Presidents’ Day is always a celebratory one at George Washington’s Ferry Farm! Once again this year, George’s boyhood home marked his 287th birthday this past Monday, February 18. A special thank you to the sponsor of the George Washington’s Birthday at Ferry Farm event: Peoples Community Bank.
Ferry Farm is where the party’s at!
George Washington (Greg Fisher) in front of the Washington house replica.
Visitors tour the Hall of the Washington house with interpreter Gary Haynes.
Washington house guide Carole White encourages visitors to examine the reproduction 18th century objects in the house.
A young visitor tries out the “best bed” in the Washington house.
Nine pins.
Victory!
Hoop and stick.
Colonial Fare presents a concert of 18th century music.
In a theater scene, an archaeologist (Wilson Johnson) interviews Mary Washington (Cyndi Palmer).
Making quill feathers.
Virginia Militia reenactors.
Reenactor Paul Limerick discusses Continental Army rations with visitors.
Maggie Fanning demonstrates making beaten biscuits.
Churning butter.
Archaeologist Laura Galke updates visitors on the latest archaeological findings.
A young visitor presents a birthday card she made to Geroge Washington.
A poster from the late 1800s announcing that no business will be conducted on Washington’s Birthday, which was then celebrated on his actual birth date of February 22. Credit: Library of Congress
Happy Birthday, George!! Two-hundred and eighty five years ago today on February 22, 1732, George Washington was born. Americans have commemorating his birth and his life for centuries, since he rose to prominence as the commanding general of the Continental Army and the nation’s very first president. For centuries, his likeness has been added to plates, glasses, and bottles, carved in stone, etched on coins, used in advertisements, and printed on clothing to create unique memorabilia celebrating the man who was eulogized as “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
The 1932 celebration of Washington’s 200th birthday especially led to increased demand for Washington memorabilia. The George Washington Foundation has a small collection of both this bicentennial and a few commemorative objects from even earlier. To mark George’s birthday in 2017, Lives & Legacies shares photographs of this memorabilia!
Amber glass hatchet from either the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair or the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Made by the Libbey Glass Company at the World’s Fair Libbey Glass Demonstration Furnace where visitors could observe glass manufacture and then purchase the glass hatchets. They came in other colors such as opaque white, amethyst, green, and cobalt blue.
Medal featuring a right-facing bust of Washington that was awarded by the New York State George Washington Bicentennial Commission “in appreciation of Services generously Rendered to the Commission During 1932.” The accompanying card is signed by Charles Tobin, the commission’s chairman.
A pin dating from around 1900 that features a portrait of George Washington from the chest up and wearing a red coat. The image is printed on paper or fabric and is covered by celluloid, with a metal, goldtone rim. The pin could be attached to a piece of clothing and has a bar for hanging a ribbon or pendant. The Washington image of has “PAT. W.& H. CO. / NEWARK, N.J.” printed on either side.
A Washington Bicentenary Memorial Plate from 1932 made by Crown Ducal in Stoke-on-Trent, England. This ceramic plate with blue transfer-print was part of a series of 12 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth. It imagines General Washington and Mary, his mother, strolling through a romanticized rural landscape.
A clear glass bottle from 1932 made by the Owens-Illinois Glass Company of Huntington, West Virginia. One side is a crude embossed profile of a Washington bust while the other side has embossed depiction of a cherry tree with the dates “1732” and “1932” on a scroll beneath.
A commemorative plate from 1932 with an elaborate floral gilded border and a transfer-printed bust of George Washington in the center and made by the Capital Souvenir Company.
A commemorative porcelain tray depicting George Washington, Martha Washington, and Mount Vernon. The vignettes were transfer-printed first and then hand-painted to add details. At the bottom of the Mount Vernon vignette is printed “Washington’s Home / Mount Vernon, Va.” The tray was made by Tressemann & Vogt in Germany between 1891 and 1907.
A green water bottle with a likeness of George Washington under the word “water.” The bottle reads “Washington / Bicentennial” with the dates 1732 and 1932 on either side. It was made by the Hemingray Glass Company in Muncie, Indiana.
Every February, Presidents’ Day weekend is a celebratory one at George Washington’s Ferry Farm! As always this year, George’s boyhood home marked his birthday on Saturday, February 18 and then held Archaeology Day on Monday, February 20. Here are some photos from both days.
Cake!
A selfie with George.
Making a birthday card for George.
Playing hoops.
Catching the Graces hoop.
George, one of The Washington Nationals’ Racing Presidents, stopped by the celebration.
Visitors lined up for the Stone Throw Challenge.
Trying to get that rock across the river.
Archaeology Dig Site tour with Laura Galke.
Laura talks about all the wig curlers that have been excavated at Ferry Farm.
Chatting with George (Greg Fisher).
John Jeanes, project manager for the Washington house construction, discusses the project with visitors.
Muraca the Magnificent (Dave Muraca, director of archaeology) glues an ‘artifact’ together with some much needed help.
Visitors learning how 18th century glues worked.
Theater scene in which a modern-day archaeologist travels back in time to question a Civil War soldier about his toothbrush.
Parents, perhaps hoping to spur their offspring to similar greatness, have named their children George Washington ever since the most famous George Washington rose to prominence as commander of the Continental Army and the nation’s first president. Few other George Washingtons ultimately achieved the original’s stature, although a few perhaps came close. As we mark George Washington’s birth this month (Come to our Washington’s Birthday celebration at Ferry Farm this Saturday!), we share the compelling stories of five notable Americans named George Washington.
George Washington Vanderbilt II Credit: Wikipedia/Biltmore Co.
George Washington Vanderbilt II was born in 1862 into New York’s wealthy Vanderbilt family. At the age of 27, he began buying vast tracts of land near Asheville, North Carolina. He loved the mountains and wanted to build a grand home among the Blue Ridge. Working with architect Richard Morris Hunt, Vanderbilt planned the house and oversaw construction of the $3,000,000 mansion. He named the home and estate “Biltmore.” Vanderbilt used his vast acreage to help to pioneer scientific forestry and began a forestry school on his estate. His first superintendent of forests was Gifford Pinchot, who became the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Vanderbilt died in 1914 in Washington, DC.[1]
The Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina. Credit: Wikipedia
George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. Credit: Wikipedia
George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. was born in Galesberg, Illinois in 1859. He studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. He worked for a series of railroad and mining companies in West Virginia before focusing on bridge-building and structural steel construction. He started G.W.G. Ferris & Company in Pittsburgh and helped build bridges across the Ohio River in that city as well as in Wheeling and Cincinnati. For the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, he designed the Ferris Wheel. “Rising 250 feet above the Midway, carrying thirty-six cars, each with a capacity of some forty passengers, revolving under perfect control, and stable against the strongest winds from Lake Michigan, it excited general attention.” He died in Pittsburgh in 1896.[2]
The Ferris Wheel at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Credit: Wikipedia/New York Times
George Washington De Long was born in New York City in 1844. An American naval officer, he organized and commanded an attempt to reach the North Pole via the Bering Strait. His expedition left San Francisco aboard the Jeanette, a coal-burning steamer also equipped with sails, on July 8, 1879. The Jeanette became trapped in the ice for 22 months before being crushed and forcing the crew to abandon ship. The crew took to three lifeboats. One was lost, one made it to shore but all of its crew died of starvation and exhaustion, and one made it to shore where its crew was rescued. De Long did not survive, dying in Siberia on October 30, 1881. Three years later, debris from the Jeanette was found nearly 3,000 miles away off Greenland’s coast, proving the polar ice was in motion.[3]
George Washington Crile was born in Ohio in 1864. He received his M.D. from what is known today as Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He was a leading pioneer in surgical medicine during the first half of the 20th century. He dedicated much of his wide-ranging and groundbreaking career to studying the impact of shock on patients undergoing surgery and to developing pioneering ways to treat and combat that shock. He advocated for monitoring blood pressure during surgery and, most importantly, recognized the most effective way to stave off shock was through blood transfusions during operations. He is credited with performing the first direct blood transfusion. Surgical shock’s worst outcome was death so Crile developed resuscitation methods and, in the process, discovered the brain could be deprived of oxygen for only a very few minutes before resuscitation become impossible. In 1921, he and several colleagues founded the Cleveland Clinic, considered one of the world’s foremost medical centers. Furthermore, a pressure suit he developed to prevent surgical shock was adapted to prevent blackout in pilots during World War II. He died in Cleveland in January 1943.[4]
George Washington Carver Credit: Wikipedia/Tuskegee University Archives
George Washington Carver was born a slave in Missouri in the early 1860s. He attended a series of schools in Kansas and Missouri and graduated from Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas. He was rejected from one college because of his race but became the first black student at Iowa State Agricultural College, where he received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1896, Booker T. Washington hired Carver to chair the agricultural department at the Tuskegee Institute, where he remained for half-a-century. As a agricultural scientist, Carver created methods to revive soil exhausted from planting only cotton year after year. These methods centered on rotating cotton with sweet potatoes, peanuts, soybeans, and cowpeas, which restored nitrogen in the soil and provided income for farmers as well. He trained farmers to grow these alternative crops and distributed recipes using these crops to the public to spur demand. His efforts to promote the peanut especially sparked the public’s imagination. He died on January 5, 1942 in Tuskegee, Alabama.[5]
Zac Cunningham
Manager of Educational Programs
[1] “George Washington Vanderbilt.” Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936. Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/BT2310001556/BIC1?u=crrl&xid=3822e021. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017.
[2] “George Washington Gale Ferris.” Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936. Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/BT2310013691/BIC1?u=crrl&xid=3144ffeb. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017.
[3] “George Washington De Long.” Explorers & Discoverers of the World, Gale, 1993. Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1614000095/BIC1?u=crrl&xid=e0125245. Accessed 9 Feb. 2017.
[4] “George Washington Crile.” Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973. Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/BT2310015367/BIC1?u=crrl&xid=8dcc7fd9. Accessed 10 Feb. 2017.
[5] “George Washington Carver.” Contemporary Black Biography, vol. 4, Gale, 1993. Biography in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1606000443/BIC1?u=crrl&xid=3bdf1f8b. Accessed 10 Feb. 2017.
This month marks the 284th anniversary of George Washington’s birth. Americans have celebrated our first president’s birthday since long before it became an official national holiday in the late 1800s. In fact, early Americans even marked George’s birth during his lifetime, most notably with “Birthnight Balls” that replicated the grand dances held in Britain to celebrate the monarch’s birthday. In 1879, an Act of Congress made February 22 a holiday within the District of Columbia. Six year later, Congress expanded the holiday to all federal offices across the country.
As with many American holidays, both officially recognized and otherwise, businesses created postcards and greeting cards to be used to send good wishes to family and friends on the holiday. We have four such Washington Birthday postcards in our collection. These cards date from around 1912-13, as a couple of the cards include cancelled postage stamps that note it being the 180th birthday of George Washington.
This year, you can celebrate George Washington’s Birthday at Ferry Farm by making your own birthday card for George!
Visit his boyhood home on Saturday, February 13 from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. for family fun, including games, crafts, exhibits, the Stone Throw Challenge (weather permitting), history theater, and birthday cake! “General Washington” will attend the Birthday Celebration to talk about his youth on the farm! You can see a short video of last year’s celebration here. $5 adults; 17 and under free.
Additionally, on Presidents’ Day, Monday, February 14 from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., learn about archaeology at George Washington’s Boyhood Home. Enjoy crafts, theater performances, presentations by Muraca the Magnificent – Guru of Glues, tours of the archaeology lab, a scavenger hunt, and the Archaeology Artifact Challenge. Archaeology Day is a free event.
Celebrate George Washington’s 284th birthday at his boyhood home with fun activities for the whole family, including games, crafts, exhibits, the Stone Throw Challenge (weather permitting), history theater, and birthday cake! “General Washington” will attend the Birthday Celebration to talk about his youth on the farm! The video below is a preview of the celebration.
This year’s celebration is Saturday, February 13 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Lives & Legacies 