George Washington Birthplace National Monument, Virginia

by J. Paul Hudson

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Fred A. Seaton, Secretary

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Conrad L. Wirth, Director

HISTORICAL HANDBOOK NUMBER TWENTY-SIX

This publication is one of a series of handbooks describing the historical and archeological areas in the National Park System administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior. It is printed by the Government Printing Office and may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D. C. Price 25 cents.

GEORGE WASHINGTON BIRTHPLACE
National Monument
Virginia

by J. Paul Hudson

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES No. 26
Washington, D. C., 1956

The National Park System, of which George Washington Birthplace National Monument is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and enjoyment of its people.

Contents

Page [JOHN WASHINGTON] 5 [LAWRENCE WASHINGTON] 6 [AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON] 10 [Early Life] 10 [First Marriage] 10 [Purchase of Popes Creek Farm] 12 [Building the Birthplace Home] 12 [The Birthplace] 12 [Second Marriage] 14 [Virginia in 1732] 14 [GEORGE WASHINGTON] 16 [THE DISASTROUS FIRE] 22 [A CENTURY OF NEGLECT] 23 [THE SAVING OF WASHINGTON’S BIRTHPLACE] 27 [GUIDE TO THE AREA] 33 [HOW TO REACH THE MONUMENT] 43 [ABOUT YOUR VISIT] 43 [RELATED AREAS] 44 [ADMINISTRATION] 44 [SUGGESTED READINGS] 44

George Washington, colonel of the Virginia militia at the age of 40. From a painting by Charles Willson Peale. Courtesy, Washington and Lee University.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

”... His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives ... of friendship or hatred being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.... His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man’s value and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it.... Although in the circle of his friends ... he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words.... Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style.... On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example....”

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones, January 2, 1814, more than 14 years after Washington’s death.

A scene along Popes Creek, 200 feet from the birthplace home of George Washington.

“A place of rose and thyme and scented earth,

A place the world forgot,

But here a matchless flower came to birth—

Time paused and blessed the spot.”

—Inscription on the sundial in the herb garden, Washington’s Birthplace.

The story of the Washington family plantation in Westmoreland County, Va., where George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, may be divided into 3 main parts. The first relates to the activities of the early Washingtons who lived on the plantation during the latter third of the 17th century and fourscore years of the 18th century—a period covering 115 years. During that time the plantation between Bridges Creek and Popes Creek grew; successive members of the Washington family became prosperous planters, acquired large landholdings, and attained important civic and political offices in their county and colony. The climactic year of this first period was 1732—the 6th year in the reign of King George II and the 125th year in the history of the colony—when George, the son of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington, was born. The period ends during the American Revolution when the home in which George first saw the light of day accidentally caught fire, burned to the ground, and was abandoned as a homesite.

The second period spans a hundred years—a century when the birthplace site was neglected, and was all but forgotten by a growing nation which showed little or no interest in preserving the birthplace of its great military leader and first president. Wild honeysuckle and bramble thickets covered the foundations of the burned home; the place was forgotten for so many years that knowledge of the exact location and use of many of the plantation buildings became lost.