
over here to the stable, there might have been trees
between here and there at the time, but you can
see down to the stable and some of these outbuildings over here. That would have been more what they would have been
interested in seeing at the time. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Melissa Robertson would like to know, "Can you share a little bit more "about the closet spaces? "They seem large for the period." - They are very large for the period and these are the largest, and hello to Melissa Robertson. These are the largest closets
that you see in the house. They're actually fairly enormous
by 18th century standards. We don't see, they're
almost a room to themselves. They have shelving in here
and there are a number of trunks listed in these spaces, so it could have been a lot of material in these particular rooms. When beds weren't in use, the bed hangings would have
been taken off of the beds, probably stored in this space. So there would have been a lot of different objects in this space. And I think it speaks to how large a household Martha was running that they had such large closets. If you look at comparable
Virginia estates, a place like Kenmore in Fredericksburg, which is home to Betty
Lewis, George's sister or Gunston Hall, the closets
are much, much smaller. But I think that really
speaks to, that and the size of the kitchen, speak to
the level of hospitality that were being meted
out here at Mount Vernon. So, really, that's an important concept. But, also if you look at other rooms, there are very few
rooms that have closets. There are a couple, the chintz bedchamber has a closet, very, very small closet. And then the yellow
bedchamber has a small sort of a cupboard in there. Otherwise, it's really
just this bedchamber that has these large closets. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Gordon would like to know, "Are there any Washington
pieces in other collections "that Mount Vernon is hoping
to obtain in the future?" - (laughing) There are always
Washington pieces out there. And Mount Vernon, we have enormous barrels of what we call Washingtoniana unknown. These are pieces that have
come through these curators in the form of inquiries
or things we've gone out and seen over the past years. And so, there are objects that survived in Washington's family's collections. There are objects that survived
in private collections. And when they do come up on the market or when someone is seeking to sell them, we're always interested in bringing those original
items back to Mount Vernon. And the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association has a strong history of
bringing back original objects, really starting with day one,
when the harpsichord came back to the mansion as a gift of
Nelly Custis' descendants. It was being housed at Arlington House and this was just before the
outbreak of the Civil War, and so every year after that you've seen original Washington objects coming back over time. So there's always more to find. - [Moderator] And Adam,
Jess would like to know, "You've referenced
inventory several times, "can you tell a little bit
more about these documents "and where inventory is
taken by the Washingtons "during their lifetime or
what's the provenance of those?" - Absolutely. So, the inventories I referenced today are the probate inventories. So these are inventories that are taken after George and Martha
Washington's deaths to account for everything that they owned, all the physical objects that they owned. So, those are very detailed and specific and each one of them goes room by room. So that's, Martha Washington, George Washington gave to Martha Washington all
the household effects. And then Martha Washington decided to have a sale after her death for objects that weren't specifically
given away in her will. And so, these are countings of how all that material takes place. So, for George, the executors of his estate take that account and they
walk through the house and list everything out. And we spent a lot of time
looking at these documents, asking ourselves, are they
walking through the room in a particular way that shows how the furniture was arranged? What are they not seeing in the spaces? Like clothing is usually not listed. And then, Martha's are taken in 1802, and you see a draft list that comes first. And then the draft lists
everything in there and then things are crossed out. Those are the pieces that
are specifically given away to other people and don't
end up being sold later on. So, the inventories are
really helpful documents for figuring out, really
the core documents for figuring out the
way Mount Vernon looked. Now, some estates you'll
see some inventories taken at different times, usually
at a time of change. We don't see those here at Mount Vernon. Like, if you're going to move, maybe you would do an inventory. I know a particular house
in southern Virginia where you see all the ceramics and all of the linens that are inventoried so that they could then be accounted for later. But you don't see that
here at Mount Vernon. It's really only the probate inventories that are taken after the
Washingtons pass away. And then we're also helped
by earlier documentation when the Washingtons purchased objects. - [Moderator] Adam,
Diana would like to know, "Did Washington's relatives "who inherited the home use this bedroom?" - There are various accounts of Washington's relatives
using this bedchamber, yes. At a certain point,
really I think probably by the 1850s, it seemed
the space is uninhabited. And you see a print in this book done by a man named Vincent Lawson, the first monograph on an American house. Vincent Lawson does a print and you can see people are
being brought into this space, it's completely empty and all you can see is the mantel piece in the
room and the chair rail. And so, I think probably by the 1850s there's so many people coming
through and looking at it, it's not really inhabited. - [Moderator] Adam,
Lisa would like to know, "Had the Washington's bed
remained with the house "after their death or had it been provided "to someone else and
how did we acquire it?" - Exactly. So, this particular bed went to, it was given away in Martha's will to George Washington Parke
Custis, her grandson. And he got it. She called it "The bed I caused
to be made in Philadelphia." He got the bed and took it
to Arlington House, which is, he starts building a
little bit after her death, and it is in the center of what's now Arlington National Cemetery. So, the bed goes there and it's set up and that's where John Gadsby Chapman, who painted the painting I showed you earlier would have seen it, when he was there visiting. And then the piece comes back
to us in the 19th century from descendants of George
Washington Parke Custis and it is given to us. And I think it's the actual transfer, it comes back to us earlier
then it's transferred to us in about 1907, I think
is the correct time. But, it's here from the late 19th century, so you see lots of images
in the late 19th century. But, all that comes back to us, basically, is the bedstead, the wooden elements. The textiles, with a couple of exceptions, there are little bits
that we think do survive but most of the textiles
were gone by that point. - [Moderator] Great. Adam, Lily would like to know, "After the Washingtons passed away, "what happened to the house?" - After the Washingtons passed away, so in 1802 when Martha Washington died, their estate sale's here
and everything was sold off. And to pay for the education
of two of her nephews. And then when it was
sold off, it was sold off and then George Washington's nephew, Bushrod Washington, inherited the house. Bushrod was a member of the Supreme Court of the United States and
very learned, scholarly man. He came here and lived with his wife, never had any children, but he also inherited
the Washington papers and the Washington books. So you see the books remain in the study and the papers, as well. And so Bushrod owns the house until 1829. In 1829, he dies, again without children, and the house goes to his nephew, John Augustine Washington the second. John Augustine Washington
the second lives here for a couple of years but dies
very early on in the 1830s. And he leaves his widow, Jane Charlotte Blackburn
Washington who takes care of the house for her small
children and her son, John Augustine Washington the third for about the next decade or so. John Augustine Washington the third then inherits the property and when he inherits the property, he inherits it and keeps it until 1860 and that's when he sold it to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. So, there are very few private owners between George and Martha Washington and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. You don't get things like
electricity and plumbing, those things don't come into
the house at that period. - [Moderator] Adam, Hannah
would like to know, "Is it true "that people have seen
George Washington's ghost?" - That's a good question
(laughing) and I have never heard of anyone seeing George
Washington's ghost, at least I've never paid attention when anybody said they saw
George Washington's ghost. That's a good question. I think George Washington's
very happy and very content and I don't think he haunts us. - [Moderator] Adam,
Alan would like to know, "Is the wooden flooring in
the bedroom all original? "And what type of floor was used?" - So, this is one room that I would say, unless my preservation
colleagues correct me, I'm pretty sure that this is one of the original floors in the mansion. I know, certainly, the
study below is original. It is southern yellow pine, which was a very hardy,
hardwood in the period. Not hard, it's a hard-wearing
wood in the period and it is appropriate to
what would have been here if it is not the original,
which I think it probably is. - [Moderator] Great, and Adam,
Joshua would like to know, "Are there many original articles "of clothing in the collection?" - That's a wonderful question. There are actually lots
of articles of clothing that remain in the collection
or have come back here, all of them have actually come
back here to Mount Vernon. We have the suit in which Washington, or the jacket in which
Washington was inaugurated as President of the United States. We have one of Martha
Washington's dresses. We have a number of fragments
of Washington clothing and we're actually working
on a major project right now to rehouse all of the
original Washington textiles in our storage facility. Textiles are very light
sensitive and they're often, so we keep them, we only put them on view for a very brief period in
low lighting every few years. But one of the interesting phenomena that happens is during the 19th century, the grandchildren who inherited some of Martha's dresses cut them up, particularly Eliza, cut them up and give them away as
mementos of the Washingtons. So, they often have interesting histories of being given away to members of the public who wanted a relic of the Washingtons. I know the painter, John Gadsby Chapman, who we mentioned earlier, he got fragments of Martha's dresses from Nelly Custis, just down the road at Woodlawn Plantation. So, we have lots of fragments
in the collection, as well. - [Moderator] Adam, time for
just for one more question from Mary, "Do you have
any type of registry "of Washington's living descendants? "Do you keep in with them "and are they involved with Mount Vernon?" - That's a good question. There are multi-volume books
in the library that have, that are both the Custis' descendants and the Washington descendants. And we do keep in touch with a lot of these descendants today and they are, a lot of them are involved, we always encourage them to
come back here to Mount Vernon. It's wonderful to have that
active family connection here at Mount Vernon and to
hear the tales they tell. And sometimes tell tales of the objects that they own that are family objects and the stories they have from the family. So, we do try to stay in touch. Well, thank you, so much for joining us today on Mansion Mondays. It's always a pleasure to show you around. Please stay safe as you
go through your week and we look forward to doing another Mansion Monday next week.
