The Home & Estate of George Washington | History Traveler Episode 121

[Music] so uh it is well established that i am a huge fan of presidential history i love examining uh like the the lives and some of the challenges that these individuals went through and also their different leadership styles and there's one place that i've never been to before that i have always wanted to go and it is right here at mount vernon the home of our very first president george [Music] washington [Music] now whenever people think about mount vernon if you're like me what you're typically thinking about is is the house but mount vernon is so much more than just the home as you can see like this place was really a a small village and there were a lot of people who who lived here at mount vernon so anyway uh we're gonna take a little bit of time to wander the grounds here first uh and then we're gonna come back to the house look at this this is a tulip poplar and and this is what we would call a witness tree uh washington had it transplanted here in 1785 uh to to kind of line the grounds here at mount vernon so it's pretty it's pretty stunning to think that uh this tree has uh has been around for so long huh all right so this area that i'm walking into right now is the upper garden and uh we're here a little bit early so there aren't really any flowers in bloom which is okay one thing that i did want to point out though is you can see like on the outer edges of the garden well that's where you would have you know some of your i guess more aesthetically pleasing flowers you know things that look nice and smell nice but washington was also a very practical man so on the interior of the garden well that's where you would have uh your your different vegetables and uh different things like that uh this greenhouse here is not original the original one burned down but they used the documents from the fire insurance policy to reconstruct it yeah very nice [Music] one thing i really like about this visit to mount vernon is that whenever you come here you're not only learning the story of george and martha washington but you're also learning the story of the enslaved people who worked here now we're probably going to tackle that in a little bit more depth in another video but there were about 90 enslaved individuals that worked here on on the mansion site and a lot of them would have been working right here in this garden and in this greenhouse yeah pretty fascinating so what do we got going on here we're training some skiers steers that get to be mature at four years old are then called opsin okay they're not auction yet they're steers in training knocks and spud so they're pulling some logs today just really for conditioning and training the bigger and stronger they get the more we try to pull with them okay interesting kind of like going to the gym all right thanks so also here on the grounds of mount vernon uh was a blacksmith shop and something that's pretty cool that they are doing here is that they have people actually working inside the blacksmith shop so you can see how some of these different tools and items were made okay so here you can see some of the different things that are being made right here in the blacksmith shop huh what we're looking at here are the overseers quarters so washington was gone quite a bit from mount vernon so the overseeder would kind of run the operations with all of the farms at mount vernon and received an annual wage of 133.33 plus board bed and lodging now again mount vernon is more than just the mansion you're looking at really a a village here so this is the spinning house so you can see you know this old spinning wheel here and uh this loom where they would make fabrics and clothing from linen they would you know cultivate hemp for rope they did stuff with cotton and silk and of course this would all have been done by the enslaved laborers and and hired weavers that uh would have worked right here to produce textiles for the washingtons so again i just want to reiterate that mount vernon is more than just the mansion there are so many different things here to see like the the clerk's office and quarters right here then you also have the smokehouse now as a person who enjoys smoked meats i had to show the inside of the smokehouse so of course here in the middle is the fire pit so they would put green leaves in there to of course uh generate more smoke and then this barrel is showing how they would salt the meat and if you'll notice whenever they have the barrels upended there are holes in them well that was to help drain some of the liquids so before they would cook the meat well they would have to rehydrate it and then you can see up here where they have all of these different quarters and sides that are suspended to to get smoked one other interesting thing to note about the smokehouse is the elevated door well that's to keep animals out another interesting little tidbit here [Music] here's something else that i didn't know about mount vernon that i found interesting uh this is a working animal farm so they have sheep and and cattle here and the animals that are raised here are used to provide livestock to other museums so yeah pretty cool what we're looking at right here is called the necessary or we might better know it as an outhouse which by the way that's probably the fanciest outhouse i've ever seen here's what i found really interesting about this inside this gate right here is the lower garden well this is a trap door that opens and uh you can collect uh let's say the uh the the products of the necessary and then haul it out to the garden for fertilizer fascinating kind of nasty but fascinating all right so what we're looking at here is the lower kitchen garden that i just referred to this would have been overseen by mrs washington and of course would have been worked by the enslaved people here at mount vernon and uh would have been fertilized with the byproducts from the necessary okay and here is the front end of what they call the necessary and if you walk up here it's um it's kind of nice you know for a necessary has uh three different holes all kind of angled towards each other so that you can sit with your friends and maybe talk business while you do your business so here's something that i had never heard of but found interesting apparently george washington didn't want fences obstructing the nice view from mount vernon but at the same time you don't want you know farm animals right up there on the porch so they constructed these things called haha walls which were even with the landscape on top so it wouldn't ruin the view but then you have like this wall with a ditch by it that keeps the farm animals from getting up there towards the mansion yeah kind of interesting so this is what is referred to as the east front of the mount vernon mansion and something is kind of interesting if you look at the top there at the cupola well if you would have opened all of those windows it would have served as air conditioning for the home and then of course washington after having led the country and the revolution was committed to peace so you see the dove of peace there at the top and uh boy there is a reason that they chose this location to build the mansion because if you look to the east man look at the view quite the scenic spot overlooking the potomac here [Music] all right so we're back around now to the house and uh before we go inside there's something that that i want to show that is just really fascinating so if you look at the exterior well you might think that this home is made of stone and washington would have been quite happy if you would have said that this is actually all made of wood that is cut to look like stone and then whenever they painted it well they would throw sand on it to kind of give it this rough stone looking texture this is a process called rustication pretty fascinating all right so uh we just got in here into the mount vernon home and uh the area that i'm standing in now is called the the central passage so as you would have walked in through this door one of the enslaved individuals that lived here a gentleman by the name of frank lee would have greeted you and then depending on your social status well if you were of a lower social status there was a row of chairs here that you might set at but if you were part of the genteel class well there's a room right here that you would have been welcomed in now i know a little bit about mount vernon but there are people here obviously who know a lot more such as this guy right here this is jeremy ray he is the director of interpretation so he's going to kind of walk us through mount vernon and tell us a little bit about this historic home all right well thanks jd to begin with the central passage area here that we're standing in is part of the oldest section of the home now the whole house is is original but when george washington inherits the property moves in in 1754 it consisted of this passageway and these two rooms on either side of us there's a half story garrett's base above as well and george washington expands the home into the 21 room mansion it is today over his lifetime here as you mentioned frankly the enslaved butler agreed to guess at this doorway uh some items in this room i want to point out this this front parlor is a little more formal you see here on the right we have some portraits of general washington and mrs washington some of the earliest known portraits of general washington this is not an original piece but a replica of that portrait washington is really growing into society in the 1760s uh early 1770s before the revolutionary war and he is greeting uh men of note from the house of burgesses and so forth and like george mason for example one of his neighbors they meet uh most likely in this room uh several times in the 1760s and discuss things like taxation without representation okay so this is the front parlor room that jeremy was just describing and uh typically it's it's closed off to tours but they told me that if i took off my shoes and promised not to break anything that that i could come in here uh but man you can just imagine the conversations that took place in this room conversations that that really helped to shape this country so yeah pretty amazing [Music] the other parlor over here is a little bit more of a family space we're currently doing some preservation restoration work in here it's a constant effort mount vernon is privately owned by the mount vernon ladies association of the union and this private nonprofit has owned and operated the house has has had it open to the public since 1860 so preservation restoration work is a constant everyday action here on the other side of the hallway we see the dining room note the bright green color the colors in the house are accurate to 17.99 we've done a lot of paint analysis and research work to get it as accurate as possible then use primary source documentation uh washington's letters his his accounts purchases accounts from visitors who are here in washington's time to recreate these spaces as accurately as possible the ceiling here it's really really unique it's one of the oldest original ceilings in the united states here in between these rooms you see this large key that was a gift to washington from the marquita lafayette that's the key to the bastille i was a prison in france it was stormed at the outset of the french revolution citizens of paris stormed that prison and uh the marquis de lafaye was actually in charge of the demolition of that fortress later you can see this pencil sketch down here showing the fortress being taken apart the key was a gift to washington uh with a nice letter from lafayette saying something to the effect of you know this is a symbol of liberty to his patriarch and watch to put it on display in the presidential mansion in philadelphia when he returns to mount vernon he places it here this is one of the few original objects that were still in the house when the ladies association purchased the estate and started to do that preservation work this room here is one of 10 bed chambers in the house and feel free to step on in there 110 in the house one of nine for family and guests this room being on the first floor probably a little more comfortable in the summertime as hot air rises it might be a little cooler down here very nicely appointed so it's it's possible that some of the um more higher ups visitors that that came to visit here would have stayed in this room i really like this painting it is the battle of mendon it is original and it is it's actually the battle during the seven years war that the marquis de lafayette's father died um so we we have that lafayette connection here uh in the artwork as well as with the the key to the vast deal [Music] so this is washington study we're actually here in the private wing of the home when general washington mrs washington lived here this whole wing of the house was generally inaccessible to guests you had enslaved individuals like caroline branham and charlotte who was a seamstress who worked with mrs washington in their bed chamber here in the private wing and in this space christopher shields general washington slave valet was admitted access in and out of this space but otherwise she had to have written permission from the general to access this area so this study is his office this is where he's operating this busy plantation right the books are here to my right uh these are replicas of the library that he had here on the estate uh it's very difficult for us to kind of preserve uh control the the environment so we don't keep any original uh books in this space but you can see it was quite extensive right washington didn't have an opportunity to go to college like his older half brother lawrence who can actually see in this original painting over here so washington his formal education really ended around the modern equivalent like seventh or eighth grade so watson was continuously reading to make up for what he called a defective education so he was constantly trying to learn but it also instilled in him this excellent leadership quality and that he recognized strengths in others that could do things that he couldn't so as when he was in chief during the war and as president he made sure that he put people with exceptional abilities into positions where they could make a difference and i think that's that's an excellent leadership quality to understand your own shortcomings to make sure that others can help you and everyone succeed so i absolutely love this room uh here are a few things that jeremy pointed out to me this is trunk number 13. this is the original trunk that washington would have used one of them that he would have used during the revolutionary war he's very organized this one would have held like blankets and such but the the piece to me that is so interesting is this one here this is a fan chair and you can see it has like these little pedal things down here on the bottom supposedly washington saw this whenever or something like this whenever he was in philadelphia and then had one made and the idea is you work those pedals and that fan up there is supposed to swing back and forth and keep you cool uh but one of the secretaries joked that it just kept flies away very interesting [Music] washington's president there weren't any tournaments he could have served a third or a fourth he was unanimously elected to both terms so uh yeah i think it's it's makes sense that he could have continued uh being elected as president but washington sends out in a paper that he's not going to serve a third term in doing so he sets an example of the peaceful exchange of power between elected officials but he also sets an example that this position this office is not a lifetime position this is not a space that's supposed to be abused by anyone the power entrusted in the president in george washington was given to him by the people and this was him publicly publicly relinquishing that power back to the people to elect a new leader i think that's something that's very very important because you think about it revolutionary leaders it's not very often that they willingly give up power we have history is full of examples of julius caesar and oliver cromwell and later on napoleon right people who go to these great efforts lead a revolution but then hold on to power washington gave it up not once as president but again as commander-in-chief he resigned his commission so he he fully understood that the power of the people was something that was to be respected in this country okay so here's something else that's pretty interesting um i was told that this dining room table you can see is kind of small so whenever the washingtons would have kind of like a dinner party or something like that well this table could be joined with this table and then they would move it to the new room uh which is where we're going to be heading here in a little bit so we're entering into the new room now and it was called the new room because it was that last it was the last space that washington added to the house in that expansion project i was telling you about earlier he starts with a smaller home we were standing in in the central passage and then he eventually adds this space and this was a very impressive room in the 18th century the average home in virginia during washington's lifetime could fit in this one space so it's going to be very impressive to guess so you see the big high ceilings the intricate plaster designs and washington's really using this space as a multi-purpose room for entertainment for meetings grieving large dinner parties potentially and things of that nature now what's really interesting about this space is it really highlights a lot of washington's past we know that he was a soldier fought in the french and indian war in the revolutionary war we have paintings up of washington afroplanks point during the revolutionary war we have some sketches of various battles that took place during the revolutionary war the death of general montgomery the death of general warren and washington also has this lovely print over here of a soldier a common soldier showing the sacrifice uh that was needed that was given by everyone during the war it's a an image of a soldier with his wife mourning his death and their infant child in her arms so again the impact of that sacrifice was far more than people like george washington generals and colonels and so forth the common american also sacrificed a lot but also this really highlights washington's role as a farmer in this space i'd like to point out this mantle this is original you can see in the marble designs we see farm animals you see a plow this was a gift to him from an english admirer a man named samuel vaughan who was an english merchantman we also see farm tools in the plaster designs above all the doors and up on the ceiling washton was a wheat farmer predominantly there were 317 enslaved individuals on this on this estate with the vast majority working in the outlying farms producing that wheat [Music] all right so that was just a little bit here at mount vernon i am so glad that we came to this place today because uh of of all of the presidential sites this is one of them that i've wanted to travel to the most and uh learned so much the place is huge if you ever come here schedule at least a day because there is so much to see way more than than just the mansion so anyway we have a few more things that we're going to be looking at here at mount vernon but that'll be in the next video [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 19,409

Rating: 4.9684329 out of 5

Keywords: history, history travel, travel, history traveler, history underground, george washington, mount vernon, mt vernon, slavery, black history, president, presidential home, plantation, virginia, leadership

Id: qfho2uZN_CM

Length: 25min 37sec (1537 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021