Their Houses Tell were taken by the author, his wife, or their son, Andrew.
George Washington: The President in absentia
Gaining such insights and forging such a connection turns out to be more difficult than one might expect, however. Why? One answer can be found in the National Park Service brochure visitors receive upon entering the George Washington Birthplace National Monument at Pope's Creek in the Virginia tidewater. It identifies a challenge awaiting any guest attempting to understand Washington more completely:
George Washington is the most elusive of national heroes. His great achievements and the strength of his character led a grateful nation to elevate him to the level of myth. As his life was magnified with legend and held up as an example to schoolchildren, Washington the man began to disappear behind the model. 'The Father of his Country' is, like the monument built to him, an emblem of the nation. But for many the historical person has become as abstract as the monument, as unreal as the marble statues.
What hope, then, is there of getting closer to Washington, the real Washington, and not merely to a mythologized ideal nor, equally dissatisfying, to some revisionist devaluation of his genuine greatness? And furthermore, who or what had actually determined to “elevate him to the level of myth" in the first place? The Pope's Creek site begins to offer some interesting answers to such questions.
By the early 19th century, the home where George Washington had been born had long since disappeared. Touring the farm site in 1815, Washington's step-grandson had placed a stone marker on the spot he believed to be the location of the original house, but nothing of consequence was done to materially preserve the site for over fifty years. By the early 20th century, however, as the bicentennial of Washington's birth approached, an organization styling itself the “Wakefield National Memorial Association" worked to have the location designated as a national monument and, furthermore, this group funded the building of a house on the original home site that would give Americans a clearer sense of the sort of environment into which Washington had entered the world. They constructed the Memorial House in time for the 1931 celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of Washington's birth. But in doing so, they participated in creating some of the tendency “to elevate him to the level of myth" to which the current park brochure refers.
As our docent, a knowledgeable young man named Alan, informed us, the Memorial House had not been placed on the actual site of the Washington home. The ground chosen for the reconstruction was closer to the water, commanding a more stately view of the confluence of Pope's Creek with Chesapeake Bay than had been afforded to the original house. Also, the recreated structure was much larger than the Washington plantation house had been and possessed considerably more touches of affluence than the Washington family had ever enjoyed.
The true farmhouse site was discovered in the years following the bicentennial celebration. Today its foundation stones are visible and indicate that the extent of this original home measures approximately half the scale of the reconstructed Memorial House.
Clearly, then, the goal of the Wakefield National Memorial Association had been twofold: first, to create a lasting national park site commemorating the birthplace of our first President, and second, to present an iconic symbol of Washington's world that would reflect the elevated stature of his reputation. Even the separate kitchen building constructed near the Memorial House is twice the size of the original structure that had been located there.
These amplifications, I firmly believe, were never the result of any intentional efforts to mislead the public. The buildings were not conscious fabrications. This glorification of Washington's earliest years had occurred naturally and was an understandable result of a 20th century appreciation of the scope of his career and of the meaning of his success, a meaning that not even the most prescient 18th century colonist could have imagined. Nevertheless, the “Washington myth" is clearly in evidence here at Pope's Creek, and, I have discovered, it is equally, if not increasingly, present in other sites connected with his name.
About thirty-eight miles west of the birthplace locale, on the eastern bank of the Rappahannock River just opposite Fredericksburg, is Ferry Farm, Washington's boyhood home where, this site's introductory leaflet informs visitors, “…Washington grew to manhood and developed the remarkable traits that helped him lead the Continental Army, become the first U.S. President, and guide a fledgling nation to its place in history."
What one actually encounters at Ferry Farm, however, falls considerably short of the impressive rhetoric quoted above. This site is essentially a field with its western edge sloping down to the Rappahannock River, now nearly invisible because of a variety of unkempt foliage blocking the view. Yet in this place, once again, we see the Washington myth being set forth, even as it identifies itself as myth.
For instance, although the Ferry Farm leaflet admits, honestly enough, that Parson Weems's anecdote of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree is probably only a “legend," it quotes the Weems account in full and uses as the leaflet's cover graphic an image of a cherry tree beneath which lies a discarded hatchet. Similarly, although archeological research has revealed that the so-called “Surveyor's Shed" dates from the late 19th century and, thus, is completely unrelated to Washington's boyhood years, The George Washington Foundation of Fredericksburg maintains the shed on the property to remind visitors that “Washington did learn to survey during his years at Ferry Farm and practiced in the fields and pastures." Finally, when referring to the legend of Washington throwing a stone (some accounts identify it as a silver dollar) across the Rappahannock, we are assured that “In his [Washington's] day, the river would have been much wider than it is today." Reality, it seems, is not quite enough when it comes to our appreciation of George Washington. He needs to be seen as larger than life, regardless of historical accuracy. It is a point of view that George Washington himself may have come to share. But for evidence of that, we need to drive north to Alexandria, Virginia, just south of the nation's capital.
Here we find the location that attracts more people to experience the world of our first President than all the other Washington sites combined. It is Mount Vernon, America's Versailles.
Over a million tourists each year find their way here to what is one of our greatest and certainly most venerated American “palaces." Compared to Versailles it doesn't measure up, but most Americans have never visited Versailles, and, consequently, the expansive acreage and exquisite placement of Mount Vernon on the rising hills above the Potomac still communicate the sense of affluence and elegance that we all associate with palatial grandeur.
George Washington himself fully appreciated the beauty and value of his plantation. Writing to a friend in 1793 in a rare moment of boastfulness, he noted, “No estate in United America is more pleasantly situated than this. It lies in a high, dry and healthy Country 300 miles by water from the sea … on one of the finest Rivers in the World" (Haas 12).
Pilgrimages here are nothing new. Even in Washington's day, Mount Vernon had a staggeringly large number
