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Happy
287th Birthday, Mr. President
By Susan Olling
While there will be much Presidents Day sales advertising (car dealers
are already at it), I will be celebrating the birthday of the president
who was born on February 22 and who should be recognized with his own
day: George Washington. His estate, Mount Vernon, is the only
place I’ve missed since we left the greater D.C. environs. (I
also miss the Tuba Carol Fest in Gettysburg, but that’s off-topic.)
There have been many myths and misconceptions that have developed
in the almost one hundred twenty years since Farmer Washington
died. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Unfortunately, Mr. Washington had just one tooth remaining when he was
sworn in as president at age 57. This gave rise to the most
famous of the Washington myths: wooden dentures. Nope, wood was
never used. The brownish stain that appeared on some of his
dentures may have made them look like wood, but Mr. Washington’s
dentures were made of various materials: human (and probably cow and
horse) teeth, ivory and various metal alloys. You can see
one of these prostheses at the museum at Mount Vernon.
One of the other famous myths concerns a young George Washington
chopping down a cherry tree and admitting to it. Again, nope,
didn’t happen. This charming story about honesty was the creation
of one Mason Locke Weems, an itinerant preacher. Parson Weems
wrote a biography of Washington in 1800 titled The Life of
Washington. The cherry tree story appeared in the book’s fifth
edition that was published in 1806.
Wearing wigs was trendy, but Mr. Washington didn’t wear one. On
occasion he did follow another fashion trend of the time:
powdering one’s hair. He kept his own hair long and in a
ponytail Young Mr. Washington was a redhead..
Then there’s the story that he was able to skip a silver dollar across
the Potomac River. Uh, no on two counts. The Potomac River
is more than one mile wide at Mount Vernon, and even George Washington
as a young man wouldn’t have been able to skip a coin that
distance. Also, the first silver dollar coin wasn’t minted until
1794, five years before Washington died.
Another misconception (can people really believe this) is that the
Washingtons lived in the White House. A big nope.
Washington was inaugurated in 1789 in New York City (then the capital
of the country). Then they lived in Philadelphia when the capital
was moved there. President Washington did sign the Residence Act
in 1790 which called for the capital to be built on the Potomac
River. The first president to live in the White House was John
Adams in 1800.
There is an empty crypt in the U.S. Capitol that was intended to
be the place where Mr. Washington would be interred. However, he
included instructions in his will that he, along with Martha and the
rest of the Washington family, be buried at Mount Vernon. The
crypt in the Capitol was considered as the final resting place for the
World War One unknown.
George Washington was a Republican. No again. He wasn’t a
member of any political party. He was against the idea of
partisanship and warned against it in his farewell address.
Moving on from myths and misconceptions to the interesting objects at
the estate.
In addition to his dentures, already mentioned, there are other
remarkable objects in the collection at Mount Vernon. To
this humble writer, the key to the Bastille in the central passage of
the mansion is the biggest attention grabber. The key was made in
Paris in the mid- to late eighteenth century. The Marquis de
Lafayette, commander of the Paris National Guard in 1789, was given the
keys to the Bastille. The Bastille was a political prison and a
symbol of absolute monarchy. The Marquis sent the key and a
sketch of the prison ruins to President Washington in 1790.
He put the key in a custom-made case in the executive residence
in Philadelphia and then in the central hall at Mount Vernon after he
left office in 1797.
A couple of objects of note are the Houdon Bust and Mr.
Washington’s presidential chair. The bust, sculpted by
Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1785 at Mount Vernon, was created from locally
dug clay. Mr. Washington put the bust over one of the doors of
his study, but the bust was removed for conservation reasons. It is
thought to be the most accurate likeness of Mr. Washington. It
was also one of the few original objects at Mount Vernon transferred
to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association by John Augustine
Washington III, a great-grandnephew of George Washington, in 1860.
Mr. Washington’s chair, still in his study, was made by a New York
cabinetmaker, Thomas Burling. This barrel-back chair has a swivel
mechanism so that the seat can rotate on rollers. Mr. Washington
must have been happy with this chair: he used it during his presidency
and later at Mount Vernon. The cost for this masterpiece of
ergonomics was seven pounds.
A new object is a replica of the harpsichord that Mr. Washington gave
to his step-granddaughter, Nelly Custis in 1793. It was debuted
at a concert on February 5. It must have sounded wonderful.
If none of this makes you, the reader, want to go to Mount Vernon,
well, I tried.
Happy 287th birthday, Mr. Washington.
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