Cincinnatiware Plate (replica) with excavated Cincinnatiware sherds
Society of the Cincinnati China
c lLte 18th century

Three Cincinnatiware sherds found during the 2003 archeological excavation of the two surviving slave quarters at Arlington House. They are featured next to a replica Cincinnatiware plate. The sherds are from a set given to George and Martha Washington during his presidency by several French military officers. They were part of George Washington Parke Custis’s "Washington Treasury."

The Society of the Cincinnati was organized on May 13, 1783, near Newburgh, NY, by Continental officers who fought in the American Revolution. It is an organization of descendents of eligible commissioned officers of the Continental Army or Navy and commissioned officers of the French Army or Navy who served in the Revolutionary War. The Society is the first veteran’s organization established in the United States. George Washington served as the organization's President General from 1783 until his death in 1799. The insignia is the eagle and was designed by Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant in 1784.

Replica plate, courtesy Tudor Place, Washington, DC Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial

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