By gosh, they’ve found it.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was to announce this afternoon that archaeologists have unearthed the remains of the Stafford County home where George Washington spent his formative years.
Locating and excavating the first president’s boyhood, the holy grail of Fredericksburg-area historic sites, was the goal of many groups over many years.
The George Washington Foundation made it happen, Kaine was to tell reporters gathered at Ferry Farm.
This morning, the four-member project team fielded questions about their discovery from international news media during a teleconference hosted by the National Geographic Society.
“This is it—this is the site of the house where George Washington grew up,” said David Muraca, director of archaeology for the foundation, which owns the 113-acre property.
The farm is the scene of some of the best-known stories about Washington, including his chopping down a cherry tree (“I cannot tell a lie, Pa”) and throwing a stone across the Rappahannock River.
“If George Washington did indeed chop down a cherry tree, as generations of Americans have believed, this is where it happened,” said archaeologist Philip Levy, whose research is partly funded by National Geographic. “There is little actual documentary evidence of Washington’s formative years. What we see at this site is the best available window into the setting that nurtured the father of our country.”
Muraca and his colleagues said that evidence excavated over seven summers proves they’ve found the foundation and cellars of the clapboard-sided house that sheltered George, his parents and siblings.
Far from being the rustic cottage of Washington lore, the house was a much larger one-and-a-half-story affair, perched on a bluff overlooking the Rappahannock, Muraca and Levy, an associate professor of history at the University of South Florida, determined.
The evidence also shows that a fire which struck the home on Christmas Eve 1740 was small and localized, near a hearth, and not the major catastrophe which some had depicted.
The archaeologists have discovered thousands of Washington-era artifacts, including pieces of the house’s ceilings, painted walls and family hearth; fragments of 18th-century pottery and other ceramics; glass shards, wig curlers and toothbrush handles made of bone.
“The land was plowed in the 19th century, so some of the objects we’ve found are in small pieces,” Muraca said. “We do have larger objects—parts of a tea set that probably belonged to George’s mother, Mary Ball Washington, wine bottles, knives, forks and 10 pieces of a group of small figurines that might have stood on a mantle.”
The archaeologists are intrigued by the broken-off bowl of a tobacco pipe, blackened inside from heavy use, and typical of the mid-18th century when George lived in the house. Found in one of the house’s cellars, the pipe bowl bears a Masonic seal.
Washington, then a young man, joined the Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge in 1753.
While, the National Historic Landmark was long known to have been the residence of the Washington family, several attempts by others failed to locate the house among the remains of five farms that occupied the tract. Beginning in 2001, the foundation archaeologists excavated two other areas on the site, uncovering remains of one house that predated the Washingtons’ and one from the 19th century.
As to the Washington house, most of its wood and other structural elements are gone, many “recycled” by builders of later houses or destroyed by Union troops who entrenched and camped there during the Civil War.
The part of the house foundation nearest the river, which the home faced, has eroded away.
But as they painstakingly peeled away layers of soil, the archaeologists came upon what was left of two chimney bases, two stone-lined cellars and two root cellars.
They also located the family’s kitchen outbuilding and slave quarters, and continue searching for their dairy, smokehouse and, perhaps, warehouses.
“But it’s more than buildings,” Muraca said. “It is places where people worked, socialized and even played, and it is orchards and gardens. We hope to recover all of that.”
FERRY FARM HISTORY
Augustine Washington moved his family to the farm in 1738 from their plantation on Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, where George was born. Augustine’s death in death in 1743 dealt a major, lasting blow to the family.
The indomitable Mary Washington chose not to remarry, which left the family in precarious financial straights. No longer able to afford school for George, Mary found him a part-time tutor and managed the farm herself.
Here, George swam in the river, took the ferry to and from town, practiced his math and penmanship, and became an accomplished horseman, and began seeking a military career.
“He decided to learn surveying, worked at making social contacts and contemplated joining the British Navy, until his mother vetoed the idea,” Muraca said. “If she had let him go, the future of our country would have been very different.”
The riverfront house was the centerpiece of the Washington landscape from the 1740s to 1772, when Mary Washington moved to Fredericksburg.
George spent less time at Ferry Farm as he grew older, often taking trips north to visit his half-brother Lawrence at his plantation on Little Hunting Creek, later known as Mount Vernon. Around 1753, he finally moved to that estate, now near Alexandria, though he continued to own Ferry Farm, which he had inherited from his father.
Research at Ferry Farm is being funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia, The Dominion Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Mary Morton Parsons Foundation and many individuals.
Now that the dwelling site has been found, The George Washington Foundation plans to recreate the 1740s structures, including the Washington house, for educational purposes.
A National Geographic Channel film, “The Real George Washington,” which follows the discoveries at Ferry Farm, will premiére this November.
ferryfarm.org
nationalgeographic.com
natgeotv.com
dom.com/about/community/foundation
mountvernon.org
nps.gov/gewa
Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029 cschemmer@freelancestar.com