She handles most of them with one phrase: “General Washington is in the sarcophagus on the right Mrs. Next to me is a docent who answers visitors’ questions. ![]() “Within this enclosure,” it says, “rest the remains of Genl GEORGE WASHINGTON.” Me, I’m staying close to the tomb, a tall, elegant brick structure with a stone sign embedded near the top. Depending on the day, Nicolas Cage fans can see some of the buildings used in the making of the National Treasure movies, and liquor connoisseurs can try whiskey based on a recipe used in Washington’s time. Historical re-enactors stand in the greenhouse, talking about life on the plantation there’s a wharf, walking trails, and a gristmill. The big draw is the house tour, where one can see Washington’s study, the dining room where Charles Thomson informed the general he had been elected president, and the bed where he died, the victim of a nasty cold and/or incompetent, leech-slinging doctors. Mount Vernon today is a huge historic site: it boasts of having a million visitors a year and nearly 80 million since the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association purchased the place from Washington’s descendants in the 1850s.įor $17 a head, visitors to Mount Vernon can spend the day any number of ways. Washington’s mostly enslaved workforce grew wheat and corn, raised livestock, and operated what was at the time the largest whiskey distillery in America. George Washington wanted to have the fanciest house in the neighborhood (he turned a relatively modest farmhouse into a 21-room mansion) and the biggest yard, quadrupling the size of the plantation to a peak of 8,000 acres. So here I am, at Mount Vernon-or, technically, “George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, Museum & Gardens.” If the house explains the owner, this one explains a lot about the man and his ambitions. Then, when the first president became the first dead president, the way the country dealt with the loss of Washington set a model for how to honor-or, occasionally, dishonor-his successors. Yes, the job has changed quite a bit since Washington’s time, but a huge amount of how presidents act today is based on how Washington acted as president back then, from how frequently to use powers like vetoes and executive orders to how many four-year terms to serve. There’s a pretty good prime directive when it comes to anything presidential: Start with George Washington.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |