Photo: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.
Bottles that were filled with cherries and other fruit were found buried in the basement of Mount Vernon.
Back in the day, little American children had early exposure to fake news in the form of a story about George Washington, invented by his biographer Mason Locke Weems. We were told to believe that even as a boy, Washington was scrupulously honest and that when accused of cutting down a cherry tree, he confessed his guilt with the words “I cannot tell a lie.”
Today’s more scientific take on our first president reveals a remote but fact-based connection with cherry trees.
Michael E. Ruane reports at the Washington Post, “The furniture in the bedroom where George Washington died will go into storage. So will his silver oil lamps, his French marble and bronze mantel clock, and most of the other contents of his elegant 290-year-old Mount Vernon mansion on the Potomac River.
“[The] bulk of Washington’s famous home is due to close for several months as it undergoes the next phase of its largest-scale rehabilitation in over 150 years.
“The $30 million project is the most complicated preservation effort since the house was saved from decay in 1860 by the private, nonprofit Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, which still owns it, said Douglas Bradburn, president of George Washington’s Mount Vernon. …
“Other parts of the house, along with the extensive grounds, Washington’s tomb, the quarters for enslaved people [yes, he owned slaves and freeing them on his death does not make up for that] and other outbuildings will remain open, Bradburn said in a recent interview. …
“The historic structure had become loosened from its foundation over time, and the work will resecure it, Bradburn said. There also will be restoration work done in the basement and on flooring, among other things. …
“Earlier repair projects have been piecemeal. [They’ve been] ‘dealing with problems as they come,’ he said. This is a chance for a more complete approach.
“The project made headlines in the spring when archaeologists digging in the basement found six storage pits containing more than two dozen bottles filled with cherries and other fruit that had been buried about 250 years ago. …
“The rehabilitation project began last year after officials realized that over time the big oak ‘sills’ that connected the mansion to the foundation had been devoured by termites and the house was no longer being held firmly in place.
“ ‘Essentially, the mansion was sitting on termite shields, or just sitting directly on brick,’ Bradburn said. ‘Lateral winds could knock it off its foundation.’ … The new sills are being made with oak from trees grown at Mount Vernon and from salvaged 18th-century oak acquired in Ohio, said Amy McAuley, Mount Vernon’s restoration manager. …
“Mount Vernon is about 20 miles south of Washington. The original house was a modest structure built for Washington’s father in 1734.
“George Washington inherited it in 1761 and expanded it dramatically over the decades — most of the work being done by people enslaved at Mount Vernon, officials said. By the time of Washington’s death in 1799, more than 300 were enslaved across the plantation there.
“Washington [was] was often away from Mount Vernon but loved the site and died there on Dec. 14, 1799.
“But by the 1850s, the mansion was in poor condition. … John Augustine Washington tried unsuccessfully to sell the mansion to the federal government and the state of Virginia.
“In 1853, Ann Pamela Cunningham, a well-to-do woman from South Carolina who was shocked by accounts of the dilapidated state of the home, founded the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union to save it, according to the website.
“At the time, tensions that would eventually lead to the Civil War were already on the rise. But the association had members from the South and the North, Bradburn said.
“ ‘That “of the Union” part was like, “If we save the house of Washington, maybe we can save the Union,” ‘ he said.”
More at the Post, here.
PS. Hannah got me wondering about how the fruit could get out of those narrow mouths on the bottles. Here’s a different photo from CNN. The cherries were small!
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