Two waterfront parcels for sale in Westmoreland County are virtually surrounded by the George Washington Birthplace National Monument.

By FRANK DELANO
The Free Lance-Star

Date published: 9/28/2002

The Web site advertising the properties tells much but not all.

It says the two adjacent waterfront parcels for sale in Westmoreland County are virtually surrounded by the George Washington Birthplace National Monument.

It says now is the “absolutely unique, historic opportunity” to buy the land that has been handed down in the Muse family since 1668.

The listing has stirred emotions.

“I find it appalling that this historical land would be allowed for sale.,” said Margaret W. Lewis of King George County, who worked at Washington’s Birthplace for eight years as a National Park Service ranger. “I cannot imagine a housing development, or even a single new home, built on land that has such historical significance.”

The Web site, is “extremely misleading,” she said in a letter to Birthplace Superintendent Vidal Martinez. “It reads as though the buyer would become part of our nation’s heritage, when they would really be desecrating historical land.”

For more, see tomorrow’s Free Lance-Star.

Date published: 9/28/2002