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Upon This Land: History, Mystery, & Monuments

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For many visitors, George Washington Birthplace National Monument is a surprisingly complex historic site. It is a place where people come to remember George Washington, but also find a story of how the past can be lost, reshaped, or rediscovered. Historical documents and archeological resources that contain critical information about the lives of all who inhabited this land are only beginning to be understood. Join us as we explore the history, mysteries, and monuments of the park.

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Season 2

Season 2 Trailer

Introduction

Transcript

Welcome to the second season of our podcast, where we bring the history, mysteries, and monuments of George Washington Birthplace National Monument to the world. At first glance, one might assume we have a straightforward story to tell: George Washington, one of the most recognizable figures in the world, was born here. What more needs to be said? However, many visitors find that George Washington Birthplace National Monument is a surprisingly complex historic site. Many of the people, including members of the Washington family, who lived at Pope's Creek are underrepresented in the documentary record. This means that the site's resources have the potential to significantly enhance our understanding of the world Washington came from and the people who inhabited it. In the rural landscape of Virginia's Northern Neck, the National Park Service preserves not only archaeological resources that contain critical information about the origins of the Washington story but monuments that stand as a testament to how we, the people, have remembered—and will continue to remember—the global significance of the Washington legacy. In the first season of the podcast, we explored the power of place; however, when only remnants of the buildings and material culture from the Colonial Era remain here, the power of this place truly comes from the people who keep its relevance alive by examining the historical documents and archaeological resources that hold essential information about the lives of all who inhabited this land. As the nation prepares to commemorate the semiquincentennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, the stories we share at sites like ours are essential for providing an authentic reflection of our nation’s 250-year history. This year in our podcast series, we will bring you stories of the people—past and present—who have lived and worked on this land. From those who struggled to define their place in the greater Atlantic World to individuals who have endeavored to memorialize this land as the birthplace of George Washington, we will highlight voices from our local communities and from the scholars and researchers who share a common interest in unlocking the mysteries of the park. This season, we explore “We The People” in relation to this land, its history, its mysteries, and its monuments.

Welcome to our second season of Upon This Land: History, Mystery, and Monuments! Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family.

Episode 1

The Clothes We Wore - Part 1

Transcript

Dustin Baker George Washington. It's one of the most recognizable names in the world. His story is a foundational stone in American history. Yet at the place he was born. Only remnants remain of the buildings and the stories of people who once lived here. One might think that the birthplace of a national icon is an easy story to tell, but it's actually one of the most complex and surprising historic sites preserved by the National Park Service. So join us as we piece together the past, present, and future of this place. Brick by brick. On this podcast series Upon This Land: History, Mystery and Monuments. Thank you for joining us on this episode. This year, we're celebrating George Washington's 293rd birthday, and we're focusing on the theme We the People, and something that's really unique to all people, no matter where you live or what time you lived. Our clothing items, we all wear them. It's something truly unique to human beings, and we have someone on the show today that knows a lot about this subject.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Hi, my name is Sarah Rivers Cofield and I am the curator of Federal Collections at the Maryland Archeological Conservation Laboratory at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, which I know is a really long name, so we just call it the Mack Lab for short. And we are the primary archeological repository for collections excavated, as required by law in Maryland when various laws kick in. And one of my specialties is the study of clothing related artifacts. And I also have a historic costume collection at home. So this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. However, as an archeologist, I'm not. I'm not actually a costume historian because that would require having a lot of textiles to work with, which I don't, although I do know them, and I've read a lot of their books, so, so yeah, I'm here to talk about what I know about clothing for you guys.

Dustin Baker Well, thank you so much for being here with us. And we always want to connect our visitors and our listeners to the, stories and the people who are part of the Washington origin story. And the Washington family lived here for seven generations, from roughly 1660 to 1780. And I just want to start off by asking, how did clothing or fashion evolve during that time?

Sarah Rivers Cofield Well, first of all, I'm really glad, that those are the bracket dates 1660 and 1780, because the 1660s and 70s was a really transitional time in costume, and so was the end of the 18th century. Whereas in between those time periods, for about 100 years, things were relatively stable. So I don't have to give you this whole evolution of clothing, you know, especially it's such a visual thing. So to do it in a conversation is a little challenging. But basically around 1660, is sort of this transitional time in England as, as most listeners probably have heard of, there had been something going on in England. The English Civil War, the first half of the 17th century was very tumultuous over there. There was a lot of fighting between, the Roundheads and the Cavaliers are sort of these personalities that people picture, and they had particular clothing styles that went with them, and there was a lot of, sort of political and moral fighting about conspicuous consumption and wearing fancy clothes versus being more modest and not showing off your wealth all the time in your clothing. And so in the 1660s is the restoration of Charles the Second and the monarchy. And they're coming in trying to sort of, they're trying to bridge that gap. They're trying to show, yes, I am aristocracy, I am wealthy, but I also can be modest. So that people don't have to overthrow my government again, and be insulted by it. And so Charles the second is really trying to set an example. And one of the things he does in this time period, in that decade is introduce the vest, which seems like not the first thing you would think of for this time period. But it really started a trend of the three piece suit for men that persists to this day. And at that time period, it was, your breeches, which sort of ended at the knee, waistcoat or what now we call a vest and, coat over that. So that's sort of the three piece suit and that has persisted. Women, at the time were wearing in the 1660s, usually sort of a bodice and a skirt or petticoat. And then they sort of transitioned to something called a mantua or gown, which is it went on like a robe. It opens in the front, and is sort of fitted to the body with a draping technique. And that is the style that really persists from the end of the 17th century, almost all the way through to the end of the 18th century for women. So men are wearing this three piece suit cross weeks and breaches, and women are wearing, a man to a gown. And under that, men, their undergarments are, men were wearing stockings. That's what covered up from their feet up to their knees, because they're wearing those knee breaches. Women wore stockings as well. And then the other men's undergarments, were a shirt. Just a shirt. They might have had drawers for certain occasions, different times. But for the most part, men were really long shirts that went down past the waist. And then they sort of tuck it in that bulky area around the waist and all of the, you know, all the private areas. And so that is the undergarment, and similarly for women, they were a shift which, later became known as a chemise, which is that's what would touch the skin. And it's very much like the man's shirt, but not quite as bulky, not quite as long sleeves, depending on the gown that they're wearing. And that's what they wore underneath everything. And then both of them would have garters to hold their stockings up. They would, you know, both men and women wear shoes. Obviously. And then they had various accessories depending on the garment. So. So you have women, stockings and shift covered by a gown and petticoat. And then another thing to mention, I think for women throughout this whole time period, a petticoat wasn't it was a, it was like what we think of as a skirt today. It was meant to be seen, and they're often very decorative. It wasn't considered an undergarment like it ended up later in the 19th century. And then you have men wearing stockings, shirt, waistcoat, reaches coat, and then, of course, headwear. All the accessories, all of those things. And, and that is really sort of the foundation of the wardrobe throughout this whole time period. There's, there's changes in the cut, the number of buttons, the popular trims and things like that. But but those are the basic things that sort of persist throughout that time.

Dustin Baker So this is kind of the classic what you picture in your mind when you think of people in the Revolutionary War era.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yes. Oh, the, the war era, you're getting very close to this end of the 18th century transition when things change very dramatically. But but yeah, it's sort of, you know, when you picture George Washington, he's got the branches on, he's got the waistcoat, he's got the coat, you know, he's got the the hat, you know, the wigs. They didn't mention wigs, but wigs were obviously a thing during this time period. And really throughout that whole entire time period, though, the styles change. So yeah.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And you mentioned earlier about how clothing, both then and now is really wrapped up in our identities and, how did clothing differ depending on not just where you were, but also who you were in society?

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yeah. So it was very much, you know, there were a lot of people in this time period, especially in the 17th century. And I feel like I should put a plug in here. There's a really great book. If people want to read more about this. It's called the Three Piece Suit and Modern Masculinity. That's fantastic. I highly recommend it. I cannot remember the author, so I apologize for that. But, you know, there are people in the 17th century, through the 18th century that really believe strongly that it's a good thing to be able to look at a person and be able to tell what their role is in society that like, you know, nowadays we say, don't judge a book by its cover. But but there was really a lot of people saying, no, really. We need to be able to tell. We need to be able to judge you by what you're wearing. And to the point that they were laws passed, sumptuary laws and things like that, saying, you know, no, if you're not an aristocrat, you can't wear silk. If you are not knighted, you're not allowed to have gold spurs. You know, those are the kinds of things that people really cared about. So people wanted to be able to know by looking at you, what is your role? And so to an extent, some of that is related to your occupation. So you could usually be able to tell a sailor by what they're wearing because maybe they have slops instead of breaches, you know, something like that. But for most people, those foundation garments that I described as a three piece suit, the stockings, the gown, the petticoat, and I forgot to mention two stays, which are the women's, foundation garment that goes over the shift and under their gown to give them their shape. You know, everybody is wearing those same elements. What differs is depending on how wealthy you are, the quality of the fabric, whether or not it was made specifically for you. All of this clothing is handmade, so those who could afford it would get bespoke clothing made for them, but other people might buy it secondhand because clothing was very expensive and then alter it, to try to fit. So but the quality of the fabric, the, the fit, and how well it's kept up, you know, how many times has it been repaired? How many years out of style is it those are the kinds of things that would indicate to you how well off a person was. But one thing I think it's really important to think about this time period is that, yes, you can look at somebody and tell what their role is in society, but you can't always tell by how richly they're dressed, what their role is. So, I think the best example I can think of is, one of the trends throughout this time period, 17th century and 18th century, is to literally wear trims made of metal. So metallic thread like a silk thread, sort of wrapped in silver or metallic embroidery of various kinds, was very popular for the people who could afford it to decorate their outfits with lots of kind of embroidery or trim. And it would really sparkle in the candlelight. And it was very high maintenance. It was something that you had to have servants really, to help you take care of. So it was very much conspicuous consumption. You're literally wearing silver on your clothes. And so there's this tendency to think, oh, well, people who had that must have been the wealthy people. But one of the more popular applications for these metallic trims was livery for servants. So if you find that, say, in a slave quarter and the US, it's not actually necessarily that unusual, it might just be that that person is wearing a livery garment. So, that person's role is to wait on and to make their owner the person who literally has title to their body, look good, and reflect on them. And so you can't always necessarily say, oh, well, this is an expensive thing. Therefore it was worn by a wealthy person. Because that's not always necessarily the case. So yeah, you really could drill deep and look at somebody and say, I pretty much know who you are. And there's a really great quote by a traveler from the 1740s complaining that he was wearing his sort of old wool cap in a tavern, and he looked like, you know, a Carter. Like he was just, you know, driving the herd and not a very wealthy guy. And they gave him the scraps, when it was meal time. And he complained, and he was like, you know, well, I have I have really nice silver buckles at home and I have a linen hat. And so he switched out his will have for a linen hat, and he was like the other one was fine for Marilyns. But now that I'm in Pennsylvania, I have to wear this one. And, you know, it was very telling about how important each and every attribute of somebodys outfit might signal to somebody like, this is, this is who I am. Another myth, people have the impression, people in the past that if you're not wealthy, maybe you're not wearing all the garments all the time. You know, maybe you're like in a shirt and pants or something, or you didn't wear stays, for example, which was sort of like the the earlier equivalent of a corset. You know, and that really, I think is not as much of a thing as people think. So every time you watch a historic show on television nowadays, they sort of set apart the main characters or the wealthy characters from the other characters, and by having the other characters be almost in rags, or these like really dumpy clothes that don't fit right and they're always really dirty and it's just so overemphasized. And you know, what I think that people should be picturing is that people are essentially wearing the same thing. It's just that it's it's not as good a quality, but it's not necessarily in rags either. You know, people didn't know how to mend things. And, you know, if you think about stars as sort of the equivalent of a modern bra, you would never be like, oh, well, people who can't afford, you know, people who don't have any money, they don't wear bras. You know, you wouldn't say that, right? That doesn't really apply. Like you would still wear stays. They're probably just hand-me-downs days or they're falling apart stays or, you know, whatever. But you still would have that same basic sense of decency and what a real wardrobe is. So it's sort of a myth that I think TV perpetuates this. Everybody's in rags or they're not fully dressed. Oh, that wasn't really so much a thing,

Dustin Baker Yeah. I mean, that's I mean, still true today. Like, you can wear name brand or get a knockoff version. It's looks kind of the same, but.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Right. But you would never be like, oh, well, you can tell that that person's poor because they don't have a shirt, you know, like like they would. It's just usually like hand-me-downs and stuff. You know, there are certain levels of decency, I think, and, and now this isn't clothing related at all, but one of from your time period, especially one of the big myths is, well, I think if some I have a little bit of a pet peeve about it, but everybody talks about how, you know, if you're poor in that time period, you drink like ale and beer and you have to be wealthy to have wine or liquor. But like, just because something is priced higher doesn't necessarily mean that everybody adhered to exactly their means. Especially in a, in an economy so based on credit, so that it does apply to clothes to people might dress beyond their means and end up in debt. That was certainly a thing. In terms of fashion, you know, I all, for all of this knowledge I have of clothing, you know, if you dropped me in New York City and told me to, like, pick out who's wearing Manolo Blahnik or who was wearing Prada or whatever, I would have absolutely no idea whatsoever. Like, I know that those things exist, and I know that those kinds of distinctions are very noticeable amongst certain classes. Still to this day, just like they would have been in the 18th century. But, you know, I, I can recognize it better from 300 years ago than I could in our modern society, even though a lot of the rules still apply.

Jonathan Malriat So quick clarification questions. Just, because you mentioned a couple clothing terms that I know I am not as well versed in historic clothing, so I'm more interested even just learning a bit about them. So you mentioned sailor slops I think was the term.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yes.

Jonathan Malriat What are those? Those were in lieu of breaches?

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yeah. So they're basically pants. But instead of being super tight at the knee, they sort of open up like a, almost like a skirt. So it's almost like a divided skirt is what it looks like.

Jonathan Malriat What was the use for that? Why would they do that versus breaches?

Sarah Rivers Cofield I don't know for sure. Some of these things are just trends and there are a lot of details. You know, I mentioned I'm an archeologist coming into this as a hobbyist. I am not a costume historian, what archeologists know is how they were fastened. So, you know, the hardware that we find, and so in many ways, the cut of the garment, I don't have to know all of those details.

Jonathan Malriat So even on those idea of fasteners, what were some different types of fasteners that you would find as like an archeologist? What would you find that differentiates between the different types of clothing?

Sarah Rivers Cofield So, so as archeologists, what we find the vast majority of clothing is gone in the archeological record, unless you have a really good preservation environment that preserves fabric, which is very rare in our region. Most of what we find is the hardware. So, that means fasteners like buttons and buckles or accessories. So, like fan parts, jewelry, maybe watch parts, things like that. And a lot of people, you know, really want to be able to interpret clothing from these very few artifacts because, you know, it's very important to to think about what people were wearing because it was so central to their identity in this time period. And it's very hard when all you have are these little pieces, parts of what went there. So what we're given to work with for the most part, like I would say, what we have most of as buttons and throughout the late 17th and most of the 18th century, most buttons represent men because the waistcoat and the coat and the breeches all fastened with buttons, as a rule, but women's outfits, their gown that closed in the front, and maybe wood fastened over what's called a stomach or a triangular piece that would sort of go in between the front and maybe decorative of the woman's bodice. Oftentimes those garments might pin on with straight pins as opposed to like a button or a buckle or something. So most buttons tended to be for men. Women did wear them for riding attire if they if they had a writing habit and they sometimes had buttons as like just decorative accessories on their outfits. But the majority that we find as archeologists are from the menswear, and you can sort of tell by the size and time period which garment it's from. So earlier on, maybe like 1730s and before buttons tend to be pretty small. There is a lot of them on a suit, I think, one of James's suits. James the second, the one who was sort of pushed out in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. One of his surviving suits has over 200 buttons on it. Just those three pieces of clothing, a suit, waistcoat in breeches, so sort of very tightly spaced buttons that are fairly small and somewhat bulbous in shape. And then as the 18th century goes on, the buttons sort of flatten out and they get a little bit bigger over time until by the 1780s, the buttons, especially for coats, could be huge, like over an inch in diameter. And they're much further spaced out. So we can sort of look at trends and buttons. But one of the things a lot of people think about with this time period in archeological collections as well, if I have a silver button that is a higher class than a brass button, which is higher class than a pewter button, and all of that is true. But throughout this time period, some of the most expensive buttons would have been covered in a matching fabric. Because textiles were very expensive and because fabric covered buttons wore out the fastest, it was almost more conspicuous consumption to be using buttons every day that were more likely to wear out faster and couldn't be reused. And so a lot of fabric covered buttons we don't find archeologically except for possibly if the, if the mold that it was built over was made of bone, we might find that, but a lot of them are made of wood, and so we don't find them. And so fabric covered and and embroider, embroidery covered buttons may have been some of the most expensive ones, and yet we don't find them. So we always have to think in terms of okay, yes, we found this and we can say this much about it, but we have to take into account how much we, we don't know, might my things that might have been there but didn't survive. And if you don't take that into account, you can go down the road of doing really incorrect interpretations. Some other hardware that we study a lot are buckles, because the 18th century was huge on buckles. So men wore buckles at the knee, to close the breaches nice and tight at the bottom of the knee. And, both men and women wore shoe buckles, to fasten their shoes. Women also, there was a big trend for, matching bracelets that sometimes fastened with buckles and, neckwear for men, often had a buckle at the back called a stock buckle. And I've seen references from this time period to shirt buckles, sleeve buckles, there's garter buckles for boot garters to hold your boots up. So we find a lot of those, and some of them, we can figure out what they are. Not all of them. I would say. Can we necessarily figure out what they are? Because we really need a lot of artwork and surviving examples to sort of tease that out. So, yeah. So buttons and buckles are big. Agates are another thing we find relating to costume, although that tends to be a little bit more popular in the 17th century. Agates being the little metal tubes at the end of laces to keep them from fraying. We find the tubes, but not the laces. So a lot of people, you know, did wear lace to garments of various kinds. And then, like I mentioned, we have jewelry. We, parasols and umbrellas, fans, all of the accessories, those tend to be the easiest to really identify when we find them.

Dustin Baker You know, when I think of even just the last century, of the kinds of clothing people wore and, how they wore it, its fashion and clothing just seemed like such an ephemeral topic. What makes it worth all the effort people put into studying and understanding what people used to wear?

Sarah Rivers Cofield Well, I think because it really does reflect their role in society. And sometimes we can even get at what people were feeling and thinking, you know, just like now, you know, we might express our identity and our opinions through a t shirt or a hat or whatever that says. And it might just be really explicit, like in words. And in this time period, the same thing was true. So, you know, think about, for example, during the American Revolution, I'm sure most people have heard about this desire to wear homespun. You know, we want to we want to end our dependance on on imports, and we're severing our ties to England. And so we're going to wear homespun garments that were made here. You could see that. You could see it by looking at what people are wearing. And so if you're out and about, somebody could look at you and tell whether you were a revolutionary or a Tory, you know, and think about like we talk about during the American Revolution, it's not just the British, it's the Redcoats. Like they they're literally identified by the coats that they're wearing. I realize that they're red. And so it's like Captain Obvious, but it's not, you know, it's not a coincidence. And that's how we think of them. Like it is their identity. It is like, this is who I am. It's so if we're trying to understand people there, this is one of the best ways to do that. As long as we have the evidence. I mean, obviously, if they wrote a diary, we should take their diaries word for it to get at their thoughts and feelings and whatnot. But honestly, the clothing is kind of the next best thing. In terms of how they represent themselves. And a really good example, archeologically is, one of my big projects at work is helping with our we have a diagnostic artifacts website and diagnostic artifacts in Maryland. And it's it's fairly outdated right now. We're working on an update. And one of the things that I have worked on adding is linked buttons. So a lot of people nowadays, when you think of a linked button, you see what I'm talking about is cuff links. Right. So they're two buttonholes being fastened with a linked button of some kind. Well, in the 18th century, everybody wore cufflinks, men and women and children. And that's because those garments that I mentioned earlier, the shirts and the shifts that touch the skin, would be laundered most often. And so for the sake of prolonging their life, it made a lot of sense to have all of the fasteners on them be removable for laundering purposes. So everybody wore cufflinks at the at the cuff. Not all shifts had cufflinks, buttons, but some did. And men also might have linked buttonholes at the neck that you often don't see in paintings because of the various neckwear and stocks that they're wearing. But anyway, so everybody's wearing these and we find them archeologically a lot because everybody was wearing them. And it includes the enslaved population. We find them in slave quarters, oftentimes we only find them in slave quarters. So I've been doing a lot of research on these, and it turns out that those who could afford to buy more precious metals did, because these are the smallest accessories. And at the time, the material set the price. Not so much the labor to make it. Because human labor at the time was just extremely cheap. So if you had a more elaborately made button like, say, it has a glass molded inset and that's assembled with foil to make it look beautiful, and then it's in a metal setting that's not more expensive than a gold sleeve button. That's plain looking. It's all about the material. So we find all of these buttons of all these different materials. And they often have these glass inserts that have inscriptions on them or molded lettering on them, and they literally might have political statements on them. So one of the ones we have says liberty on it, and it's very it's from Annapolis. It's very much like this is the Revolutionary War. And it's tiny. It's like it's a little oval that is long. This side is only a half an inch, so they're taking a lot of effort into putting little messages on these barely visible buttons that their, their sleeve ruffles would, most of the time obscure. You wouldn't even necessarily see it. The most obscure one we have is labeled Fips, and the label which there are these two guys, Phipps and a label who ran for Parliament in 1774, in the Newcastle region of the UK. And they lost. They lost like horribly. But they were supporters of the movement to sort of lay off the Americans a little bit and like, let's restore the economy and not like get this conflict going. They wanted to hold government accountable. Anyway, the their opponent had more than twice the votes of them. But it's really interesting that in Baltimore, Maryland, we have a little sleeve button that has those two guys names on it. You know, like what? How did that political button end up over here? You know, who over here is voting for Parliament and, so I really do think that the clothing is a way to get at individual belief systems, and not necessarily just how wealthy you are, although that is true. Or what is your role in society like, whether you're a sailor or you're an enslaved person? That is also true, but also, you know, what do they think about things? And I think that that is really exciting. As an archeologist.

Dustin Baker So why should people care about historic clothing?

Sarah Rivers Cofield it is a really fun topic. And it's especially fun to make sure that you sort of can envision everything, especially, you know, when you're an archeologist trying to picture how, you know what I mostly known as, just like the little metal things person. You know, I study all these little metal things, whether it's horse related or clothing related or you hardware, you know, any of that stuff. And if I didn't have in my head these sort of images floating around of what people were wearing and how they got dressed, thanks to all the costume historians out there, I wouldn't be able to answer any of those questions. And so, I'm always really appreciative, appreciative of the work that other people are doing, whether it's at Williamsburg, making the clothing, and the milliner's shop or, the mantle makers that are working there, or the people who are writing the books and, and sharing their museum collections online. You know, it really is an amazing field. Now that so many people are making their collections and images available online, it's getting much more accessible. And I think it's something that everybody can relate to.

Jonathan Malriat So changing topics a little bit. Going back to earlier, you mentioned that one of your projects is working on a diagnostic artifacts website, Can you tell us what the role of the Maryland Archeological Conservation Laboratory or the MAC lab is?

Sarah Rivers Cofield so the Mac lab is a repository for artifacts. And so most of the time when archeology is done in our country, it's either done like in a museum setting or a historic site setting, like at George Washington's birthplace. And then those collections stay with that institution, or it's required by law for some reason or other, whether state dollars or tax dollars, from the federal government are going into a project. So say, highway is being built or a school or something along those lines, or you have to do an erosion project. And it's the Army Corps has to be involved. These laws kick in basically saying, okay, the government is doing this undertaking. You don't have the right to destroy our nation's heritage without doing something about it. So that's essentially what the laws are trying to do is mitigate that issue. So most of the questions we have at the MAC lab are coming from these very individual projects. So a highway went in, a school was built whatever and when. That can't be avoided. When that historic site, when you can't reroute the road around it and you can't avoid digging it up, you have to do what's called a data recovery. So a lot of our collections are from these data recoveries, and they're really significant, really amazing collections that that have had a lot of excavations. And they tend to have larger collections and so a company, there are private companies out there who are hired to do these projects, and they see that project from start to finish. So they do the research goals, they go out, they do the field work, they do the paperwork, they tie it all together into a report, and then they submit it. It gets reviewed, it gets approved, they get paid. If they hand the collection over to a repository for long term care, because part of the point of a data recovery and archeology in general is that, you know, when you do archeology, it's destroys the site. You can never go back and excavate that site again because we need all of the layers, of soil to tell time. The deeper you dig, the older you get. And we need to know where all those artifacts came from in terms of, you know, their horizontal location. Like if you were to find a series of buttons that were all clustered together, that means something very different than a series of buttons that are scattered all over a landscape. We want the association of artifacts with each other, so we control for the layers, both depth and also horizontal location. And that helps us read the soil and really tell what's going on. So anyway, so the point of what I'm saying is that, you know, archeologists go out, they do all these important studies, but it is never part of their, well not never, but it's rarely part of their mandate when they're doing those projects to relate that to everything else that's already been studied. They do have to do sort of a mention of how it fits in with the area and what other sites might exist, but one of the advantages that we have at the MAC lab and that I have is one of the curators there is that, you know, whereas each of those sites might find 2 or 3 buckles and not be able to say much about it. I have the benefit of having 10 million artifacts to choose from, from thousands of different sites across the state. So I can pull all the all the NI buckles together into one, draw all the sleeve links together into one draw and by doing that, it allows you to do a much bigger analysis and study either by time period or region, or any other little sort of mini studies. So, as an example, again, with the sleeve lengths, we have sleeve lengths from a tannery in Frederick County where we know that laborers were working there to make leather, which is extremely labor intensive and smelly, disgusting work. We have sleeve lengths from an iron furnace where we know that a lot of enslaved people were employed. We have sleeve lengths from lots of different slave quarters at different tobacco plantations. And we have sleeve lengths from urban contexts, Annapolis and Baltimore. And so we can sort of look at those how they change from site to site in a way that the people who initially did the research and they were just focused on one site, they can't necessarily do. And so one of their mandates is to make sure that people know that this is a resource that they can access. We're we're sort of like a special collections library. Like, you can't just come in and check out the artifacts and take them home with you, but you can come in by appointment and tell us what you want to look at, and we will pull it for you. And, and that is really one of the things that we want more people to take advantage of. There's not much point in having all this stuff if you don't do something with it. So we've created a lot of finding Aids online that tell people about the sites and the collections that we have at the Mac lab, and we've also created this diagram Stick artifacts website, which especially archeologists love to use because you can go to it with your ceramic or your, small find or whatever artifacts you have. Maybe it's related and, and look for a section on that website that might help you tell what it is. And so by diagnostic, what we mean is that it's datable or identifiable or we can we know we can help you do some interpretation of it. And most of the time the diagnostic artifacts are ceramics because people have been using ceramics ever since the colonists first came here. And ceramics tend to be fragile. So they break and they tend to be used every day. So again, breakable things that are used every day are more likely to, to break and get thrown out. And they changed, pretty quickly in terms of their fashion ability. So new styles are introduced on a fairly rapid basis. So there's a lot of literature on ceramics. There is less literature on clothing related artifacts and how those change over time. And a lot of that is because we don't find as much of them, you know, when a dish breaks, you might find 20 pieces of that dish like, and that accumulates over the years. But people don't deliberately throw away their buckles and buttons and things. It's, they try to hold on to those if they can. So by pulling all of the different sites together and doing studies on that, what I'm trying to do by adding those to our diagnostic website is saying, okay, here's all the links in Maryland and all the time periods of those sites to help build up enough data to make those more diagnostic, to look for trends. So, for example, very small copper alloy linked buttons with a figure eight shaped link and a faceted piece insert that looks like a jewel. Those are super common before 1750, and they're not really common after 1750. And we didn't know that before. So that's part of what we're trying to do with our collections. And our website is, you know, get the word out, get people to come use them, and then also make the diagnostic artifacts website, a tool that people can use based on our collections to help them understand their collections better and and better interpret all these sites everywhere that are being excavated across the country.

Jonathan Malriat Thank you for joining us on our first episode of the second season of Upon This Land history, Mysteries and monuments. Our presenter today was Sarah Rivers Cofield, and big thank you to Sarah for taking the time out of her busy schedule to join us for this episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, it does continue into a second part. In that second part, Sarah will talk about the projects that she has done for the Maryland Archeological Conservation Laboratory, as well as some of her own personal connections to historic clothing, including a well-known story of a dress that she has uncovered. Until next time for our next episode of Upon This Land.

What were people wearing in the world that George Washington came from, and what can their clothing tell us about their lives? We are joined by Sara Rivers Cofield to discuss the relationship between culture and clothing. As the curator of Federal Collections at the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, Sara helps us stitch together the world of 18th century clothing and fashions to the people who wore them, and about studying clothing remnants as an archaeologist.

Episode 2

The Clothes We Wore - Part 2

Transcript

Jonathan Malriat Welcome to part two of our episode with Sarah Rivers Cofield, a curator at the Maryland Archeological Conservation Laboratory. Frequently shortened to the Mac lab. In this part, she'll talk about some of her projects working with the Mac lab, as well as some of her own personal experiences connected to the field of historic clothing. Our hosts today are myself, Jonathan Marriott, the lead interpretive ranger, and Dustin Baker, the chief of interpretation here at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. How does what you find in the ground, at archeological sites and in excavations compare with the clothing that's been preserved, say, in the collections at Mount Vernon and even some of the surviving pieces at Colonial Williamsburg and other sites.

Sarah Rivers Cofield So I think the thing that, people really should be aware of when they see surviving garments is that things that survive to end up in a museum are really not always representative of what people were actually wearing all the time. And that's not, you know, that's not to say that those clothes aren't extremely valuable. We absolutely need those, because certainly as archeologists, we only find the hardware. And so without surviving textiles, we would really have none of what we need to understand how that hardware fit in context. But if you think about it, the clothes that tend to survive, even today are ones that are special for some reason or other. You know, your christening gown or it was worn by a famous person to a big event, or an inaugural ball gown, or a presidential inaugural outfit or something like that. Those survive, those get saved, and things that don't fit or that are special occasion garments, or somebody died and they never got worn, those things might get saved. But not the things that get worn every day by everybody, especially in the 18th century when cloth was really expensive. And so not only would you wear your dress until you were done with it, but then you might sell it on a second hand market and then it might get worn by people, and then it might eventually get turned into rags. And so the things that most people wore all the time don't survive. And so the clothing that survives, I saw a talk recently by, the person who runs the Cora Ginsburg gallery, which is, it's a textile sales auction house. That's very well known in the business. And, you know, she said that Cora Ginsburg called these things closet clothes. You know, the things that, like, they live on in your closet. They don't get worn out. And I think that that's really true. So those items are kind of the exceptions. And it's also true for accessories, a watch or jewelry or stuff that ends up at a museum isn't what people were wearing every day. It's not what we find archeologically because what we find archeologically is the stuff that gets thrown away. And so what archeologists have that those collections don't have is the ability to go into the quarters for the enslaved people and find evidence of their clothing and connect you to those people whose clothes almost never survive. And to get at the everyday clothing that was so common and so inexpensive that it just ended up in the trash. So we don't find the gold and the silver, usually those things usually get melted down, but we do find more silver than we find gold. And we do find more copper alloy than silver. And, and so there's sort of this hierarchy. And so the two kinds of collections complement each other really well. But without both of them, you're, we're both missing a huge part of the picture.

Dustin Baker So, You know, I'm thinking specifically of young people, but, earlier you were talking about why we should care about this, and I know we all know at least one person or kid who sees somebody wearing, like, colonial era clothing, and they laugh because to them, it's just kind of silly and, but what are some things you've been involved with to get young people and new audiences interested in this subject?

Sarah Rivers Cofield So probably my favorite project that we did with this, several years ago, I guess around 2015, the, the series Outlander was coming out, and a bunch of us at the lab were already fans of the Outlander books. And so one of my colleagues was like, hey, we should do an exhibit on Outlander. I was like, yeah, yeah, you know, go talk to the bosses. And and she was like, no, really? We should do an exhibit on Outlander. And and we ended up doing that. And now Outlander obviously is a fiction series. But it takes place, the whole series generally takes place sort of between the 1740s, for the most part, and the late 18th century, and, and at first there in Scotland and then later there in North Carolina and other parts of the colonies. And the thing is, in Maryland's collections, we have a whole lot of material culture, whether it's wine bottles or clothes, clothing, artifacts or horse related artifacts or any of that from that time period. And so one of the things we all love about the books is that, there there are, you know, when you when you're in history and archeology and you read a historical book, it is very easy to be like, oh, that term wasn't a thing back then or oh, they got that material culture all wrong. But most of us who work at the Mac lab all agreed that the Outlander books were really good. There weren't too terribly many anachronisms, and the ones that there were, you could sort of discount as part of the whole time travel angle of the book. So we thought it would be really fun to take our collections and sort of match them up to some scenes from the show. And we got permission from stars at the time who was just sort of launching the show to use their images, and we did this little traveling exhibit, and it was really fun. We have this beautiful picture of Claire in her wedding dress, and we illustrated it with buckles and buttons and jewelry parts, from our collections. And we would set it up in libraries. And here a little girls go. Look, mommy, it's a princess, you know? And and it was just it was a nice way to connect to the public and to get people thinking that, hey, those things that the English manufacturers were, were making at that time period and pushing on Scotland and the US like the those all had a lot in common, like we have that history here too. So it was a really nice sort of immersive public for.

Dustin Baker And when you're dealing with, collections of, of pieces of clothing or, artifacts, I assume sometimes you're looking at a variety of items that were owned by a single person. And what were some of those moments when you analyzed a collection of personal items like that?

Sarah Rivers Cofield So there there have been several, like I mentioned the sleeve length earlier, we have a pair of sleeve lengths in our collection that have, they're engraved with IG. And it was we were able to connect that to the shopkeeper who lived at the site, whose name was John Golder. And of course, in the 18th century, the J was written as an I. So, like, those are things we can connect with an actual person. But probably the best one I can think of is that, I was once asked to do sort of as a moonlighting job for the del Dot. They had, data recovery at, farm in Delaware that dated from the 18th all the way up to the 18th century, all the way up to the 1930s. And they found an assemblage of clothing related artifacts and, and I did this analysis sort of on nights and weekends for them. And they among the things that they had was a bunch of those linked buttons, like I mentioned, which, of course were worn by men, women and children. They were 18th century. They had a bunch of coat and waistcoat buttons, which indicates men, and they had shoe buckles. But that's also men and women. And they all were kind of clustered together. And there was kind of this question of like, well, who who did this stuff belong to? And one of the things that I had encouraged the archeologists to do on this project was radiography. So, iron artifacts, especially when you excavate them, they often look like Cheetos. They're so rusty, they you can't tell what's going on there. And so when you use X-rays for artifacts that are made of iron, you can zap through that corrosion and see the artifacts inside. And we found so many amazing clothing related artifacts that lay in our collections, whether it's hooks and eyes or maybe a pair of scissors that might have been used for mending or something. And in this particular assemblage, the X-rays revealed a knee buckle. It's a very distinctive type of buckle in terms of the size, how the axis is oriented, and it has what's called an anchor shape that slides into a buttonhole. So it's removable again for that laundering thing or for just changing out your accessories night and day. And, breeches buckle, like all those other artifacts I mentioned, was most definitely a man's artifact. So we were able to take the assemblage and that it was all kind of clustered in a cellar. And what we knew of the history of the site was that it was mostly first inhabited by a woman who was a widow. And when her son came of age, there had been this it was towards the end of the 18th century into the early 19th century, when there was a huge shift in costume, where people weren't wearing cufflinks and buckles and things like that anymore. Trousers had come in and the cuts of men's clothes were different and the buttons were different. And, and so what it seemed like what was happening was that this widow probably had a trunk or something of her husband's clothes that ended up in this basement. And because it was a breeches buckle, we knew that it was a men's wardrobe that wasn't being worn anymore. And, and they were able to tell archeologically by how the, the sediments sort of periodically built up in that cellar that it was very prone to water and flooding. And so what probably happened is that she stored away some of those guys nicer clothes, thinking, oh, I may need this someday. The cellar flooded over and over. Those things went out of style anyway, until the point when they just ended up abandoning it all down there. And had it not been for that X-ray, we wouldn't really have known that part of the story. You know, we would have been wondering, well, why didn't they end up using this? But but it was really it was a really exciting find. It was a really exciting way to sort of interpret a wardrobe that had been tucked away.

Dustin Baker Yeah. It kind of alludes to how clothing and our family and friends clothing is, is also sentimental to us.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yeah, absolutely.

Dustin Baker I just really appreciate you sharing your, passion for this because it's really helping me and hopefully our listeners understand that. I mean, we all can just empathize with what it feels like to have clothing on our body, how it makes us present to other people, and by seeing the clothes people would have worn in the past, it really helps you connect with them. But you have a really unique example how, historic clothing not only opened up a window into the past, but even opened up a mystery surrounding someone from the late 19th century. So if you're willing to share that story with us, that would be really great.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yeah, sure. So this is where I sort of have to take my, employee from the state of Maryland hat off and put on my. I collect old clothes as a hobby hat on. But I have been collecting old clothes since I was in about middle school. I sort of started with antique purses when I was 11 or 12. But, you know, archeologists, we don't find the surviving clothing and, and so, but I was always really interested in it. So I started a collection. There isn't a whole lot of overlap with what I can afford, which is an 18th century. And what I've been talking about today. But one of the outfits I bought, in 2013, I think, was, bustle dress. So I always, as a kid was really fascinated by the whole bustle era. The silk, the silk gowns, a all the buttons up the front and these huge, you know, bustle contraptions on the back and flowy fabrics and things. I thought we thought it was really great. And, and then as I got older, I could afford more for my private collection. Of course, you know, the longer you're employed, usually you your budget goes up a little bit. And so there was this dress I'd had my eye on at an antique mall in Maine, for a couple years. So I live in Maryland, but my family is all from a small town in Maine called Searsport, and they had an antique mall there. And every time I went to visit family, I would go there because this is my hobby. So I had I had my eye on this dress for a few trips and, finally I, you know, I knew I wanted to see it. It was in a glass case. I asked them to get it out, so we got it out anyway, long story short, it was like $135. I offered 100, and as long as I paid cash, they were willing to take it. And so I bought the dress, but it was the most I had ever spent on anything. And so I was feeling a little insecure about it. But as this beautiful sort of bronze silk, perfect like epitome of an 1880s bustle dress, you know, not super fancy, not like a ball gown, but also not like the kind of thing you would wear to do your laundry. Anyway, so of course, I got it home, and I'm. I'm checking it all out, and I'm at my mom's house, and I, you know, I wanted to see the structure of it. These awesome dresses are these amazing structures. Inside. All different inventions were made of different undergarments. To make that butt area stick out the way it does. And this particular one had little channels built in where you could add wires if you needed to. And so I was checking all that out and the skirt inside out, and I noticed that there was a pocket in it, and this pocket was, you know, sewn in, stuck out when you have your clothes inside out, you can see how the pockets are structured. And I hadn't seen a pocket looking at it from the outside. So I started exploring to try to figure out where the pocket was. And it turned out I was kind of concealed under this draped front fabric, of the bustle skirt. And so this is the way these skirts are constructed tends to be complex if they have the drapey parts and different trims and layers. And this one has a couple of layers to it. So anyway, it was under this draped silk front. And I could barely get to it because this the silk front was tacked in different places with thread to keep it draping just so. And, but I wanted to get to it because I could tell from having seen it inside out that I could feel something in the pocket. Anyway, so finally I figured out how to get to this pocket, and it wasn't all that easy. And I reached in, and then I pull out this clump of papers. And if any of you have ever left a receipt in your pocket when it goes through the wash, it was kind of like that, you know, like, like all balled up and, you know, so I call my mom and of course, because she's my partner in crime and and teaching. And I was like, there's something in the pocket. There's a pocket. And so she comes in and I'm trying to unravel. It wasn't as fragile as paper that's been through the wash, so I don't think it ever had been. Let out. But it was very crumpled and balled up, so I'm trying to, ball it. And then eventually I realized it's two pieces of paper. So I hand one to my mom and she and I are both very carefully. It's very thin. It like like when you hold it up, it sort of like flows in the air flow. It's super thin, lightweight paper. We're unfolding it like, who's going to read it first? Oh my gosh. So a secret passage in the packet. We're so excited. And then so we both get to kind of unfold it to the point that we can read them and we start reading. But like, it, it just it didn't make any sense. It made no sense whatsoever. It was like it was just word salad. It's like Leaf Edge Bismark or Mint Book Bank. You know, all words are recognizable words, but you know, no message. And so she and I were kind of like, what the what? It's, you know, we we both started reading to each other and and again, we're like, I have no idea what just happened. So we were very confused. And then we started joking, oh, it's a secret code in the pocket, you know? And, at the time I kept a blog, so it was very trendy in the early 20 tens to have a blog. And so I had a blog on blogspot called Commitment to Costumes. And this was, of course, before I became a parent and I had excess free time. And so I blogged about it and I was joking, and I was like, you know, as featuring all of the awesome features of this dress and everything that I was geeking out over as a costume person. And then I get to the end and I was like, ooh, maybe the secret pocket is for holding a code, you know? And, you know, I'm I'm an archeologist. I have a history degree, too, you know, I'm a scholar. I am not the person who is like, everything is a conspiracy and a secret code. Like, no, I am usually the person bursting that bubble for everybody who thinks that everything has a secret code and, you know, is some conspiracy. In the past. So this time I was like, well, in this case, I actually did find some weird secret code in the pocket, and I shared pictures of it online because I was literally I was like, I don't know what this is. You know what to do with this? And I shared it on my Facebook page and social media, for the most part, my Facebook is all my friends and especially my family like to follow the blog because some of the clothing I feature on it is stuff that I inherited, and so they like seeing what I have to say about things that came from our family. So anyway, so they shared it, they were all very excited and I got like more hits than I had ever gotten on a blog. And I think, you know, I was super excited. I want to say it was like 200, you know, which from a blog was like a lot. But all of a sudden I started getting contacted by code breaking people, cryptography people. You know, they were really into this, you know, the the costume world has its people. Well, the code breaking people are out there too. And I was like, I, I need you. I don't know what to do with this. Go for it. And, fairly early on, one of them suggested that it was a telegraph code. And after looking into that, it became pretty clear that that was indeed what it was. So in the 19th century, when the telegraph started and you're sending a telegraph, it was you were charged by the word and the line. So the longer the message, the more expensive the telegraph. And so and also the telegraph is being sent to different stations all across the country and being read by different people and passed on. And so there's no privacy to telegraphs. So what they developed in response to this. And by they I mean like all the people using the telegraph, the, you know, the hypothetical may, they developed codes. And so where a code book would be developed, where one word would stand for a whole phrase, and these were adopted by various industries. So say you're in the mining industry and you strike silver and you need to tell, you know, you're out in Utah, but you need to tell people in New York that you strike silver. You don't want everybody between you and New York to know that you just struck silver, right? You want to propagate. So the mining industry would have their own code book. And, you know, so would like the train industry, train schedules, and, and so you have to have the same book on both ends of the telegraph to be able to decode it once it gets there. So a word like leaf edge, which I don't even know if that is a word. You would look it up and figure out what phrase it stands for. But that was one of the words in my code. So we figured out pretty early it was a telegraph book, and it turned out there was hundreds of telegraph books scanned and on Google books, so I can't even tell you how many nights I spent after this on Google Books, reading Telegraph books, just skimming them, looking for the words that were in my message. And I never found them. I never, I never found one that was a match. Because unless you have the right telegraph code book, you cannot figure out what that message says. So I gave up, and every once in a while I'd get an email, from a cryptography person, like asking permission to use the pictures or something. And, and I didn't really think that much of it because nobody had solved it. And what I didn't know is that the codebreaking world did not let this go. And so they were running with it. And so apparently it got published in some list somewhere of like the 50 top unbroken codes or something. And it got picked up by a man named Wayne Chang in Manitoba at the University of Manitoba, who likes to break codes as a hobby. So here I am, a historian archeology person who collects costume as a hobby, and Wayne Chan, who as some kind of analyst, in his day job at the University of Manitoba. But like, press codes as a hobby. He he had leave for holiday, and I was like, I'm gonna try to crack his code. And and he wasn't successful at it. And I guess a couple of years later, he picked it back up again. Anyway, he he did tons of work. It's amazing. And he figured it out. So he had to go through all kinds of interlibrary loan type things, and he went back to read about the history of the Telegraph, and ultimately determined that, the, the code book he was looking for was the Army Signal Services code book for relaying the weather. And and this is the part where I think a lot of people think, oh my gosh, this is such a letdown, so much built up. It's a mystery. The code, blah, blah, blah. And no, it is a weather report. That's what it was. It was a daily weather report. But the amount of work that Wayne Chan put into this to figure this out is just it's amazing. So from a history point of view. So he's the Army was in charge of weather reports at the time. And nowadays we're like, that's weird. I don't understand, why would you do that? But when you think about it, until the telegraph was invented, people had no way of knowing what weather was coming except there, you know, maybe a barometer in their house and sort of, you know, the instinctive things that you learned working on the land and sensing the atmosphere and looking at the trees and things like that. Obviously, you know, in many ways we've lost some of that. But really, the Telegraph allowed people to know what fronts were coming their way for the first time ever. And of course, if you're the Army and you're in charge of the national defense, that would be something that might be of interest. You know, like knowing that a hurricane is coming is a really big deal for the safety of your citizens. So the Army had all of these signal centers and most of the code, line the lines on the code sheets. I had started with, a location. So Bismarck was one of the. It was the North Dakota terror, territory weather station. Calgary was another one. And so it started with a place name, and then each word after that stood for whatever the weather conditions were. And so there was two pages. One sort of was like the northern part of North America, and the other was sort of more the southern part. So Texas, Texas stations and other stations in the south, and they came together, telegraph line, according to when he said the, the only telegraph like receipt area would have had both of those full reports would have been in Washington, D.C. and that's kind of interesting because I bought this dress in Maine, but I live in the D.C. area, and this telegraph code must have originated somewhere in the D.C. area. So how did that happen? We don't really know. But yeah, so he figured out it's a weather report, and, so each word would mean something like, you know, the word event might mean something like winds to the south southeast. You know, this many miles per hour? Or sunny or cloudy or foggy. You know, each one was some long phrase to do with the weather. And you can find his paper. He published it in cryptology, but he published it in a journal called cryptology. And the full like interpretation is there. But the best part, I think, is this is so amazing of of what he did is that there were was a word in the code to indicate that it was the 27th of the month, but it didn't say what year, and it didn't say what month. And so she took the temperatures that were being reported and guessed that it had to be a fairly temperate time of year. It was an extreme winter. It was an extreme summer. And he based on the style of the dress and being from the 1880s and the code books that he had matching the words that he found, he narrowed it down to a couple of years and looked at the temperate months, and then he got the weather maps that were generated by these telegraphs from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They still have all those historic maps that were created by all these telegraphs that were reported. He got close to the maps and matched them until he found the one that matched the weather report the best. And that way he was able to sort of reverse engineer this weather map. And the report to figure out it was May 27th, 1888. So that's a lot of work. And it's yeah, I mean, it's amazing that he was able to do that and how hard it was for him to do that. And so I really think, you know, everybody who talks to me about this, they're like, are you kind of disappointed? It was just a weather report. And I'm like, no, it's not even a little bit. Because first of all, as somebody who's all, my family's from Maine and I've, you know, it's sort of been the one constant in my life and all my family in Maine, like we always talk about the weather, like the weather is the most Maine thing ever to be like a topic. So I felt like that was really fitting. But also, you know, as a history and archeology person, I can't really think of anything that is more significant to people, the that people care about more every day on a daily basis than the weather. You know, we we don't always think about it. It's kind of in the background. But I just have to think that it's so profoundly life changing for people in that time period to suddenly be able to have a weather report. Yeah. Every day I get up and I click an app on my phone so that I know what to wear that day, and I don't think that much about it. It never occurred to me until this whole story happened. Wow. What was it like for people who totally didn't know what the weather was going to be? That's kind of scary, you know? And so as archeologists, we study everyday life. You know, we study the trash that people throw away. Like, that's what I'm into. And this was such a profound window into everyday life that I wasn't at all disappointed that it wasn't some secret spy code. Instead, it it's ephemera. You know, these code sheets were a one off. They're used one time, they're marked off once they're sent, and then they get thrown away. And so that's why they don't survive. And and nobody knew what this was to figure it out. So it's a really rare survival, even though it's such a prosaic everyday thing. And so Wayne cracked the code and his university was very proud of him. And so they did a press release about it in combination with Noah, because they were part of the story, having provided the maps. And all of a sudden it was this big media frenzy about a year ago, just, I just my whole life was occupied by this topic for like two months. It was sort of my life as clickbait. You know, I would be driving home from work and my husband or I, we figure out who's going to cook, and I'm like, well, the New York Times is calling tonight, so can you cook? You know, and it was just really bizarre. But it, you know, it it did its viral thing. It went up. It went down. And it has calmed down now, but occasionally I still do get asked to talk about it. And I still have the dress and I still have the code sheets. And I still think it's a very cool story that really connects us to the past. But I don't know. And what nobody has figured out is, how did those code sheets end up in that pocket?

Dustin Baker I can't help but just see, like, the overlap where it's a remnant of one of the earliest forms of long distance communication, you know, and then all this time later, it winds up on the internet and starts reaching all these people and connecting them with their interest in it.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was it was exciting. Not only that, I like. So I bought this dress in Maine. The Telegraph had to originate in DC where I live, Wayne Shan in Manitoba. One of the stations, the weather stations was like near their campus or something out there. You know, there are all these weird coincidences and ties. And I also I was I'm always still struck by the fact that Wayne and I found ourselves having our 15 minutes of fame for hobbies that had nothing to do with our day jobs, really. And so we were sort of like, I don't know how to deal with this, you know, because people were calling us at work and, it's that was really weird. But yeah, one of the things that Noah was most interested in is that for them, it made them think about the fact that women were involved in this really early weather, relay system. You know, the telegraph system. Women were involved in it, and they hadn't really thought about that before that. And so they were using it, as, as a way to look into women in the early weather and, Women's History Month. It was an article that they put up for that. But I don't I fundamentally don't know that the woman who wore this dress was actually involved in relaying messages. You know, I don't know how she ended up with that paper. And I think that it should. So first of all, the pocket itself isn't necessarily secret. It's just very secure. So having pockets in that time period wasn't that unusual. You can hide a lot. And a really big skirt. What what is weird about it is that you couldn't access the pocket without lifting up this front draped fabric and exposing the lining of the skirt, so wouldn't really be indecent. She wouldn't be uncovered accessing it in public. But you probably wouldn't do it either. It would be, like, unsightly. I guess it would be like a woman pulling her money out of her bra in a grocery store to pay. You know, it's it's a little like that. Like, she may not be exposing herself, but it's still a little like. I don't know about that. Sure. I don't know how else to really relay it. And so it's not a secret pocket, but it's a very secure pocket. And the the papers were all balled up and just forgotten there. So they can't have been that important. And there is a little nametag sewn into the back of the dress that says Bennet on it. And this is a whole other line of mystery associated with this dress. So Bennet is a very common name, and having a tag sewn into your dress sometimes, usually just means I need to get this back. Like that's why my name is on it. Either it's going out for laundering, which in this silk dress, you wouldn't have done that. Or it might mean, It might like oftentimes with historic clothes, it means, oh, this was in my attic, and I loaned it to the local theater group or something. You know, so we don't know why the tag is there. But we did try to figure this out. You tried to figure out if there were any. Bennet's working in the D.C. telegraph office in the 1880s, and there was one. But it was a man, and he was a married man, but his wife was eight months pregnant. On May 27th, 1888. And so, you know, it doesn't seem that likely that that guy was the origin of these pages. But we also don't know what happened to all of those pieces of paper all that time, you know, when the Telegraph was king and you're going through all these pieces of paper every day that are just a one off use. You know, this wasn't a time period when we everything was disposable like it is today. I think toilet paper had, like, just been invented, you know, so I get I don't think that people came up with second uses for this extra paper. And so maybe if you're a woman who has recently given birth and you have a newborn, you want to keep some random soft papers in your pocket as a just in case when you're out and about with your baby, you know, they didn't have wet wipes. I don't know what they were doing. And so maybe she did tell her husband, hey, can you just, like, bring me home the waste papers each day? Like I can use those, like, I don't know, I don't know why anybody would have retained that. You know, maybe they were just using it as a tissue instead of a hankie, like, I just. I don't know, and unfortunately, when it comes to that and the things that I still have in my possession, that's the part that we'll never know. We've decoded the weather report, but we'll never know why it survived where it did. It's just sort of fodder for the imagination.

Dustin Baker Yeah. We deal a lot with those unanswered questions here at the park. And I just think this is such a perfect story to illustrate how clothing can open up a whole world of of empathy for what it was like to live in that time. And what was going on in someone's life. And, it's just a really incredible story, and it makes you really wonder, what is it about the things that we wear today? When people who who do what you do, what will they think of us in the future?

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yeah. And what will survive, you know, like, check your pockets or don't and make somebody really happy 200 years from now.

Dustin Baker Yeah. So if you're going to leave something in your pockets, just make sure it's something interesting.

Sarah Rivers Cofield Yeah? Yeah. Or disappoint the future masses by having it just be weather reporter.

Jonathan Malriat And that concludes the second part of our interview with Sarah Rivers Cofield. Again, a big thank you to Sarah for joining us on these two episodes. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you catch the first part of our interview, in which she goes into details about historic clothing trends and traditions, and keep an ear out for future episodes of Upon This Land History, Mystery and Monuments, where we'll explore other stories that are connected to the park that we protect and preserve. Here, where George Washington was born.

Continuing our conversation with Sara Rivers Cofield, we explore what archeologists look for from clothing, the personal stories it can reveal, and how her team has made historic fashions trendy again. We also hear a compelling story about how her passion for historic clothing opened a window into the past, including a mystery surrounding someone who lived during the 19th century.

Season 1

Season 1 Trailer

Introduction

Transcript

Welcome and thank you for joining us. I'm Dustin Baker, and I'm the chief of interpretation at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. Upon first glance, one might assume that we have a pretty straightforward story to tell. George Washington was one of the most recognizable names in the world, and he was born here. What more needs to be said than that? Well, for many visitors, George Washington Birthplace National Monument is a surprisingly complex, historic site. It is a place where people come to remember George Washington, but also find a story of how the past can be lost, reshaped and rediscovered. It is a place ruled by water. Although Washington, D.C. is only 60 miles up the Potomac River, this place has retained a rural character, and the surrounding area remains essentially undeveloped. Visitors here can still experience sights and sounds that would have been familiar to the Native Americans since the Washington family and the enslaved people from Africa who found themselves all connected by water here in the 17th century. This is a place where seven generations of the Washington family lived and prospered in a colonial Tidewater culture where acquiring land and cultivating tobacco through the use of enslaved labor was essential to building the family's wealth and gentry status. This is a place that was central to one of the earliest federal efforts to memorialize George Washington during the worldwide celebration of his bicentennial birth anniversary. Where inspired nostalgia in the spirit of the undertaking were more important than historical accuracy, leaving behind an interpretive conundrum that we still wrestle with today. And most surprisingly of all, this is a place where the archeological resources that contained critical information about the lives of all who inhabited this land over time are only beginning to be understood. So, on behalf of the staff at George Washington Birthplace National Monument, join us as we share our passion for this place with our new podcast series Upon This Land History, Mystery, and Monuments.

Welcome to our first season of Upon This Land: History, Mystery, and Monuments! Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family

Episode 1

The Power of Place

Transcript

Dustin Baker: Welcome and thank you for joining us. I'm Dustin Baker, and I'm the chief of interpretation at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. Upon first glance, one might assume that we have a pretty straightforward story to tell. George Washington was one of the most recognizable names in the world, and he was born here. What more needs to be said than that? Well, for many visitors, George Washington Birthplace National Monument is a surprisingly complex, historic site. It is a place where people come to remember George Washington, but also find a story of how the past can be lost, reshaped and rediscovered. It is a place ruled by water. Although Washington, D.C. is only 60 miles up the Potomac River, this place has retained a rural character, and the surrounding area remains essentially undeveloped. Visitors here can still experience sights and sounds that would have been familiar to the Native Americans since the Washington family and the enslaved people from Africa who found themselves all connected by water here in the 17th century. This is a place where seven generations of the Washington family lived and prospered in a colonial Tidewater culture where acquiring land and cultivating tobacco through the use of enslaved labor was essential to building the family's wealth and gentry status. This is a place that was central to one of the earliest federal efforts to memorialize George Washington during the worldwide celebration of his bicentennial birth anniversary. Where inspired nostalgia in the spirit of the undertaking were more important than historical accuracy, leaving behind an interpretive conundrum that we still wrestle with today. And most surprisingly of all, this is a place where the archeological resources that contained critical information about the lives of all who inhabited this land over time are only beginning to be understood. So, on behalf of the staff at George Washington Birthplace National Monument, join us as we share our passion for this place with our new podcast series Upon This Land History, Mystery, and Monuments. For our first episode, we're going to be interviewing Dr. Philip Levy. He's the author of a new historic resource study for the park, which is titled “Upon This Land: Seven Generations of the Washington Family and the Residents of Popes Creek and Mattox Neck.” And you might find that title familiar because it's the direct inspiration for the title of our podcast series. Dr. Philip Levy is a professor of history at the University of South Florida and is an organization of American Historians, Distinguished Lecturer. He is the author of several books, many of which deal with George Washington both as a person and a national icon, where the Cherry Tree grew, the story of Ferry Farm, George Washington's boyhood home, and George Washington written upon the land, nature, memory, myth and landscape focus on the places of Washington's childhood. The permanent resident excavations and explorations of the life of George Washington, winner of the prestigious Society of Historical Archeology, James Dietz Award explores the many sites of Washington's life and how their stories have been shaped by archeology and issues of memory and commemoration. His newest book, Yardbirds the Lives and Times of Americans Urban Chickens, tells a very different story from his other work and explores the fascinating relationships both past and present between urban areas and domestic fowl. Interviewing Dr. Philip Levy today is lead interpretive Park ranger Jonathan Malriat.

Jonathan Malriat: What started you in researching George Washington? What was the starting point?

Dr. Philip Levy: Yeah, I mean, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could say, you know, a lifelong interest in the first president to get an answer like that? And that would not be true. Largely an accident or set of circumstances. I was in grad school at William and Mary, and I was in the history program. I was working with the late, great James Axtell. I still working on Indian colonial relations, which is what I went there to work on. And she had been an advocate of historians coming to understand anthropology that you had to kind of work in different fields. And the program at William and Mary had an internship in historical archeology. So, you could be a history master's student, but you could also do some coursework and field work in historical archeology. And I did that partly because I just want to better understand that field and make some sense out of it. And what I found was that I had an aptitude for it and that I liked it. And over the course of my graduate career, I kind of doubled down on historical archeology, doing more and more work in archeology at the point where that kind of became what I really do. It sort of supplant. I wrote my dissertation, I wrote my first book on Indian colonial relations, but I haven't really worked on that all that much since then. The archeology sort of took over and I got very involved with Colonial Williamsburg digging sites there. And during that time, I worked with David LaRocca, who was a staff archeologist at that colony Williamsburg guy who kind of ran the sites that I was working on. I was supervising all this. And he sort of became my first field mentor, sort of learning a lot of stuff from him, working with other people like Amy Morocco, who helped a lot. So, learning the field from them. And Dave and I kind of struck up a friendship and which is still very much alive and a partnership. And so, by the time I was done with grad school, I had kind of built a little world historical archeology. I got hired at that point at the University of South Florida in the history department, and Dave took a job managing the excavation at George Washington's Childhood home at Ferry Farm. And we had been running field schools together since, you know, the 1990s, the mid-1990s through clay was boring. And we said, well, let's take our field school model and do it over at Berry Farm. This was take, you know, pack up our goods and bring it over there. We both walked into the world of George Washington studies really oddly, both of us sharing a focus on the 17th century. I think we both came in really with a very strong interest in 17th century Virginia landscapes and the rise of slavery. And you know what was going on in that arena. We didn't; George was going to be part of the story. We knew because that was the nature of the site, but that was not what we came in with. And gradually what Dave likes to say about Ferry Farm was it changes everyone, everybody who comes in with one interest, you end up with other ones. And I did not really anticipate it. I had a fellowship one summer nominally to work on 17th century Virginia landscapes. I'd written something about the area of what was called Middle Plantation, which is where Williamsburg is, and I had imagined expanding that into a larger study, and I had a fellowship to work on that, and I spent most of my time looking at 20th century photographs of Ferry Farm, so I got very obsessed with the sequence of buildings trying to understand it. And it took a little while to recognize that that this was going to take over that Washington and that landscape and subsequently other landscapes that that Washington and the memory of his memory in the landscape was going to become what I was doing. And it took a little while, but I got there. So that's sort of how that works. And it's just been it's been endlessly rewarding. There's- there's no reason to stop. There's always more to talk about and more to see. So, you know, one of the things that makes Washington so interesting is that there's- we could talk about Washington as a as an 18th century figure, you know, so he's an ultra for us into the world of the 18th century, which is useful and valuable and understanding American history, his role in American history. But he's one of these people because of his significance at the founding of the Republic. He doesn't go away just because he physically goes away. His memory becomes a very, very important national possession. And, you know, we have everything from national parks to all sorts of resources and objects and commemorations tied to his name. So, there's more to study than just Washington as an 18th century figure there. Also, his impact on the way America thinks of itself and remembers its past and so on. So, there is that I would say there isn't- It's virtually every single dimension of American history has some George Washington angle. What Washington has invoked in virtually every discussion that we have politically, he is always present in some way. You need to enlist him on your side in some cases to make it to make your argument effective. So, he's kind of a scholar's gift that keeps on giving. There's just a lot to talk about beyond just that 18th century life, which could keep people busy for their own careers. So, there's a lot there. And then when you add the materials dimension to it, when you start looking at landscapes and historical sites, it just proliferates. There's just a ton to talk about. So yeah, so I did not plan this, but this is how it has lined up.

Jonathan Malriat: It sounds like quite the journey to get there. one of the other ones. Would you mind taking a second to describe, since you've now talked about how you got into the world of George Washington, How about here the world around George Washington Birthplace National Monument. How did you get started here?

Dr. Philip Levy: Part of the same story. You know, when I began, we began the project at Ferry Farm at the at the childhood site in 2001. I think my first summer digging, there was 2002 Springs students up from Florida, which we do every summer, except for a few we're going to be doing again this summer. And part of that work entailed sort of developing a familiarity with other Washington sites at that time. Ferry Farm was not a preserved site. It was the beginning of a preserved site that had just happened there at GEWA you know, the birthplace was, you know, an established park.

Dustin Baker: Hey, Dustin here. Just wanted to cut in and explain that GEWA is another name for the park, in a way. Every national park site has a four-letter acronym. And so GEWA, G. E. W. A. is our four-letter acronym, and that's why Phil refers to the site as GEWA.

Dr. Philip Levy: And Mount Vernon was sort of the main site, but Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon was in a sort of it was before the library, right? The library, the building of the library about 2013 really changed Mount Vernon and super energized what was happening there. So, we had a few sort of established historical archeology, archeological centers and kind of becoming familiar with the larger world of Washington. We visited places. I remember visiting the birthplace at some point in grad school, and I couldn't tell you exactly when, but I know I visited some because I remember friends of mine and I talking about building X and just having like real suspicions about this, like what we saw on the ground. We weren't doing any research. We're just looking at things, but looking at this thing going, well, that doesn't make any sense. Something, something is amiss here and just not really knowing what was amiss.

Dustin Baker: Hey, this is Dustin again. I just want to clarify that. Dr. Phil Levy just mentioned a site called Building X. Building X is one of the greatest mysteries in the park, and it's a brick foundation. During the construction of the memorial house Museum in the 1930s, the National Park Service located that foundation just a few yards away. And shortly thereafter in the 1930s, it was excavated. Many artifacts were found, leading some to speculate that it was the true location of George Washington's birth house. But the foundation was named Building X due to the uncertainty of what it truly represented. And Phil Levy is going to be talking a lot more about it later on.

Dr. Philip Levy: So that would be before any of this began. But then that became more of an issue as we worked on Ferry Farm and started, started kind of entering the Washington studies world, if that's what you want to call it, a little more fully. And I remember in around 2008 that ferry farm, we were sort of ready to declare that we had what we were looking for. It took a little while before we were ready to say that we had located the home. There were a few problems there, a few things that lines that didn't line up, things we couldn't quite account for, and we sort of had to think our way out of those problems till you get to the point that you really feel like you're certain about something and that doesn't happen quickly. There often is some like one little irritating problem sitting there and you can't quite say that you're confident about what you have until you resolve that problem. In this case, our problem was a stone that was out of place that we couldn't make the wall line up because that stone was just in the wrong place. And you can't. A rectangle has to be a rectangle, it can't be a parallelogram. So, you know, as long as your building is shaped like a parallelogram, you're not reading your building correctly. If something is wrong and you haven't figured out yet what's wrong, but something's wrong. So we had this parallelogram, we couldn't make sense of it. And then we finally realized that we were reading the stone incorrectly the stone that we thought was part of a wall was actually part of a chimney base that was outside of the wall. And once we figured that out, everything lined up, all the lines were parallel and everything made sense. And they were like, okay, we got it. This is this is the building that was about 2008, And at that time I remember talking with the who was then the superintendent at the first place, Lucy Lawless.

Dustin Baker: Hi, Dustin. One more time. Not that Lucy Lawless. Another Lucy Lawless was the superintendent of this site in the early 2000s up until 2013.

Dr. Philip Levy: About that site and saying that, you know, there are questions there. We shouldn't be treating the birthplace site as has done and dusted. Right. There's there are there are questions about that. And there's a lot of research that needs to go on to really make sense of that place. And she was very excited about that enthusiastic and it was beginning with her, but also, you know, carrying through. She set in motion finding the money that enabled the 2013 and 2014 reassessment of the archeological record that we were able to do with some graduate students to really begin to say, all right, what is it that we know? What did the 1930 record tell us without sort of the- the overlay of the discussion of the 1920s and 1930s? And that really sort of started everything in motion that got us to where we are today.

Jonathan Malriat: And that's quite a journey as well on that.

Dr. Philip Levy: It's always like this.

Jonathan Malriat: It's always just like connected. They are how the world has been. As you said, you can always trace the connection to George Washington, it seems like.

Dr. Philip Levy: Yeah.

Jonathan Malriat: Now with all of that connections to George Washington, we know one of the books that you wrote, you wrote several. But Where the Cherry Tree grew of that very famous myth, how do you separate fact from fiction if there's so many people writing about George, there's so much out there, How do you separate that?

Dr. Philip Levy: Well, you know how as a question sort of the poses that you can, right? I'm not sure you always can. Certain kinds of stories take on the lives of their own. And they- they just become facts simply by repetition, Whether they're true or not. It doesn't matter because people believe them to be true and people act on their beliefs, not necessarily unverifiable data. So false assumptions, mistakes, errors, deceptions can become reality by people's actions. They can. If you're acting on false information, then you're sort of the information may as well be real, but it has a real impact on people's lives. When you get into the Washington biography, you know, the body of writing about his life. And that's an interesting place where a lot of different kinds of stories get told and a lot of different writing styles occurred. So if you watch if somebody to write about Washington now and people could do this, we're in a very strange golden age. The level of information that's available to anyone, not just researchers, but anyone about Washington's thoughts and ideas is- is without precedent. You can find online through Sander's online pretty much his entire his entire correspondence and not just their but but annotated like to transcribe that annotated. You can search virtually every letter. You could go to a library. You could pick up a book version of all of that. You can go to the Library of Congress and you can see photos of the actual letters. So if you wanted to move away from a transcription, look at the handwriting and see something in there, you can do that as well. His account books have been turned into a database, so you can go in and look at you can search through his accounts and see his transactions. So you have just an incredible amount of information that lets you really zero in on what he's thinking, what he's doing, where he is, and so on and so on. We're very fortunate that way. That was not always the case. So people writing biographies of Washington, going back into the beginning of the 19th century, had very little actual information to draw on. And what happened was certain stories crystallized certain ways of talking about this sort of became the way this gets done and what biographers generally did for a long time. To some extent, they still do it. Moviemakers do this as well to write a biography. A lot of people will just read five previous biographies and then and then start going and they look for some sources through those previous biographies and then start going. So you get the repetition of certain things again and again and again. And part of the historian's job is to sort of look at these things and sort out, well, what is what is this being repeated versus what is it that I can say, you know, from sources outward. So one way to get at the how of sorting these things out is by being aware of what's in the writing, but trying to move beyond that into the source material and try to look at it with fresh eyes. The same with the archeological record. Don't- don't walk into the archeological record automatically accepting the assumptions of previous excavations. That doesn't mean you have to reject them a priori or just say they're wrong. But- but, you know, be skeptical. Look at everything with fresh eyes. So in the case of Washington, because of the sort of repetitive nature of the biography, you get certain pieces, certain set pieces again and again and again, and you have to kind of comb that out, become aware of what's style and what's actually historical work. It's not really until the 1930s that people had substantive access to actual Washington documentation and there's a change in the biographies that they lose a certain romantic quality that they had of the night in the 19th century, the Washington bicentennial, sort of the publishing of the first major multi-volume edition of Washington's papers that people had access suddenly to actual Washington writing. And so then you end up with a tension in the biography between what sort of the modern practice of history can do and can say versus the way it has always been told. So you get a tension in there, how are you going to approach it? So, you know, there isn't a lot of proper mythology anymore in the Washington biography because of the quality of the information that goes into it. But there are certain assumptions and, you know, there's a lot of Washington biography is very what they call your hagiography or things like that that sort of tends to be in the writing. But there's been particularly, and you have to give credit where credit is due. I think the Fred W Smith Library at Mount Vernon has played a huge role in this. There has been a huge growth in Washington scholarship. So there's a lot of really creative, inventive material out there that is looking it's working away from biography and working into sort of how does Washington fit into a variety of different kinds of questions. So it's a great time for that. But the way to do it is to step the way to get to sort of something outside of the mythology of the 19th century is to is to work with sources, work outward. And that's- that's what we did with the birthplace. You go back to go back to primary sources and not accept just one particular reading. Simply because it's the reading that's there. That's what historians do. It's not what everybody does. That's the job of the historian.

Jonathan Malriat: So, you're just even connecting that story in with the mystery and the different research that had been done here and views on where the birthplace and the birth home once stood. Can you elaborate a little bit for the listeners on why we were and still even are to a bit uncertain where the George Washington birth home stood originally?

Dr. Philip Levy: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question because it touches on something that it's really interesting that I don't fully understand. I've seen several examples of this and I don't quite understand what's going on. I first saw it with Fredericksburg in Ferry Farm in Virginia, and that was that. When Washington died in December 1799, there was a sort of a period of national mourning. His star had fallen somewhat. You know, he was politically unpopular toward the somewhat unpopular toward the end of his political career. He had enemies in in Washington or not Washington, but, you know, in government, I should say. And, you know, he was he was showing his age and people were aware of that. He was he was venerated for his achievements. But he also was not seen as you know, not seen as what the future was going to look like. And if that was not caught up in politics in ways that I don't think he was entirely comfortable with. So when he died, he certainly was a national hero. But it's there was an unevenness to the commemoration of his life at the time of his death. here were a lot of speeches, a lot of, you know, bunting bedecked platforms erected in towns. People would read various, you know, eulogies to Washington. And one thing that struck me is really interesting was that that didn't happen in Fredericksburg. And I never quite understood that there is an acknowledgment in the newspapers references, but there was not everything they did, all the commemoration of Washington waving the flag, the bunting and so on was all pro forma. It all looked exactly the same as everyone else's. And I was surprised because I would think that the town of Fredericksburg would have made more noise about Washington having lived there. And they didn't.

Jonathan Malriat: Especially with how connected he and his mother were to the that town.

Dr. Philip Levy: Some of it may have to do with her, you know, that that her tense relationship with him at the end of her life in some ways may have colored the way the town understood him. They may have been sort of, if you will, marry Partizans, you know. You know, there's the odd question. There'll be a book coming out about this soon. We'll see what he has to say about this. But the there's an odd question around Mary's burial because it doesn't appear that George had He didn’t bring her to Mount Vernon and bury her in Mount Vernon all kinds of people buried Mount Vernon, but not her. He also doesn't appear to have paid for some sort of grave marker so that by the 1830s, when Americans are thinking about there having been an American history, it's not until mid 1830 after the death of Jefferson and Adams, that historians start to say that historians writing about that past identify that. That's kind of when Americans say something is passing, that the revolutionary generation is ending, and we are the next thing. And so, you start to get in the 1830s an awareness of there having been an American history and it's a little earlier example a bit earlier. I mean, the Washington commemorations go back to the 1820s and the Washington biographies go earlier. But as a large-scale interest, it's a new thing and end in Washington's first centennial of 1832 plays a role in this. You start to get a bit of an interest in Washington, and somebody pops up with the we should mark Mary Washington's grave. And he's probably being a bit hyperbolic with saying that, you know, she's in an unmarked grave in a field and the plow was like disrupting her bones. And, you know, I don't think that's actually true. But the point is that nobody's really sure where Mary was buried. It's not as clear as you would expect it to have been. And that sort of ties with this like only sort of halfhearted commemoration of Washington. So, they don't; they, the people of that time, are not really as concerned about this stuff as we might think. They would have been Ferry Farm itself feel this the John Gatsby Chapman painting about 1833 shows it to be a ruin. They know what the home was, but it's just a bunch of stones in the ground. It's not they don't have this preservation impulse. They don't have the sort of save the thing impulse. It's really not until the 1850s and Pamela Cunningham and the Mount Vernon Ladies Association starting the idea that, you know, that's one of the first American House museums. We have to preserve this building. This needs to be saved for the future. And they're not thinking that way in this period. And so, they're sort of lukewarm or maybe just pro forma sort of generic commemoration of Washington in Fredericksburg is an indication of that. And then at the birthplace, you have a whole other version of this problem where by 1813, there's no one now owning the land with the last name Washington, the last, you know, linear. Washington's still off the land and leave. It goes to people who are sort of kin, but they're distant kin and it's just a farm. It just gets farmed, and you have rather famously a park Custis, the George Washington Park Custis, who goes and does the commemoration of Washington's birth in 1815. But I think we've sort of misunderstood that event in some ways also because crucially, because Park Custis was connected to Washington, he became it was also a book coming out soon about him and his use of memory also. And he becomes a sort of interesting symbol so that during the siege of Washington, if I remember correctly, they- they sort of allow him to honorably fire off the first cannon at the British, because, as you know, George Washington Park Custis, this is very strong sense for Americans that the war of 1812 is in some way a second revolution. It's a repeat. And remember that British ships came up the Potomac, they burned Washington. You know, they burned homes on the Potomac as well. So, in 1815, the year after the war, Park Custis and some friends go and put a grave marker, put, sorry- the stone marking where Washington's home had been with the birthplace was. What they're doing in part is sort of rededicating the United States. It's much bigger. The project, in their minds is much bigger than where it was Washington's home. It's like the country has survived a second major war with threat with Great Britain. It is as if it were born anew. And we, these new Americans are sort of like starting the country over again. So the commemoration of the birth home in 1815 has to be read within the context of the war of 1812 and sort of the new rebirth of the country. But they don't know exactly what Washington's home was. They don't know exactly where the building was. We don't know the stuff we don't know about that. Building a lot. We don't know. And we're getting closer. But, you know, it's tricky. You're looking through some foggy lenses to try to understand something, but it's clear that there was no sentiment attached to that hope. The fact of Washington just isn't that important to these people. So much so that the maps of 1810 and 1813, when the land is being surveyed for sale at one of them is done by Samuel Lamp. And I'm not sure that the 1810 map is Samuel Lemkin, but it probably is. That's in private hands not in the park's possession. Neither of those maps make mention of George Washington. It's 1810 - 1813. They know who George Washington is. He's like a major, major figure. And, you know, by that point, they've already moved the capital to a new city named after him. So they just- And these are the people who, you know, live in the world where he was born. These are people who claim kinship to him. But when they draw the map of the land, they don't even refer to them at all. They're just they're surveys are functional documents. You don't do things on surveys. You don't have to. It's also possible that everybody just knows this, and nobody's really sort of paying that much attention. The only thing you get is a little area sequestered off where Park Custis says, or sorry, where Corbin Washington. George Corbin Washington says he keeps a little square where he says the birth home was and he keeps the cemetery. Cemetery out on the park grounds now is the same cemetery, but it wasn't marked. There was no wall. The wall was a product of the 1920s and thirties. So that area was safe for the family when they sell it off. But there is a lot of uncertainty as to where exactly the building was because for whatever reason it just wasn't worthy of their memory. They moved on. So, it's only later that people turn around and say, actually the stuff is very important. And it's interesting that there's another map from the 1850s around the time that they're commemorating Mount Vernon, and that map says, All right, George Washington, George Washington, Geroge Washington. But the one that's closer in time to the Washington family doesn't mention it at all in any meaningful way. So, they are not particularly interested in recording or highlighting or commemorating these things. And they were the ones who were there to see it and they didn't do it. So, we get a gap, right? They could have they could have answered somebody's questions for us. They could have made our lives really easy. Right? Maybe less productive, but certainly easy. But by marking these things, by recording them in some way, they just didn't. And so, we're left decades later with people now by the 1850s wanting to know this information, but not having a direct connection to get it. And they start guessing. They go with what they have, and they just start taking their best guess and they get some things right and they get a lot of stuff wrong.

Jonathan Malriat: So, you've really been the spearhead here on trying to find the where the location is of the birth home or even know more about it. Can you tell us about that search in all the different stages that's gone through the highs and the lows and how that journeys gone?

Dr. Philip Levy: Yeah, and we're still not quite there. So, I don't want to get too far ahead and make claims that, you know, that I might regret later that are contradicting what other people are saying. We're still we're still in a in a sorting out process. So, I'll reserve a definitive judgment. There has been way too much confidence in this whole discussion over the years, way too many people absolutely confident that they know what X or Y is. And, you know, maybe we want to be a little bit more restrained, a little bit more reserved. I think there are things that we can dismiss immediately. There's there are things we can agree upon immediately. One of those very important one is that when you are out on the historic land at the birthplace, you are on the Washington family home. Lot like that that I think we know. I don't think anything can disrupt that. So, there's a difference, though, between knowing that you are on the home lot versus like what this building was, this thing and that building was that thing that I think we're a little grayer on. But there's no question that the park grounds are the grounds. So, anybody who comes to visit, they are on that site. When they look out at Pope’s Creek, they are seeing the view, right, that that is all absolutely 100% real. So, we're not to worry about any of that. That would I mention that because that was a big concern in the 1920s and 1930s, they were not so sure. And a lot of the work they did then was specifically to make the case that that was the land. So, a lot of their research was focused on change of title and lands because there was there were contenders. There are people who made arguments some interesting, some less interesting about where Washington may have been born. There are several contenders in the 1920s for the possibility of Washington's birth site. I don't think we worry about that anymore. I think we know where we are and that the Park Service owns that land and curates that land effectively and that is the place. So, we should not be worried about that. Now, how that landscape functioned, what buildings did, what on that landscape, what dated to when the much trickier question. So, we don't necessarily have, you know, the clarity we will want on that. But what it comes down to and I think part of what motivated me in this is the way that the story of the birthplace site had been told for a long time was one of sort of commemorative error and then correction and everything focused on the memorial house and its reputation. Memorial house was very much sort of, well, here's this 1930s, 1920s commemoration, and it got things wrong in these ways. And I think there's more to say than just- just that. And for a while that was kind of the main focus. This looks like they got it wrong and that has been corrected with this. This building with the other Building X features, which would be fine if, you know, if one had absolute confidence in those identifications. It's not quite as simple as that. What's happening, though, is that, you know, we're headed into 2032 sooner than any of us think. The Washington birth tricentennial and I've said this many times, but it doesn't hurt to say it again. There is going to be a moment when the eyes of the nation, in quite probably the eyes of the world, are going to turn to that piece of land and look to the National Park Service and to the park to say, All right, you're in the spotlight. Here's your moment. And I felt very strongly, after all this work on Ferry farm that we wanted to make sure that the birthplace was able to answer its questions solidly and emphatically and without the shadow of doubt hanging over it. So, we have time to do that. But I think that's what we're working toward being able to say, absolutely. Here is this and this is it. And we know that with a degree of certainty that we've never had before, so that when the moment comes, there it is. It's correct and right. And that's- that's a big motivator. I think that's a very important thing. We're going to want to get this exactly right. And I think we're edging closer, but we know so much more now than we did even just seven or eight years ago. But we're doing well. We're doing well. But this is a national position. I think people are going to want this to be the right answer. I imagine that this is going to be. But I think it's going to be a big deal. I mean, they see what the- the bicentennial was. And I think it will be different because the world functions different. But- but I think there is going to be a moment that's going to focus everything on that landscape. And I think we're going to want to want to be able to deliver exactly what- what the world needs to see.

Dustin Baker: Thank you for joining us for our first episode of Upon This Land: History, Mystery, and Monuments. Next time we'll be continuing the conversation where we left off with Dr. Phil Levy, and we'll be exploring some of what we know about the birth home of George Washington and some of the myths and legends surrounding the state and where it went. So, thank you to Dr. Levy for his time and thank you. We'll see you next time.

On this episode, we interview Dr. Philip Levy, the author of a new historic resource study for George Washington Birthplace National Monument (GEWA). He breaks down how he began studying the Washington family and his involvement with unraveling some of the mysteries surrounding George Washington’s birthplace.

Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family

Episode 2

The Power of Mystery

Transcript

Dustin Baker: Welcome to episode two of Upon This Land History, Mystery and Monuments. My name is Dustin Baker, and I'm the chief of interpretation here at the park. On this episode, we're going to be tackling one of the biggest mysteries of the park, and that's its name. We know that George Washington was born at Pope's Creek, but when we think of the term birthplace, we might also conjure a building. Yet, by the time the park was created in the 1930s, there was no longer a building here to preserve. And for over a century, people have searched for proof of where it once stood and what it looks like. Helping us shed light on this mystery is Dr. Philip Levy. And we're picking up in our conversation where we left off on the previous episode Interviewing Dr. Philip Levy today is Lead Interpretive Park ranger Jonathan Malriat.

Jonathan Malriat: One of the other mysteries tied in with that birthplace is why did it vanish? So not just why are we uncertain or where stood, why did disappear in the first place? What happened to that original birth home? There's always the Washington family story that it burned down. But what does the archeology and the historical record say?

Dr. Philip Levy: Well, remember, we have a few different features, so we're still trying to figure out that was sort of in the later stages of hammering out how to make sense of all the different features of the building that's been called Building X.

Dustin Baker: Hey, this is Dustin. Cutting in real quick to remind everybody that Building X is an archeological foundation in the memorial area of the park that shows 17th and 18th century features that have led some people to speculate that it could be the original birth home of George Washington.

Dr. Philip Levy: There are some questions that of hang over this and become very, very deeply immersed in the facts of 18th century records. So, it's like I can present you with a lot of confusion here. Here are things we know, what things we don't know there. So, let's go to before we get to the end of the building, let's get sort of the beginning of what we understand to be the beginning of the building and Augustine and Jane Washington, -

Dustin Baker: Hey, this is Dustin again. Philip Levy is introducing us to two important people in the story. This Augustine Washington is George's father. Jane Washington, though, is not his mother. She is Augustine's first wife and mother to George's surviving brothers, Augustine Jr and Lawrence. She will pass away in November of 1729.

Dr. Philip Levy: - when they got married, they were living in a home that was on the west side of Bridge's Creek up along the river somewhere. It was probably the home of Daniel Liston, who was a compatriot of John Washington. That land and that property meant something to Lawrence Washington, Augustine Washington's father. And I have to, as always with this stuff, it's you know, but it's always good to stress with people. We all have to apologize for the fact that the Washington's only used a few names because there's an endless stream of Johns and Lawrence that gets you know, it gets very difficult to clarify which one you mean. But Lawrence, Washington, Augustine's father, John's son, had some attachment to that piece of land that his family didn't own, because he one of the major things he did was fighting to acquire that property. He was in court. He was dealing with people in England to try to get the rights to it. It was a big project for him. He clearly cared. You know, it was difficult to do something. You know, they would have stopped. But he fought for this. He wanted that piece of land. And then he left it to Augustine Washington after his death. So, when Augustine came of age, that was the home that he moved to on, probably an older home. We know they're older because Laurence Washington referred to the buildings being older. So that's he's on that property. He and Jane Washington were on that property were they living in an old home or something that they built there. We just don't know. But by about 1723, he acquired land on the other side of Bridge’s Creek, the Pope's Creek land. He bought it from a guy named Joseph Addington, who was a descendant of a very large family called the Brooks, who Henry Brooks was one of the first English settlers on that piece of land. When people coming over from Maryland in the 1650s. He was one of the first people to come over from Maryland. And a whole other story which we could deal with another time. But a really interesting one. You know, the Marylanders coming over to Virginia, but Brooks had a bunch of daughters. The daughters all got married. They all had children. And you end up with this Brooks family land being divided into many little, smaller properties and little Brooks descendants all over the place. And Abington was one of these people. He was late in life, and he sold his land. He's going to go live with his sister in Baltimore, and he sold it to Augustine and Jane. They also acquired a couple other properties. And immediately something interesting happened, which was that at that point they had two young sons, Lawrence Again, because that's how they do this. Lawrence and Augustine Jr and Augustine Sr, the father was getting involved in a mining enterprise, very different than the tobacco planting at enterprise, which of course he did. But the mines really matter. He puts a lot of energy into that. He went to England several times, really focused on these mines. And here's the interesting thing. When he acquired the land that Pope's Creek, he immediately sold it to the two allies. And what he did was sort of bequeath it to his son, Augustine Jr, and sold it to these other people for like £5 for them to keep in security. So, he didn't own that land any longer. He was basically a lifetime tenant on it. So that's a logical it's a very shrewd business move. What he's doing is protecting his children's inheritances from his own possible financial ruin and possible financial ruin associated with these mining enterprises. If they fail and he ends up in debt, then these properties that he's going to leave to his children cannot be taken from him because he no longer owns them. So, he buys it and immediately puts it in trust for Augustine Jr. So, it's kind of a funny thought that the land on which George Washington was born was owned by his brother, not by his father. So, it's got a fun little trivia detail there. But here's where it becomes very convoluted where did Joseph Addington live? He sold the land, and the deed of sale has all the usual language of referring to the buildings and the orchards and the fences. But he seems to have lived there. But where did he live? Did his building survive? Is it of another piece of the land that we've just never located? That's one of the things about archeology. We don't ever there's no system for digging the entire property of something, you know, there are always going to be places we haven't seen. We see a lot of one area, but we see nothing of huge swaths of the other area. We have methods for figuring out where buildings were. We're habitations where we also can miss things because we're not allowed to dig everywhere. So, there are places we just don't know about pieces of the property that we just have never seen. We don't know it's there. There are houses all over that landscape, 18th century or 17th century, estimating such ruins all over the place. I got five or six people identified who have plantations on that land. I know the names of enslaved people. We know stuff about their inventories. We had a carpenter living right near the dancing marsh. Right. Who's living on the on west side of that? I don't think he's on Park Service land at this point. Think might be the Muse property, but there's a lot of buildings there. We just haven't found them. We haven't seen them. So, we've seen what we've seen. But we don't want to assume that just because it's the thing that we've seen, it must be the most important thing. So where did Addington live when Augustine and Jane moved over from Bridge’s Creek, which we know they do, because he has a document where he says he's living on Pope's Creek. But that tells that he's shifted his main home. But did they build a home to live in or did they move into Addington’s Home? We just don't know. There's nothing to really clarify this. There's a little bit we're getting hints about this. We'll get to that in a minute. And then the next thing that happens is a guy named David Jones, who's a local builder, local carpenter, who probably was the tenants of Augustine's living on the land that Augustine Washington owned. He passed away. And there's some reason, some legal reason why there's a problem with his account in Augustine Washington's account book, there's some reasons the law needs to know about this, And the David Jones portion of Augustine Washington's business account book gets read into the court records. So, we have those. We have a record of all of that transaction. We have like a little miniature version of Augustine Washington's account book. We don't have the rest of the account book its lost, so we don't know who else he's doing business with. When you have an account book, you have an amazing glimpse into the detailed operations of this person's personal finances. We have an amazing body of records for George. The best thing we have for the birthplace is William Augustine Washington. We have his account from 1776 all the way through to about 1795 or so. So, we know a lot of detail about what he's buying, who he's trading with. And we know a lot we don't know a lot for Augustine, Washington. What we have is this one little portion of the account book read into the court records because the county needed to know about this. And that's what survived. And what we see is that the builder had died and hadn't finished whatever building project he was doing for Augustine. And Augustine referred to that project as my house. So now, okay, what does that mean? Is the carpenter completing a house? Is he adding on to a house? We just don't know. We just know that it wasn't finished and there's money involved. He also was building a church building one of the Washington Parish churches. So, now we know that they've moved that there might be the Abbington home out there and that David Jones was working on something, but he hadn't. But he died before the project was completed. So, we didn't we don't know, you know, the remaining piece there. So, a people looked at that record in the past and said, that's him building the first phase of Building X. And you could say that if you want. You can't prove any of that. All you can do is say, you know, I know that he's building something, but I also know that there's a building out there already. So, one clue, though, that's telling us that the Abington House may be somewhere else is when we looked at the archeology of the landscape and looked at the distribution of artifacts across the park grounds, we could see concentrations and we could put dates on those concentrations because the artifacts have dates associated with them. We do not have a lot of 17th century stuff on the site, and that's very significant because if Abington was living on the park grounds right in the area of the historic area. We would expect there to be at least some of the 17th century ceramics, and we don't see any. So that's a clue that Abington may have been living somewhere, not immediately there. And if that's the case, then David Jones may have been building a new building for Augustine and Jane. And that part of that new building may be the earliest phase of Building X. So, if you see what I mean, the earliest part of that building may be exactly the building that David Jones was working on for Augustine Washington. So, I think that's the direction that we're headed, that there's a core of that building that built by Augustine Washington in the years after 23, after he had taken property, taken possession and started to live on that land. But then what happens to it afterwards? It would it would seem to be sort of what my thinking is, and this is just where my mind is, that with the thought, I'm inclined to think that there's a core piece that is the Augustine Washington building and then additions put onto it later, and I would put those additions in the hands of Augustine, Washington Jr, who was an exceedingly wealthy planter who between he and his wife Ann Aylett Washington, they lived on that property for about 40 years. So, they had plenty of time to make additions after additions after additions. And he's got his inventory is remarkable. I think I mentioned it in the report. It's-

Dustin Baker: Hey, Dustin, again. Phil's just mentioned a report that he completed. That report is the park's current historic resource study upon this land. Seven generations of the Washington family and the residents of Pops Creek in the Mattox Neck. If you would like to explore it for yourself, it can be found on our website.

Dr. Philip Levy: - something you can gain access to, but it's a remarkable inventory. He's got all kinds of fancy stuff, like a big, big four horse carriage and he's a very wealthy planter and it makes sense that he would have a large, impressive home. Augustine Washington's a little different because he moved a lot, but he was living he started out life in Virginia. He moved to England when he was young. He came back from England and lived with a cousin and on maturity he took the possession, took possession of the property on Bridges Creek. Then he purchased the land over by Pope's Creek, which he then left to go to Mount Vernon. And then he left. Mount Vernon wasn't called Vernon then, but you get the point. At this point in history, Mount Vernon was known as Little Hunting Creek, a native actually already been in the Washington family for three generations. The name was changed to Mount Vernon by George's half-brother, Lawrence. After his commanding officer, Admiral Edward Vernon of the Royal Navy. So, the home that is almost synonymous with George Washington was named after a British admiral. He left Mount Vernon to go to Ferry Farm where he finally passed away. So, Augustine was not a let's sit in one place. Let's build our empire and build a beautiful home kind of guy. Is he's that's not that's not his temperament. He finds houses, then he moves into them, and he's been doing that his whole life. So, he's not a great builder and he's only at the Pope’s Creek property for about nine years anyway. He's out of there pretty quickly. So, when we look at who is the great builder, who is the person there with the wherewithal and time to make a massive home, it's Augustine Jr, it's his son. So, I think that's a lot of what we look at building. A lot of what we're seeing is there's Augustine Jr's building and then what happens to that? That's a good question. Augustine Jr passed away. And so, when you get the date wrong, it's like 1764, I think.

Dustin Baker: Just a quick correction. Augustine Jr. passed away in 1762, not 64.

Dr. Philip Levy: And left to his wife, Ann Aylett Washington, a lifetime tenancy in the estate and she's an interesting character a very interesting thing happens with her that nobody really has picked up on. But I think it's really fascinating. Up until throughout Augustine Washington, Jr's life, this is just called the Washington home or the home, because this is the building just where they live. The Washingtons don't do a lot of naming, but really their habit. George is a bit of an exception. Lawrence names Mount Vernon. But George So George didn't name anything, right? It was Mount Vernon when he got it. The Washingtons just don't do a lot of naming. The ferry farm home is called the Home House, and a lot of people do not remember his last name on their home. Just like today, not everybody names their home, so it's like the home. But then when Augustine Washington Jr. died and Ann Aylett Washington takes over the property and lives there for about ten years, suddenly she's getting mails sent to her at Wakefield. She the name Wakefield is her choice, and it appears only in connection with her. There are a few letters that are addressed to Wakefield and references to Wakefield, and then when she died, I think it's 1774 and the property goes to William Augustine, Washington, her son, the name falls out of favor and they're not using it anymore. It's gone. So, it's really, it's her thing. It's her choice to call it Wakefield, and it only lasts her lifetime. That habit falls away. It gets resuscitated in the 19th century because it's romantic. You know, it fits it fits the way the 19th century commemorators and the 20th century, early 20th century collectors want to imagine an Anglophile colonial past. They love the idea of this property having a name, and they think the property special because they care a lot about the fact that Washington was born there. His immediate family. They don't care so much about that. But that's land. They're going to make money off of that land and sell it if they want. So, they're not particularly invested in the romantic side of this. But later, people who are invested in the sort of colorful, charming English countryside stuff there, they really love the name Wakefield and they attached to it. But the only person or historical person who uses that name is Ann Aylett Washington, and it comes with her, and it dies with her. William Augustine, Washington never, never used that name. So. So, what happens to him? Well, he ends up inheriting that property. He he's very young at the time, I think about 17 when his mother died. And he's got a brother-in-law and older brother-in-law who I think it's a brother-in-law who plays a big role, plays a custodial role, and there's all sorts of weird little sales and transfers. I don't quite understand what's going on there, but William Augustine Washington. Mary's within sort of the family network and he's there. He's living there presumably until about 1780, when we suddenly see him living at the Blenheim home, which is about a mile inland. There isn't anything to specifically account for exactly why he stopped living there. It's hard to tell. And the archeology of the features of building X have the building being a ruin. It's hard to tell exactly when we'd have to kind of look really closely, but it seems to it's a little bit earlier than that. Maybe the 1770s, we start to see the beginning of it being a ruin. What that means archeologically is that the cellars were open, they were open holes and they filled with rubbish. So, they're collecting garbage into the 19th century, into the early 19th century, and visitors say that they can see the depression of the of the cellar in the early 19th century. But we don't have we have a silt at the bottom and a chimney that got pushed in. That's the main set of ruined features. So, bricks that got just some bricks get shoved in. Not a lot, not enough to suggest that the building was made of brick. It's mostly just dirt, some burned stuff, but the burned stuff is all fireplace refuse. It's not house fire, it's all small bits. Things burned in varying degrees and a lot of dirt at the bottom. If you have a house fire, the first thing you get is burn and you get large, burned things. Whatever was in the house the night of the fire that gets burned and it ends up in the bottom and then dirt goes above the burned stuff. In this case, we've got dirt and silt going into an empty building and then fire ruptures on top of that. So, either it was abandoned and burned down later, or people are just throwing garbage in it, meaning they're living somewhere nearby and they're dumping their fire, refuse their fireplace, refuse into it, filling the hole. And gradually we know that there was a chimney that was pushed in most of the bricks that are in the future. In the 1930s, those were associated with a chimney that fell in. So it appears to have been abandoned at some point. Again, we know that William Augustine Washington had moved away from it by 1780, and then a decade later, he's moved again, moved up to Haywood, which is another property on the Potomac. So, he's another one who's moving. But, you know, one of the nice things about having his account book, which nobody had looked at, nobody had taken that account book into account, nobody had nobody considered what was in that account book. What you don't have in his account book in the period of 17 nights, 1779 and 1780. Crucially, what you don't add is him re acquiring the things you need to run a domestic, you know, a gentry home. If he had had a major fire and needed to get a new mirror and a new sofa and a new bedstead, you would see that in the account book that we have, his account book. He's not buying any of those things. None of that is happening. That's possible. We're not seeing those transactions. But, you know, we have the account book. He's not doing that. He's a merchant and he's selling a lot of stuff. It's possible we're looking at his business account. Nothing is domestic one, I don't know. But we also see him we see him hiring bricklayers when he's building Haywood and some extent when he's building Blenheim. We see him. We're working up. Let him. We see him hiring the people. He needs to do the work on building the new homes. So, we do see something of the domestic economy. So why does he leave? I don't have a simple explanation. My inclination is to say it has something to do with the American Revolution in 1781, an English gunboat named the Savage went up the Potomac River a little bit like what would happen in the War of 1812. This gunboat went up the river. It burned some plantations on the Maryland side, didn't burn anything in Virginia. As far as I know, the enslaved people of the area were fleeing because the English offered them freedom. So, they were getting in boats and pushing off and going to the going to the English boat because that would make them free. And that they went all the way up to Mount Vernon, had a whole incident there. So, you've got this disruption now it's we know the outcome of the revolution, but, you know, the people in it don't. And it's pretty terrifying to have an English gunboat going up the river, burning homes. One of the things that happens when the savages going up the river is they open fire on two smaller sloops on the river because they see them in there, they see them moving quickly. And so, the British opened fire on them. And when the boats strike their sails and the English catch up to them, they turn out to be English privateers. So, the English first thought they were American and opened fire on them. Then when they get to them, know another two boats are actually English privateers. Well, that's really important because that tells us that there's raiding happening on the Potomac. People are people homes being robbed by English privateers. It may well be that Augustine, that William Augustine Washington said, let's move a little bit inland. Let's let's get away from the river front here and settle ourselves a little further back. So that's speculative explanation. But I think it accords with the way the world looked in 1780 and 1781 that there's ample reason to move away from the coast and settle a little bit further in and avoid the conflict a little bit, which again, the alarm was all up and down the river. People were terrified. And you can understand why. I mean, it's you know, this is a terrifying thing. So, at that point, though, sometime around that time, the building was abandoned and that's that. Now we know that there's a fire at some point because by 1810, they're referencing a burned house on the landscape. But 1810 is not 1780. Right. I mean, still, you got, you know, 30 years for something to burn between 1780 and 1810. There's no reason to assume that a fire reference 1810 was in a 1780 fire. Right. It's a lot of time between them and buildings burned all the time. There are any number of burned house roads all up and down the Potomac, all up all across the Chesapeake. It's a very common marker. There's also a piece of land called the Ruins, which is over near Blenheim. So, there are these place memories in the landscape in 1810. A burnt house, something called the ruins. So, there's been a long habitation there and lots of opportunity for these buildings to vanish in a variety of different ways. And a lot of people living there. There's a change, there's a decline in the number of people living there over the period of the Washington occupancy. At first there's lots of small planters, but gradually under the Washingtons, all that land gets bought up by them and it starts to be one plantation rather than about a dozen or more small ones. So, there's a lot of buildings around, a lot of buildings that can burn. The other thing about what's called the road to the burned house is typical of these maps. We don't see where it goes. We just see the beginning of it. We just see it going up. The neck of land. We don't see where it goes. So, it's the main road is what used to be the county road, the maintained road that appears in the documents of the 18th century as the road up Mattox neck. There's a road, there's a road to the Mattox Ferry, which is another one. And unfortunately, you can look at that map and see it's like we are part of that, but we don't have the whole thing, so we don't know to which burned house that road went. We just know that there's a burned house somewhere along that road in 1810 or a memory of a burned house in 1810.

Dustin Baker: Thank you for joining us in this episode of Upon this Land History, Mystery and Monuments. And this episode, we talked a lot about the ongoing research around the archeological sites in the park. But on the next episode, we're going to dive into the oral traditions, the stories that have persisted through generations about what took place here. Where did the buildings go and how do we collectively remember the birthplace of George Washington.

On this episode, we're tackling one of the biggest mysteries of the park, and that's its name. We know George Washington was born at Popes Creek, but when we think of the term birthplace, we might also conjure a building. Yet, by the time the park was created in the 1930s, there was no longer a building here to preserve. Helping us shed light on this mystery is Dr. Philip Levy. Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family

Episode 3

The Power of Story

Transcript

Dustin Baker: George Washington. It's one of the most recognizable names in the world. His story is a foundational stone in American history. Yet at the place he was born, only remnants remain of the buildings and the stories of people who once lived here. One might think that the birthplace of a national icon is an easy story to tell, but it's actually one of the most complex and surprising historic sites preserved by the National Park Service. So join us as we piece together the past, present and future of this place brick by brick. On this podcast series upon this Land History, mystery and monuments. Fact or fiction? History or mystery? When studying the biography of George Washington, it can be tricky to piece apart. The same is true for the place he was born. Hi, I'm Dustin Baker, and I'm the chief of interpretation here at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. Where does history come from? The power of a place largely comes from how we remember its history and how we talk about it. An oral tradition is a form of human communication held in common by a group of people where knowledge, ideas, and culture are passed through stories from one generation to another. Whenever we are told a story about the past, it might be best to view ourselves as participating in a centuries long game of telephone with specifics and data changing slightly during each retelling. And well, when these stories are repeated or printed by what we might perceive as authoritative or trusted sources, well, then they can go unquestioned as fact. Yet sometimes when we try to trace back a piece of information to a primary source or record, the trail goes, well, cold. Sometimes we even find the answers contradict long held beliefs. On this episode, we're going to dive into some of the oldest oral traditions about the home George Washington was born in. Just before you enter the park on route 204, you'll pass a sign that reads the following:

Jonathan Malriat using a radio voice: Virginia Department of Historic Resources highway marker J 69. George Washington's Birthplace, Wakefield. George Washington's birthplace, is two miles north on Pope's Creek, just off the Potomac River. He was born on 22nd February 1732 and live there only for three years. Washington's father, Augustine, purchased the land in 1718 and built the house by 1726. President Washington's half brother, Augustine Junior, inherited the property after his father's death in 1743. The dwelling, a U-shaped timber frame house, burned on Christmas Day 1779. The present memorial house, erected in 1930-31, is a Colonial Revival style version of a medium size planter's house. Originally known as Pope's Creek, the property was renamed Wakefield about 1770 by George Washington's half nephew, William Augustine Washington.

Dustin Baker: What is presented as simple facts upon closer examination, may actually be rooted in oral tradition. For example, if you were from Westmoreland County, Virginia, Wakefield might be a place name you use frequently, and it's not hard to find references to Wakefield as being the birthplace, or sometimes the birth home of George Washington. So who gave it that name? And when? But the big one is certainly the ultimate fate of the House. On our previous episode, we discuss what we know about building X with Doctor Philip Levy. We know that historical records indicate that the Washington family was no longer living there by 1780. We also know that by the 1800s, visitors were describing only a depression in the ground where it had once stood. So where did the house go? The story of George Washington's birth home burning down on Christmas Day, 1779, is a story that's been told here for over a century. In fact, it is so ingrained that new oral traditions have been born about certain objects in our collections, told to have been saved from the fire by the Washington family themselves. We're going to continue our conversation with Doctor Philip Levy where we left off on the previous episode and trace this story back to its origin. Will the story of the birth home burning go cold? Interviewing Doctor Phillip Levy as myself and lead interpretive ranger Jonathan Malriat.

Dr. Philip Levy: Augustine Jr passed away and left to his wife Ann Aylett, Washington, a lifetime tenancy in the estate and she's an interesting character. A very interesting thing happens with her that nobody really has picked up on. But I think is really fascinating. Up until, throughout Augustine Washington Jr's life, this is just called the Washington home or the home, because this is the building just where they live. The Washingtons don't do a lot of naming, it’s not really their habit. George is a bit of an exception, well Lawrence names it Mount Vernon. But George, so George didn't name anything, right? It was Mount Vernon when he got it. The Washingtons just don't do a lot of naming. The Ferry Farm home is called the Home House, and a lot of people don’t. Not everyone slaps a name on their home. Just like today, not everybody names their home, so it's like the home. But then when, when Augustine Washington Junior died and Anne Aylett Washington takes over the property and lives there for about ten years, suddenly she's getting mail sent to her at Wakefield. She, the name Wakefield is her choice and it appears only in connection with her. There are a few letters that are addressed to Wakefield and references to Wakefield, and then when she died, I think it's 1774 and the property goes to William Augustine Washington, her son, the name falls out of favor and they're not using it anymore. It's gone. So it's really it's it's her thing. It's it's her choice to call it Wakefield, and it only lasts her lifetime. That habit falls away. It gets resuscitated in the 19th century because it's romantic. You know, it fits it fits the way the 19th century commemorators and the 20th century, early 20th century commemorators want to imagine an Englified colonial past. They love the idea of this property having a name, and they think the property special because they care a lot about the fact that Washington was born there. His immediate family, they don't care so much about that. But it's land, they're going to make money off of that land and sell it if they want. So they're not particularly invested in the romantic side of this. But later, people who are invested in the sort of colorful, charming English countryside stuff. They’re, they really love the name Wakefield and they attached to it. But the only person, historical person who uses that name is Ann Aylett Washington, and it comes with her and it dies with her.

Dustin Baker: And Phil, I'm glad you brought this up. I promise I'm not making this up for the purpose of the podcast. But I was driving home from work yesterday and I stopped at a gas station, so I'm still in my park service uniform. And a gentleman at the pump across from me goes, “hey, you work up at the state park.” And I said, “I work at George Washington's Birthplace”. And he goes, “You mean Stratford Hall?” And I said, “No, George Washington's Birthplace”. And he says, “I don't think I've heard of that.” And I go, “Well, most people around here call it Wakefield.” And he goes, “Wakefield, yes, I know where you're talking about.” So I guess I just would like to know why you think these place names persist for so long into the present era and why stories like the House Fire on Christmas Day. Why do those persist for as long as they do up until, you know, being something that someone today might reference this place as Wakefield?

Dr. Philip Levy: Yeah. I mean, the house fire story is its own complicated thing. There are, its fun to consider this, there is a house fire story for every Washington home, every one of them burned down. Ferry Farm has a story associated with 1740, where we are able to archeologically identify this, but there is two letters that referenced the 1740 fire, one in 1741 that specifically said sorry about your fire. And then in the 1790s you get another letter to George, someone who's reminding him about the fire at Ferry Farm, and that fire was on Christmas. So you got a 1790 letter saying, I lived across the river. And I remember when on Christmas your father's home burned and everybody had to go live in the kitchen. Its a very good letter. Right. That’s a very, that letter documents an actual event that that kind of memory in the lifetime of the people who are writing it. That's good stuff. Tied with another letter at the time in 1740 that references a fire that it immediately happened. So the very farm fire is very, very solid, very well dated and very real. What ended up happening is, remember I said in the biographies, people don't have access to a full range of information. They don't have all these documents. So you get somebody who does have some documents and they write about it. So you can find in the biographies people trying to figure out what house burned. So when a guy named David Humphreys, who was an officer in Washington, Army, one of Washington’s sort of supporting officers, decided to write a biography of Washington, the first attempt at this, in the late 1780s. Washington gave him access to some of his papers and he wrote a biography that ultimately wasn't published in his lifetime. It got published much later. But one of the things that makes that biography really useful is he gave a draft of it to Washington to look over, and Washington commented on some details. And I've always thought the details that he comments on are incredibly important because we get so little where Washington talks about his family. So we get these little bits. They're really quite telling. And one of the comments he makes is when he talks about the events of his childhood, which there's very little mentioned in Humphreys’ biography. He says, My father's house burned. That's it. But it's I think it's either his, I think I think, he, I think Humphrey’s writes his father's house burned, referencing what Washington has said. I don't remember the pronoun, but but the point is that Washington says my father's house burned and he associates that with his childhood. So that's probably the Ferry Farm story. Right, you with me? But that all speaks to the Ferry Farm fire. But the notion of a fire gets locked in the mind. And so you have some biographers in the 19th century who were just trying to solve problems. They know that Augustine left Pope's Creek and they know he left about 1740, 1738, 1736 right, pick your date. They know he leaves in that period. And so they say, Oh, a fire and he left. The home at Pope’s Creek must have burned down. So they look at the existing fire documentation in the letters and say, that must be why they left Pope’s Creek. So you start to get people saying, no, the fire was at Pope's Creek. Ferry Farm gets ignored in that story. In that version, they just ignore it. It's just not enough to say they just ignore it entirely. Parson Weems, the guy who wrote the Cherry Tree story, wrote, you know, one of the first major Washington biographies he wrote a story about, and this is a wacky thing, but he wrote a story about Mary Washington having a dream. And in the dream, Mount Vernon burns down, except that George was like five or six years old, saves the home by running up and down a ladder, pouring water on the fire. So little six year old George saves Mount Vernon from burning down. This is a dream that Mary Washington had and Parson Weems tells us, It's a political allegory and he explains the politics. It's a very strange, but, you know, but any time, any time you have an allegory, and then you got to explain what the allegory means. You haven't done the allegory very well. But that's exactly what he does. Here's what and here's what it means. But the point is, like, now there's a Washin.. Now there's a Mount Vernon fire story also. And the Mount Vernon fire story involves a fire breaking out on the roof of the ell of the house. They are not sure exactly. I mean, I guess you could have sparks coming out of the chimney and landing on wooden shingles. That could be the beginning of a fire on the roof. But there's a crucial pair of details here on the roof of the ell of a house that is buried in in Weem's Life of Washington. So now we've got a fantasy story of a fire at Mount Vernon. We've got documents from the period about a fire that probably tied to Ferry Farm, and the archeology supports that. And we've got historians trying to explain why they left Pope’s Creek and saying, it must have been the fire. So fire is now being used in a bunch of different ways. Then there's a series of biographies and the writers who in the 1880s and 1890s start writing a version of a fire at Pope's Creek and a letter emerges about 1883. It's credited to Sarah Tayloe Washington, who would have been in her eighties at the time. And she says that she learned from her grandfather who she she couldn't have been any older than nine or so when her grandfather died and he was in his seventies at the time. So you've got in 1883, you've got the memory of an 80 year old recalling a story told her by a 70 year old roughly 70 years earlier. It's not exactly a great lineage for a story, not great evidence. And she says there was a fire and they pulled the furniture out. She's a few details and she says it was, she says it was during the revolution. Then you get a landowner, Wilson, who lives nearby, and he knows a version of that story that he learned from her. And he says, no, it was 1779, so he puts a date on it. But then you get a guy who's from New York who's a kind of a forger, forger of credentials for, for objects and. He tells another story and his story says, No, it was 1780. And he says, of all the most wonderful things in the world, that sparks came out of the chimney and it started a fire on the roof of the ell of the house. And that's the story that the Wakefield Memorial Association uses as their fire story. It uses the elements of Mary Washington's dream to tell this story. And it's garbled. It's all, it's like all the stuff gets garbled. It's like you take all these little details of fire and put them in a blender and just, like, blend them all together and pour them out. Like, here's this one, here's that one. So all this, you see what I'm saying, all of this is so corrupted by cross-fertilization and different storytellings, that none of it is credible. There's no reason to to put any stock in any of this. The only one that works is the Ferry Farm story, because it's the only one that's documented in the 18th century by the people alive at the time are talking about it. And then it gets even more confusing because there's a letter from, these are the thing people don’t refer to, that's why you want to go back to documents, there's a letter from 1790, I think is the date from William Augustine Washington that he says he talks about what a bad year it's been because he's had two major barn fires and that would be at the Pope’s Creek property somewhere around it. By 1790, He's living at, living on the Potomac. He’s moved away from Blenheim, but he's in the same area. He owns that land and we don't know where the tobacco plants are. They may have been on the Pope's creek land because they would be all over the place. They'd be wherever they need to be. But two of his barns burned down. And he writes about it as like this kind of disaster that he befalls. So when you go back to Sarah Tayloe, Washington, as a nine year old learning a fire story from a 70 year old. Maybe he was talking about the barns. I mean, the loss of the tobacco barns is a huge financial loss for him. That is a very bad thing to happen to somebody who's growing tobacco. So winter fire that means those barns were full of tobacco. That's why they burned the way they did. He lost it. He lost a year's crop. And that's going to stick with you. You're going to remember that. So maybe what she remembered as a house was actually the tobacco barns. But also everybody at that point already knew the Parson Weems made up fire story. And you find other people, there were biographers of Mary Washington. There's woman in 1902 who writes, I think its 1902, writes about Mary Washington. And she tells she tells the Weem’s fire story. It's a dream that Weem’s made up. She tells that story and sets it at Pope's Creek and tells it as, as if it's historical fact. The ell, the fire on the roof, it's all made up. But what happens is the stuff gets written and it makes it into a book. And when it gets into one book, it makes it into the next book. And when it makes it to that one, it makes it into the third book. And the third person, when somebody says, Why did you say that? They say, Oh, it was, uh, I got two citations worth two other biographers told this story. And so these things just take on lives of their own and they become the ways that people understand a place and that becomes deeply personal. Becomes who you are, how you associate yourself with a landscape. Who, who you are in relation to the community and the story. So having this knowledge, knowing these things, knowing the name Wakefield, is a way of belonging in the community. It's a way of being part of the community. And people take that very seriously and will often hold on to those things and treasure them because they're, they're about identity. They're not the kind of project that we might be interested in, which is historical reality. What can I cite? What can I prove in documents, you know, without necessarily without sort of calling, you know, winners and losers before says, well, what do the documents help me see? what do I see in the documents? But this other experience, this identity piece, this belonging, this being part of something that's less concerned about what the documents have to say and is more concerned with, what did you learn growing up? What did your grandmother tell you? How have you always referred to this place? What stories have you always told about it? And those are comforting. And again, they're about belonging. So they stay because they do real work for people. They're very important. They don't have to be real to be important, though. Historians are not obligated to sort of honor them as if they are historically viable. But they play a role in people's understanding of a place. And in that way they're extremely important. And that's why they survive. They survive because they matter to people.

Dustin Baker: Yeah, and speaking of peoples understanding of a place, you know, we have so many stories that are blended and intermingled with facts for this location, but we also have an idealized physical landscape here now with commemorative buildings that are what visitors see and with, you know, nearly 100,000 visitors coming to this place, trying to form a connection with George Washington every year. As someone who's based in historic fact, I'm just interested in what you make of that.

Dr. Philip Levy: I mean, first of all, 100,000 is great and you'll be grateful more. I mean, that's a great number, particularly for a place that is, you know, off the beaten track. That's a great number. So that's a very exciting. It's a very exciting thing. People want that connection. you know, one of the things that that Park shows that's important to interesting in the Memorial House, is when you read the work of the people, Josephine Wheelright Rust, and people who are sort of working with her. When, what they were talking about was the idea of a fitting commemoration. So remember I said earlier that 1810 people marking the landscape don't really reference George. They either know it to the point where it doesn't feel like it needs to be referenced or it just is just not that important to them. But later generations will completely turn that around and make George the most important thing about the landscape. That's indeed the world that we inhabit, Right? The reason we're talking about the landscape at all is because of the Washington association and the sort of national recognition of the importance of the Washington association. So when they're doing their first commemorations in the 1920s, they they are completely bought in in Washington being great and important and fabulous. And, you know, they want to be the people who commemorated Washington. Like that that is their that's a big identity project for them. That's who they want to be in the world. And so they talk about things. They want to make a fitting a fitting commemoration. In other words, they want something that they think honors the greatness of the memory and the image. That's what they're going for. That's not the same as saying what sat on the land in the 18th century. And let's look at that. It's a very different kind of project. Augustine Washington, whether he built or moved into a home, knows nothing about the future greatness of his son. He’s just building, he’s the guy building a home with with whatever resources he has, and then he's leaving anyway. He goes to England all the time. Right. So, you know, he's I don't know how deeply invested in building a great home Augustine Washington was. That's not his priority but the people who are commemorating George's birth centuries later, they they're very interested in fitting and you read some of their work, particularly Charles Arthur Hoppin, who was an historian for that project, he’s a genealogist, but he does the historical research for them. Hoppin’s an interesting guy because he’s very good at finding documents, but he's terrible at understanding them. So his reads of documents are always a little bit wacky. The, one of the things he is very concerned about, people who are arguing that Washington may have been born somewhere else. Obviously he's concerned about that because he's involved in raising the money for this project. He doesn't want to suddenly find out that they're wrong, right? So so he does everything he can to sort of undermine them by writing stuff mostly, you know, writing snarky things about them being wrong. But there's that painting or that there's the the the Currier and Ives lithograph of of the birth place and that we won't go into that. That's a whole complicated Ferry Farm story. But there's a chain of image that gets us to the to that Currier Ives image. And Hoppin hates that image. He's really, really upset about that and writes extensively about how it's it's an affront to think that Washington could have been born in such a humble, simple, poor looking home. How could that have happened, a man as great as this could never have been born in such a simple home? It's like, Well, that's absurd statement. But it shows you where his personal investment is in this and what he wants of Washington. And so he's part of a project that builds a grand brick mansion to commemorate Washington because they think that fitting. Their Washington, their understanding of him needs to have been born in a grand, magnificent building that befits the status that he will have later in life. We would not talk that way. And this is why it's very important to to recognize the people doing historical work in the 1930s and 1920s. It might be called historical work, but their project is not like our project. They are they're operating on very different sets of assumptions. And what constitutes historical is just very, very different. So, so what do you do then when you have a landscape like the one you have at the birth place, where you have a lot of commemorative buildings? You know, I think you can explain that to people. I'm not sure everybody's going to get that. But I think I think a lot of times people just want to know what's real and what's not real. And while I and many people like me love reconstructions, I love a rebuilt building. Nothing makes me happier. Not everybody's going to see it that way. They want, they want real. Real and not real. I would reject those categories, but I understand it. The best thing to do in those circumstances is to use them as teaching tools. In one nice thing about a rebuilt building is people can handle it. People can sort of touch it and come in contact with it and be in it in a way that you would not want with an actual 18th century building. You would have to keep them a bit at arm's length. So you had these great interpretive platforms to talk about 18th century life. I also, when I've taken students out there, we've talked about the memorial house. It's true that the memorial house sits probably in the wrong place and is not a good representation of what we can tell was on that land. However, it is a pretty good mock up of something like Gunston Hall. It does look like a nice 18th century home and there are a lot of Virginians who would've been very happy to have lived in that home in the middle of the 18th century. And I think there's a lot you can do just by saying here is a good sort of imagined setting for elite, elite Virginians lives. So a lot of the stuff about how you move through a home, how central passages function, how rooms function, which I think is already part of the interpretation, that stuffs all available to you. So I think you can use it very much to your advantage to talk about the world of the 18th century.

Dustin Baker: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Upon This Land History, Mystery and Monuments. We want to thank Doctor Phillip Levy for his time, and we will be continuing the conversation with him on a future episode. But for now, we're going to shift gears. National Park Week is right around the corner, and we want people to leave their national parks not just informed, but also inspired. One of the ways we do that is with the Artist in Residence program. But how do you inspire people with art at a historic site? Well, we're going to be interviewing former artist in residence Selene Jarvis and talking to her about how she did just that at George Washington's birthplace. So join us for our next episode.

On this episode, we are going to dive into some of the oldest oral traditions about the home George Washington was born in. It is not hard to find references to Wakefield being the birthplace of George Washington but who gave it that name and when? Another big one is the ultimate fate of the house. Joining us again during this episode is Dr. Philip Levy. Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family.

Episode 4

The Power of Art

Transcript

Dustin Baker George Washington. It's one of the most recognizable names in the world. His story is a foundational stone in American history. Yet at the place he was born, only remnants remain of the buildings and the stories of people who once lived here. One might think that the birthplace of a national icon is an easy story to tell, but it's actually one of the most complex and surprising historic sites preserved by the National Park Service. So join us as we piece together the past, present and future of this place brick by brick. On this podcast series upon this Land History, mystery and monuments. In the 18th century, as people began to expand west, stories emerged of trees that took 30 men holding hand in hand to wrap themselves around. Waterfalls that were thousands of feet tall. Bubbling mud pots and geysers. These stories sounded like fiction. And they were not to be believed until artists found themselves in these locations and captured the scenery firsthand on canvas. Through their awe inspiring works, the public came to see these special places in America for the first time. The works captured their imaginations, spurring them to preserve these lands for future generations. Hi, I'm Dustin Baker, and I'm the chief of interpretation at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. Today, art continues to thrive in our national parks. The sights and sounds in national parks continue to inspire artists who communicate that inspiration through painting, photography, poetry, and more. But how do you take intangible inspiration from a site like this and turn it into art? What medium would you use and why? It's National Park Week, and on this episode we are going to ask that very question to our most recent volunteer artist in residence. Selene Jarvis is a textile and fiber artist working primarily in historical spinning, weaving and natural dye techniques. She embraces the value of making functional objects as a way to explore the intricate beauty of early American textiles. Her use of natural dyes utilizes local plants, linking the work to a physical location and capturing memory and fabric. Interviewing Selene Jarvis is myself and lead interpretive park ranger Jonathan Malriat.

Jonathan Malriat So, Selene, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

Selene Jarvis Yeah, sure. I live locally. I grew up in the area and this is my first residency. I'm a hand weaver and spinner, natural dyer. I do a lot of different textile arts, very interested in historical textile arts. And yeah, I've been here since February doing a lot of spinning and dyeing and working with local natural materials at the park.

Jonathan Malriat So Artist in Residence program is a national initiative that the Park Service has been doing. And Dustin, explain what artist in residence is and what that means here at George Washington birthplace?

Dustin Baker

Yeah. So the relationship between artists and national parks goes all the way back to the very inception of preserving beautiful landscapes for the benefit of all people thinking all the way back to the 19th century, the Hudson River School painters Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, going out and documenting Western landscapes in those paintings and images, making their way back to the east and convincing people in government to preserve these places. It really speaks to art, has always been there when it comes to the history of the national parks, and I think everyone knows what I mean. When you go to some national parks and you're just immediately hit with this this surreal beauty of of of the landscapes and artists can communicate that in many different ways, very many different mediums. And so the Artist in Residence program is really something that's kind of been there all along. When you think about it, there's there's always been people painting these landscapes and photographing them. And and today we, you know, can broaden that into all different kinds of mediums. And with the artists and residency program here actually using materials from the landscape to create that art.

Jonathan Malriat So you're the one who implemented the artist residence program here at George Washington Birthplace. It's the first time we've had it. What was the motive behind wanting to do that?

Dustin Baker Well, for me, I mean, I think when people think George Washington Birthplace, they do not come prepared for how beautiful this park is. And it really is. It's scenic. It has lots of flora and fauna that you can't find in very many other places. And it is an exceptionally beautiful place. But for me personally, this was an important program to implement because I actually got my career started in 2011 as an artist in residence and I was the sculptor in residence for two seasons at Mount Rushmore National Memorial and it actually really makes talking to young people fun, people who ask one of the most common questions we get is how did you get your job in the National Park Service? And I think the answer people expect is studying, you know, geology or some kind of natural science. But to say, you know, I began as an artist and you could do really opens people's eyes to all the possibilities that our national parks or service sites hold, both in terms of career opportunities, volunteer opportunities, but also what's important to, you know, something kind of impersonal, like the federal government. It's it's surprising to people to think about. That there's actually art programs that are funded and sponsored by, you know, our federal government.

Jonathan Malriat So, Selene, you were the first artist in residence here at George Washington, birthplace. What interested in you in becoming an artist in residence volunteer?

Selene Jarvis Yeah, it's a great question. My first introduction to George Washington Birthplace Monument was actually through 4-H. As a kid, I did 4-H here at the park and would run around and volunteer and just got to enjoy, enjoy being in the park. And I loved that. And I have come to now be finishing my studies in textiles, historic textiles focused. And I had heard of artists and resident programs and national parks, but I didn't know that that was an option here, or I wasn't even thinking about that being an option here. Actually, when I reached out, I was just curious about what was going on at the park. Currently, I had remembered coming here as a kid and seeing the weaving studio and just wanting to get more involved in my local community and involved in historic textiles and the like. Right where I live. So I had reached out and was put in touch with Dustin, and when I came here we got talking about the Artist in Residence program and it just seemed like a really wonderful fit for what I was doing currently. And it kind of just grew out of having that conversation about how parks can be.There's just they have so much to offer, so much to offer, and especially for artists and a really great place to be. But yeah, I didn't exactly come here with the intention of of starting out at the residency, but I'm so glad that that's what happened. Worked out really wonderfully.

Jonathan Malriat What were some of the things that you did as an artist in residence? Because that's a pretty encompassing term.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, I worked a lot with, there is a flock of Hog Island sheep that reside at the Memorial Farm and I was able to get their fleece and process that entirely from just the raw fleece off the sheep to a finished woven shawl. I even was able to use some of the walnuts that were growing here at the park to die it. I did a lot of natural dyeing, some with plants that were here, so I was able to work with the Northern Neck Master Gardeners some, with the dye garden here and getting that, getting some plants in and using some of those, which was really exciting. I did lots of natural dyeing. Some with things that weren't grown around here but still were fun to work with, some stitching. I did a lot of writing. I really enjoyed the the peacefulness of this park. It's a very, a it can be pretty quiet, which is lovely for just writing and sketching and enjoying the gardens and the trails and sitting and drawing shorebirds or flowers and just really sitting with the land. Did a lot of that.

Dustin Baker Yeah. I think one thing to add is that, you know, you ended up making these beautiful works and but it was more than that. You were using, you know, a a spinning wheel and using techniques and technology that people would have had in the colonial era when they lived here during, you know, George Washington's time and his family's time here. And so I think for me, the most exciting thing to see was that blending of past and present, using old lifeway techniques to make modern art was something I was really excited to, you know, start talking about with you when we first met each other. And yeah, it's stuff that people would like to have in their homes. I'm sure you know, the stuff you created, it's stuff that I think is modern, but it has that old world touch to it.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, for sure. And I think I think that comes through a lot with, like you say, using these historic techniques to make contemporary pieces. And you're using plants, using wool, raw wool in a really in a historical way, but also in this experimental or fun way as well. That's been so rewarding to be able to use so much material from the area.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And we, we didn't really put you in a box or put any kind of guardrails on the direction that you went in. We just kind of put some tools in front of you and, you know, told you what materials you could and could not use in the park. And yeah, it's it's just so fascinating to see all the stuff that you were able to make just, you know, manifesting it from the natural resources here.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, absolutely. I think I may have confused some visitors, or not confused, but it led to a lot of interesting conversations when they would see me working with a spinning wheel or with a table loom or something that they would associate with the historical object. And yeah, these are historical techniques for sure that I'm using. But getting to use them in a modern or fresh way was really fun to have those conversations with people and also show them, yeah, this is exactly how carding wool would have been done in 1750.

Dustin Baker So and one thing you really taught me a lot about was all the natural dye plants that are even just in the memorial area of the park. I mean, so many plants now I see with a totally different point of view.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, you can't unsee it once you start identifying them. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I remember the spring we did the the scavenger hunt for kids with different dye plants and things. I've, I've loved getting to share that little bit of excitement about dye plants or plants in general or textiles with kids. It's been so fun.

Dustin Baker Yeah. So one thing I wanted to ask you is that, you know, artists tend to see the world in a special way, kind of through a unique lens and what do you personally think was the most beautiful part about the landscape here, and how would you explain it to someone who isn't an artist?

Selene Jarvis That's a it's a great question. I think. Well, some of the things that I found really striking, one, being here for a long period of time, I got to see, you know, the leaves emerge on the trees and the garden come up and then the summer flowers really be in full bloom. And now things are changing again with it being fall, colors are changing and leaves are falling and seeing migrating birds come and return. When I first got here, there were the tundra swans and now I think it's the geese, some geese that have come. But yeah, getting to see these like cyclical patterns in nature and thinking about that a lot in my work while I'm here and the patterns that repeat themselves in nature and, and history and thinking a lot about the people that have been here before us. And it's a it's a very special place. There's a lot a lot of history here. And I loved getting to sit and write and just thinking about how I get to enjoy it and look out over the same the same water that, you know, people have looked out at for hundreds of years. And yeah, really spending a lot of time writing during this residency, getting to think through some of those, those themes of, of seasons and circles and and different, different people through history and their experiences here.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And it's so hard to put into words. I think that's why artists exist because you're taking something that you know is unspeakable. It's intangible, it's unknown and you're, you're presenting it in a visual form instead of with words. So it's it's hard to kind of articulate that.

Selene Jarvis It is. Yeah. I found a lot of a lot of repetitive stitching work to be a good way that I could think through some things like that. And it might not look direct when you look at the piece, but there's a lot of those those thoughts and meditations just as I'm working on it, I'm thinking and considering the land around me.

Jonathan Malriat So I know as an artist in residence like the name indicates, you probably did a lot of art, but was there any surprising thing that you did as an artist in residence that you didn't expect when you started?

Selene Jarvis Yeah, I was not prepared to talk to so many people. I guess that I. I have really enjoyed it. That was not a bad thing at all. But getting to talk and engage with the visitors so much was really exciting. It especially the kids. I loved getting to talk to the kids. I can remember going, coming here as a kid or places like Ferry Farm or Williamsburg or at Yorktown, any of the historical sites, and just getting so excited to talk to someone showing a craft. And that's just because I'm a nerd. But I always really enjoyed it. So getting to share that with kids was super fun and letting them feel different will or even try their hand at spinning or something. And I just loved getting to engage with the visitors. That was that was a little bit unexpected. Good, a good surprise, though, and also just how much time I would have to sit and sketch out ideas and think through concepts. Usually when I'm working, it's a very like I have an idea and I just want to get my hands on it and start making. And I definitely did a lot of making here, but there was a lot of contemplative time for writing and just enjoying the scenery and sketching, sketching ideas out, really planning stuff.

Dustin Baker Did any questions that visitors asked you or anything really stick out?

Selene Jarvis I'm you think Well, a lot of people thought that I was a re-enactor, which I wasn't. I was using historical techniques like we've talked about, but I wasn't a re-enactor. Got a lot of jokes.

Dustin Baker Yeah.

Selene Jarvis But it was always exciting when there was someone who had a connection with fiber arts. And I always really enjoyed when there was someone who would say, my grandmother had a spinning wheel or my aunt was a quilter, or my sister does weaving, and we could have a whole conversation about textiles and how it affected them, because textiles do affect all of us, like we all wear, wear cloth every day, and it's just such a part of human existence. So it was really exciting to have this tiny community for a moment with visitors over fabric.

Dustin Baker Yeah.

Jonathan Malriat So I'm assuming over a year you probably felt like you've changed a lot, but is there any one change as an artist or an individual that you felt was either most impactful for you or something that you really took away from this year out here at George Washington Birthplace?

Selene Jarvis that's a great question. I, I don't feel that my art has, like, fundamentally changed or anything, but I, I do think that my time here has really let me sink into to this language of working with plants that I was starting to come into. And I've done a lot of natural dyeing for a number of years now, but that that language of working with plants as a way to connect yourself to a place I think really honed in here and being able to think about using using material from a location and how that how that links a person to the artwork and to a specific time to a specific place. That concept is something that I'm really excited about in the future, continuing with and just getting to be able to understand that even more.

Dustin Baker Yeah, it almost seems like magic to be able to extract color and material from just the plants that people walk past every day.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, for sure. And it just and it makes everything part of that, that circle you know, you're like with the walnuts that I used here, I was gathering them and they're putting off oxygen at the park that all of us here are breathing. And then now it's in a piece of fabric that someone could wear and when I was finished dying, I put the walnuts in my compost pile and they'll become soil for next year's dye garden. And it's just now linking everything together. I think a really exciting way.

Jonathan Malriat So, Dustin, I know Selene reached out to you, but is there any reason that you were thinking that Selene should be our first artist in residence? Was there anything about either her repertoire or the way she approached you that stuck out?

Dustin Baker Yeah. So, you know, piloting an artist in residence program at George Washington Birthplace had kind of been in the back of my mind, but I didn't really know what that looked like. I, you know, was thinking of, well, people have painted portraits of George. We only know George Washington's appearance through painting and sculpture. So maybe it could be something in that realm. I wasn't even in the same neighborhood as Selene's medium, but when she came and I met her and we walked around and she was saying what she was interested in doing here and wanting to to volunteer and she told me about her background. I like in real time as we were walking and I was like, Wait a minute. Like, this is art you're talking about. This isn't you know, this isn't something else. This is an art form because we're talking about color. We're talking about creating from scratch, using, you know, the things that we're literally walking past as we talk. And I immediately saw a that what I was saying earlier about blending Old World with New World, because I didn't want to say, Hey, you know, I want you to come here, spin up the spinning wheel and make some socks.

Selene Jarvis Yeah.

Dustin Baker You know, I was I was really thinking about modern art, but people using that as a vehicle to connect to old world lifeways here, that that people from George Washington's family and the people who lived on the shores of Po... Pope's Creek would, would recognize.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, I think that that was definitely accomplished with the some of the stuff that was made during my time here and I think you you brought up painting and talking about George Washington and yeah, we we think so much about like we're at George Washington's birthplace. But there is something very the the sort of like textiles can get overlooked I think and they’re but they're just so present in our lives and thinking about yeah, they can be kind of kind of humble, but they're really Yeah, I do’nt know where I'm going with that. I'm thinking a lot about and all the women that were here too. And it is primarily women that are doing the textile arts, the spinning and dyeing and the wool processing, that is primarily women. And there's a lot of women behind the Washington family. There was interesting to think about while I was doing all these crafts.

Dustin Baker Yeah, I think, you know, in our world today, especially for young people, textiles and clothing can almost seem kind of disposable, you know?

Selene Jarvis Yeah, absolutely.

Dustin Baker Almost single use. You buy it, you wear it, you get a mustard stain on it, you throw it out. But really seeing how much went into every single piece you made made me think about what it would have been like in the 17th and 18th century here and how special each textile object would have been, how much of a gift it would be to have a shirt or pair of pants made for you. And it it really makes me look at the colonial era in a whole different way that I'm sure a lot of people have already thought about. But it was it was new to me to think about how each item you had was, you know, hours and hours and hours of work put into it.

Selene Jarvis Absolutely. Yeah. I was thinking so much about just monumentous amount of labor that was done here and is done to make anything by hand. But yeah, just that coming here a few hours a week and working, but thinking about doing that spinning day in, day out, maintaining crops of, of flax or the sheep herds, anything you would need to produce cloth. I mean it's just an incredible amount of labor.

Dustin Baker Yeah.

Jonathan Malriat I mean, I know you said that you got some of the wool from the sheep here. How long did it take you to process and have you finished processing all of it yet?

Selene Jarvis I still have some leftover. The stuff that I did use, I probably used a third. So there's ah are six sheep here I think. I guess I used about two sheeps worth of wool if you wanted to look at it that way. And I wrote I mean it was several dozen hours. Yeah. It was just cleaning it alone is a huge process. And then there's carding and spinning, dyeing, weaving. It's a lot of hours.

Jonathan Malriat So I know like one of the pieces you have on exhibit is a like a scarf. If you had to take a guess at how many hours it took you to complete that scarf from start to finish. Just to put that in mind for our audience, because like, we can go to the store. It takes us 20 minutes to get to the store. We get the shirt and there we go. That's it.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, I would, the spinning was the longest, the longest part. That for sure, just took forever. I would estimate probably about 40 hours of work.

Jonathan Malriat So 40 hours for one scarf, a whole workweek. That just puts it in perspective.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, that's from sheep all the way to a finished product, product but yeah.

Jonathan Malriat I mean that really goes to show you how how intensive it was to be able to create things historically.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And just think about how many things like that were made here that are lost forever just because, you know, textile itself is ephemeral in the sense that it degrades and disappears. And.

Selene Jarvis You know, we're not digging up any fragments of of clothing usually.

Dustin Baker Right. Why do you think it might be important for someone of the next generation to learn these skills?

Selene Jarvis I think that they're just such important, important skills. Some of the people that I have learned these things from are an older generation. And it seemed to me when talking to visitors, a lot of the people that had the strongest connection were an older generation. And I just think it's really valuable to preserve some of these traditions or techniques so they're not lost. And so that younger generations and children coming into the world have an appreciation for things that are handmade, have an understanding at least of, some sort of understanding of what goes into making objects by hand and the value of that and the time that goes into it and the respect for nature if you're using natural, naturally gathered materials. I think that it's a whole way of life you can get talking about for sure, but boils down to, I guess, yeah, just keeping these keeping these hand crafts alive. There's a whole list of endangered craft, and when you look at it, there's so many things on that list that you would never even think about, like you know hat making or certain broom making techniques. And yeah, making things by hand is important. Oh gosh, I completely I was going to say, yeah, the community, the community that you can find in craft and in making things by hand, I have found to be so I mean, just a huge part of my life. Some of my closest friends are in that craft community and I think that you can just find a lot of friendship, a lot of connection with people in it, very similar and similar ways of life that.

Jonathan Malriat So any final advice you'd have for either someone looking to get into the textile arts or even someone who's interested in doing an artist in residence program for themselves?

Selene Jarvis Yeah, I would say if you're interested in getting into textile arts, one of the great things about textiles is how accessible it is, and it's pretty available to most people. It doesn't cost a lot to get some yarn and knitting needles, and there's so many different types of textile art that you could try out. So if knitting isn't for you, maybe you enjoy felting or embroidery. There's just lots of different things you could pick up and reach out and ask people. People love to share their craft and are always happy, in my experience, always happy to to talk about that and and share share some of their knowledge with you. I think that that's something I really love about textiles and just how easy they are to to bring with you everywhere. And for the residencies, again I think just reaching out to organizations, I was not expecting a residency here when I reached out, and that is one thing that I would definitely consider in the future is reaching out to places that haven't offered residencies, but seeing if they would be interested and developing something, that's been so exciting here. So I would certainly encourage people who are interested in artist residencies to to just inquire. Yeah, you never know what might happen.

Dustin Baker Rapid fire question, like, if I'm, if I'm walking around out in the park and I need to dye something yellow, what am I going for?

Selene Jarvis Right now it might be difficult because it's just there's been a frost, But…

Dustin Baker Time and season are no object.

Selene Jarvis Okay. I would say marigolds. If there's marigolds growing, those are my favorite source of just you can pick the flower. That's great. Another one that I use a lot is osage orange wood. That one's a little bit more tricky because you don't really want to cut down a tree, but if there's any fallen branches, you can gather some of the woodchips from that and that makes a really bright yellow as well. And both of those things grow here.

Dustin Baker What about red? What if I'm out and I'm needing something red.

Selene Jarvis Oh, red. Um red? Locally, that's a little bit tough.

Dustin Baker And I just also want to point out for the audience, there's a difference between staining and dyeing.

Selene Jarvis Oh yeah, for sure. There's a lot of misconception that you can just grab any berry you see and it will dye your cloth a beautiful purple or something and it might for a minute, but it will fade if it's not if the fabric isn't properly treated and you're not using a plant that is a known dye plant. Yeah.

Selene Jarvis So red, there's a lot of some people have had good luck with Poke Berry. The term is fast for keeping the dye in the fabric is fast if it if it lasts over time. Having a fast dye with poke berry, I haven't had great luck, so I usually use madder root, which is not native but I do grow it in my dye garden at home.

Jonathan Malriat So where is madder root originally from then?

Selene Jarvis Asia and Europe, it would have been imported here for sure in the colonies.

Dustin Baker And total wild card. Any other colors out there that might surprise us?

Selene Jarvis Well, I've been very recently in my home studio getting some really exciting purples from oak. Oak leaves, the tannins in oak leaves with iron. The iron and the tannins react to get some really beautiful purple shades, which if you just do the iron, it's gray and the oak by itself is sort of a brown. But when you combine them, you can get really cool purple tones. Yeah. So a bit of chemistry.

Dustin Baker Yeah. I was about to say this is this is art, This is chemistry.

Selene Jarvis This is it's so exciting about dyeing. You know.

Jonathan Malriat Are there any colors, because a lot of the ones you've talked about, you can almost guess what color its going to get, but are there any like ones you can think, oh when you dye it, this dye or use this object or plant, it comes up with a color so different than what someone would expect?

Selene Jarvis Let me think I off the top of my head, nothing. I, I can't think of anything that is like shockingly different from what you would expect. I think the thing that gets people the most in my experience is how hard the color green is to get because green is just so prevalent in the natural world. People often think you can just use leaves or grass or whatever, but you actually there is no plant that will just dye something green without a mordant like the iron or mixing a blue and a yellow dye to get to green. So that's always a little bit of a fun surprise for people.

Jonathan Malriat I’d say, I would have no idea on that one. I thought you could use like copper or something.

Selene Jarvis Yeah, well, copper or iron. Yeah. People do use those to shift browns to more of like an olive or a nice park ranger green. But yeah, like a Lincoln Green, you really need indigo and a yellow dye.

Jonathan Malriat That's a cool fact that I had no idea on when it comes to dyeing.

Dustin Baker Yeah, so just remember when you have grass stains in your clothes or your kids have grass stains in their clothes, they have not dyed their clothes. They’ve mearly stained it.

Selene Jarvis Yeah. So stain it for a while..

Dustin Baker Thank you for listening to this episode. We want to give a special thank you to Selene Jarvis for her beautiful work and for this interview. And since we're highlighting artists on this episode, we also want to give a special thank you to the band Wolf Patrol for providing the acoustic music we use at the beginning and end of each episode. So thank you. If you are interested in becoming an Artist in Residence at George Washington Birthplace, please contact us through our social media or our website. On our next episode, we're going to be turning back to the past. We'll be hearing from someone who has an intimate knowledge of our park, because they saw it being built in the 1930s with their own eyes. You'll hear their story with their own voice as we open up a portal to the past. On the next episode of Upon This Land: History, Mystery and Monuments.

Today, art thrives in our national parks. The sights and sounds in national parks inspire artists who communicate that inspiration through painting, photography, poetry, and more. But how do you take intangible inspiration from a site like this and turn it into art?

On this episode we are going to ask that question to our most recent volunteer artist in residence. Joining us during this episode is Selene Jarvis. Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family.

Episode 5

The Power of Change

Transcript

Dustin Baker George Washington. It's one of the most recognizable names in the world. His story is a foundational stone in American history. Yet at the place he was born, only remnants remain of the buildings and the stories of people who once lived here. One might think that the birthplace of a national icon is an easy story to tell, but it's actually one of the most complex and surprising historic sites preserved by the National Park Service. So join us as we piece together the past, present and future of this place brick by brick. On this podcast series upon this Land History, mystery and monuments. The Washington family lived on the Maddox Neck for seven generations, and just like most families today, they had neighbors. Hi, my name is Dustin Baker, and I'm the chief of interpretation here at George Washington Birthplace National Monument. It might be hard for visitors today to imagine that in the colonial era, the Maddox Neck was a community of different families and home sites. These families would have formed friendships, business arrangements. They would have married and had feuds. One family that had been neighbors here to the Washington since the colonial era are the Latanes. And just like other families, they would have seen their community transform into a federal monument to honor George Washington in the late 1800s. What you're about to hear is a recording from 1976. It's an interview with James Latane, who was born in 1888 on Christmas Day. Interviewing James, is park ranger Tom Danton. Now, much of this recording is inaudible. So unfortunately, we can't play the whole thing for you here on this podcast. But we are going to take snippets from the interview and discuss them in detail. To do that, joining me is lead interpretive park ranger Jonathan Malriat.

Tom Danton 1888. So that makes you 87, 88, almost 88 years old. Okay, what do you, how far back can you remember about this land over here? Was it all just farmland at one time back around the turn of the century?

James Latane My Grandfather worked it when he bought it in 1946 or a little before

Tom Danton 1946 or?

James Latane I think it was, 1880 when he first sold the plot about the birthplace, 12 acres and 10 acres for the right way to the river.

Jonathan Malriat So that can really be broken into two parts. The first part he's talking about his grandfather acquiring the land. Now, he says 1946. I think he's stumbling over himself because as we introduced here, James Latane is 87 years old when he's saying this. I think he's meaning 1800s, 1846. And then he's ignoring Tom Danton, the interviewer's, correction of meaning 1946, to then continue to the second part, which I think is really the most interesting part to me. So that's the selling, his grandfather selling the land in 1880. 12 acres at the birthplace and ten acres on the right of way. So this is, I think, some of the most interesting parts of his interview, even though it's not specific about times when he's alive, he's learning about this from his grandfather in his youth. But the reason it's so important to the park and our story here is because this is the start of federal memorialization here. So earlier in the 18 late 1870s, 1879, specifically, Congress started to want to preserve the stories of George Washington, and they were looking at trying to preserve the birthplace, which was mostly still aware of. So they sent Secretary Evarts and the US president down to explore it. We know this from several articles, including an article from the Northern News that talks about specifically in July 25th, 1879. And this is verbatim here. Congress, at its last session, after a century of forgetfulness and indifference, passed a bill appropriating the enormous sum of $3,000 to erect a monument to mark and perpetuate the spot where Washington was born. So that in itself is interesting that they're calling $3,000 an enormous sum of money. So that does give you a context for the power of the dollar at the time period. But it goes on to continue. That was announced in the Washington papers that President Hayes and his family and the Secretary of State, Mr. Evarts, would visit Wakefield on the eighth of this month to carry into effect the act of Congress. They were to come in the war steamer Tallopoosa, people who lived within six or 5 or 6 miles a week all their lives, and had never been there, manifested a great desire to see the place on the day the Tallopoosa would arrive. The Tallopoosa came, however, when she was not expected, and there his fraudulence, in keeping with his character, defrauded this people out of a sight of him, as he did the people of the United States, out of the presidency, the president and party landed and got a plowman to pilot them to the birthplace, and stayed only a half hour. It is rumored, however, that the Secretary of State's efforts and the president will come again and make several visits in the neighborhood. So this whole visit by the Secretary and by the president was to be able to come and scout out land to acquire, to create this monument that Congress had appropriated. It is interesting seeing how the Northern News is referring to the president, his fraudulence and defrauding the U.S. people out of a presidency. So for added context, this is talking about the I want to believe it's 1877 election that was contested. basically, it's similar to the Bush v Gore election of 2000. And it went to the courts to decide. And it came out that Hayes got the election with then the agreement that reconstruction in the South would end. So this snippet from Latane, from Mr. Latane’s interview where he's talking about selling the land, this is the direct results of that, that visit from Hayes, this visit from Evarts is all tying it with now creating a. So now the federal government has a total of 22 acres here, plus then land that'll be acquired in 1883 from the state of Virginia to create the monument that we have today. So we'll go back to the Latane interview. And here's some things else from Mr. James Latane.

Tom Danton Do you remember when they put the monument up? You would have just been a small boy then.

James Latane Yeah about 7 years old, I think. Yeah, I remember.

Tom Danton Remember how they brought it in?

James Latane The whole neighborhood was there.

Tom Danton Oh how did they do it? How did they bring the monument in?

Mrs. Latane Oh, look out in the hall

James Latane (unintelligible)

Mrs. Latane right out there.

James Latane (unintelligible)

Tom Danton Okay. You're just showing me the series of photographs in your hall of the construction of the monument and transportation of it, and how it was done on railroad ties using tracks rather than a wagon. You say they built a long pier. Now, this was down at the end of the beach road, so they brought it straight on up the road on railroad tracks.

James Latane Of course, when they got to the bottom coming by the ice pond. They had to build a trestle up on the level rather than going down and up.

Tom Danton Oh yeah. That's about the only real dip in that road right in there.

Jonathan Malriat So that snippet we started with James Latane talking about acquiring the land. So 1880, and then we now have the actual construction of the monument. Now this is quite a bit later. So he doesn't give an exact date on this. He says that the 1890s. So he's 7 or 8 years old. And that's because it is specifically 1896.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And just so our listeners understand, this is when they say that they're building the monument. It's not the monument as we understand it today. today, the entire 551 acres is the monument. But during this time, they're talking specifically about the granite obelisk that you now see at the entrance of the park. And so, logistically, this would have had to been transported, about two miles from where it landed on the shore of the Potomac to where it was placed, over at the time, being believed to be the spot where George Washington's birth homestead.

Jonathan Malriat So it's really interesting that they're talking about building a railroad trestle, doing all the tracks to get out there, because that's a pretty already large amount of work to do this, because it's not just put the railroad tracks down and roll it across. It. That means they have to put the ties down. They have to secure the ties that secure each of the iron track pieces the whole way. And then when James Latane is asked later what happened to it, he doesn't remember. And there's no tracks that we're aware of any more under the road. So it disappeared fairly quickly afterwards. But it was a lot of intensive work just to get the granite, and that was the only purpose for it was to get the granite to where it is today.

Dustin Baker And that's after it made it to shore. They had to build a wharf just to receive this thing, that stretched nearly 1000ft out into the Potomac.

Jonathan Malriat So the next piece we're going to hear is from James Latane where he's going to actually, tell us what happened to that wharf. Because if you come visit us today, that wharf that thousand feet long does not exist anymore.

Tom Danton What happened to the dock that was built down there, the wharf?

James Latane Well, the ice finally took it away.

Tom Danton It got demolished in the winter.

James Latane It would freeze and the ice break up the pylons and finally it all broke up

Tom Danton That was in the early nineteen hundreds?

James Latane Yeah, give or take. We used it forever. I reckon it stayed there, part of it stayed there until 1830, only parts of it. It went a long, long, long, pier with a wide driveway or walkway with a big pier for boats at the end. It went about a quarter of a mile.

Tom Danton Did many people use it as a way to visit the park? Coming by boat and walk on up?

James Latane A few would come from Colonial Beach. And the farms used it. Later on we had to ship all our grain by sailing vessel. And they would drive the wagons out on that. And I don't know the (inaudible) the boat, but then it got too bad for that. We’d have to unload right in shallow water in a little boat, then tow it out to the big.

Tom Danton I bet you were glad to see the road come in about that time.

James Latane And practically everything was shipped, the lumber, grain, everything was shipped by sailing vessel. (inaudible) Baltimore or Washington you know.

Tom Danton The river was still the main interstate highway at that time.

Jonathan Malriat So, James Latane there is talking about our thousand-foot-long wharf that was created to carry the obelisk. The second part actually shines even more of a light on it, because he talks about how not many visitors were using it. Visitors from Colonial Beach were using it, but it was actually mostly farmers like himself and his grandfather that were getting the primary benefit out of it because they were using it to sell and transport all the supplies that they needed, and sell and transport the goods that they had produced, which is really interesting for us talking about the site, because we almost always interpret everything from around that 1883 start of the Memorial.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And but it also just, you know, when you think of the sheer engineering feats that have occurred here to to memorialize George Washington, people would probably guess that the house and, you know, would that would be the biggest thing that's ever been built here to, to memorialize him. But that wharf, I mean, that was made really just to receive that obelisk and bring materials and supplies and people here to commemorate this site. So that, to me, seems like the biggest engineering feat on the property that is, you know, in the history of the site to memorialize George.

Jonathan Malriat Yeah. And in many ways that for a long time was almost a footnote.

Tom Danton Did you, did you watch any of the moving of the monument from the one location to the..?

James Latane Somewhat, because I was busy. I was in touch with it, the fact that they must (unintelligible) OG Taylor was the engineer in charge of getting the bricks made and building. He lived, he stayed here while he was working.

Tom Danton He was responsible for building the Memorial house?

James Latane Yeah. He did the engineering work. He was a fine fella too.

Tom Danton Do you remember. How they moved the monument from the site of the house out to the entrance of the park?

James Latane I can’t say that I know too much about it. I was there the day that they raised it, they raised the shaft. But they had already moved the base and had it ready.

Tom Danton just for your information, others, you know.

Jonathan Malriat Okay, so let's break down a little bit of that section. so he's talking about moving the monument. So as Dustin had said earlier, it was a lot of effort to go through to be able to build and create the monument when they've had to build the wharf and all that engineering and move it. And now we got to move it again. So they're moving it again in the 1930s, at the behest of the Wakefield National Memorial Association. But there are some other things that he talks about that's really interesting. OG Taylor is a Park service employee that comes in to assist with the program after it gets moved from Department of War, specifically Army Corps of Engineers, to the National Park Service. And it's interesting seeing this and how it's being talked about, because we the records we tend to have indicate that OG Taylor's primary job was as an engineer, but primarily doing initial archeology and then assisting with a lot of the building. But another really interesting part about OG Taylor is actually in our previous podcasts episodes with Phil Levy. Phil Levy talks a lot about Building X, this site that is a home site that he's done a lot of work on, trying to unlock more of the mysteries of it. OG Taylor is the first person to uncover that and identify that site, so we're now full story connecting the story of Building X thanks to James Latane's interview and having met OG Taylor. It is also interesting that he mentioned that he didn't get to see it being moved with because the moving process. We have a few photos some showing of that moving process in our visitor center and it's done using logs. So almost in many ways, technologically, it is less advanced than how they got the obelisk there in the first place, because they're just putting down log rollers and rolling it down the road.

Dustin Baker And I believe it's being dragged by a flatbed truck.

Jonathan Malriat So it's very interesting the difference in how methodologies of how they go about creating and moving the obelisks throughout the different eras. So kind of an interesting thing to see.

Dustin Baker Yeah, it's just remarkable to me that the obelisk only stood in that spot for about 30 years. And despite being the Great Depression, the Wakefield National Memorial Association was so determined to build the Memorial House Museum in that spot that they petitioned the government to finance the moving again of a 30 plus ton obelisk.

Jonathan Malriat It is really interesting that they still wanted to preserve it because they could have just destroyed it. And that could have been done fairly easily. But it was important enough that they wanted to keep it around and go through the engineering headache of moving it, rather than just. Nope, this served its purpose. We're getting rid of it. They still wanted to keep it and you can still even see it today. It's the same obelisk right in our center of our traffic circle. So the next section that we're going to hear from James Latane is talking about the time period in between when the monument was built in 1896 and when it was moved in 1930, and how he interacted with it because he wasn't just a neighbor of the monument in the obelisk. He actually was tasked with being in charge of it, because at the time period that this is going on, the Department of War very rarely had staff to fully manage the sites that they were in charge of. And even the National Park Service, which didn't exist until 1916, didn't have a huge amount of park rangers even in the parks that they managed. So a lot of sites, including this one, were left with caretakers that were local. And James Latane actually will serve as the caretaker to take care of the monument for several years. So we get to hear him talking about that.

Mrs. Latane Weren't you supposed to look out for the monument?

James Latane Yeah, I.

James Latane For a great many years, I would go out there every day and look around and keep things cleaned up. See if everything was alright! (laugher)

Tom Danton Did the government paid you for this?

James Latane Paid me $25 a month (laughter)

Tom Danton A dollar a day almost (laughter)

James Latane Later raised it to $40 and after that I got out of it then.

Tom Danton Was there anything except the monument, (mumble) were there some lawns that need to be mowed or?

James Latane All the way to the river, and when the (unintelligible) the fences need rebuilding (unintelligible) and I would write and tell them what we needed and they would tell me to send them a list of the things that needed and hire help and go ahead and do it. Send the bill.

Tom Danton How did people visit the monument back then?

Jonathan Malriat So that's interesting hearing James talk about that. That one, he made $25 a month to help out the Department of War by keeping an eye on the monument, and if it was needing repairs and let them know and then do it himself and send them the bill.

Dustin Baker And it'd be interesting to know what kind of problems they might have had, or that James would have encountered out there keeping an eye on it.

Jonathan Malriat At other times he actually mentions and if you want to hear more of those, listen to the entire recording on our website. But at one point he mentions that some of the visitors coming from Colonial Beach would damage the cherry trees that apparently were lining a bunch of the areas. Rather than just take the cherries, they would take whole branches off. And he was concerned about it. But unfortunately, later on, the cherry trees developed a blight that he said took them all out. So in the end, it didn't really matter. But he was concerned about the damage that they were doing. And he has another anecdote from when he was mowing and cutting the grass around the monument, that he found a boy up in a tree, specifically the hackberry tree, which is a fairly famous tree, and it's supposed to be right outside where the obelisk was and supposedly is from right around the original home site area.

Dustin Baker And the stump is still there.

Jonathan Malriat Yeah, unfortunately the tree passed away not terribly long ago, and but this kid is up in the tree and he's carving into the tree. So these definitely are a few events that James talks about during his time as caretaker that he had to deal with. So our next section we'll look at is talking about the land in the park and how, as I said, James Latane, he's a farmer and how he was connected to the site and continued to operate as a farmer in the park and around the park after it opened in the 1930s.

Tom Danton All of the acreage inside the monument, though, was either cultivated or pasture land...

James Latane Yeah, that’s right

Tom Danton before the park came about?

James Latane We cultivated even after we sold. We sold it in 1929, (unintelligible) and we bought it in 1919. And we really wanted to farm and we needed land. We just didn’t want to sell it. But Mrs. H.L. Rust Washington, she was the one who got the whole thing started…And she almost stayed down here until she got us to agree to sell it. Then we sold, 300, I think it was 360 acres. Sold all the home, the right side going to the river. (unintelligible) sold 39 acres by the birthplace. And we sold it with the agreement that we would go ahead and farm it. It worked for a little while. Then without our knowing anything, they got money from Rockefeller foundation. Then we had a deal with them, we worked it because we paid taxes on it. (Laughter) And that went on for two or three years, we didn’t know anything till they just, they turned it over to the Wakefield Memorial Service. Bout that time, we was when we had to get out, when they got set up. Philip Hough was the first superintendent. Made arrangements with him later on to still work the land. And then the government took the work. They made such a mess of it, that it go so they couldn’t do anything with it.

Tom Danton How did they make a mess of it?

James Latane Well they didn’t have but one pair small horse, and the land was heavy and wide grass. The horse wasn’t able to pull the plow. The grass got so rank and tough they couldn’t plow it. Then they asked (unintelligible) (laughter) I bought a special plow for the time and we had a tractor. We got it back in good shape. And then took it again. (laughter)

Jonathan Malriat So that three minute snippet from James Latane actually had a lot of parts to it. So let's break down some of the key parts. So he mentions that they sold the land about 300 acres to the Wakefield National Memorial Association. They had initially got the land just ten years before that 1919. Now he mentions that they were convinced to sell it to a Mrs. H. L Rust Washington. Now, that name initially doesn't really ring a lot of bells for us until we actually realized that H.L. Rust in this case, is Henry Lee Rust. It's his wife, Josephine Wheelwright Rust, who is the president of the Wakefield National Memorial Association, that group that is pushing to move the obelisk and rebuild or more accurately, build a new version of the Washington family farm that was here. So it's really interesting because one, he's using an older reference to a married woman. So referring to her by her husband's name, but then he's throwing in Washington, which is because Josephine Wheelwright Rust has always claimed to be a descendant of Washington. And yet Henry Lee Rust has, as far as I can tell in general readings I've done has never referred to himself as Henry Lee Rust Washington. He's just Henry Lee Rust. So it's interesting that he's using an older reference in which you would refer to a woman, married woman by her husband's name, but then adding in the Washington to it and not Josephine or Wheelwright. So but here we today, we normally referred to her as Josephine Wheelwright Rust. And you can actually see a cutout of her in our new exhibits in our Memorial House Museum that you can see during tours in the park. So then the second section is so he had an agreement with them when they got the land in 29 to continue to farm it. And then the Rockefeller Foundation came in and he does a separate agreement with them. And John D Rockefeller Jr came in and actually supported the Wakefield National Memorial Association financially. He donated over $100,000, I want to say it was $130,000 and they had to have a matching grant of it. And so they have another agreement with them. And then once it all gets turned over later to the National Park Service, he has an agreement with Phillip Hough, the first superintendent here. So it's really interesting. All of these big names are a lot of the foundation of the national monument from the 1930s. So for our next snippets, we're actually move and change a little bit to how things have changed here on the lands during James Latane's time here, not only his time when he was visiting his grandfather, but also when he's lived here himself, partly in how transportation was done, but then also moving into how the rivers themselves have changed.

James Latane To Washington, what most of us used the Potomac river going to Washington. They had wharf in, two wharfs in Maddox Creek up there. Steamboats would spend the night there and leave, bout seven o’clock in the morning, (unintelligible), you would have to get up at two o’clock (laughter)

Tom Danton The people who were traveling say from further south to north, would they, like, come up the Rappahannock to Leedstown and then come across the Northern Neck to Maddox.

James Latane More likely go on to Fredericksburg

Tom Danton and and then go by road from Fredericksburg

James Latane the railroad

Tom Danton to Alexandria.

James Latane Yeah. We were Fredericksburg was the closest railroad road that and in the winter, if you had people that had to go, we would have to drive teams to Fredericksburg to get them on the railroad.

Tom Danton How long did that take?

James Latane Bout 7 hours

Tom Danton Now it takes 45 minutes (laughter)

Mrs. Latane Heavens!

James Latane When my brothers, two brothers were going to college (unintelligible) I think I was about 10 years old. And the river froze and they couldn't get back to school. And so, I drove them to Fredericksburg, stayed there overnight, and came back the next day.

Jonathan Malriat He's talking a couple different things in there. Again, he's talking about steamboats were the primary transportation in the Potomac River. So most of these are not the big like giant paddlewheel steamers we tend to think about like in the Mississippi River. There are still paddle wheelers, but they're much smaller, more and along the lines of like a larger tugboat size today. You could fit a couple dozen people, cargo and different things on to them, and they would transport up and down the river, stopping at multiple different wharfs on the way. But then he mentions that when the river froze, you had to get your team together and you had to drive. So that means it's a horse or two behind a carriage and you had to ride seven hours. One way to get to Fredericksburg to catch the train. And then he also mentions, and it's a little hard to decipher, that when he was ten years old, he was asked to do that, to pick up his brothers from college. And I'm just imagining ten year old me having to in the winter, when it's so cold that the river has frozen, having to drive two horses seven hours in the freezing cold. I mean, I'm sure a lot of us have heard our parents talk about going uphill both ways to school. And that old adage, yeah, I think James Latane actually has that. I think he earned that badge of courage right there.

Dustin Baker Yeah. My back hurts just thinking about that.

Jonathan Malriat Like today, if you were to try getting to Fredericksburg, you'd just take route three and go down 205, route 3, and it takes 45 minutes. And most people today, if you're trying to get to Alexandria or DC, you wouldn't catch the train in Fredericksburg. You just continue on to 95 and take 95 all the way up. And that even ties in with how people come to visit us. Very few people come by boat anymore to come visit the park. We might see a few crab boats out in the in Pope's Creek, and maybe a few people in kayaks.

Dustin Baker Yeah, they're not really visiting us.

Jonathan Malriat So it's very different seeing that change in that. So it is really cool seeing that. Now there are other changes that have occurred and it's and a lot of it is in the rivers themselves, the Potomac and even Pope's Creek itself. How it's changed and erosion has occurred throughout the time. And James actually spends quite a bit of time talking about that. So I'm going to pull out some of the, I’ll say, key snippets of that and let you listen into it.

Tom Danton I don’t know if you were aware of, of how much land right here, just north of here along the Potomac has eroded in your lifetime has disappeared into the Potomac River from the cliffs. Haywood is just washed completely out into the river.

James Latane I reckon in the, on the (unintelligible) that we called it down on the low part. I reckon from close to 100 yards in my lifetime.

Tom Danton 100 yards have disappeared in your lifetime, you know, the, that little, pond at the end of the beach road?

James Latane Yeah.

Tom Danton That thing is practically right on the river now and a couple more years and its going to break open into the river.

James Latane See, whenever you get a beach that slopes and the waves can roll up. (unintelligible) its where the banks are, they keep cutting under.

Tom Danton And that beach has remained pretty much the same thing, it’s not really eroding much, but it's the cliffs that are.

James Latane Yeah. And right. The water peaked cutting on them. Then when you have big freeze all that falls off.

Tom Danton A lot of people are saying that, Pope's Creek out here in the big open area is down to about only two feet in depth, at you know, moderate tide. Do you ever remember that being much deeper, or just did you ever pay much attention to

James Latane Put in at the sandbar. In the early days the mouth opened up enough for a steamboat to come in there and land, not in my day.

Jonathan Malriat So we have two things that are being talked about. Erosion on the Potomac River and then siltation that's been occurring here at Pope's Creek. And it's interesting because one of the homes of the Washington family, specifically William Augustine's Haywood, is completely vanished into the Potomac River and over 100 yards in just James's lifetime. That's a pretty massive amount of land just to fall, keep falling off in sheer cliffs, and you can still today see cliff faces that even today we're concerned about eroding into the Potomac. And even at Pope's Creek. But it is kind of interesting to think about a steamboat coming in to Pope's Creek today. If you were to look out at that body of water, it does not look like it'd be able to handle that large of a boat. But they were designed to go into shallow waters. And I guess at one point it could handle it.

Dustin Baker And then as far as the cliffs go, not only are they, you know, pretty dangerous to, to visit, but, in terms of archeological sites, we don't even know what we've lost. The cliffs are eroding so rapidly that, you know, by the time people started to become aware that there was archeological sites on the shores of Pope's Creek in the Potomac River in this area, that, many of them had already been lost.

Jonathan Malriat So this next clip of James Latane's interview is going to be discussing some of what he has heard passed down through the generations, through the different families, about the different properties that the Washington family owned and what happened with them and some of their stories.

James Latane And I think. Augustine Washington added on to the acreage. Birthplace (unintelligible) they got Blenheim which is a right big tract. And I think you had Haywood. Yeah. I believe he built the house at Haywood which is all gone now. And William Augustine, his son, came along and he added acreage all the way to Maddox Creek, all that land. I think around 12,000 acres.

Tom Danton That’s quite a hunk and.

Jonathan Malriat So let's break down that section because there's a couple things in there. And even just listening to it, it is a little confusing to start with. So he's talking about Augustine Washington and that how they acquired land around the birthplace to start with. Then later on, they're acquiring a tract of land that was referred to as Blenheim, which is another home that actually does survive through to today. And then the final tract they're talking about is the track at Haywood and then the manor that they build at Haywood. Now, the house at Haywood, we know has since vanished. It is gone. It's believed to have dropped into the Potomac. Their origin, which we've talked about at other points. Now we start to get into a bit of confusion when we actually look at the details of what he's talking about, because we have a couple things that can get confusing. First is Augustine as just a name, because there's a bare minimum of two Augustine's that are interconnected with both. The property here at Pope's Creek, as well as even Blenheim and Haywood. You have Augustine Jr, which is who we believe he's referring to because specifically in there he mentions William Augustine, his son, which tells us that he's referring to Augustine Jr. But Augustine Senior is Augustine Junior's father. The reason I bring this up is because the oral history that James Latane is providing has discrepancies between our most recent historic resource study that our historian, Phil Levy, who was with us for previous episodes, has done research into surviving documents and surviving archeology to tell us and unlock more of the story. And there are discrepancies. Now, does that mean that the oral histories are completely wrong? No, because in a lot of cases, these discrepancies occur where we have incomplete records, and very rarely do we have 100% of the records written out that tell us everything when we're dealing with trying to unlock the mysteries, especially around here at the birthplace. It's kind of like trying to put together a puzzle when we don't know if we have all the pieces, we don't have the cover nearby to refer to, and we're just trying to make all the pieces fit, and there's going to be gaps. And so to fill those gaps, we look at other things that come back up and help fill those in. Oral histories are one of those, but we can't always take them as tried. In fact, 100% true because well, one when James Latane's talking about this this is around 1976 and he's talking about an event that has occurred just about 200 years before then. And even from when he's born, it's 100 years before he's born. So this had to have come to him from his grandfather. And so it's not a straight chain of connections. So it does lead to there being potentials for discrepancies. But there is a lot in here because it does tell us, one, that the Washington family is aware of all these tracks and their connections with it. Now our record, our historical records indicate that was probably William Augustine that built the home, not Augustine Jr.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And I mean, I think it's, maybe enlightening for listeners to hear that there's some confusion within The Descendants and their families themselves. and in the 1930s, when this park was being established, they were not so much concerned with archeology and physical remnants of buildings. They were trying to hunt down records and deeds of property to kind of piece together who was where and when.

Jonathan Malriat And even speaking about the 1930s, it actually shines a light on the 1930s, because frequently we talk about the Wakefield National Memorial Association and their plans to rebuild or build the memorial area we have today. And one of the big ones get brought out there is that the house that they build is not based on anything archeologically in the ground, and its location is where it is, because that was an oral tradition, that it was there. Yet we have conflicting oral traditions that say it was in a different spot. So it helps shine a light on the challenge that the Wakefield National Memorial Association had in deciding which of the old stories do they believe when they can't go or they're not willing to go off of it in the archeological? So it does shine additional light on that, that yeah, there is confusion and it makes it so it's a lot harder just to say, oh no, the Wakefield National Memorial Association had it fully wrong. They just had their own ideas. They had a lot of conflicting information coming in too. And then how do you weigh that? And even today, when we take oral traditions and oral stories into our programing, we have to balance that along with the archival.

Dustin Baker Right. And, you know, we have descriptions of this property in the first decade of the 1800s where people were just describing seeing depressions in the ground where buildings once stood. So, in a paradoxical way, the reason we have a park at all is because of these oral traditions that were held here amongst community members and descendants.

Dustin Baker I mean, one could argue that that's the reason there's a national monument here at all. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Upon This Land History, Mystery and Monuments. And thank you to James Latane, who took the time to make this recording all those years ago, and for your work to take care of this park before it was even a national monument and after. Join us on our next episode.

The Washington family lived on the Maddox Neck for seven generations, and just like most families today, they had neighbors. The Latane family lived alongside the Washingtons during the colonial era and after. They, just like other families here, would have seen their community transform into a federal monument to honor George Washington in the late 1800s. Join us as we listen to parts of a 1976 interview with James Latane, who was born in 1888, and lived near the park his entire life. Intro - Wolf Patrol

Episode 6

Summer of 1864 at Pope’s Creek

Transcript

Dustin Baker George Washington. It's one of the most recognizable names in the world. His story is a foundational stone in American history. Yet at the place he was born, only remnants remain of the buildings and the stories of people who once lived here. One might think that the birthplace of a national icon is an easy story to tell, but it's actually one of the most complex and surprising historic sites preserved by the National Park Service. So join us as we piece together the past, present and future of this place brick by brick. On this podcast series upon this Land History, mystery and monuments. When visitors first arrive to George Washington Birthplace National Monument, the first thing they encounter is a panoramic view of Pope's Creek, an enormous body of water that stretches out to the Potomac River. And this river would have been one of the dividers from 1861 to 1865, between the United States and the Confederacy, which has seceded from the Union during the American Civil War. In June of 1864, 475 men of the 36th United States Colored Troops embarked across the river into Westmoreland County and the Northern Neck of Virginia during the Civil War. Their expedition began right here at Pope's Creek, near the site of George Washington's birthplace. And this month marks the 160th anniversary of the raid, which lasted from June 11th to June 21st. Now, generally, our site interprets the time period between 1650 and 1815, and then we have a jump to the commemorative area in the 1930s. So to help us tell the story of the time in between is our guest interpreter, Steward Henderson from Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. And interviewing Steward is myself and lead interpreter Jonathan Malriat.

Jonathan Malriat In interpretation, we find our stories in many different avenues, sometimes inspiration comes from the most inane and avenues you don't initially expect from. The story for today is going to be around a spark that came from when I visited one of our nearby national park units, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. And every year, right before Memorial Day, they do a celebration called the luminaria, which is a big event that they do in the evening, where they lay out 15,000 candles in memory of all of the soldiers that are buried in the National Cemetery there. And when I was there, I got the opportunity to listen to a lot of the Rangers that are there, tell the stories of some of the individuals that have been identified who are interned in that cemetery. And our guest today, Steward Henderson, was telling a story about one of those soldiers that's buried there. Steward, I will let you give an introduction to yourself.

Steward Henderson Okay. I am the co-founder and past president of the 23rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops, which is a living history organization. I'm also a member of the 54th Mass. Company B out of Washington, D.C., which is our reenactment arm. I am, lets see, a former banker for 35 years, and I have always loved Civil War history since I was six years old and visited the Fredericksburg battlefield, and eight when I visited Gettysburg.

Jonathan Malriat So Steward was talking about Peter Wilson during the luminaria and he was talking about how it occurred in Westmoreland County and George Washington Birthplace National Monument is inside of Westmoreland County. And it sparked an interest in me in trying to make a connection to here, because if there were raiding us, forces us colored troops coming into this region. The people who were inhabiting the area around George Washington Birthplace National Monument would have been experiencing that, even if it wasn't right here. And when I dove into the records, it turns out that there was a raid that occurred June 11th, 1864, through June 21st that occurred right here at Pope's Creek. And it was all thanks to Steward that we found out about this story that has been covered before, but not has been a focus here at the birthplace.

Dustin Baker So let's start by looking into the story of Peter Wilson.

Jonathan Malriat Grave 814 in Fredericksburg National Cemetery belongs to Private Peter Wilson. So Peter Wilson was born in North Carolina and enlisted in company C of the 36 US Colored Troops, which at that time was the 2nd North Carolina US Colored Troops or North Carolina Colored Troops, in July 13th of 1863, in North Carolina. Prior to that, as you had mentioned during the Luminaria, he was enslaved by Doctor Turner Wilson, who had owned 32 slaves on his 2500 acre farm. In his previous occupation, Peter Wilson was listed prior war as being a farmer, and he's one of many enslaved people who escaped and joined the US Army. In the record it talks about in February of 64. So this is going to be almost six months after he joins the Army. He will, they'll move up to Point Lookout and then they'll participate in the raids in the Northern Neck in April and June of 64 and the 36th had a lot of success in there. So on June 16th, they engaged with the Confederate cavalry, and 450 local militia. During that skirmishes, Peter Wilson and two other soldiers of company C broke off and against their orders of the commander of the raid, Colonel Draper, they approached a house located about a mile from where the skirmish taking place, and fire and a group of mounted militia. According to a correspondent writing for the American and Commercial Advertiser, the rebels ran down a Negro soldier and contraband, both of whom were murdered in cold blood. The soldier was 37 year old Private Wilson. The unknown enslaved man or contraband as he was listed, was likely trying to escape with him. Wilson's comrade, Private Henry Lee, was wounded and probably killed, and could not afterwards be found, but the third soldier did escape.

Steward Henderson One thing that I remembered from that story was that Private Wilson was operating against direct orders from Colonel Draper, but he was given that order by another officer, John O'Brien, who knew he was going against Draper's orders. But I think that Peter Wilson, from what I've heard, he's going to be trying to help other enslaved people escape. But, the point was, he was trying to help enslaved people.

Dustin Baker So, Steward, before we get into the details of this raid, let's zoom out a little bit. And could you describe for us, where are we in the war in June of 1864? What's happening in the surrounding area and more broadly?

Steward Henderson Okay, well, Draper is going to be part of the Army of the James. They're going to be under General Benjamin Butler. General Butler had first had black troops when he was in Louisiana. He had the Louisiana Native Guard. So when he becomes, the commander of the Army of the James, he has two divisions of black troops.

Jonathan Malriat Steward, I'm trying to remember, the presidential campaign, 1864 is that the election year or the inauguration year?

Steward Henderson That's the election year.

Jonathan Malriat So that's the election year. So that's another part that's gonna be going on during this 1864 time period. Right. Lincoln's gonna be concerned about that 1864 election. And McClellan. Right. Who's up and coming as a rival for him from the Democrat Democratic Party?

Steward Henderson Yes. Yeah. And, that's why when I do my tours in Fredericksburg, I always ask, you know, what's the turning point of the Civil War. When we have Ken Burns and the movie Gettysburg, they say Gettysburg is the turning point of the war. Well, some people say Gettysburg and Vicksburg together is the turning point of the war. Well, if that's the situation, why is Lincoln worried about being reelected all the way up to August of 1864? He thinks he's going to lose the election, and he needs to get a general that's going to win him the war. And that's where he picks up Grant.

Jonathan Malriat So Spotsylvania, correct me wrong. That's May of 1864, right?

Steward Henderson Right. And that's they start fighting every day.

Jonathan Malriat Yeah. That's then the start of the Overland Campaign. That's a nonstop push by Grant.

Steward Henderson Daily, right.

Jonathan Malriat So we have that occurring in May of 1864. So then are these raids like in conjunction with that.

Steward Henderson So yeah, that's going to be in conjunction with him trying to keep Richmond from sending reinforcements to Lee.

Jonathan Malriat Okay. So we have these big victories that have just occurred in May right before we get to the raids.

Steward Henderson Well technically, stalemates and strategic victories. Yeah.

Jonathan Malriat Tactical stalemates. Both battles are very large losses on both sides.

Steward Henderson Both sides, yes.

Jonathan Malriat So those are all coming into a lot of the zeitgeist that'soccurring around our raids that are happening here.

Steward Henderson Right. Because out of 182,000 combined soldiers, you're going to have 60,000 casualties in those first two battles. That's a 30% rate of loss. We have a 30% rate of loss in any battle today, heads will roll in Washington, DC. But that's the kind of fighting they were fighting in.

Dustin Baker All right. So now we understand more broadly what's happening in Virginia during the Civil War in June of 1864. So now we're going to zero in on the raid here at Pope's Creek. And to really help us understand it, we are going to do a reading, an abridged reading of a report by Colonel Alonzo Draper, who was leading the 36 United States Colored Troops, into Pope's Creek in the Northern Neck of Virginia. Doing this reading for us is Bill Etheridge, who's a park guide at George Washington Birthplace National Monument.

Bill Ethridge June 11th through 21st, 1864 expedition from Point Lookout, Maryland to Pope's Creek, Virginia. Report of Colonel Alonzo G. Draper, 36 U.S. Colored Troops, Headquarters, District of Saint Mary's, Point Lookout, Maryland. June 22nd, 1864. Sir, I have the honor to report that on the evening of the 11th instant, I embarked on the steam transports Georgia, Charleston, Long Branch, and Favorite, with 475 men of the 36th U.S. Colored Troops and 49 men of the Second and Fifth U.S. cavalry under the command of first Lieutenant J.C. Denney, Fifth U.S. cavalry, and proceeded to Pope's Creek, Virginia, on the Potomac River for the purpose of procuring horses for the Quartermasters Department and farming implements, transportation, and such, for the contraband settlement on the Patuxent River. On the morning of the 12th, we landed at Pope's Creek and divided into two detachments, 300 men under Captain Hart, of the Thirty-Sixth, taking the road running by a northerly course to Smith's Wharf, and thence along the Rappahannock to Warsaw, where all detachments were to unite. On the evening of the 13th. The remaining infantry, under my own command, accompanied by 100 sailors under Captain Street of the gunboat Fuchsia, took the road to Montross. From this column I detached 75 men to canvas the road to Currioman Bay and rejoin me at Montross. From both columns, detachments were thrown off on all the road crossroads leading to Warsaw to collect horses and cattle, and to drive all scattering parties of the enemy toward Wind-Mill Point, where we hoped to meet and destroy them. One company was sent forward to hold Durrettsville, at the forks of the road, nine miles above Warsaw. Both columns reached Warsaw at the appointed time without any remarkable incidents, except occasional guerrilla firing, which did no damage. On the evening of the 12th, I rode with a cavalry escort to the Rappahannock opposite the town of Tappahannock, where I communicated with a gunboats Jacob Bell and Freeborn. The officers of these boats informed me that horses were abundant at the Occupacia Creek and Layton's Wharf, on the south side of the Rappahannock. Finding horses scarce and poor on the Northern Neck between the Potomac and Rappahannock, I resolved to transfer the field of operations to the south bank of the Rappahannock. We passed the night of the 14th at Durrettsville and marched on the morning of the 15th to Union Wharf, where we were soon joined by the gunboats and transports. About a day and a half was spent in rebuilding the wharf, which was burned by General Kilpatrick. On the 16th, Second Lieutenant O'Brien permitted three men of his company to leave the battalion and go to a house about a mile distant. Notwithstanding my orders that no man should be allowed to leave the column and all other respects, Lieutenant O'Brien performed his duties in a very acceptable manner. Of these three men from O'Brien's company, only one returned. Of the two of the other two, one was murdered by the rebel cavalry and the other wounded and probably killed as he crawled into the woods, and could not afterward be found. Hearing the firing on the afternoon of the 16th, I rode out with about 40 of the cavalry to ascertain the cause. Emerging from the woods about a mile from Union Wharf, we perceived a body of rebel cavalry about a mile ahead at a point of woods where the road forks. At a suitable distance, I ordered a charge directly, after which the enemy opened fire upon us. After riding in to within 60 yards of the rebel position, I found myself almost alone. Only my assistant adjutant general and a few faithful orderlies remaining by me. I tried in vain to rally my men, calling upon them a dozen times to halt and face the enemy. Finally finding myself enveloped in the dust of the rebel pursuit. Entirely alone, I followed the crowd. The rebels, after pursuing 200 or 300 yards, turned back, evidently astonished at their success. When I left the wharf, had ordered a detachment of about 150 men under Captain Hatlinger to follow the cavalry as of support, leaving the remainder of the battalion to complete the wharf. Captain Hatlinger, who is an inefficient officer, was very slow to execute this order, but when he did arrive, I posted one half of his men on the edge of the woods, and dismounting, took 75 men and made a detour through the skirt of the wood, hoping to get in rear of the rebels and cancel the account. By dark we were within 600 or 700 yards of the rebels, who had lighted their campfires and prepared to bivouac. At this juncture, the accidental explosion of a percussion cap gave the notice of our approach, whereupon they immediately removed to safe quarters. We soon emerged in the rear of their campfires, which we found deserted. After marching about a mile in pursuit, we returned to Union Wharf. On the morning of the 17th of June, the anniversary of Bunker Hill, I thought it proper to make one more attempt to wipe out the disgrace which the cavalry had brought upon the expedition, leaving about 300 men to load the transport. I marched with 200 men of the Thiry-Sixth and 36 of the cavalry under Sergeant Cain. We again found them this time, and force numbering according to the best information, 150 men of the ninth Virginia Cavalry and 450 Infantry, who were mostly Home guards. I ordered my men to fix their sights for 500 yards, and directed the company commanders to pass along the line and see that every sight was properly raised. Our first volley made a marked effect, evidently taking the enemy by surprise, as he expected a charge at the first fire, several of the enemy were seemed to fall, and heard the scream. They immediately returned afar. Apparently every man for himself. We poured in our volleys in rapid succession, and soon threw the rebels into great confusion. At every discharge, crowds of them took to the woods in their rear. When they moved upon the rebel position, which was entirely abandoned. At Pierson's farm, not one of my men received a scratch, the rebels firing too high their balls, in most cases passing directly over the head of the mounted officers. The gallantry of the colored troops on this occasion could not be excelled. They were as steady under fire and as accurate in their movements as if they were on drill. After giving nine rousing cheers on the rebel ground, we recalled the cavalry and march to Union Wharf, where we assisted in embarking the captured property. From Union Wharf we sent two more steamer loads of captured property to Point Lookout, with orders to return to the Rappahannock. We then steamed to Layton's Wharf, opposite Leedstown, where we were informed that two rebel regiments, the 59th Virginia Infantry, numbering 680, and the 7th Virginia Cavalry, numbering 440, had the night before across the Rapahannock three miles above Layton’s, for the purpose of helping to chastise our party. We landed on the 18th and marched to Loyd's, 7 or 8 miles, besides sending the cavalry out three miles on the Layton Road, four miles from Layton's, we found a large grist mill belonging to Robert M.T. Hunter, which had been turning out flour for the rebel army ever since the beginning of the war. This we burned to the ground. In this section we found an abundance of fine horses, mules, and beef cattle. Throughout the day, small parties of rebel cavalry were watching our movements. I therefore deemed it prudent to return to Layton's Wharf, where we arrived in the evening. Spent the night in embarking horses, mules and cattle, and sailed on the morning of the 19th for Tappahannock, where we landed and resumed our labor. We spent another night in loading the two transports and the gunboats, and re embarked. On the morning of the 20th, passing down the river, we sent boats ashore at Union Wharf, Urbanna, and Carter’s Creek for information, but failed to learn anything of importance. At the mouth of the river we met the two returning transports, which relieved the gunboats of their load. When the expedition returned to Point Lookout, a arriving early in the morning of the 21st instant, we brought in 375 head of cattle, 160 horses and mules, about 600 contrabands, including between 60 and 70 recruits for the army and navy, and a large number of plows, harrows, cultivators, wheat drills, corn sellers, harness carts and carriages and such for the use of the contraband settlement on the Patuxent. I have the honor to be very respectfully your obedient servant, Alonzo G. Draper, Colonel, 36th US Colored Troops Commanding District. Major R.S. Davis, Assistant Adjutant General, Department of Virginia and North Carolina.

Dustin Baker As someone who's not incredibly familiar, reading military documents from the Civil War, it took me a couple reads to understand that when they say contrabands, they're talking about enslaved individuals. And they even mentioned that there's a contraband encampment. How many people do we think were liberated during this time?

Steward Henderson Well, I can tell you from Fredericksburg we had, probably the largest self emancipation of enslaved people in the entire Civil War. During the first occupation of Fredericksburg, you had, over 10,000 enslaved people. And they only are able to escape because the Union Army is there. So when we talk about contraband, what we're talking about is, a term that Benjamin Butler brings up at Fort Monroe. Now, when the first three guys come to his fort asking for asylum, and it's because they had worked on Confederate works and, their owners came asking about getting them back because of the Fugitive Slave Law and, General Benjamin Butler, who had been a lawyer in his previous line of work, he told them that, well, since you have, seceded from the United States, then you are no longer afforded the United States laws. So I consider them contraband of war. So whenever you take over some possession of somebody else who has rebelled against your country, then you call it contraband of war. So that term sticks. Contraband camps were very important because they supplied a lot of the labor, like cooking, the, clothes washing and things like that for the Union soldiers. Now, many of the Union soldiers in Fredericksburg, some of them had never even seen black people before, and they really were not abolitionists. But from the letters that I have, seen and, some of them I had to transcribe, these, enslaved people just grew on these soldiers because they wanted to try to help them do whatever they needed, because they were so thankful that they were no longer enslaved people. And the Union soldiers gradually began to really appreciate them, and their whole demeanor changed. So they welcomed those 10,000, and they took them up to Washington with him. And you had quite a few contraband camps around the Washington, DC area. Alexandria was a big contraband camps, and so did Georgetown. And at first in Georgetown, they were considered a separate place from Washington, D.C.. Well, now we know it's a very affluent part of Washington, D.C., but they had contraband camps up there at that time.

Jonathan Malriat So, Stuart, are you familiar with Point Lookout? What what's occurring at Point Lookout? Why in Maryland is there two whole U.S. regiments being stationed there?

Steward Henderson Oh, Point Lookout, it's a prison camp for Confederate prisoners. So they had Union soldiers watching those, prisoners. And eventually, when United States Colored Troops are going to be originated, a lot of the Union white soldiers didn't want them fighting in battles, so they would be given jobs like labor jobs and jobs watching wagons, wagon trains, watching prisoners. And then they had the prison camps. So in order to keep them out of fighting and they would make them guard prison camps. Now, part of the reason was because the Confederates weren't going to treat them as prisoners and, they were going to be treated as either escaped slaves or they were going to just be treated as, they weren't soldiers, they were going to kill them. They going to execute them on the spot. According to the laws of the Confederate States, if you catch a runaway slave, you can kill it. But, that's one of the main reasons why you're going to have them guarding them. And, also for the white officers, you know, they were going to be treated as leading servile insurrections. So that meant in a lot of cases that they would be executed as well. So that's one of the reasons why they didn't want to put a lot of the colored soldiers into fighting in battles.

Jonathan Malriat So if that's the reason for why the like, 36th and the 35th were moved up to this Maryland location, that was probably viewed as being less likely to see combat, why then in like the spring of 1864, do they kind of shift gears? And these regiments that are assigned to prison duty are doing raids across the Potomac into a section of Virginia that really hadn't seen a lot of combat?

Steward Henderson Well, for one thing, they needed soldiers. And, you notice, not only in Virginia but North Carolina, South Carolina, they led raids into, slave areas so that they can get refugees from the camps or contrabands, that they would call them, and they would take them back to the camps, and they expected the males to actually enlist in the army. Especially if, in the contraband camps, they wanted their families taken care of, then some guys were coerced into doing that. So that's a good reason. And, in many cases, a lot of those men make some of the best soldiers. Now, especially in 1864, because General Grant's taken over. And he calls this his strategy of exhaustion. He wants to destroy the infrastructure and the farming of the Confederacy and what better way to do that is to take the animals, take the enslaved people who do the work, and you take away their equipment, and they're going to be just about helpless. Then where they go have to come up with other ways of buying more equipment and more people to do the labor. And you have to remember like 80% of all the white men who were military age are already in the Confederate Army, so they don't have much of it in the militia. And a lot of the militia are made up of wounded soldiers who don't go back in. He does what Lincoln has always wanted, one of his generals to do. He wanted them to coordinated all of the attacks.

Jonathan Malriat Do you know how many soldiers were in the US Colored Troops forces?

Steward Henderson 180,000 is the number that we use for the entire army, and we use another 20,000. But as people actually get into the records, we are finding out, it's probably going to be more than that.

Jonathan Malriat Now, give us a size comparison, because like, those numbers are really big. How many would be in say like the 36 USCT the US colored troops? How large would that regiment be in soldiers and forces supporting it?

Steward Henderson Okay, technically a regiment is a thousand men. Now I didn't look up the 36th regiment, but, I did look up to 23rd’s and I got the rosters of 1792 men in that regiment. That doesn't mean all of them are there at the same time, however, it shows that they at one time served in that regiment.

Jonathan Malriat So another thing that it mentions is that, Draper brought along with the 475 men of the 36th U.S. Colored Troops. He also brought 49 men of the Second and the Fifth U.S. cavalry. So do you know why he would have wanted to bring the cavalry units as well?

Steward Henderson Oh, yeah. Cavalry. They're going to be the eyes and ears of any expedition. So they're going to be the scouts that go out and find out where the enemy is and what kind of force the enemy is in. So you can cover a lot more territory on horseback than you can walking. So they're going to be cavalry units all over with the infantry.

Jonathan Malriat Now, they come across on boats of what's called the Potomac Flotilla ofthe US Navy. How does that how do the landings happen? I mean, if you ask, like today in modern movies, we think about, like, say, like Saving Private Ryan where you have these boats from, they drop the ramps straight down and they all run right off. How would that have occurred here? Because we know they land right across the creek from us on the shoreline of the Potomac River. So how would that have looked in June of 1864?

Steward Henderson Okay, you probably have, the boats that they bring over, they’re going to be low enough for the soldiers that they can get off them on planks. They'll just come up beside the area and put the planks down so the soldiers can come off. However, there were going to be some ships that are probably going to stay offshore, like, for the ships that would be taking over the, contraband, the ships that they're going to be having cattle in them and, say farm equipment. Those are going to be larger ships, and they're going to be more like a cargo ship. So you can put things on the ship. But the, there will be smaller ships or smaller boats that they're going to be having with them. And then, they can go over and some of them may have a row boats with them that they can just row over to the water.

Jonathan Malriat Now that we really kind of talked about a lot of the details of this raid but why is this important to talk about? Why is a raid like this which we're only talking combined totals on both sides, maybe a thousand people involved that are fighting and then another 600 that are freed. So maybe 2000 people involved in this compared to like the Battle of Fredericksburg, where there's hundreds of thousands combined involved. Why is this important?

Steward Henderson Well, it's important because at this particular time, you're not getting a black, a lot of black soldiers actually fighting so they can start fighting militia, start fighting some cavalry. But later on in the war, like the 36 is going to be in some big battles. They're going to be at the, the June 15th Battle of Petersburg, which includes, Baylor's farm and, the Dimmock line around Petersburg.

Jonathan Malriat So in your opinion, why is important for us to remember these stories? Why is it important for us to talk about all this?

Steward Henderson Well, it's important because for so long we didn't talk about it. Now I can go back, right after the war, say, the GAR and the Grand Army of the Republic. Those were veterans associations. They welcomed black soldiers in. But in the 1880s, the white Confederates and the white Union soldiers starting to reconcile. And the Confederates would put a stipulation there, we will reconcile with you as long as you keep the black soldiers out of it. So you carry it forward, in the 1950s and 60s, I mean, even looking at my park, they were segregated. So they didn't know anything about the Civil War. The history is very important and, especially for black men, because, when we go into the military and come back, we're not treated very well. So I've had lots of stories, even World War Two coming back. They're coming back home to places like Louisiana. They can't go into restaurants. But you got German prisoners in the restaurant. So the military history, I mean, that's when black men stop being slaves and start being soldiers and start being men. In fact, even as early as 1864, we're going to have black men voting because the fifth of USCT out of Ohio, Ohio gave black men who were free and educated and their soldiers, they gave them the right to vote, and they voted in the camps. But history is very important, and especially to, like I say, the black community, because, I mean, even in Fredericksburg, even if I give a talk tomorrow, I'll bet you there be people in that audience that didn't know that they had black soldiers in the Civil War, and a lot of them don't even visit our park because it was segregated for so long. Now, when I went there when I was six years old, and that was in 1958, I didn't realize it was segregated because I was going up to the top of Marys Heights, and I was such a small kid, I thought I was standing on top of the world there, so going inside didn't matter to me. I was on the battlefield and I could just look out and see this. Well, it wasn't quite as, developed as it is today, but, you know, I could see a long way, and I can imagine what those soldiers saw.

Dustin Baker Thank you for joining us on this episode of Upon This Land History, Mystery and monuments. Next month, we celebrate July 4th. And joining us for that episode is a special guest from Virginia 250.

In June of 1864, 475 men of the 36th United States Colored Troops embarked across the Potomac into Westmoreland County and the Northern Neck of Virginia during the Civil War. Their expedition began here at Pope's Creek, near the site of George Washington's birthplace. This month marks the 160th anniversary of the raid. Guest interpreter Steward Henderson joins us from Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP to tell the story. Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family

Episode 7

America’s Semiquincentennial in Virginia

Transcript

Dustin Baker George Washington. It's one of the most recognizable names in the world. His story is a foundational stone in American history. Yet at the place he was born, only remnants remain of the buildings and the stories of people who once lived here. One might think that the birthplace of a national icon is an easy story to tell, but it's actually one of the most complex and surprising historic sites preserved by the National Park Service. So join us as we piece together the past, present and future of this place brick by brick. On this podcast series upon this Land History, mystery and monuments. The power of a place is shaped by its past, and one can hardly think of a place that was owned by the Washingtons in the Northern Neck of Virginia without thinking of the American Revolution. On July 4th, 2026, the National Park Service will join the nation in celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Parks from coast to coast preserve monuments and memorials that help us reflect on America's highest principles and the nation's greatest tragedies. The US Semiquincentennial offers us an opportunity to celebrate in national parks the vast contributions of individuals, both before and after the revolution, deepen our understanding of the struggles and triumphs of all Americans, and reflect on the aspirational ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and their relevance to our lives today. It's also an opportunity for all Americans to deepen their pride in place and learn more about the stories of their local communities and states 250 years ago. Joining us today is our very special guest, Cheryl Wilson. Cheryl Wilson serves as the executive director for the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission. So Cheryl, we just want to thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. And for those of there... for those people out there who don't know who you are or what VA 250 is, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became involved?

Cheryl Wilson Absolutely, and thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today, Dustin and your audience. Always happy to talk about VA 250 because it impacts all of us so much. VA 250 is the shorthand name for the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission. And that's an agency of the legislature, the General Assembly, a legislative commission that is chaired by delegate Terry L. Austin of Botetourt. The vice chair is Senator Mamie Locke of Hampton. And we're honored to have as National Honorary Chair Carly Fiorina. The commission itself is composed of representatives of museums, historic sites, tourism destinations, and state agencies across Virginia. And, they've been working hard since 2020, in formulating the plans that we'll talk about. But I'm Cheryl Wilson, the executive director of VA 250 and of course have always been passionate about Virginia's rich history and have sort of carved out a niche with commemorations, I'll say. My career has been with the General Assembly and this VA 250 Commission is an agency of the General Assembly and part of that long career. And I think I have about 37 sessions of the General Assembly under my belt. Now, one of the things you do is, whatever the priority of the time is, so starting in about 2006, I was asked to lead Virginia's Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War and Emancipation, that's the sesquicentennial. After that, the 100th anniversary of World War One, 75th anniversary of World War Two, and now the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Semisequincentennial. And I often laugh Dustin and say, it might just be because I learned how to pronounce Sesquicentennial and Semiquincentennial so quickly. But it's been a long and wonderful time of developing partnerships and all the good things that we'll talk about with the commemoration.

Dustin Baker Right? Being able to pronounce those things is an important part of the job. I absolutely agree, it took me a while. You know, these, these big nationwide commemorations, states around the country are having their own stories told during, America 250. Why is this such an important commemoration for the state of or the Commonwealth of Virginia?

Cheryl Wilson Yeah, another very good question. And you're right, every state is having its moment because, again, this is our nation's 250th. Much like the bicentennial and the the, passion that's exhibited throughout the nation in a moment like that. But I have to say, there is no better place than Virginia to experience history. We often say Virginia's history is America's story, and that's so much more than a tagline. It's true. Virginia was the first the place for the first encounters with indigenous people. The first slaves arrived in Virginia, in Jamestown. Whether you're talking about Civil War, Civil Rights, American Revolution, every layer of history can be found and explored in sites throughout Virginia. We offer the power of place, standing, in a place of significance at a time of significance that no other state offers. Virginia is, as many people would say, the birthplace of the nation. All the founding documents written by Virginia over and over. So I would say that Virginia is important for every American, certainly every Virginian, but every American to experience in this moment of the nation's 250th.

Dustin Baker And we're two years away from 2026, which is the actual 250th anniversary of American independence. What are the biggest goals for VA 250 between now and then?

Cheryl Wilson Right. Yes. there are three main goals. And you're right, that lead up to 2026 takes a long time. Our overall vision is to do our part in forming a more perfect union and the way we get there are three goals. Number one: Educate. There are so many people that don't understand Virginia's contributions to the forming of our nation in the American Revolution. But even broader than that, they don't understand the values and ideas and ideals on which this country was founded and continued to create a more perfect union. So educate and outreach is a big part of that. To that end, we'll have mobile museums that travel to schools and exhibit. The next is to engage Virginians and Americans by telling the whole story of our founding and connecting every community on a personal level, encouraging tourism and economic development as people travel throughout and engage in the history that we find here. And then the third is to inspire. To foster the sense of national unity that we all have, that we need by reflecting on these ideals that shaped our nation and that continue to perfected. So engage, educate and inspire, would be the three main goals. All of our programing works around that.

Dustin Baker Absolutely. And you know, when we're talking about educating and inspiring people, about this commemoration, why should individuals care about Virginia 250 and America 250? What is it that we want them to get excited about?

Cheryl Wilson You know, the easy answer to that is that when we take a moment to reflect on the past and our history, it's just as much about our present and our future. And that's what a commemoration does. Is it offers the opportunity by looking at the past to shape the present, bring us together in the present and bring us forward together in the future. We know, of course, that the American Revolution itself wasn't just a fight for Independence. It was about the fight for, again, these ideals we're talking about, liberty, self-government, the pursuit of a more perfect union. And if we understand that, you know, we can certainly appreciate the values on which they were built. But also, as we look back to the past, we see, you know, painful parts of our history. And when we talk about, acknowledge that, when we work together to, to discuss those, one of our... one of our key leaders, Carly Fiorina, often talks about the experience in places like Colonial Williamsburg and certainly National Park Service sites across the country have found over and over, when we take an honest look at history, it brings us all together closer. It's a it's a healing moment, and that would be why I think everyone should care about VA 250 and this moment for the nation.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And you know, one of the best ways to connect and engage and learn about history is to go to places where history happened. And, as a America 250, VA 250, as the commemoration really gets moving, people are probably going to start thinking about visiting well-known sites like Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Mount Vernon, but what are some lesser known places that you hope people visit?

Cheryl Wilson Oh, yes. And I hope they visit all of them many, many times. I'll start by saying on our website, VA250.org, you can click and have an interactive map that overlays all of the many places to visit. The grand names that you've mentioned, Monticello, Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown. But then the sites like Red Hill, the home of Patrick Henry in Charlotte County, the Abingdon Muster Grounds out in Southwest Virginia in Abingdon, where militia, oh, goodness, I spent the most captivating afternoon there not too long ago, and the guide was telling me the stories of the local men who left their home and marched dozens upon dozens of miles to muster there. And then from there, go out and march dozens and dozens of miles before the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. Just these stories of everyday bravery and everyday sacrifice, so that's one that just always leaps to mind. We read a story not too long ago, in a series that runs about the 250th, about Chiswell’s Mines, for example. Again, that's out in Southwest Virginia in Wythe County. And I don't know if you know about that one Dustin, but that's where enslaved men as well, white prisoners worked side by side in lead mines to produce ammunition for the revolutionary armies. Some of these sites that you just hadn't heard of before. and then we talk about Colonial Williamsburg in the grand sense, but within that are such poignant and incredible stories. One of them that comes to mind is the Bray School in Colonial Williamsburg, which is the oldest building dedicated to the education of black children in the United States. And there's been a lot of work and renovation and the relocation of the school. And we understand, for example, when the Bray School itself, after being found, located, the... the historical ruins, was being brought to the place where it's now being renovated and in fact will be rededicated this year in the fall of 2024, in Colonial Williamsburg. The community members again remember, with one of the oldest schools, dedicated to educating black children, free and enslaved. So students from a local school as that house, the Gray School, was coming down the road, gathered, and they held up placards. Research had shown the names of some of the students who were educated in the Bray School, and they held up placards, if they just knew the first name, because they wanted to honor those students. The students of today wanted to honor the student of of yesterday. And remember them and say their name and let them know they weren't forgotten. If that's not just a snapshot of the power of a commemoration, I don't know what is. So again, you know, all these moments, all of those, places that we can go and experience. I would direct you to the website for a comprehensive listing of the well known and the lesser known, all of which need to be known.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And, you know, when I think of the semiquincentennial, I can't help but think of the Bicentennial Commemorations in 1976. And I think one of the biggest differences between that commemoration and the semiquincentennial is that now modern people have access to all kinds of information about these sites online, readily available to them. They can learn remotely, but why should modern audiences care about the preservation of these actual historic places and sites?

Cheryl Wilson Yeah, it goes back to Dustin that power of place. And that truly, to me, having experienced this over and over again, that's the power of the commemoration. First up the power place is wonderful. Anytime when you can go and you can see, you know, the site where George Washington lived or was born and stand there, but there's something special. It's almost it is intangible. It's something about being at a place of significance, particularly on an anniversary day. And then you can narrow that down when you know the time. And I’ve stood in places, many times one, one that comes to mind, is the Manassas Battleground. When you know you are in the same place at the same moment that something significant happens and you're separated only by the thin veil of time. It's powerful. The stories that we hear or that we read or that we scroll through on our phones, don't hit as deeply as as them. And that's why one of the things we'll be doing is launching a passport, inviting people to, to go to sites, particularly on dates of significance. It it's, it's will, it's a changing, it's a transformative experience. And I hope that so many people here in Virginia, we have so many of those moments and places. And one of our goals is to make it easy for people to to experience that. But it's something quite powerful and quite a connection with the past that again, we carry into the future.

Dustin Baker Yeah. And, speaking of dates of significance, you just mentioned a few moments ago, George Washington, and in 2032, the tricentennial birth anniversary of George Washington will be another commemoration. How do you hope commemoration of the 250th will influence commemoration of that event in Virginia?

Cheryl Wilson Oh that's wonderful, tricentennial! Well, first off Dutin that's easier for you and me to say isn’t it. but yeah, let's look at the dovetailing of that. 2032, that's going to be right on the tails. 2031 is the surrender at Yorktown, where here in Virginia, where American independence was won. So following that will be the tricentennial. That is the fun thing about Virginia. There are so many layers of history that you can be commemorating the 250th of one thing, while also the 100th of something else, and the 300th. So that's that's really lovely, to know that that'll be coming right on the heels of that. Right as history is is so peaked, as the national appetite is whet. But how this commemoration of the 250th will influence that commemoration, well is in number one is awareness. You know just the public appetite, the groundwork that’s laid. That during a commemoration on, you know, on the side that we do, the the working side of it, all of the many, many, many there hundreds of partners involved, for example, in the 250th commemoration here in Virginia. All working together, all ours rowing in the same direction every museum, historic site. Just the power of creating those strong partnerships and that network, brings together so many who will have a role in the tricentennial of George Washington's birth. And then again, as I mentioned, we whet the public appetite for knowing more, learning more, wanting to go to the site. And it just in, we lay the groundwork for ensuring that vibrant and inclusive commemoration as one ends the next begins.

Dustin Baker Yeah, and VA 250 has actually already been active for some time. So, what are some events that, you've already conducted and what are the highlights that you have planned for the future?

Cheryl Wilson Oh, so many, yes, and, Dustin, I believe you, might have attended or some of your colleagues, one of our biggest, which is a Common Cause to All. Let me say Virginia has very deliberately stepped out and in a leadership role in this national commemoration. And one of the ways we do that is through a program that we call a Common Cause to All. Now it started last year in Colonial Williamsburg. It's a partnership between VA 250 and Colonial Williamsburg and other museum But, that was the anniversary, the 250th anniversary of the Committees of Correspondence, the Founding Fathers meeting at the Raleigh Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg, well before text messages and emails, corresponding with other colonies at the time. In essence, boiling it down, something big is coming, how do we how do we unite together? We took that same motto. Thomas Jefferson called it a Common Cause to All. We took that same model. Something big is coming. The nation's 250th, we're planning here in Virginia. Other states are planning too. So unify, let's join forces and let's come together. We invited fellow 250th planners from across the nation, across Virginia. And we've now had two gatherings of that, we’ll have another one next year. Dustin, we hoped people would come. This year, we had representatives from, I want to say 37 states, 50 some localities across Virginia, more than 450 people registering and just collaborate. How how can we best work together? So that's one of our programs, a Common Cause to All. And it is tremendous. The speakers, the inspiration that we all share, again, full recordings of every one of those sessions are on our website, VA250.org, and I would recommend it to the attention of your readers, certainly. But even more than that, we have a robust calendar of events. There have already been more than 500 events added to our calendar of events happening across Virginia. And like you mentioned, we're two years out from what the nation sees as the semiquincentennial. For us though, it's already begun. In Virginia, one of the most exciting things and something that we're working on a lot here, in the office and, and within our commission and leadership is 4th of July. We will start 4th of July celebration this year, 2024, at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. We'll have another, we actually see this as act one of a three act play. There'll be another July 4th commemoration next year, in Tidewater area, Fort Monroe. And then in 2026, we’ll be involving, we’ll be at Colonial Williamsburg. So that's act one of a three act play. So if anyone in your listening audience is in or near Richmond or wants to travel, we would love to have you here at the State Capitol this year. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on. We'll have the Yorktown Tea Party this year in November, which of course was Virginia's role of participation, you know, as all the colonies, we certainly know about the Boston Tea Party, but there was a Yorktown Tea party here in, in, in Virginia. Patrick Henry's “Give me liberty or give me death.” Anniversary is next year. Saint John's church. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So we've already had a number of just, programs that bring together the inspiration and enthusiasm and help set the course for what will truly be a commemoration to involve all Virginians and tell all aspects of our history.

Dustin Baker Right. And, speaking of involving all Virginians, if someone's listening to this right now and they're just becoming aware of this and Centennial, what are some ways they can get involved?

Cheryl Wilson I would say welcome, friends. There are so many ways you can get involved. And we want to have you. We want to see, we want to see you over and over. First thing you can do is visit and bookmark VA250.org and start looking at the signature events that the commission itself, is putting on for VA 250 and and then look for local events, what your area is. Certainly you can use this calendar, under events and places to visit to search by locality what’s near you. Start making your plan for the 250th and how you'll be involved. We want you at all VA 250 events again, including July 4th and Common Cause and I should say Dustin that each locality has a local 250th committee. The full listing is on our website. Look for local events, volunteer. It. Show up, be part of it. You’ll find something new at every one of these, I guarantee. So volunteer opportunities, educational resources. If, people if your audience or NPS sites and museums and historic home, those who work there, we have grant programs available to provide some seed funding. I always like to say, “like, follow, and share” on social media. We're on all social media channels, and you can find it by using hashtag VA 250. So tag us in your social media, follow along with ours, participate. That's one of the quickest and most granular ways, to be involved. And then of course, support. We have a VA 250 commemoration society for those who can support with their treasure as well as their time and donate, to further education efforts across the state. So they're very many ways, and we welcome, we welcome everyone and can't wait to see you at events.

Dustin Baker Right. And, you know, Cheryl, this will be the the last question we have for you. With so many different historic sites across Virginia, so many different communities being engaged and involved with this, what can we do to ensure that everyone is included in this commemoration? When so many people have been excluded or marginalized in our country's history, in these very stories that we're going to be commemorating and telling.

Cheryl Wilson Absolutely, because this is a commemoration for all Virginians, and everyone has a place at the table. So the VA 250 Commission, Dustin, which is, chaired by Delegate Terry Austin from Botetourt, our vice chair, Senator Mamie Locke from Hampton, and of course, our honorary national chair is Carly Fiorina has been intentional in, in involving every audience. Senator Locke chairs an African American advisory council. We have, Chief Steve Atkins from the Chickahominy Tribe who chairs the Tribal Nations Leadership Advisory Council, composed of Chiefs of all Virginian tribes. We very intentionally ask these groups to help program events like July 4th and Common Cause, and all of the things that VA 250 will do and we have many others, I just named two actually, there are many other advisory groups similar to very intentionally help in creating programing and designing events in which every voice is welcome, every person sees themselves and feels welcome. So that's been, an intentional outreach for VA 250 to involve all Virginians.

Dustin Baker Well, great. Cheryl, we just want to thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule. you know, as someone who was born in the 1980s, I didn't really appreciate the full scope and significance of this commemoration until I started looking back to the 1976 Bicentennial commemorations and how much that meant for the country at the time. And I truly appreciate the work that you're putting into commemorating the 250th here in Virginia and, truly respect the the task you have ahead of you. So, just want to thank you for joining us on the podcast, and, we look forward to talking with you again in the future. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Upon This Land: History, Mystery and Monuments. Next month, it's the National Park Service’s birthday, so be sure to tune in to our next episode.

On July 4th, 2026, the National Park Service will join the nation in celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We have already started planning for this national event and today we are going to get a behind the scenes look at what is to come. Joining us today is our very special guest, Cheryl Wilson. Cheryl Wilson serves as the executive director for the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission. Intro music courtesy of Wolf Patrol. Outro music courtesy of Brumbaugh Family.

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