Mount Vernon

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/7/2022
  

  Did George Washington Have an Enslaved Son?

  West Ford founded the freedmen's town of Gum Springs near Mount Vernon in 1833. Today a preservation effort to protect the town is tied to a bitter conflict with Mount Vernon over whether West Ford was also the unacknowledged son of George Washington. 

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• SOURCE: Time
  2/24/20
  

  National Register of Historic Places Often Ignores Slavery's Significance on American South

  The register’s written entries on the plantations tend to say almost nothing about the enslaved people.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/23/19
  

  A tale of two Mount Vernons: How Washington’s estate separates his story from his slaves’

  Mount Vernon is also a Southern plantation where hundreds of people lived in servitude and abject poverty, and their stories deserve to be heard, too.

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• SOURCE: Politico
  4/10/19
  

  What Donald Trump Doesn’t Get About George Washington

  by Peter Canellos

  “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it. You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”

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• SOURCE: Politico
  4/10/19
  

  “If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it:" Trump’s ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon

  The 45th president — no student of history — marveled at the first president’s failure to name his historic compound after himself.

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• SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor
  9-17-16
  

  George Washington's family tree: A biracial history lesson

  Two centuries later, the National Park Service and the nonprofit that runs Washington's Mount Vernon estate now have exhibits showing that the first family's family tree has been biracial from its earliest branches.

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• SOURCE: AP
  2-15-15
  

  Mount Vernon uses lasers to scan mansion down to the nail

  Architects and preservationists are at the estate building a computerized database of every piece of the mansion.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9-27-13
  

  High Marks for the Mount Vernon Library

  by Edward Rothstein

  A new research library has just opened at Mount Vernon.

• SOURCE: CBS
  7-11-13
  

  GW finally getting a library

  America's first president foresaw the need for a place for his papers and books; it will finally open this fall at Mount Vernon.

• SOURCE: WaPo
  5-22-13
  

  Stephen Brumwell wins George Washington Book Prize

  Stephen Brumwell has won the $50,000 George Washington Book Prize for his biography of the first president, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior (Quercus).A historian who was born in Portsmouth, England, and now lives in Amsterdam, Brumwell received the award at a ceremony last night at Mount Vernon.The jurors’ citation said, “In the hands of this fine biographer, Washington emerges as a flesh and blood man, more impressive than the mythical hero could ever be.”...

• SOURCE: WaPo
  3-27-13
  

  Making whiskey at Mount Vernon

  In the fall of 1799, George Washington wrote to his nephew: “Two hundred gallons of Whiskey will be ready this day for your call, and the sooner it is taken the better, as the demand for this article (in these parts) is brisk.”The whiskey Washington spoke of was produced in his own distillery, at Mount Vernon, and the popularity of the spirit (in these parts) remains. Mount Vernon historians-turned-distillers have been busy making Washington’s unaged rye whiskey, following his recipe and manual methods, since early this month and will put 1,100 bottles up for sale in April.The team, led by former Maker’s Mark master distiller Dave Pickerell, has perfected the craft since they began distilling at the old mill twice a year beginning in 2009. (A $2.1 million grant from the distilled spirits industry helped fund the project.) And the demand for their product has grown: The waiting list is more than 4,000 for this year’s batch....