Back in late February, staff revamped the orientation exhibit in the visitors center at George Washington’s Ferry Farm. The new exhibit called The Science of History at Ferry Farm tells the story of how archaeologists and historians discovered the location of the Washington family home using, in some cases, the latest scientific techniques. It includes a variety of artifacts recovered from the house site. This team effort involved members of the Curatorial, Archaeology, and Buildings and Grounds departments. These photos present a glimpse behind-the-scenes into how an museum exhibit gets put together.
The process begins with a fresh coat of paint in the gallery space.
Archaeology and curatorial staff prepare objects to be moved from their temproary display case into the new exhibit area.
Staff wear white cotton gloves to protect the artifacts from damaging oils on their hands.
These objects form the part of the exhibit that explains how colonial people made glues to mend their ceramics. Several pieces of Mary Washington’s ceramics excavated at Ferry Farm have glue residue on them.
George oversees the work.
Glass covers await to be reunited with the display cases.
Moving the exhibit display cases.
Proofing the new exhibit text a final time before hanging.
The George Washington Foundation’s curators recently oversaw the hanging of portraits in Historic Kenmore’s Drawing Room. Portraits of Fielding and Betty Lewis painted by John Wollaston as well as of John Lewis and Fielding Lewis, Jr. painted by Charles Willson Peale were returned to the room where they hung originally. In this video showing the installation process, Meghan Budinger, Aldrich Director of Curatorial Operations, also explains the significance of these types of portraits to the Lewis family and the rest of Virginia’s gentry. You can also read more about the portraits and the installation process on “The Rooms at Kenmore” blog at http://kenmore.org/wordpress.
Editor’s Note: Looking back in time, people’s personal hygiene, fashion choices, medical treatments, and more sometimes look, at the very least, bizarre, if not outright disgusting. When confronted with these weird or gross practices, our first reaction can be to dismiss our ancestors as primitive, ignorant, or just silly. Before such judgments, however, we should try to understand the reasons behind these practices and recognize that our own descendants will judge some of what we do as strange or gross. Here at George Washington’s Ferry Farm and Historic Kenmore, we’ve come to describe our efforts to understand the historically bizarre or disgusting as “Colonial Grossology.” This the second in a series of “Colonial Grossology” posts that we’re offering on Lives & Legacies.
At least once during his youth at Ferry Farm, probably in July 1750, George Washington went “washing in the river.” We know this because Ann Carrol and Mary McDaniel were arrested and tried and one of them was even flogged for stealing valuables from his clothes while he was in the Rappahannock. Of course, it seems quite safe to assume that young George swam in the river on many more occasions than this one moment chronicled in court records.
The Rappahannock River at George Washington’s Ferry Farm.Document showing the outcome of a court case involving George Washington. Ann Carrol and Mary McDaniel stole valuables from Washington’s clothes while he was “washing in the river.” Carol testified against McDaniel, who was convicted of petty larceny and “flogged fifteen lashes on her bare back.” Spotsylvania County Court Records, Order Book 1749-1755, Central Rappahannock Heritage Center.
The court records say he was “washing in the river.” But was he bathing to get clean or swimming just for fun? It’s hard to say. In the 1700s, swimming was “rarely intended for hygienic purposes,” though, of course, it made a person clean. Cleaning was not swimming’s intended purpose, however. People went swimming largely to cool off during hot weather. Still, the word “washing” in the court documents seems significant. If Washington was bathing with the purpose of getting clean, his dip in the river was somewhat unusual for more than the fact that he fell victim to thieves.[1]
How often did Washington and his fellow colonial Americans bathe to get clean? The question’s answer is more complicated that you might imagine.
First, the answer largely depends upon what we mean by the word bathing. If we mean head-to-toe immersion in water and scrubbing with soap to get clean, then bathing was quite infrequent. In the 1700s, many people feared immersing the body in water as a sure way to get sick. American settlers came from Europe, where bathing occurred in public bathhouses for much of the early modern period. Before the late 1800s, people did not understand that germs caused disease. Instead, when they got sick, people sometimes blamed the bathhouses and bathing. For much of the 18th century, this suspicion towards bathing “reflected medical theories about the dangers to a healthy body of extremes of heat, cold, wetness, and dryness. Any extreme might disturb the delicate equilibrium of the body’s humors, temperature, and moisture. Compared to the shock of immersion in water, dirt upon the skin seemed benign.” In fact, some people believed dirt helped keep you healthy by “reinforcing the skin.”[2]
Second, an immersive bath was simply a lot of hard work. Unless you had servants or owned slaves to do that hard work, you carried water to the tub from your water source, perhaps a well, a spring, or a nearby stream, two buckets at a time. Multiple trips would be necessary. To warm the water, you had to use precious firewood to build a fire. Building the fire and getting it started were not simple tasks either. The incredible effort it took to bathe also explains why, when baths did actually occur, the same water was used by multiple people in the household. The father bathed first, the sons next, then the mother and daughters, and finally the servants.[3] To add to these practical difficulties, “tubs specifically made for bathing did not make an appearance in America” until the very late 18th century.[4] As a result, daily cleaning for most of the colonial era was “accomplished by washing the face and hands . . . in one’s bed chamber, with a basin and a relatively small amount of water.” We today might refer to this method as a sponge bath.
Most early Americans washed daily using water from a pitcher and basin. Ornate sets similar to the one depicted would have been found in the homes of the wealthy like Fielding and Betty Lewis.
“A bath in which the entire body was submerged, or showered with water, was generally taken for reasons of pleasure or preventive health maintenance, and in some cases, as a type of remedy for a particular affliction.”[5] Immersive bathing for pleasure and health occurred in resort cities and towns at the sites of warm, mineral springs. For example, George Washington, Fielding Lewis, and kin frequently trekked to Bath, Virginia (now Berkeley Springs, West Virginia) and both gentlemen owned property in the mountain resort.
For most of the 1700s, washing from a basin remained the most common method for getting clean on a daily basis. Indeed, it was so much the norm that when Elizabeth Drinker, a wealthy Philadelphia women, tried the new shower her husband built in the backyard, she wrote in her diary: “I bore it better than I expected, not having been wett all over at once, for 28 years past.”[6]
Zac Cunningham
Manager of Educational Programs
[1] Dorothy A. Mays, Women in Early America: Struggle, Survival, and Freedom in a New World, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004: 190
[2] Kathleen M. Brown, Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009: 19-21.
[6] Richard L. Bushman and Claudia L. Bushman, “The Early History of Cleanliness in America,” Journal of American History, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Mar. 1988): 1214.
At George Washington’s Ferry Farm we’ve just wrapped up a ceramic mending project. We explain how and why we undertake these mending projects in this post. Our most recent effort focused on Westerwald stonewares owned by the Washington family. Stoneware is a high-fired, non-porous ceramic that is excellent for producing storage containers and drinking vessels. But what is a Westerwald, you may ask? Well, Westerwald stonewares were a ceramic produced in the Westerwald region of what is now Germany beginning in the 1500s. Destined for the British Isles and British colonial markets, this particular ceramic is common to archaeological sites in the Chesapeake region.
Westerwalds were salt-glazed, meaning that during the firing process large quantities of salt were introduced into the kiln. The salt vitrified (converted into a glass-like substance) upon contact with the vessels, producing a shiny glaze and a characteristic ‘orange peel’ texture on the surface of the pots. Decorated predominantly with molded and incised designs that are filled with bright cobalt blue and deep purple, Westerwalds are strikingly beautiful.
Jug with a bird motif.
We’ve learned a great deal from analyzing the Westerwalds used by the Washingtons. Many of the vessels identified in the Ferry Farm assemblage were tankards, jugs, and other drinking vessels from which beverages such as ale and cider, a large part of the colonial diet, were consumed. Some tankard handles we’ve excavated have small holes at the top, where a pewter lid — a distinguishing characteristic of German-made steins — was attached. These lids often do not survive in the archaeological record because the metal had value. Rather than being discarded, the pewter was often recycled.
In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, Westerwald drinking vessels often served a political purpose. An excellent example of this is to be found within our assemblage of Westerwalds in the form of multiple mugs emblazoned with the initials ‘G.R.’, meaning Georgius Rex, the Latin for King George. During the time Westerwalds were produced in Germany, three British kings were named George. Interestingly, however, all three came from the House of Hanover, a German royal family placed on the British throne in 1714. For Americans, of course, the most famous of these Hanover kings was George III.
Sprig decorated G.R. medallion on a jug fragment.
Thus, a gentleman sporting a ‘G.R.’ on his tankard or jug advertised his loyalty to the Crown with every draught of ale. A night of drinking involved numerous toasts “To the King’s Health!” It was not unheard of for dozens of toasts to be recited for the king, his family, and anyone else of political interest the imbibers saw fit to honor. Toasts and drinking vessels were also utilized to express disagreement with political powers. Politics and drinking definitely went hand-in-hand in the colonies. Once George Washington became a public figure, there were toasts such as “To General Washington, and victory to the American arms!” to honor him.
The presence of these initialed Westerwalds at Ferry Farm show that until the Revolution the Washington family, like most Americans, viewed themselves as loyal subjects of the British Crown. Indeed, many families in Fredericksburg would have owned such mugs and toasted their monarch prior to the war. In fact, several ‘G.R.’ vessels have also been excavated at Historic Kenmore, the home of George Washington’s sister, Betty. The people of Ferry Farm, Kenmore, and Fredericksburg found their daily lives governed by Britain’s global economy and imperial culture. Colonial men – whether gentry, tradesman, or servants – pursued homes, professions, pleasures, and possessions that conveyed their status, wealth, and English identities. One such possession that emphasized this identity was Westerwald drinking vessels.
Hollowware fragments with an unknown motif.
One has to wonder what became of these mugs once the Revolution began. Did Loyalists quietly stash away some of their ‘G.R.’ mugs once the tide of war went against them? Perhaps some tankards and jugs were smashed publically by Patriots in a ritual different from their intended purpose of toasting but no less a political act than those toasts had been. Nevertheless, it is intriguing to picture a young George Washington drinking heartily from a ‘G.R.’ mug and toasting a king against whom he would lead a revolution.
Mara Kaktins
Archaeologist/Ceramics & Glass Specialist
Editor’s Note: The behind-the-scenes tour mentioned at the end of this post and on the video’s end title is sold out.
Today, we’re linking to a behind-the-scenes video on The George Washington Foundation’s YouTube channel. In the video, Heather Baldus, Collections Manager, gives us a tour of Historic Kenmore’s underground heating and cooling system. This geothermal system helps maintain the proper climate inside the mansion and protects all of the furniture and historic objects on display.
You can see more during “Kenmore: Behind-the-Scenes” on Saturday, March 21 when Meghan Budinger, Aldrich Director of Curatorial Operations, gives an extraordinary tour of the mansion, including rare stories and insights into its history, furnishings, and ongoing preservation. Visit the cellar, second floor, attic, and other spaces behind-the-scenes! Admission: $12.00 adults, $6.00 ages 12-17. Reservations required and space is very limited. Please call 540-370-0732 x24 or email hayes@gwffoundation.org. Please note: on this tour, participants visit each floor in the mansion, climbing a total of 80 stairs. A few passageways and stairwells are narrow and confined.
About a month ago on “Lives & Legacies,” we shared a gallery of photos showing snow-covered Historic Kenmore and George Washington’s Ferry Farm in years past. That post especially focused on snowy scenes of Kenmore. With snow from yesterday’s storm still on the ground under beautiful sun-filled blue skies, we thought we ought to share a few more snowy photos with special focus on Ferry Farm this time.
Flags fly over Ferry Farm.
Fredericksburg across the Rappahannock.
Snow-covered stones marking one corner of the Washington’s house site.
Geese landing.
A gaggle of geese visiting the farm.
Archaeological dig site remains closed for winter.
Little friends.
Deer track.
Snow laying on some rail fencing.
Snow on magnolia leaves.
Sparkling water droplets fall to the ground as icicles hanging on the visitor center melt.
What do archaeologists do with the broken ceramic and glass artifacts after these objects have been excavated, cleaned, and catalogued? They are cool to look at but what do these little pieces actually tell us about the past? How can we use them to understand the lives of those who purchased, used, and eventually discarded them?
One method is by mending the sherds (‘sherd’ is the term we use to describe broken pieces of ceramic and glass) to re-create the vessels. We mend by spreading out all of the fragments on a table and carefully seeing which ones fit together. Then, we use non-damaging tape to join the pieces temporarily. If deemed appropriate, we might decide to carefully glue the sherds together – with removable archival glue, of course!
Sherds to be mending in the Archaeology Lab at George Washington’s Ferry Farm
As archaeologists mend and a vessel takes shape, we can determine a number of details about the object we couldn’t when it was just a pile of broken stuff! First, we can figure out what type of vessel it was and what its uses were. Determining the vessel type helps us figure out what activities took place in a given excavation area. Cooking vessels mean the area was used for food preparation. Plates, bowls, and cups show the area was used for dining while crocks indicate a storage area.
Second, we can determine how much a mended vessel was used by the “use-wear” present on it. For instance, a chamber pot kept under a bed and drawn out from its storage place a couple of times a day will start to exhibit wear marks on the base where it is dragged across the floor. These grooves usually run parallel with the handle. The longer the pot is used the more wear it acquires. The same goes for knife-marks on dinner plates or stir-marks in drinking vessels. However, it is difficult to truly examine the use of a chamber pot using just one sherd. It is preferable to have as much of a whole vessel as possible, so we must mend!
Yay! They match!
Within the archaeological community, the general opinion is that mending is a fun activity. It definitely is! What is more fun than taking ancient fragments long-ago discarded by their owners and creating tankards, porringers, teapots, jugs, and all manner of other vessels that say something about who used them? It is one thing to show someone a sherd of porcelain and say “George Washington’s mother may have owned this” and quite another to show them a mended teapot and declare “George Washington was served tea from this very pot!” That being said, mending is also frustrating at times. Imagine taking 100 puzzles, mixing them all together, throwing away 90 percent of the pieces, and then trying to work the puzzles! This is basically mending in a nutshell. Some of us stare at the sherds for so long that we see them when we close our eyes or go to sleep! Now, that’s dedication!
It is rare that an entire vessel can be completely reconstructed. When an object is broken, perhaps all of the fragments do not get swept up and deposited in the same place. Areas where people lived sometimes become agricultural fields and are plowed for decades or longer, resulting in fragments of vessels being further broken and scattered about the landscape. Insects and animals move artifacts when burrowing in the soil, a process termed ‘bioturbation’. We do the best we can with the artifacts we’ve recovered.
Pearlware waste or ‘slop’ bowl. Hand painted. Made in England between 1795 and 1830. Excavated at Historic Kenmore. This bowl would have been used during the tea ceremony as a receptacle for spent tea leaves or unwanted cold tea before refilling a cup with hot tea.
Still, archaeologists really love when we mend a vessel to near perfection and put it on display for the public along with all the information we’ve learned from it. We’ve actually just finished mending German Westerwald stonewares and we’ll share some of that project’s results in the not-too-distant future. Soon, we’ll be moving onto English white stonewares. On your next visit to Ferry Farm, you’ll likely see a mending project on display in our laboratory and maybe some of our talented staff working hard to unlock the secrets contained within those humble sherds!
Mara Kaktins
Archaeologist/Ceramics and Glass Specialist
The annual George Washington’s Birthday Celebration at Ferry Farm took place on Saturday, February 14. Fun family activities included colonial-era games, crafts, the Stone Throw Challenge, theater performances, and birthday cake! Here are some photos from the event.
On Saturday, February 14, Ferry Farm hosted its annual George Washington’s Birthday Celebration.
George Washington (Greg Fisher) greets a visiting family.
Children play with colonial-era games like…
…hoops…
…graces…
…and Jacob’s ladder.
Young visitors enjoy making one of George Washington’s horses…
…and tri-corne hats.
Birthday cake was served!
Visitors walk the grounds at Ferry Farm.
A boy tries to throw a stone across the Rappahannock.
Legend says young George threw a rock across the river.
Even some adults tried. No one was succesful this year but people have made it across in years past.
A view of Ferry Farm looking up from the river bank.
Betty Washington (Juliana Jones) accepts a ball of yarn from her suitor in a theater scene.
Actors Scott Houk and Will Goldstein demonstrate how gentlemen were not to behave in George Washington’s day.
I find that February, though it has the fewest days, can be the longest month of the year. The novelty of winter has worn off and, often, I simply seem to be enduring until the first glimpses of spring in March. I do, however, look forward with excitement to two moments in February: George Washington’s Birthday and the day that Major League Baseball’s pitchers start their spring training. In a way, these two events are connected by more than their close proximity to one another on the calendar.
After the familiar cherry tree tale, the second most popular story about George Washington’s youth is the story of him throwing a rock the size of a silver dollar across a river. This legend has changed several times over the years but it may have some truth.
The earliest version appears in The Life of Washington by Mason Locke Weems, who notes that George’s cousin remembered seeing him “throw a stone across [the] Rappahannock, at the lower ferry of Fredericksburg.”[1] George Washington Parke Custis, Martha’s son, provides a bit more detail for this toss, noting that the rock was actually “a piece of slate, fashioned to about the size and shape of a dollar, and which, sent by an arm so strong, not only spanned the river, but took the ground at least thirty yards on the other side.”[2] Archaeologist Phil Levy estimates “that could have been a distance of anywhere from a staggering 440 feet (professional baseball fields vary from 390 to 435 feet at the centerfield wall) to an impressive 340 feet.”[3]
We’ll never have the evidence historians need to say with certainty that young George actually threw a rock across the Rappahannock. It is a plausible story, however. So, each February at Ferry Farm’s birthday celebration, visitors try and duplicate George’s feat, provided the day’s weather or any lingering snow on the ground doesn’t prevent us from traipsing down to the river.
A visitor attempts to throw a rock across the Rappahannock River during the George Washington Birthday Celebration at Ferry Farm.
The feat has actually been duplicated, most famously by Walter “Big Train” Johnson, celebrated pitcher for the Washington Senators, on a Depression-era February day in 1936. Officials in charge of that year’s birthday celebration at Ferry Farm challenged the retired Major League right-hander, raising the ire of Congressman Sol Bloom of New York, who believed the story of Washington’s toss, to be “preposterous.” Quoted in the February 18, 1936 edition of The Free Lance Star, Bloom felt the feat “physically impossible” because “Washington was about 10 years old when the miracle was supposed to have happened.” Perhaps, he forgot that George lived at Ferry Farm well into his late teens?
A few days before the celebration, reporters found Johnson training for the toss by throwing a coin at the barn on his Germantown, Maryland farm. “‘Maybe I can’t throw that far,’ he drawled, ‘but there’s one thing certain—if George Washington did it, I can too.’”
Walter Johnson poses as if in mid-throw on the icy bank of the Rappahannock.
Finally, the day came. On the front page of the February 22, 1936 edition, The Free Lance Star’s banner headline trumpeted “‘Big Train’ Duplicates Washington’s Feat.” Standing on the Ferry Farm side of the river at 2:30 p.m. that day, Johnson took two practice tosses. The first plopped into the water just five feet short of the bank while the second made it across. Then, he attempted the official throw. Johnson “drew back his famous right arm and with a powerful heave let fly a silver dollar that sailed high into the air, spanned the 273 foot stream and plunked on the opposite bank.” Bloom graciously wired his congratulations and invited Johnson to stop in Washington and celebrate with him on his way back to Germantown.
Front page of The Free Lance Star, February 22, 1936
The attempt became something of a national sensation with newspapers in Michigan, Florida, Connecticut, Kansas, Missouri, and beyond reporting the story. A live radio program on the Columbia Broadcasting System beamed a description of the throw into countless homes across the nation.
Although it doesn’t garner the attention it did in 1936, the Stone Throw Challenge remains a centerpiece of Ferry Farm’s annual Washington’s Birthday Celebration when the weather allows it. On that day, which is usually about the time that today’s aspiring Walter Johnsons are starting to prepare for their seasons, I think of a day during the Great Depression when a big league pitcher added to his own legend by duplicating the prodigious feat of the most legendary American of all. As I watch our visitors attempt their throws, I think of the “Big Train” and I also always wonder just what kind of ballplayer George Washington might have been.
Zac Cunningham
Manager of Educational Programs
Join us at Ferry Farm on Saturday, February 14 for our George Washington’s Birthday Celebration, when – weather permitting – we’ll see if anyone else can throw a stone across the Rappahannock River. Along with the Stone Throw Challenge, enjoy crafts, games, exhibits, live history performances, and birthday cake! Visit www.kenmore.org/events.html for more details about the Birthday Celebration along with Archaeology Day on Monday, February 16!
[1] Mason Locke Weems, A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington, Macy-Masius Publishers, 1927: 39.
[2] George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, Philadelphia, J.W. Bradley, 1861: 482.
[3] Phil Levy, Where the Cherry Tree Grew: The Story of Ferry Farm, George Washington’s Boyhood Home, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013: 226.
This year, we’ve not had a particularly photographic snow at George Washington’s Ferry Farm or Historic Kenmore… yet. Snow eventually will come but, until then, we’re sharing some of our best snowy photos from last year and from ten years ago.
Lives & Legacies 