Washington's Boyhood Home

[Sir.Mike]

Suffice it to say that the idea of historic preservation hadn't quite
caught on by the mid-19th century. As Union soldiers decamped on the
banks of the Rappahannock River before their offensive on
Fredericksburg, Virginia, in December 1862, they knew they were on
farmland that had once belonged to George Washington's family.

Some of them sent cherry pits home in the mail, in reference to the
legendary, if apocryphal, felled tree, while others lamented that the
Civil War raged even at the homestead of the nation's father.

Though the soldiers apparently appreciated the significance of where
they were, they methodically tore down the house they believed was
Washington's "for fuel and to assist in making comfortable the
headquarters of the nearest regiments," as William Draper of the
Massachusetts Infantry later recalled.

How times have changed. For the past seven years at Ferry Farm (so
named for the ferry that once ran to Fredericksburg), archaeologists
David Muraca and Philip Levy have been leading an effort to pinpoint
the location of Washington's boyhood home. They hope the understanding
they might gain from excavating the house in which our first president
came of age will not only shed light on a dimly understood time in his
life but will also inform the structure's eventual restoration.
Finally, this past July, after fruitless digs in two other locations
at the site, Muraca and Levy announced they had indeed found the
foundation of the farmhouse, perched atop a bluff that sweeps down to
the Rappahannock. (The house the Union soldiers tore down was actually
built by another owner around 1850.)

"Historians sort of pick George up at age 20," says Levy, of the
University of South Florida. He is standing at the dig site, where a
small army of interns and volunteers wearing "I Dig George" T-shirts
are sifting soil. "Basically, the first ten pages of any Washington
biography describe his childhood—and the remaining 400 pages are
devoted to his time as surveyor, soldier and finally president." You
can't blame the biographers for this oversight; very few documents
from Washington's youth survive. "This site is the best chance to look
at a detailed text," says Levy. "This is the best text we're going to
get."

As if finding that text weren't difficult enough, deciphering it could
prove even tougher. In their years of digging, the archaeologists have
uncovered the scars and traces of more than three centuries of human
activity, a sort of palimpsest written in dirt and debris. "This is
the hardest site I've ever worked on," says Muraca, director of
archaeology for the George Washington Foundation. Five different
farmsteads have occupied the Washington property since the 1700s—
Washington's home was the second; the house torn down by Union
soldiers was the third. A trench dug by those soldiers cuts right
through the correct house's foundation at one angle, while a 20th-
century drainage trench comes at it from another. What's more, each
farmhouse had a number of associated outbuildings—quarters for slaves,
dairy, smokehouse and kitchen. Thus, despite the quaint country road
lined with Virginia fences and the river below, this is essentially
"as complex as an urban site," says Levy.

Washington's biographers—or at least, those who have bothered to sift
truth from legend—have been able to paint his boyhood only in broad
brush strokes. We know his father, Augustine, moved the family to the
site in 1738, when George was 6, probably to be closer to the iron
furnace he managed. We know George's baby sister Mildred died in 1740,
and two letters from family acquaintances allude to a fire on
Christmas Eve that same year. And we know Washington's father died in
1743, jeopardizing the family's finances and rendering a proper
English education out of reach for George, whose mother never
remarried. The future president's budding career as a surveyor and
soldier kept him increasingly away from Ferry Farm until 1754, when he
took over as the administrator of his late brother's estate, Mount
Vernon, at age 22. Beyond that, much has been guesswork.

The data being sifted from the new dig—half a million artifacts
(including nails, pottery and even broken eggshells)—are adding to
this knowledge. For instance, historians had been uncertain as to the
extent of that Christmas Eve house fire. Muraca, Levy and their team
found blistered ceramics and burnt plaster in one part of the house,
but not elsewhere—indicating that while the fire must have been
disruptive, it did not require massive rebuilding. But many of the
artifacts raise more questions than answers: for instance, the
archaeologists found a ceramic shard and oyster shell hidden in a
crevice in the cellar's stone wall. A child's prank? A superstitious
totem? Muraca shrugs. Other artifacts are simply exciting to behold,
even if they are less mysterious. The excavators found the smoke-
stained bowl of a small clay pipe, decorated with a Masonic crest.
Since Washington joined the Freemasons in 1753, it is no great leap to
imagine the young man stuffing tobacco into that very pipe.

The project at Ferry Farm is but one of several Washington-related
sites excavated in recent years. In Valley Forge, Pennsylvania,
ongoing excavation has revealed that the Continental Army under
Washington's command was more active—preparing for the next clash with
the British—than had been previously supposed. Continuous excavation
at Mount Vernon shows Washington's entrepreneurial side. After leaving
the White House, he entered the whiskey business in 1797, soon
distilling up to 11,000 gallons a year. And an excavation last year of
the first presidential house in Philadelphia revealed a passageway
used by Washington's slaves. "George Washington is hot right now,
archaeologically," says Levy.

Back at Ferry Farm, Muraca and Levy are extending the excavation to
search for more outbuildings, and they anticipate collecting another
half-million artifacts in the next few years. "If we do our job right,
the Washington biographies will change," says Muraca.

Washington biographer Richard Brookhiser, who has written three books
on the man, welcomes the information gleaned from recent digs, though
he says considerable interpretive work remains to be done. "Facts
still require us to think about them," he says. Brookhiser puzzles
over the elaborate Wedgwood tea service the Washingtons purchased
after the Christmas fire and two deaths dealt harsh blows to the
family. "What did the Wedgwood mean?" Brookhiser muses. "A surprising
level of prosperity? Or a grim effort to hang onto the signs of
gentility at all costs?"

Ron Chernow, a biographer of Alexander Hamilton now at work on a
biography of Washington, says that at the very least the discovery
should help humanize the founding father by giving us "valuable
shading and detail" and lifting "the story out of the realm of myth."