The house erected on this consecrated spot is of wood, cut in imitation of freestone. The centre part was built by Lawrence Washington, brother to the General. The wings were added by General Washington. It is named after Admiral Vernon, in whose expedition the former served. The house is two stories high, and ninety-six feet in length, with a portico fronting the river, extending the whole length of the house, surmounted with a cupola. The grounds are in the same state as left by General Washington.
The house contains on the ground floor, six rooms, and a spacious passage: four of these are of the ordinary size. At the north-east is a large room, with a handsomely sculptured ceiling, which contains a marble mantel-piece, sent to General Washington from Italy, and a very fine organ, on which instrument Mrs. Washington was an accomplished performer. The room at the south-east end of the house is used as a family dining-room, and contains busts of Necker, Paul Jones, and General Washington; also a handsome library, fitted in the wall, with glass cases. The books were chiefly collected by General Washington.
The house fronts north-west, the rear looking to the river. In front of the house is a lawn, containing five or six acres of ground, with a serpentine walk around it, fringed with shrubbery, and planted with poplars. On each side of the lawn stands a garden; the one on the right is a flower-garden, and contains two green-houses, (one built by General Washington, the other by Judge Washington,) a hothouse, and a pinery. It is laid out in handsome walks, with boxwood borders, remarkable for their beauty. It contains also a quantity of fig-trees, producing excellent fruit. The other is a kitchen-garden, containing only fruit and vegetables.
About two hundred yards from the house, in a southerly direction, stands a summer-house, on the edge of the river-bank, which is here lofty and sloping, and clothed with wood to the water’s edge. The summer-house commands a fine prospect of the river and the Maryland shore; also of the White House, at a distance of five or six miles down the river, where an engagement took place with the British vessels which ascended the river during the last war.
The estate, as owned by Judge Washington, consisted of between three and four thousand acres, since divided between his nephews. The timber of the woods, in which the fallow deer once abounded, is composed of white and black oak, with dog-wood, hickory, ash, cedar, &c. The soil is thin and rather poor, cultivated chiefly in Indian corn, rye, barley, &c. There are two fisheries on the place, where shad and herring are caught in large quantities. Mount Vernon is healthy during all the year except the autumn, when bilious fevers and agues prevail.
A distinguished writer visited Mount Vernon some years since, and gave a more particular account of the grounds than is to be found elsewhere. “We were conducted,” he says, “over long gravel walks, bordered with box, which is arranged and trimmed into the most fanciful figures, and which, at the age of twenty years and upwards, still possesses the vigour and freshness of youth. At the extremity of these extensive alleys and pleasure-grounds, ornamented with fruit-trees and shrubbery, and clothed in perennial verdure, stands two hot-houses, and as many green-houses, situated in the sunniest part of the garden, and shielded from the northern winds by a long range of wooden buildings for the accommodation of servants. From the air of a frosty December morning, we were suddenly introduced into the tropical climate of these spacious houses, where we long sauntered among groves of the coffee-tree, lemons and oranges, all in full bearing, regaling our senses with the flowers and odours of spring.
“One of the hot-houses is appropriated entirely to rearing the pine-apple, long rows of which we saw in a flourishing and luxuriant condition. Many bushels of lemons and oranges, of every variety, are annually grown, which, besides furnishing the family with a supply of these fruits at all seasons, are distributed as delicacies to their friends, or used to administer to the comfort of their neighbours in cases of sickness. The coffee-plant thrives well, yields abundantly, and, in quality, is said to be equal to the best Mocha. The branches under which we walked were laden with the fruit, fast advancing to maturity. Among the more rare plants we saw the night-blowing cereas, the guava, aloes of a gigantic growth, the West India plantain, the sweet cassia in bloom, the prickly pear, and many others.
“At every step in these pleasure-grounds, the thought occurred that the illustrious projector is no more. In passing the house, the chamber in which he died was pointed out to us; and imagination, aided by these memorials, soon presented the scene in such distinct and vivid colours, that we seemed almost to follow his remains to the grave.”