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Visitors can get bit of history
Visitors to Washington's Birthplace in Westmoreland Saturday get to hear a little of park's soon-to-be-completed history
Date published: 1/20/2005
TO HELP commemorate its 75 years as a national monument, George Washington Birthplace in Westmoreland County will offer visitors insights into its own history Saturday.
In addition to the continuous showing of archival footage from the park's early days--it was created in January of 1930--College of William & Mary researcher Seth Bruggeman will share details from an administrative history he's now finishing for the park.
Included in the 2 p.m. talk, "Community, Memory and the Creation of George Washington Birthplace National Monument," will be details ranging from the simply fun to the truly monumental.
Take, for example, the chimneys of the Memorial House, built to resemble the house where George Washington spent the first three years of his young life.
When I joined Bruggeman earlier this week at the historic park on beautiful Pope's Creek, he said that one of the original park directors became concerned that helicopters from Dahlgren flying over the house might see that the chimneys weren't fully functional, with no holes visible on top.
"He actually climbed up and used black paint to put small squares up there, to make them look like real chimneys," said Bruggeman, a Fredericksburg resident who also teaches a history course at Germanna.
The chimney story is just one of several fun kernels of history he'll weave into the narrative, along with the fact that what's now used as a chicken coop was once the security house at the gate.
He'll also talk about the more serious side of history.
For instance the way the facility was at the vanguard of living history in the U.S., establishing a working farm where visitors could witness costumed interpreters bringing the Washington plantation to life.
And what Bruggeman considers perhaps the most fascinating chapter of the park's history: the way the National Park Service and the private Wakefield National Memorial Association disagreed on many aspects of the site, yet cooperated to create it.
Some of those early disagreements--including the spot where the Memorial House was built in the early '30s--garnered national attention and for years slowed development at the monument.
Date published: 1/20/2005
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