- Hey, everybody. Once again, here from Mount Vernon. I am Doug Bradburn, the President and CEO of George
Washington's Mount Vernon, and today it's my distinct
pleasure to welcome you inside the mansion into
George Washington's study. Now this is what I like
to call his man cave and in some ways it's almost
the opposite of the place that we visited last time
when we looked at the new room which was, in fact, a stateroom where George Washington was showing off to the public his ideas of what the young
country should emulate, also its history, also his own emphasis on
agriculture as a public good, whereas this space is a private space. This is a space where George Washington did his business of the estate, conducted his private correspondence, it was the room that he got
dressed in every morning with the assistance of his enslaved valet, either Billy Lee or after
Billy Lee was injured, Christopher Shields, we know, would've been his enslaved valet towards the end of his life in this room, helping him get ready for the day and he would stay in this
space in the mornings when he was at Mount Vernon, doing correspondence before
he got ready to go out and view his fields. So, this was a place that he did allow other
people to come into. He had personal secretaries
throughout the years who worked in here. He had visiting historians
who would've been working in this room when he gave
them access to his papers and others, certainly,
would've been in this room, but this is a private
space for George Washington as this whole side of the
house was private as well. So what we're gonna do today
as a way to walk us through, it's just really one of my
favorite spots in the mansion and a spectacular place to
think about the interiority of this man's mind, you know,
Washington's our man of action but he, in fact, he was an
incredibly powerful thinking man and a reader that corresponded
and a lot of what he did was done inside those six
inches between his ears. Let's kind of figure
that guy out a little bit as we talk today and the way to do it is, I think, rather than me just rambling on about, and I'll frame some of this conversation and I think we're ready
to go already so, Matt? - [Matt] So Doug, Lisa wants to know, did Washington use the study
for business and pleasure? - Lisa wants to know, did
Washington use the study for business and pleasure? And yes is the answer. He did because this was where his business could be conducted so
the business of managing the great estate of Mount Vernon, 8,000 acres at the time of his
death including a distillery, a gristmill, a fishery, including thousands of acres out west, land that he rented to other tenants as well as land beyond that that he hoped to sell to some speculators. I mean, he had, of course,
a huge enslaved labor force for the time, for Virginia, over 320 people or so by the time he died who lived in Mount Vernon and
the management of this place was like running a business. On the other hand, he also used this space for his own reading and for his leisure. In fact, readings that
were pleasing to him. It's a room filled with
mementos, you know, of his past life, of his brother,
a painting of his brother, reminiscences of the war
and his papers itself. So, it's a place where
he could be himself, where he could be alone, where he could work diligently
to do the work of the estate but also for private speculation, rumination, reading and all
those things that you do in the privacy of your own study. What else, Matt? - [Matt] So, Doug, Lori wants to know, was his study always used for that purpose or did the room serve as
something else during his time? - Yeah, so question, so
where did this room come from and we think about the
mansion house in Mount Vernon, as we've talked about in the past, George Washington inherited it from, after the death of his sister-in-law and his sister-in-law's child, his brother, Lawrence,
and so by the late 1750's, he inherited the house (audio muffled), the building when he created the new room on the other end of the house and he also created a wing on this end which was the private end. Like the new room space which
allowed for a very high, a high double floor room, in this case, he actually has two floors. So you have the study here
and then the Washingtons' bed chamber directly above
including a butler's closet and a private staircase. So this was the private wing of the house which had George Washington's study and it had the private bed chamber of George and Martha
Washington and in that light, it was not accessible from the outside, there's a door that cannot
be unlocked from the outside on this end of the building and so it really is a private space. Most of the visitors who came
to Mount Vernon as we know, he often wrote that it was
like a well resort tavern and the central passageway, the upstairs, his multiple bed chambers, would have been filled with people, most of those people
wouldn't have had access to this side of the building. - [Matt] So Doug, Kate
wants (muffled) the study. - Okay, Kate has asked
a difficult question: What is my favorite thing about
George Washington's study? Well, I think that taken as a whole, I love the idea of a private
space for George Washington. He was such a public figure. You know, this is a place
that he has all of his books in this beautiful book
cress behind me and, by his death, he would have
1200 titles in a library that he'd built over a lifetime and I'll talk more about that later. It's also a place that would've
been chock full of stuff. I mean, we have a lot of original objects that George Washington had in this room, many of them are two of
my favorite objects here, including you can see the portrait of Lawrence
Washington on the wall. You can see the fan chair
maybe directly behind me here which is a lot of fun,
I'll talk about that, but the room itself, I think, is worth considering as a whole. This would've been crammed with space. His inventory, now (muffled), anybody dies, they do an inventory
of all their possessions, they go through room
by room and (muffled), an inventory of what was in this house and I've seen the
transcription of the original which is in the Fairfax
County Court Records as the official public legal document, the men that created the
inventory were assigned by the court and if they
lied about what was there they could be taken to court, they could be arrested and
held for damages for lying. So the inventory's a really good source that our curators use to
understand how this space was used and it's really a treasure trove to understand George Washington. So, for instance, we have
a lot of his items in here but we don't have nearly the
amount that you would have seen on the day that he died. He would've had seven
guns alone in this room. He would've had 11 spy glasses,
or telescopes, in this room. He had, his globe from his
presidency, was in here. His incredible chair which
rotated, his revolving chair, was in here including multiple
tables, stacks of maps, stacks of prints. Books all over the place, pan box that he had his
Masonic regalia inside of that. He also had multiple chests,
there's one here by my feet, which is kind of a camp chest from Washington's revolutionary wartime which Matt will show off here and then one of my favorite items which I just tweeted about, George Washington's
strong box in the corner over there under the
window, it's hard to see. It looks small, chest
made out of slats of iron, likely dates to the early 18th century or even the late 17th century, Martha Washington actually brought that into George Washington's
life when she came and at George Washington's death, this strong box held over one
half of all of his wealth. So wealth in stocks, wealth
in gold, wealth in jewelry, fine gems, for instance, diamonds inside of the Cincinnati
eagle was in that chest, other mementos from a life worth living, I mean an extraordinary
life and so the room is filled with those things
and in case you did not, the busts, you know, the original
Houdon busts on the wall, the original Houdon of
John Paul Jones is in here and when we, we'll talk
about those in time as well, I think, but they were
in this space as a way for George Washington to
connect with his staff. There's John Paul Jones (muffled audio), French Minister of Finance
in Louis XVI's time who helped fund the American Revolution, as well as this incredible
freeze on the wall behind me or across from me which
Matt is getting frustrated that he has to show you that
but this is a Bower leaf of George Washington
done by Joseph Wright. That's George Washington in a laurel crown celebrated as the great
Cincinnatus, again, Wright was himself trying
to get a commission to create an equestrian George Washington with a laurel wreath and he
also painted George Washington from life in 1783 up in New
York and we do own that painting and you can see it online as well but this was given to
George Washington by Wright and it was hanging on the wall here. (Muffled audio) maybe we can look at some of these specific
items in more detail. - [Matt] So, Doug,
Ruth-Ann has two questions: How often are all the items in
the room removed and cleaned and do any of the books in the room actually belong to Washington? - Great question, how often
do we clean the space, remove items? First of all, we have one of
the best curatorial collections experts teams in the world
and we take care everyday to make sure that the dust and
debris that naturally gathers in an old house that has
visitors is cleaned off of these priceless items and heirlooms and make sure they will last
for generations to come. Sometimes that requires to take items out and do special conservation on them. In fact, that's what's happening right now with our extraordinary George Washington's presidential chair. This is a chair which rotates,
called the uncommon chair, in our, here, it was based on
a french gondola style chair made in New York in 1789
when he became the President (muffled) on a bone, on
bone wheels essentially, that allow it to turn
like any kind of a chair that slides back and forth. It also had castors on the
bottom so you could roll it across the room. So this was the chair Washington used as President of the United States and when we did conservation on this item, I think back in 2005 or
maybe a little later, we discovered that the original leather was still on the upholstery of the chair which makes it an incredible survivor and it's also a tremendous chair. There's some trivia about that chair. It was also, at one point, in the possession of President
Andrew Jackson as well so they took, it's a chair that's had
two presidential ownerships before it ultimately came back here to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. So now that chair is out for conservation. So often we have to do that at times and we're also making an
exact replica of the chair which will show up in here
and then that fragile, important chair will go
permanently into our museum gallery where people can see it. Similarly, Washington (muffled audio), one of the great items, I think, really an understudied
item, if I dare say, and maybe it's only me
that understudied it. Maybe it's just 'cause I
don't know enough about it, I feel like it's understudied
but what's so incredible about the globe is here
is George Washington, he becomes president of the
first nation that elects their own president on this scale and one of the first things he commissions is a globe of the world. And so we have that globe from basically what the world looked like in
1790, London made most likely, and we have it in the collection. That is in our museum
because it's so fragile but that's an interesting story, too. Actually, Thomas Jefferson,
when he became president, tried to get someone to
come and purchase that globe at a public auction that Washington, the Washington family, held of many of George Washington's items in the early 19th century
and he wasn't able to get it which I think is extraordinary
because that globe, Jefferson would've seen that
globe in cabinet meetings. He would have seen that
thing used (muffled audio), would've been quite out of
date by the early 19th century because the map of Europe
had changed so dramatically in the Revolutionary crisis of their time. So here I am rambling on again. The question was how often do we clean. We clean once a day in
this room and we make sure everything is nice and tight regularly. - [Matt] So, Doug, Laurel wants to know, did the architecture of Mount Vernon influence the design of the White House? - Interesting question. Okay, so takes us a little from our field, did the architecture of
Mount Vernon influence the design of the White House and there are some similarities. Certainly, they're both emulating
classical styles of design that were popular and were anglicized in a Frenchified fashion. In this case, George Washington
is responsible for helping to pick the architect of the White House and I think in some ways you could say that is the house Washington
would've loved to build here at Mount Vernon if something horrendous had happened to this place and
he had to start from scratch. So it's a design that he
would've (muffled audio) approved of, (muffled audio), and they still commissioned
Thompson, I think is the name, William Thompson, is that correct? That could be wrong. You can send me my error but the architect was also an architect he hired
to create some boardinghouses that he tried to, and some spec houses that
he built in Washington, D.C. at the time of the development. So we have a pretty good sense
of what his style was like. All right, how about some questions about some of the objects in the room? What do we got, Matt? - [Matt] What pieces of furniture
are original to the room, if any, and how do we
know whether the room was arranged this way? - Two good questions. What is original, what isn't? How was the room arranged? First of all, we don't
have a really strong sense of how the room was arranged. Obviously, the book press is here. We know that. The mantle is there so you, you know, and you have windows
that go all the way down to the view of the river back
here and on the other side, you've got a door to the butler's pantry and a door that exits to a little hallway between the butler's pantry
and the dining (muffled audio). Because we don't have
everything in the room that he originally had, we never had to make
those hard choices like, where were the multiple pine
tables and walnut tables that he had in addition to the desks that he had in this room. But some of the great items
in here that are original, and I think I'm gonna have to ask Matt to move the camera again, is this beautiful Aiken
secretary over here against the wall, against the wall. John Aiken, a Philadelphia artisan, was commissioned to create this secretary sometime in 1796, '97. George Washington, therefore, was getting it made as a
secretary that he would move back to Mount Vernon after the presidency and it has a beautiful
roll top desk in it, sometimes called a tambor
secretary and as you can see, with the roll top, you
could have little drawers with lots of little items in there and Washington would have
used this, of course, as a bookcase but also as a working desk to keep private papers and to maintain the flow (muffled audio), to create, ask John Aiken, and commissions the sideboards that he puts in the new room
on the other side of the house. So that's a tremendous piece that we know he would have been using. Likely he would have written his will, I know a will was stored in
this desk under the roll top that when he died so it's
incredibly important to him. I'm straightening my tie 'cause I can see myself
on the screen so I said, well, my tie's a little askew. One of the great items
in here, the fan chair. Okay, so I don't know if
you can get a good view of the fan chair but basically
it's like a windsor chair that you sit in and you
pump the pedals in the feet and it makes this piece of
fabric, leather in this case, swing back and forth and cools the sitter. This is something that
Charles Wilson Peale had had designed by an
instrument maker in Philadelphia and George Washington
knew Peale very well. He sat for him more than any other painter going all the way back to
his original 1772 painting (muffled audio), or '95, the last two years of his presidency and this fan chair Washington had, this is not an original or
this is not the original that George Washington owned but this is an 18th
century original fan chair from a Philadelphia instrument maker and so it would've been a very similar, it's a favorite with the kids. You know, we've got lots of
other great items in here. There's a chest down here
that has George Washington's initials engraved in a copper plate in it. This is one of George
Washington's wartime chests so during the American Revolution, this would've had lots of
objects in it that he carried from camp to camp and we also have found in our archeological digs,
they have copies of that plate, the engraved plate on top of the chest. So there were multiples of these chests with this engraving on it and that's really extraordinary as well. The telescope (muffled audio), that's over here is an original telescope, (muffled audio) and of course you've got great views right out the window here. Washington had surveying
equipment in this room, some of which is represented in here. There's a piece of coral on
his desk which he acquired on his trip to the Caribbean which is an interesting objet d'art that Washington kept and, of course, I'd, I particularly enjoy the books
that George Washington owned. Now, the question that
I didn't answer about which of these books are
original to George Washington is that none of these
behind me are original. These are all representations of 18th, these are all 18th century
books but they're not the ones that Washington actually owned. Those are over in our beautiful George Washington Presidential Library, the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, which also has a virtual
tour that you can go in and take a look at some
of those books in situ and I think, before
this, our timing is up, I do want to talk a little
bit about his reading. Let's take another question. - [Matt] So, Doug, Kevin wants to know if, there are two desks in the room, at which desk did George
Washington most likely sit, spend most of his time? - I think this question about
which desk is really hard to get at precisely because
he not only had the desks, he had multiple tables in
this room and what I see is a man with incredible varied interests that span a lot of different disciplines, using all the space in a useful way. We don't know really exactly how he worked in his own environment. There are stories that, you know, that are told about him writing
correspondence for hours at a stretch that, you know, that are told by his
granddaughter, Nellie, that are told in remembrance by George Washington Parke Custis, some of which is a little
romanticized, no doubt, but Washington was a disciplined worker and I think given the size
of his correspondence, the amount of time it must have taken, because he would write his
letters out in a letter book and then he would make a
fair copy of that letter. It's incredibly time consuming and although he did
have private secretaries during the American Revolution
and employed (muffled audio), the amount of correspondence
that is in his own hand, he clearly spent hours at desks
in this room working hard. What you got? - [Matt] So, Doug, Lynn wants to know -- - I can't get my tie straight. It's very frustrating. - [Matt] Can you tell
me if George Washington had a British or southern accent? - What did George Washington sound like is a wonderful question and there are great
scholars of linguistics and of the different dialects of Americans in the 18th century and
it's likely he would have had some sort of Virginia accent, not likely a British accent
like you would imagine a elite British public school
university sect accent. It would've been a slower drawl more common to the mid-Atlantic
region of North America. I can't emulate it not
being a great mimic myself but we do know that the (muffled audio), New York, southerners, westerners, you can see those parodied
in newspapers at the time, particularly when they're
trying to make fun of someone, they want to make, for instance,
I'm, in my own research, there's a moment in
time where there's a lot of political anger out west in Kentucky over the Alien and Sedition Acts during the Washington presidency and there's a series of
petitions that are sent from Kentucky complaining against the Alien and Sedition Acts and they use phonetics in the
spelling to make you hear, if you read it, you know,
this kind of caricature and sort of Kentucky
accent, you know, like so, we do believe here out in
the great state of Kentucky and it's sort of written
out (muffled audio), Kentucky with multiple e's at the end with a different accent
that we could recognize as sort of different
regional dialects even today and so Washington certainly
would have been a part of that. To be honest, we don't know though what
he actually sounded like but I'm sure it was awesome and that's all I can tell you right now. What else? Any questions? - [Matt] Yep, so, Doug, Rob
wants to know how much time would President Washington
have spent in his office during a typical day? - Okay, so the question about
how much time Washington spent in an office in a typical day. Well this is pretty
well documented actually because there's so many
visitors to his house that describe their time in Mount Vernon, they describe sort of a typical day and a typical day for George Washington is to wake up upstairs in
the Washington bed chamber and he would come down here
and get prepared for the day, he'd get dressed. His clothes would have been
kept in the closet behind me, this black door that you
can see behind me there is a closet that's underneath the stairs. His personal (muffled audio), so he, with the help of his enslaved
valet would get prepared for the day early before the
sun was up and, at that time, he would work on his
correspondence for a few hours before then he would
go out onto the estate and ride around the estate. He had 8,000 acres, there's
plenty of things to do and see and work on and he
would typically get back to the mansion house and change again before dinner at three o'clock. Three o'clock dinners sound early for us but not in the 18th century. That was the big meal of the day, it's when all the guests
would eat together either in the dining
room or in the new room or in a large space maybe
even on the piazza outside depending on the weather
and then Washington would spend some time
after that dinner period in the study as well
working on correspondence, dealing with things that came
in in the time he was gone before again rejoining
the family and the guests for evening conversation (muffled audio), I've got this cough
so, look away a second. (coughs) Pardon me, that's
from talking too much, I think. But so we get a good sense of this room being regularly used by
him throughout the day, not only as a place that
he changed, that he wrote, he would often retire here before bed to do more
correspondence or some reading which is described as
well but he also, we know, read at his bed like we
all do, read in the bed. So were are books on his bedside
table when he passed away including a brand new one that
had arrived on agriculture. I think the subject of his
reading is an important one I wanna get to as well in this hour. Matt, another question. - [Matt] Yeah, Joy wants
to know what was the most well known speech or paper
that was written here? - Well, I think the
most important document that was written here in this
space is George Washington's last will and testament
which was, obviously, a private document for
a man (muffled audio) to pass on and wanted it to be done well but it was also a very public document because George Washington,
when he signs the top, when at the top of his will,
it says George Washington, formerly President of the United States, it doesn't say George
Washington, planter of Virginia. It is very much a recognition
of him as a public figure and he also is quite aware that this will is gonna be published
and circulated widely and it is an extraordinary
and very important document because of the legacy that it
reveals of George Washington and, of course, the greatest
thing that he does in that will is he frees all the slaves that he owned, you know, personally. In the will, it's guaranteed in the will that they will be freed at the
death of Martha Washington. The challenge for
Washington had always been, as I wanted to mention before
in conversation about slavery, is how do you free slaves
that he owned in a way that's not gonna separate
families because (muffled audio), slaves that he owned
legally and ones that worked and labored at Mount Vernon,
(muffled audio) family, where Martha's were right
to use during her life but weren't owned by Martha and so couldn't be freed by
Martha and Washington clearly wasn't able to figure
this out before he died but his will enacts, essentially, a forced separation at
the time of Martha's death in which the 130 slaves that he owned here at Mount Vernon and another
20 that he owned down on the York River were freed at the death of Martha and also, were not just freed but were provided for, education for those youths
who were under the age of 21, under their majority where
they would be trained the same way that orphans were trained in the county courts of Virginia, that is to say they were given a trade, they were taught a trade, which allowed them to make sure that they could earn a
living in their adulthood and the other thing Washington was providing for pensions
for the enslaved elderly who could no longer work. Some of these pensions were
paid out into the 1840's by the Washington Estate. So George Washington is imagining a future in which these formerly
enslaved (muffled audio) people would be working in this community and it really is a crucial document. In fact, when news of his emancipation of, in his will, got out it was celebrated
in anti-slavery circles throughout the north. In fact, the Reverend John
Allen who was the head of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church in Philadelphia gave a stunning eulogy
to George Washington celebrating his act in his
will and saying that that is the last act that has
now made him a figure for all Americans to celebrate and it really is worth reading,
the Reverend Allen eulogy. You can find on our webpage or
online because I don't think it's recognized as much as
people who would've loved Washington to free all
the slaves in his lifetime which he could not figure out how to do but it is an important to
recognize that his will becomes an important arrow in the quiver of the anti-slavery movement,
both white and black, in the north, in the United States, and Washington clearly, clearly
wants it to (muffled audio) some kind of 18th century
notion that he could emulate behavior that then, therefore,
other people would do, similar to his agricultural reforms, he wanted to show how to do it here and that would sort of
trickle down into the world. It's an old fashioned
ideal of what great men are supposed to do as
political agents in society. It isn't what we would
consider sort of a marred way that you make political, radical change but Washington wasn't a modern man. He lived in a very different
universe than us and died, of course, in the 18th century. So I think the will is the
most important item that was, we know was written in this
space but his correspondence itself is worth studying
and there's a lot more that was done in here. - [Matt] So Doug, Gerald wants to know, can you talk about the
planning of Yorktown? - Okay, so the planning
of the Yorktown battle, that's an interesting
question because, as we know, George Washington, when
he rides off in 1775 to attend the second Continental
Congress in Philadelphia, and he rides off in uniform, as you know, 'cause that Congress has
just heard about Lexington and Concord and that
Congress is gonna be asked to take over all of
these New England militia (muffled audio) and really create, the first Commander in
Chief of the American army during that Continental
Congress session in July. Was it June or July? June or July of 17, I
think it's June, yeah, June 15th or something like that, 1775. Then he goes to Boston to
take over this ragtag army and he doesn't come back
to Mount Vernon again for any period of time until
1781 on the march to Yorktown and the whole story of the
march to Yorktown is fascinating because he doesn't want
to attack Yorktown. He wants to attack New York. So it's a town named York but
not Yorktown, it's New York. He's obsessed with it because
he's sort of like Ahab with the white whale. He lost New York in
desperate circumstances, in some cases people, you know, complained about his own inept leadership. I tend to disagree given
the quality of the troops that he had to lead at the time and his own intelligence
network and the lack of a Navy, it's very hard to see how he could've helped
Manhattan (muffled audio). I'm gonna cough again. (coughs) But, pardon me, I don't
have a cough button. All I have is your own
generous forgiveness. So, anyway, so New York
is like this thing. He wants to figure out a way to capture it and the great news is
when the French come in, they bring in the Navy. So maybe now he has a chance. With the French Navy, he can
assault fortress New York, take it back from the British and declare this revolution over. So it was sort of the big strategy, sort of, somehow, someday,
we're gonna get that chance. It wasn't meant to be. A great opportunity arose in
1781 when Cornwallis' army which had been, you know, successful in capturing
South Carolina, Charleston, and then was having to march northward to really get relieved and brought away through North Carolina where they were harried into Virginia where they're being decimated
by malaria and small pox and small groups that are attacking them including General Marquis de Lafayette. If the French fleet could
get down on the Chesapeake and hold the British there, then the French army and
the British, and I'm sorry, the American army under
Washington could get down to Yorktown and pin them in and that's ultimately what happened. That effort was planned in multiple places in Wethersfield, Connecticut, in the Webb House in Connecticut which you can see online today. It's a great historic home
in which you can still see the wallpaper that was on the room that George Washington
slept in in the Webb House, a copy of which is in
my own dining room here at Mount Vernon but also, it was also planned here at Mount Vernon. So the French army and officers
joined George Washington at Mount Vernon the way to
Yorktown for three days in 1781 in which they would've
talked about logistics, talked about the plan and, of course, final plans were made in
Williamsburg and then on the scene as the siege laid itself out
and as Washington knew well, although he wasn't an
expert at siege warfare, siege warfare was very much a practice of professional
engineers in the 18th century, we're ending this and so he was
able to use French expertise to have a perfect siege
of a defended position in which different trenches would be built and then gradually you
would move closer and closer and closer until you could put the enemy in an untenable position when they would have to surrender
so once the siege began, as long as some remarkable
thing didn't happen, Washington said it is as
mathematical as clockwork that this siege will be
a success and the French were key to that story and so
in this room, in the study, Washington would have
many things to remind him of the great French support of that effort including maps and objects
and the great bust of Nec-air and others, too, so
great question about Yorktown. - [Matt] So now Keith would like to know, is it fair to say that
American independence was solidified in that room? - Keith would like to ask
whether American independence was solidified in the (muffled audio). I would say, yes, including Mount Vernon. I mean the army was here, after all, and in fact there's a
wonderful marker you can see called the Rochelle Mo Washington Trail which goes from here all
the way down to Yorktown and you could follow these markers, the great Virginia trail system. This story's an important one
on why Mount Vernon matters because it's not only
the home of Washington, it's a place where great
things happened then and great things are
still happening today. So, absolutely, I think that Washington's
planning of Yorktown should be considered as
one of the great stories of our independence. What else, Matt? - [Matt] So, Paul would
like to know how is the man in the painting on the wall? - Okay, so why don't I
step over here, well, the lighting in here might make
it a little bit challenging. I'm gonna come a little closer here. Yeah, maybe the light, can you
see the painting well enough? So what we have here is a
painting by an unknown artist of Lawrence Washington. Lawrence Washington was
hanging here in the study of George Washington at his death. They had a tremendously
interesting relationship because Lawrence was many years
older than George Washington but I think 17 years older. Is that correct? Maybe it's 13 years older. Somebody can check the Google
and tell me where I'm wrong but he was essentially a father figure for George Washington after
the death of their father, Augustine Washington. Now remember, George
Washington's mother was different than Lawrence Washington's
mother so they're half brothers but half brothers in Virginia
is as close as brothers in this environment where
people die regularly at young ages, oftentimes, these families are mixed and combined. In fact, Virginia's called
a tangled web of cousinry, was the way people described
the leading families of Virginia so Lawrence is very
close to George Washington. Now he doesn't grow up
with him at Ferry Farm but in the, in Fredericksburg
but Lawrence is often, has George Washington (muffled audio) and they visit Mount Vernon. So George Washington as a
young man is visiting Lawrence here at Mount Vernon and
it's Lawrence that helps Washington get that commission early on in the Virginia regiment
so that he, you know, he ultimately owes his
military career to Lawrence. Now, it's therefore, they
had a close connection, George Washington and
Lawrence also went on a trip to Barbados together
to try to cure Lawrence from tuberculosis which didn't work, Lawrence ultimately actually
went back to England, or to England to try to cure
tuberculosis and he died when George Washington was 19 years old. So clearly, Lawrence had a major impact on George Washington, not only as someone who
helped him navigate, you know, what he should be training
for as a young man but also introduced him
to the Fairfax family. Lawrence Washington married a daughter of Colonel William Fairfax who lived right down the river here
at Belvoir Plantation and that family gave George Washington his start in the world. So that's Lawrence Washington
by an unknown artist but that is the original painting
that was here in the room when Washington died. Something I, you have
another question there Matt? - [Matt] So Joe would like to know, that he remembered hearing that Martha Washington was
dressed in their bedroom above and Washington dressed in his study. Was that common in an 18th century house? - Well, first off,
question of what was common with Martha Washington dressing upstairs and Washington having his space down here, was that common in an 18th century house? There's nothing really
common about (muffled audio), home that Virginians typically lived in, whether free or enslaved
in the 18th century. They had a very large
house by the standards of 18th century Virginia but, within that class of people
of the leading gentry of the colony, yes, it was very common for men and
women to have separate spaces where they could keep their closet, where they could keep
their bed chambers separate because they, they were able, therefore, to have their personal space, they'd have their personal servants and this is very common going back to European fashion amongst the leaders. So, for instance if you, if you go to a palace in Europe right now, you'll have rooms for the
queens and rooms for the kings and (muffled audio), into the rank of gentry as well. (muffled audio) in traditional homes at a certain level of gentry
rank in the anglophone world. I got a question here about
George Washington's reading and the books here so that's great 'cause I wanted to get
into that a little bit so when he died, this book press, beautiful book press,
by the way, behind me, would've been filled with
his own books and, in fact, the inventory lists, all of them because we're
always doing research here on some of the books that
might've been lent out and weren't here at the time that he died but one of the reasons that
that inventory goes on from, in transcribed pages
from page six to page 20 of the inventory was because the long list of a thousand or so titles of books. Books were very valuable
in the 18th century and so they have to be kept carefully. You see Washington has glass
doors protecting these books. They tend to be themselves, handed down from generation to generation, some of his (muffled audio), for instance the Leybourn
Compleat Surveyor that was in here was actually
owned by William Fairfax which I talked about last time. This, you know, would've
also included his great two copies of Don Quixote
which I'll talk about in a moment as well but
other books on agriculture, on military science, on bell letters, the latest novels, books
on travel and geography, and what I like to think
about in the context of that, that inner man of Washington, those six inches between the ears, he builds this library over a lifetime. He doesn't inherit some
large library of someone else and he never purchases some
other person's big library. So each of the books in
his library has a story, when he acquired it, why
he might've acquired it, who gave it to him and if it was a gift? Did he purchase it for
a particular purpose and I think it helps us (muffled audio) off the man of action, right? So here we have a guy whose father dies when he's 11 years old but he has reading,
writing, and arithmetic. He's gonna add to that
different skillsets over time and you're gonna see
these skills represented in books in the library. So some of the earliest
books that we own here at Mount Vernon of George
Washington are books on conical mathematics,
books on geography, these are things that
he needed as a surveyor, as someone learning to become a surveyor. So he's earning a living as
a surveyor by age 17, 18, 19. By the time he's age 21, he's the colonel of the Virginia regiment and so he starts acquiring
books on military science, military drill with a particular
emphasis on the big bible of the British military in the
18th century, Humphrey Bland, but also the latest books
on the light infantry and guerrilla warfare, books that are gonna
be crucially important to him over his lifetime. Now he doesn't read French or Spanish so he's acquiring things
in English translation but, ultimately, as he becomes (muffled audio) starts to acquire books on
agriculture and then he starts buying books on law, on
political thought, on history, as the crisis between the
colonies and the parliament starts to heat up and
become a test of ideas as well as a test of interest and so, you see this throughout his life, he's acquiring things over time. So it's fascinating to see a man, he's clearly a lifelong
learner and we not only see it in the books that he buys
and when he gets them but we also see it in the
letters that he writes to other people about what
they need to be doing. So letters to the officers of the, or the American Officer Corps
in the Revolutionary War, encouraging them to
practice their operations but also to read and he'll
list the series of books they should be purchasing and, in fact, there's a great story about
the American Officer Corps being tremendous readers in
a Haitian officer's journal. In New Jersey, he captures a bunch of, a knapsack of an American
officer and opening it, he's sad that all it has in it is books and this is kind of a much told story that the American officers
carried all these books around with them as Washington did in the field. He had multiple bookshelves
that had a whole collection of books with him. So he's a great reader
and we don't think of him, in all of the great eminences
of the American Revolution, we've got Franklin, of
course, and Jefferson, and all these others who
are associated with learning and with, in fact, philosophy. We don't see Washington
necessarily in that light but, in fact, he really is
an enlightenment figure who has a real interest in the
latest ideas of improvement but also believes very
much that through reading, but also by doing, you
can improve yourself and he advocates that throughout his life. So I'll tell a story about
the Don Quixote volumes which are in here which are
some of the curious story (muffled audio) Cervantes' Don Quixote. Well, in fact, we know
that he purchased the one which was to buy a small
English language translation of Don Quixote published
in London in 1786, he purchased this in Philadelphia. On the same day, September 17, 1787, the same day that he
signed the Constitution and that's really extraordinary. We know that because it's in his little, his little account book. He kept rigorous accounts. We also have a copy of a
Madrid, of four volumes, beautiful Don Quixote with engravings and it's the finest edition of Don Quixote of the 18th century and
he acquired this one and it was in here as well. So why do we have these two? Well, we know why
because the letter exists between the ambassador of the Spanish king to the United States,
Don Diego de Gardoqui, who wrote to George
Washington and sent him the beautiful edition. He wrote, "Your Excellency,
I enclose for you here, "the finest edition of
Don Quixote ever made. "I remember when we were
together at Dr. Franklin's house "in Philadelphia and you
mentioned you didn't know "of the great Cervantes so
I have given you as a gift "from us is the finest edition, "made from the best
materials all from Spain. "I only wish it was in English
so you could enjoy it." But, of course, Washington
already had purchased a copy of Don Quixote while he
was leaving Philadelphia to go back to Mount Vernon
and you could imagine how this went. I mean, here he is at a dinner party. We've all been at those parties
or around people who say, hey, have you read such and such a book? And you have two choices. You either pretend you read
the book and kind of smile and nod and go along with it or you say, I don't know the book, and risk looking like a fool
and in Washington's case, he's at Dr. Franklin's house
with the ambassador of Spain and all these eminent figures
in Philadelphia and yet, what do we know about Washington? He cannot tell a lie and so he says, I don't know Cervantes. (muffled audio) Everybody says, Franklin most likely says, well, you know what, general? There's a new edition
by Smollett right there down in this Philadelphia
bookshop and you can get it at such and such a place
and George Washington buys his own copy on his way,
the ride back to Mount Vernon. It tells you a lot about the man, it's a small, small story
but he becomes such a figure, you know, he really is,
was like us in many ways, and to be sure, he always
tried to fill in those gaps in his own education when
he found out what they were. Questions, Matt? - [Matt] Yeah, so we've got,
are there any secret passages located in his library or study? - Are there any secret passages
in the library or study? No, sadly, there are no secret
passages in the sense that, you know, there's like
this bookcase opens up and it has a staircase going
down to the temple of gold that we've been searching
for since the 15th century. No, in fact, there are
doors clearly marked and (muffled audio) and I think the space that
(muffled audio) private. There are not many people
who would've gotten, and the secretaries, I think
Colonel Humphreys in the 1780s would've been in this room quite a bit. I think others during presidency
would've been in here, partly and one reason to get the fan chair is for your secretary
could sit in and stay cool while you're dictating your messages, while they're organizing
your correspondence. He, in fact, hired a series of secretaries that ordered all of his correspondence from the American Revolution
after the war, partly, he was putting together
his records but, also, because he understood that this would be an important historical resource and he wanted it well maintained
and cared for properly and so people would've
been working in here on his behalf throughout his
life in different capacities. But no secret doors, I'm afraid. At least we haven't discovered them yet. - [Matt] So, Doug, Shaun
would like to know, Washington loved timekeeping, what did he use to keep
track of time in his study? - Washington loved timekeeping. What did he use to keep
track of time in his study? Well, Washington owned
a number of watches. In fact, his finest gold watch was kept in the strong
box here in the room. Now that one probably wasn't
in daily use as a time piece but he also had some remarkable items. In fact, there's one out
on the desk over here which I don't know if (muffled audio), which is really great, it is a pocket sundial that
was given to him by the French and it's just a gorgeous
instrument itself. This is a pocket sundial. It's no bigger than three
inches in diameter here. Yeah, and it has a little
sundial that you fold up and you'd hold it in your hand
and you would see the shadow on the dial itself as a way to tell time. It was given to him, actually,
by Benjamin Franklin, not by the French but Franklin
would've picked this up probably in one of those
many shops in Paris when he was there as our ambassador. So the room is, it was filled with these kinds of extraordinary little
objects that are clever and interesting and speaks to that mind of George Washington. He was a bit of a tinkerer. I mean, he was a mechanically
minded, you know, the chair that spun that he has here. He had commissioned rolling
wine glasses for his table. (muffled audio) and these
kinds of useful objects filled a special place in
his heart as it would've people like Benjamin Franklin as well so it's a really great gift
from the great Franklin to the great Washington, a pocket sundial. What an extraordinary thing. - [Matt] So, Kim would like, like know if we could view the fireplace? - Oh yeah, please, Matt, let's take a good look
at the fireplace here. Now one of the things that
you'll note in this room is the full wood graining
on top of the wood paneling. So it's a paneling space
but it's also painted to have more consistent wood grain to look like a more expensive
wood than it actually is. This is likely pine and it's
painted to look like mahogany or some such fine wood. The mantel itself has got a
beautiful ramp inlay here, or stone inlay, and then a fire back with
George Washington's crest on it which we know he ordered. So it's a (muffled audio), the print that you see above is a print, I'm sorry a horse with a hunt print, and George Washington
was a great aficionado of English hunt style that
emerged in the 18th century and spread in this region
in Virginia, fox hunting, where you could have
hounds and men on horseback riding to the death of
the fox and Washington, throughout the 1780's
was an avid fox hunter. In fact, his diary's
filled with both successful and failed efforts to
capture the fox around here. Now, I happen to have the
great honor of living here at Mount Vernon now. Not in this house, of course, but in a house built for
the residence superintendent of Mount Vernon back in the 1930's and I can say that there's
plenty of foxes around to populate the woods
of Mount Vernon still (muffled audio) ghosts of
Washington by (muffled audio) hear them crying throughout
the night (muffled audio) What does the fox say? I can tell you what the
fox says because I hear it, it sounds like someone
being tormented to death. It's screaming, it's terrifying, and it's really quite
remarkable so, yes, fox hunting, I went off on a bit of a
tangent there, I apologize. Matt, what else we got? - [Matt] Yeah, Donna would like to know, did he invite famous
guests into this room? - Did he invite famous
guests into this room? I think absolutely you would've had your Marquis de Lafayette in here, you would've had Thomas Jefferson in here. This would've been a room
for private discussion between men of business
where we would often have people he was doing
business with but also those sensitive political conversations because it isn't an area
that has a lot of access to the rest, now it can be closed off. You can have a quiet conversation in here. Of course, he can have those conversations anywhere around his grounds
as well but I would imagine that any man of note who
visited George Washington and we have documented (muffled audio), would think that James
Madison is one who clearly, probably was in here, at
the time they were talking about the deficiencies
of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, Madison spent some time here before he went to Philadelphia, writing up and talking
to George Washington about what their strategy would be when they went to Philadelphia
to try to make sure that their plans for a stronger
union that would have powers that the Articles of
Confederation didn't have, could be put into place. So that's, those are probably some of the most potent conversations that would've happened in this space. Now I can't guarantee you
that, that is my reasoned, educated guess on the way that
18th century gentlemen worked and the way that George Washington worked and how this room would've
been useful in that regard as it would've been the
place where Washington kept all of his maps, the place that he kept
all of his legal documents and he wouldn't be dragging these all over the house, you know? When the right person was there, he'd bring them out, he had
multiple tables in here, and they could work
together in this space. - [Matt] So Jeff would like to know, is there an item in the
room that visitors ask about because they don't know
what it was used for? - I think the items in the room that come to people's
attention are, of course, the fan chair which is unusual. Also, there's a letter
press down on the floor. There's a copy of, this is a, an object to be used for
copying letters right here on the table where
you'd write a letter out and you'd wet it and you
crank through another letter that would make a copy of it, sort of like an 18th
century Xerox machine. It wasn't perfect but it's
something that George Washington and many other people tried to use, make sure they were legal
and personal correspondence could be saved but I think, again, some of the beautiful items
in here that need mentioning, the Houdon bust of George
Washington is remarkable. I'm gonna slide over here, it might not be easy for you all to see it because of the light, the back light behind
me, but (muffled audio), now the actual bust is in our museum, was taken by this incredible
French sculptor in 1785 right here at Mount
Vernon and that sculpt, that face was considered
by many in his family to be the best likeness of
George Washington ever made and the Houdon bust is
an extraordinary image of a man in full. Here he is, 53 years old, at Mount Vernon when Houdon visits him and Houdon has got commissions
from the princes of Europe and all the wealthiest people around. He is the finest portrait
sculptor in the world at the time, certainly in the Europhile world and to have him come all the
way to this distant place, Mount Vernon, at a time
when George Washington was a private citizen, to take his likeness was
really an incredible thing and it's one of the objects that was here with the mansion when the
Mount Vernon Ladies Association was able to acquire. We have another Houdon
bust actually in this room and that is of John Paul Jones
which I'll just have Matt curve around and take a quick look at, the terra cotta bust (muffled audio), George Washington had in his study. He clearly not only was
a great admirer of Jones but very much a great
celebrator of the valor of American arms and naval exploits in the revolutionary era. One more question, I'm afraid
is all we have for today, but you can keep sending in your questions and we can handle them over time. Matt, what do you got? - [Matt] So Matthew would like to know, how many letters would Washington
write in a typical day? - Matthew asked how many letters would George Washington
write in a typical day and I don't know the answer to that. What a great question to end on because, one of the things that's so
exciting about George Washington is the research opportunities
that are open for people. There are many things we don't know. There are many queries that
haven't been really pitched in that way. You probably would have
to pick a certain period of his life and take a look at it. Go ahead and take it, look at the papers of
George Washington project at the University of
Virginia and also online (muffled audio), incredible
collection of every letter that George Washington wrote and every letter that he received. Now, that papers project
is really extraordinary because it's been going
on in collaboration between the Mount Vernon
Ladies Association, the University of Virginia, the National Historic Public Records and Archives since 1968, with a lot of private funding as well and they have not yet
finished transcribing and annotating all of the letters in Washington's
extraordinary correspondence. So to get to your question,
how many did he write per day? Well, he wrote a lot more per day during the American Revolution
than he did, for instance, in the period between the revolution and the constitutional convention. So they divide up his life
into the colonial period, the revolutionary period,
the confederation period, 'cause it's under the
Articles of Confederation, 1783 until 1789 or '87 maybe, probably '89 when he becomes president. Then there's a presidential
period and then there's (muffled audio) which is a couple of years
and they're mostly done with almost the exception, they're just finishing
the presidency period and they're still not close to finishing the Revolutionary War period. So the most letters he wrote
per day ever in his life was during the Revolutionary
War period but, of course, he did that during a time when
he had lots of aides to camp and clerks so oftentimes
he's dictating a letter or, Alexander Hamilton, write a letter to Colonel
Woodford in Virginia and make sure that they've
gotten the recent supply from, that we sent down from
Philadelphia or whatever and Hamilton would just write
out the order in his own way and it's Washington
signed it and sent it off. In other times, the 1780's, most of his correspondence
is written by him alone and in that case you could
see more of a normal pace of a life as a planter and as
a man who has a big following and a big correspondence but isn't running the presidency or running the Revolutionary War effort. Similarly, during the presidency, you have another big volume of letters, many of which are official correspondence, appointments and things
like that that are managed by secretaries and many
others that are personal and political letters that
are things that Washington, you know, he's doing himself. So it's a fascinating
question and one that doesn't have an easy answer to it as you see but the information is out
there for the eager researcher to put a (muffled audio)
story on that and resources and see what you can find. So, thank you so much again,
for being with me here in one of my favorite spaces in George Washington's Mount Vernon, George Washington's study. Go ahead and look online to
see all about this great estate and all about the work we're doing here. I encourage you to share our
resources with those you know who would be interested in them, subscribe to our different channels, like our different products
and continue to remember, you too, can always become
a member of Mount Vernon by joining us in membership during this very challenging time. We're all gonna get through it together and I hope these resources
are useful for you. Thank you. Until next time, I'm Doug Bradburn at George
Washington's Mount Vernon.
