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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 Historical documents and archeological resources that contain critical information about the lives of all who inhabited this land are only beginning to be understood.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Era remain here, the power of this place truly comes from the people who keep its relevance alive by examining the historical documents and archaeological resources that hold essential information about the lives of all who inhabited this land.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.

Episode 3

The River We Share

Transcript

Dustin Baker Welcome to this episode of Upon This Land: History, Mystery, and Monuments. I'm here with Jonathan Malriat, and we have a special guest, Mike Nardolilli, who's the executive director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. George Washington Birthplace is a 551 acre park with a two mile shoreline on the Potomac River. And we would estimate that almost half or more than that of all our visitors come here, just to enjoy the beach on the Potomac River. So we're very excited to have, Mike with us today. So, Mike, could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin?

Mike Nardolilli I'll be happy to do so. I am Mike Nardolilli. I'm the executive director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. I've been in this position for about five and a half years now. And, I supervise a staff of 18, and report to a commission that is appointed by the jurisdictions in the basin. So the ICPRB was, it was created pursuant to a congressionally approved compact, between the five jurisdictions in the Potomac River basin: Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, the DC, and Pennsylvania. Most people don't realize that the 10% of the basin is actually located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The federal government participates, by naming commissioners as well, but it is not a signatory, to the compact itself. And so the compact created, well, what it was an advisory committee...commission. The advisory commission, has no regulatory authority. But we have been very significant since our founding in 1940 to, effectuate positive change on the river, mainly because of our reputation of being scientists and, objective, recommendations, have been adopted by the local jurisdictions.

Dustin Baker And, why was the commission created all those years ago?

Mike Nardolilli By the time of the 1930s, the once beautiful and bountiful Potomac River, had been turned into an open sewer. And it was killing aquatic species, and driving away residents, from, enjoying their, their waterway. And so Congress, actually then, started initiating discussions among the basin jurisdictions, recognizing that the, whatever solution came up, with had to be, supported by the five jurisdictions, no one jurisdiction could do it itself. DC could not do it alone. It needed all of the partners in the basin to do so. So they created this, interstate commission on the Potomac River basin. And, the charter is that our purpose is for regulating, controlling, preventing or otherwise rendering unobjectionable and harmless the pollution of the waters of the Potomac draining area, from sewage and industrial and other wastes. So that was that was our original charter. Now, in a major drought in 1966, led the compact to be amended. To include another purpose, which was, in 1970, to include cooperative water supply and other natural resources issues. And then as a result of that, in 1979, ICPRB formed its section on cooperative water supply operations on the Potomac, also known as co-op, and that would serve as a technical center on the water resources in the Potomac Basin. Basically to make sure, that, especially during periods of drought, that the, drinking water suppliers in the DC area did not drink the water, drink the, River dry, and to allow for a 100 million gallon flow by at Little Falls. And that requirement is designed to, make sure that the aquatic species in the lower Potomac, including the area near you folks and also the bay, received an adequate supply of fresh water coming down, from the basin. And so we wanted to make sure that they didn't drink the river dry. And you have this flow by at Little Falls.

Jonathan Malriat So you mentioned the drought in 1966 being this watershed moment that led to that addition of protecting water supply. Was there in particular a watershed moment or a specific event that led to the creation of the Interstate Commission in the 1940s?

Mike Nardolilli A number of, folks in Congress, had actually done, like, as field work and gone out on the river. There were a number of photographs that are out there in the 1930s of, influential Congress people holding their nose as they stood along the Potomac River. So I don't think it was any one, one event, but it was, a series of visits by Congress to the Potomac that recognized that they needed to do something about it.

Jonathan Malriat Kind of shifting gears here, since it seems like we can really break down the goals of this commission into a couple key parts. But the big key component of it is the Potomac River. So you mentioned that your jurisdictions included those previously stated ones, but what... Can you describe the Potomac River? What it it? where it is? Because it might be something that people might not immediately know off the top of their head.

Mike Nardolilli Certainly, the Potomac River is located in the, Mid-Atlantic region of the East Coast of the United States. The Potomac River drains an area roughly the size of Switzerland. About 15,000mi². It, and the basin is shaped like a horse head. The river flows from, Stanton, Virginia in the west. To the, point, what’s called Point Lookout in Maryland in the east. But it extends northward all the way up to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and then also westward to include West Virginia, and an area called the Fairfax Stone. So it's a very broad, watershed, and a very important watershed on the East Coast.

Dustin Baker So a lot of our listeners are interested in history and, you know, this is a pretty large question, but can you tell us a little bit about the history of the Potomac River? And, by that, I mean not just human history, but, geologic and natural history of it.

Mike Nardolilli Oh, sure. The, the Potomac, it's difficult to tell exactly how old it is, but some folks actually believe it's older than the Appalachian Mountains. In other words, it began flowing before the mountains were pushed up by continental drift, and the river continued to carve its valley all during that time, and so if you look at a map of the United States, in the northeast especially, you see that most rivers run north and south. Like if you take the Hudson, for example. Right. But the, Potomac actually runs, west to east. And that's, a defining characteristic. Also the Potomac, there are portions of the Potomac, especially what's called a North Branch, which are almost sitting on bedrock. And other parts are alluvial plains, such as the Shenandoah, the Monocacy, and the other tributaries that flow into the Potomac. So it has a, a varied, geology. It was settled, of course, by the Native Americans, who lived in the valley for, for many years before European contact. And they they settled in a variety of areas, and, and left their names on the landscape, such as the Anacostia River is, is named after, the, the Native American tribe. And then also, other places along the Potomac also bear those names. And so when the, the English, settlers came, after John Smith. John Smith went up the Potomac and got as far as Great... as Little Falls, which is really where DC is now. And so, you know, after after he made that venture, settlement started to pop up along the Potomac River. And, what I like to say is that the Potomac helped to create the United States. And what I mean by that is that there was a dispute between Maryland and Virginia regarding trade and tariffs on the river. In those days, each state was almost like a little country. And so they charge tariffs. If you wanted to bring goods from Maryland into Virginia and, the powers that be recognize that that that's really silly. And so let's try to agree on, on, on not charging, tariffs and also agreeing to open trade on the Potomac and this led to the, the Mount Vernon Act of 1785, that, you know, although it would settle the dispute between Maryland, Virginia, the people there recognized the need for the involvement of other states, particularly Pennsylvania. Because, you know, there's, Susquehanna, for example, provides. 50% of the water into the Chesapeake Bay. And so they wanted to bring Pennsylvania to it. And so they actually then met in Annapolis for a follow up, convention to the, the Compact of 1785. And at that meeting, it was decided that, well, you really do need to bring in all the states, to discuss all of these issues, all the problems of the Articles of Confederation. And so let's have a constitutional convention in Philadelphia. And that led to, of course, the Constitution of the United States. And so that was very, and you, you know, important legacy of the Potomac River, to the entire country. Now, as the settled settlers moved west, the nation was in danger of being divided, not north and south, but east and west. Because the settlers who crossed the mountains and were then using the Ohio to transport their goods down, to, down the Mississippi and then down to New Orleans, were... were really under the, the danger of falling under the control of, nations like Spain, France and England. But actually, it was George Washington's vision, of developing east-west communications across the mountains to try to pin the western part of the country to the east coast rather than have them fall under the, dominion of, foreign powers. And so that's why his great vision was the creation of the C&O canal, which would then move west from Georgetown, here in DC, all the way out to, you know, and joining with the Ohio at Pittsburgh. Now, the C&O Canal never made it to, Pittsburgh, but it did go as far as Cumberland. And really, served that purpose of linking together east and west. It was then supplanted by the B&O railroad, which also followed the Potomac River uut that way and, also linked east and west. And so, George Washington's vision was accomplished that the, the, the settlers over the mountains, as it were, were tied to the East Coast. And so the nation can then grow all together. Now, four American presidents were born in the Potomac River watershed, of course. Of course you folks down in Colonial Beach, George Washington was born in the Potomac River watershed, as was his, nearby neighbor of James Monroe, also from Colonial Beach. But two other presidents also were born in the Potomac River watershed. James Buchanan, was born in Oak Grove, Pennsylvania, which is part of the watershed. And also Woodrow Wilson, who was born in Staunton, Virginia in the Potomac River watershed. Potomac played an important role in the American Civil War. The boundary between really north and south. You have John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The battle of Manassas in Virginia, the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in DC. All of those events took place within the Potomac River basin. So it really has a great, history and a legacy to to the nation and to, to to all of us, who are Americans.

Jonathan Malriat So that's a great overview of the history of the Potomac, and both cultural and a bit to the natural. I know the Interstate Commission one of the big things you also look at is the science of it. So from a conservation and even restoration viewpoint, what makes the Potomac different from other basins or even other rivers.

Mike Nardolilli Oh the Potomac, we, we like to call it the Nation's river because it, on its shores is the nation's capital of, Washington, D.C.. But then the river itself provides drinking water to the Washington, DC area. And so the the Washington, DC and Arlington, Virginia are 100% dependent on water from the Potomac River. I’ll say it again, 100% dependent. And we only have, reservoir capacity, for a one day supply of water or so, if you can imagine that, if something happened to the Potomac River, if it was contaminated by, by, by accident or even by, a deliberate means, that would shut off water to, the nation's capital, to institutions such as, the, Department of Homeland Security, the Congress, the White House, and across the river in Arlington, the same thing. It attaches to that that would be the, Pentagon. So you have all of these institutions that are dependent on water from the Potomac River. And when I say that it's just, drinking water. I really, should expand that, because if you actually have to shut off the intakes, on the Potomac River because you say a contamination event from oil or something like that. You also lose fire protection because, they have to shut down the intakes and there's no water pressure, for the hydrants. And so you don't have any any method of controlling fires in the District of Columbia. And then also it shuts down, hygiene. And so you don't have the hospitals can't operate, for example. And so it's much worse than Covid is, that the federal workforce simply just can't go home, at work remotely because, their homes and the surrounding jurisdictions of, so the suburbs would also be affected, maybe not within one day, but certainly for a couple of days of being, cut off from the supply of water there. So you have a whole system that's dependent on the Potomac River for the operation of the federal government.

Dustin Baker Now, so many people rely on this river. But the river obviously really shapes the natural world as well. Do you have a sense of how much of the shoreline of the Potomac is still, to this day, undeveloped?

Mike Nardolilli Yeah, that's a very hard question to, to answer. We have calculated the tidal, side of the Potomac, in Virginia and 55% of the shoreline of the tidal Potomac, which goes all the way up to Little Falls, at least in the DC area, is undeveloped. And we we suspect that that that number probably is true on the other side of the river in Maryland as well, because of the similarity of, of, of land use, it becomes much, much more difficult when you go upstream, into the freshwater part of the Potomac River, because then you get, not only the main stem of the river itself, but then all the tributaries, such as the Monocacy, the Shenandoah, and becomes much more hard, it's harder to calculate. So I don't have any hard numbers, for you for that. But that's that's what we have and its what I have related before.

Jonathan Malriat What are some of the other challenges that the Interstate Commission and even the Potomac River basin is facing? Are there any other specific ones that you're preparing for or trying to identify?

Mike Nardolilli Yes. We, we divide our job really into two areas, water quality, and water quantity. So we've already talked about the water quantity side of the ledger. The water quality side is that we are actively working to address, some of the major problems on the Potomac, such as salt use. You know, salt in the Potomac is very bad. Has been in the, in the freshwater portions of the Potomac, particularly because you have a lot of freshwater aquatic species that, cannot survive, high salt content. And so that that's a lot, what we are trying to do is get people to use less salt when it, when it, when there is a icing or a snow event. First to shovel it, and then to skip or use only like a, a coffee cup full of salt on your driveway or your sidewalk. And finally to, sweep it off after the, the event happens and reuse it. So we are hoping that people will, modify their salt use so that, there's less salt going into the river. The second thing we're working on is to really try to improve water quality, by natural methods. And that is, freshwater mussels serve the same role that, oysters do in the bay. Freshwater mussels, actually serve as filters for, for freshwater. And so the problem is, is they can't get upstream right now because of dams four and five on the Potomac. And so we have actually secured funds to build, eel ladders, to allow the eels to move upstream, both in the, to go past dam four and then five. And why why eels? Well, eels are the transport method for the mussels. The mussels? I actually, put their larva on to the gills of the eels and the eels actually transport them upstream. So if we can, get these eel ladders constructed, we should actually have a cleaner river as a result. And in your neck of the woods, and throughout the Potomac, really, we're working on trying to identify the causes of harmful algal blooms. And then also to, to rectify them so that they don't interfere with the public enjoyment of the river because, once, once you have a, a harmful algal bloom, for example, it'll it'll, you know, it really does cut down recreational uses of the river and, really does, make it a, make an imperative that, the, the harmful algal blooms be addressed. So we're looking at that as well. So those are three of the things that we're focused on now.

Dustin Baker It's it's okay if this is something you don't know. I just was recently talking with a gentleman who, makes traditional split oak eel pots. And he was telling me that the eels that live in the Potomac River will actually, travel out to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean to spawn. And that would be a migration of hundreds, if not thousands of miles. So is that true? Did those eels actually do that?

Mike Nardolilli Yes, they do. And, they, there's a term for it, and I'm I'm not a scientist, but there's a special term for a type of species that that lives both in a freshwater and in saltwater in terms of its, life cycle. But, yes, the Sargasso Sea in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is where these eels originate. They're very small, silvery like eels. And then, through the, I guess, as they drift through the water and they come up the east coast of the United States, and they come up the, the various rivers and streams, and then they, they grow to a large sizes there, and then they, they wind up, like going back down and, going out to the Sargasso Sea. And so, yes, it is true. And what is amazing is that in my own native Arlington, nobody knew about those eels, until there was a polluting event on one of the golf courses in Arlington that put all this herbicide into the, into what's called Donaldson Run and Gulf Branch. And then all of these dead eels start appearing in these little streams that ran through these suburban neighborhoods. Because that's where they went. They they went, that’s where they grow. They go up there and they, they grow into large, larger eels and then then swim back out to sea and go to the Sargasso Sea. So, yes, it is and I, I forget the term for it, but there is a specific type of, name of a species that has this sort of, really, really a, amazing, life cycle, sort of the, the, aquatic version of the monarch butterfly, but of course the monarch butterfly is a lot prettier to look at than than slimy eels, but, well, they they have a great story to tell.

Dustin Baker I mean, I'm getting a deeper appreciation for those slimy eels.

Jonathan Malriat It really sounds like those eels are in a sticky situation with those dams on the river. So I'm glad to hear you guys are working on trying to take care of that challenge. But another challenge that we hear a lot is invasive species. So how has that been a part of your work?

Mike Nardolilli Yes. And let me just say that we had a conference, this fall, on invasive species. Two of them being the, the snakehead, and then the second one being the blue catfish. So what we're trying to do is, we’re trying to encourage people to eat those species, and actually we served snakehead and blue catfish at the event. And people seem to enjoy it. And so if we can get people to and and the state of Maryland has changed the name of the snakehead fish to the Chesapeake Channa in order to try to get people to eat it because nobody wants to eat a snakehead. So, so but we'll see if that is successful. And, try to eat our way out of invasive species.

Jonathan Malriat I will say from personal experience, I've one of the local restaurants out here has snakehead, and it's surprisingly tasty.

Mike Nardolilli Yes it is, yes it is. I mean, I agree.

Jonathan Malriat So the challenges you've identified now, how do you go about managing them? How do you go about achieving success on those, especially considering you're working with five very different political jurisdictions and you're a commission kind of not a full regulatory body?

Mike Nardolilli Well, it's a really good, well, good question. And, what we have done is, collected a lot of data and, share the data with the jurisdictions and, and working with, advocacy groups, who are out there, trying to preserve land or conserve land. For example, we, we have what we call the Drinking Water Source Protection Partnership. And we have put together a land prioritization tool which is designed to identify those parcels of land along the river that are particularly important for drinking water. And we share those with the land trusts and, and other jurisdictions to encourage them to conserve or protect that land. In terms of, encouraging, other actors to, to, to make changes to certain land use decisions we, we've, produced what we call Chessie BIBI. We looked at all of the little streams that feed into the Potomac River and grade them. And then that information then is used by Potomac Conservancy to put together their report card every year on or every other year on the Potomac River. And what that shows is that the river actually has been improving in quality, from a D a few years ago to, now now I think it's a B-minus. But all of the, all of the actors in the area, working together can really make a difference. And we view ourselves as a as a catalyst and a coordinator, and, and a sharing of information so that people and we don't, so we have no proprietary, control over our information. We give it out to everybody who wants it. And they could use that information to, effectuate positive change.

Jonathan Malriat What successes have you had in the past? Are there any key successes that the Commission is really proud of, or any that even you yourself have been a part of spearheading?

Mike Nardolilli Well, very good question. When George Washington was, living at Mount Vernon, he actually made more money from fishing than he did from farming, because of the bounty of the Potomac River. Now, over time, the Potomac River was severely overfished. And one of the key species there was the shad. And the shad make it makes its run in the spring. And then, it, that then, you know, brings out a lot of fishermen, to, to tackle the shad as they move upstream. And it's not just the Potomac. The James River also has a shad run. But over time, the shad disappeared. And so in the 1990s, the ICPRB made it a point of bringing shad back to the Potomac River. And so how do you do that? Well, you engage all the school kids along the river to actually raise the tiny, the tiny baby shad, until they get big enough to be released into the river. And over time, that happened. And, we had a we've had a lot of success in bringing Shad back to the Potomac River, to the point where we had a very successful shad run last, last year. And it's, amazing to see the fishermen on the, the banks of the Potomac, reeling in the, the shad as they go by. The second sort of an indicator of the improvement of the water quality in the Potomac is that dolphins are now going further and further upstream in the Potomac. Maybe they're eating the shad, but they're moving upstream. Now, they've been reported as far as the 301 bridge, not too far from your neck of the woods. And so we're really excited that, these, indicator species are all returning to the river, and that gives us, really, good confidence that we're doing the right thing and improving the water quality in the stream. So I guess the final thing I'd like to mention is that, we, are very much focused on spills in the Potomac, to make sure that they don't foul the drinking water supply. And so we run what's called the spill network. And we we take all the data of people who have, told us about spills or or sewer overflows, and we run a model, and we we provide that to the, drinking water suppliers who then can either, fill up their tanks or, or, close their intakes until the plume passes and things like that. And we urge people, to make sure that when you're on the Potomac River and you see something like a polluting event or something doesn't smell right, or it doesn't look right to tell some local environmental group or tell the local authorities about it, so that we can we can we can do something about it. But a lot of people just will ignore it. But the more, more people who go actually on the river, and I know I visited the beach down at the birthplace, and, its a a very nice beach down there. And so what, if we get more people on the river, more eyes on the river, more use of the river. That that's a fantastic resource for all of the, environmental agencies and the environmental groups to tap into it. So, right now in the District of Columbia, we are working with a number of groups to try to bring swimming back in the Potomac. It is actually now banned in the DC portion of the river. But as the river quality gets better, we hope that maybe people will start going swimming in the Potomac in our neck of the woods, and therefore provide a good eyes and ears on the Potomac.

Jonathan Malriat Really seems like a lot of your push is collaboration, getting people involved and different partners involved. And it doesn't mean just the big regulatory and the big jurisdictions, but even individuals. And so what can our visitors and our audience out here, and even potentially those who don't live on the or in the Potomac Basin? What can they do to support the goals of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River?

Mike Nardolilli Okay, let's focus on the water quantity side. I think everybody, is very much aware of the droughts in the West. And now we've had some droughts on the East Coast as well, including those in the Potomac River basin and also, droughts up in the New York City area that have led to, wildfires. So we urge people to use our water resources wisely. We have a tendency to just ignore the cost of water, and take it for granted. So we urge people that don't don't waste water and don't pollute it by the use of salt, as I mentioned before, or other contaminants. And we urge people to, to drink tap water instead of buying bottled water. Tap water is actually highly regulated by the government. The bottled water is not, and so actually, people who shy away from tap water, to take to use bottled water are actually not only paying more, but they're getting a more questionable product. And then finally, it's in a wasteful container, a plastic bottle. So, we urge people to, across the country to, to drink tap water rather than buying bottled water. And then also I mentioned before, is that, to, to really be, the eyes and ears of the environmental community on the, on the river, to get out on the river to, to, to go kayaking, to go canoeing, to go fishing, to, to really enjoy the waterway. Because the more people that that can relate to, to the waterway, the better it will be. We have found that, our best stewards of the of the land and the water resources in our area are those who get out and about, who are opt outside, as it were, instead of going to, shopping center. When those people get out and about and actually see the resources, see the, the, the wildlife, for example, and being able to experience, the birds and, turtles and everything else that calls the river home, the better stewards they are of the land and the water resources. So, we urge people to, to go to their, their neighborhood park to go to the state park system, which is excellent in Virginia, to go to the national parks and to, to enjoy their parks, because that'll that'll really help the river.

Jonathan Malriat So what resources can visitors and audience members that are interested in trying to participate and help out? What resources are available to them? Where can they go to learn more about different techniques they can use to help conserve water, but also even help report sightings of pollutants and contaminations?

Mike Nardolilli I think one of the best ways to interface with, groups that are focused, on on water and land conservation is to go to the Land Trust Alliance website, and I unfortunately don't have the exact URL for that. But if you just type land trust alliance, what will pop up is a map of the United States that lists all the land trusts that are out there. And the land trust are not only designed to try to, conserve land by putting land on a conservation easement. But they will also advise landowners about the best management practices for taking care of their land. For example, on the, on the agricultural community, trying to fence out, cattle, and other livestock from the streams, that, that that's very, very helpful. Also to try to have a riparian buffer around the land, so that there's even if you do have a home and a yard, that is on the water if you have a 35 to 50ft or maybe even a 100ft buffer of land that is allowed to grow wild, trees and, bushes and other things, that actually will cut down the amount of pollutants running off of your land into the river by as much as 75 or 80%, just putting in that 35 to 50ft buffer strip along the land, along the river. So, those are those are some of the things that the land trusts will advocate. Of course, you can always touch base with, a lot of the watershed groups that are out there. We had a very good run of, of supporting and creating watershed groups in our area, including the Anacostia Watershed Society. And these groups are out there to, to preserve the land. You probably have a, Riverkeeper in your area, wherever you live. They're all over the United States now. The river keepers, so they are out there, in boats to, see if there's any sort of, point sources of pollution on the river and to report it to the appropriate authorities. So, like I said, land trusts, river keepers, and other environmental organizations. But don't overlook the Department of the environment of your your local government as well. They they can provide very valuable help in the, you know, I mean, like a cheat sheet of, things to cut down on salt use and other things.

Dustin Baker Well, you know, the history and culture of the Northern Neck of Virginia is so connected to the Potomac River. So on behalf of all the people who live out in this region and and all the other states connected by the Potomac, we want to thank you for the work that you do and, for taking time to to speak with us and share your message.

Jonathan Malriat Thanks for listening to this episode of Upon This Land History, Mysteries, and monuments. A thank you to Mike Nardolilli, the executive director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, for taking the time out of his schedule to share his knowledge and expertise on the broader Potomac River, and then even helping us tie to our story here that lies right on the shores of that same river. And join us on our next episode, where we'll be going back in time to look at the bicentennial, not the bicentennial of the United States, but the bicentennial of a man very close to us here at the park, the person who we’re named after George Washington. So we'll be going back to 1932. And the run up to that, to the celebrations of the bicentennial of George Washington's birth. So join us for that episode.

The Potomac River connects millions across four states and D.C. Known as "the Nation's River", it greatly influenced American history and George Washington's life. Today, the park’s Potomac River Beach is a popular destination at his birthplace, highlighting the importance of protecting the river's health for recreation and wildlife. In this episode, we welcome Michael Nardolilli, Executive Director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, to discuss the river we share.

Episode 4

For the American People: The George Washington Bicentennial

Transcript

Dustin Baker Hey everyone, my name is Dustin Baker. I'm the chief of interpretation at George Washington Birthplace National Monument and what you just heard was a piece of, “Father of the land we love,” and I'm actually holding a copy of the sheet music here in my hands. It has an illustrated picture of George Washington riding a horse. And beneath that image it says written for the American People by George M Cohan to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington. And on the back of the sheet music is a picture of something very familiar. It's the Memorial House Museum, and under that it says, Wakefield, Virginia, birthplace of George Washington. Now, the sheet music was issued by the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission. And often when we in America hear bicentennial, we think of 1976. But in this instance, we're talking about 1932. And it's hard to imagine, but the bicentennial birth anniversary of George Washington was an enormous event. In fact, it was probably one of the largest national commemorative events in our country's history. And it's incredibly relevant to the park that we are all at. And I'm joined today by two park rangers who know a lot about the George Washington Bicentennial. So, joining us today is David Lassman and Jonathan Malriat.

Jonathan Malriat So music and other performing arts was a big part of this bicentennial. I mean, we just listened to the chorus of “Father the Land We Love”. George M Cohen, the guy who wrote “Father of the Land We Love,” do you realize how big he is? He is truly a jack of all trades as a vaudevillian actor. He's an actor. He's a writer. He's a composer. He's a director. He's a producer. He wrote, produced, directed and appeared in over 50 musicals and plays. Some of the songs he wrote are ones that, commemoratively, we know as being like these almost linchpin ones, like You're a Grand Old Flag, he wrote that in 1906. Like, that's like one of the ones that we all know. And speaking of patriotic songs and the national anthem, it had been around parts of it had been around for a long time, but it was never actually codified as the national anthem until 1930s, during the bicentennial run up to it by Herbert Hoover. There's other very famous pieces, including probably one of the most iconic pieces and one of the most iconic parts from the Bicentennial, [Music Break] John Philip Sousa’s Bicentennial March. But it really goes to show even who is writing these at how large and important this was to the national image, because John Philip Sousa at that time is one of the, like number one composers.

David Lassman Sousa, he would write the George Washington March in 1930. And in preparation for it and as he would tour the country with both his band and also, other bands, especially military bands, he would play it in preparation for the Bicentennial proper in 1932. Now the official of playing it occurred on George Washington's two hundredth birthday, which was February 22nd, 1932, and it was at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Now, that day, President Hoover walked into the, Capitol building where there's a joint session of the Congress, plus members of Supreme Court, foreign diplomats, military officers, the galleries were all filled to hear President Hoover speak. Now as Hoover walked in, Sousa was actually leading a small band of men in playing Hail to the Chief. Once Hoover was there, he would give a speech. And let me just give you one quote of what he said. He said, “Today the American people begin a period of tribute and gratitude to the man who we revere above all other Americans. Continuing until Thanksgiving Day, we will commemorate his birth in every home, every school, every church, in every community under our flag.” Hoover then went to continue saying that what they're doing today is, what he’s saying today is not a eulogy to George Washington, because no one can do a proper eulogy to George Washington. Instead a true eulogy to Washington is this mighty nation. He contributed more to its origins than any other man. The influence of his character and of his accomplishments has contributed to the building of human freedom and ordered liberty, not alone upon this continent but around all continents. Now Hoover will speak for about a half hour. And when he was done, he would march out of the Capitol building to the east side of the Capitol, where they had a large plaza. And as he reached the plaza, 10,000 schoolkids and 2000 adults sang the song America. It was simulcast, and they encouraged people all over the country, all over the world, even ham operators were sharing the song cast to sing America at the same time. Once the song was over, there be some speechifying by this official and that official. But the true highlight of the ceremony on the East Plaza was the playing of Sousa's George Washington Bicentennial March. And what he did that day was not just have the Marine Band, which he often played with. He had members of the Army Band and the Navy Band. He had a large combined band playing the song. Now this would be the next to last song/appearance Sousa ever performed.

Jonathan Malriat Yeah, he passes away, just not even a month later.

David Lassman Two weeks.

Jonathan Malriat Yeah, he passes away. And Sousa is one of the preeminent writers and composers of marches. So this being his last hurrah is fitting for this bicentennial, in a way.

David Lassman Now, one more little account with this march of Sousa's the George Washington Bicentennial March, I found, fittingly as tribute is two months later, the West High School in Salt Lake City. The graduating class used the march as their entry march for the graduation. They were the next generation using the George Washington Bicentennial to start their lives.

Dustin Baker So this is just one example of how big and grand the George Washington Bicentennial was. And it was much more than that. I mean, even in your hometown, you probably heard these songs over the radio. Children were singing these songs in school, being issued sheet music. People were wearing officially licensed costuming. And in the sheet music, I have in my hand, at the bottom, it says, issued by the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission, Washington, D.C., and then then lower right-hand corner, it says, Copyright 1931, Saul Bloom. So, David, tell us a little bit about Saul Bloom.

David Lassman Now, Saul Bloom is quite a character. He was born in 1870 and lived much of his initial youth in Illinois. And he, as a young boy, was fascinated by theater and got jobs in theater, working as a singer in a madrigal band and choir. And he was subsequently and with his family, moved to San Francisco. And that's where truly Saul Bloom blossomed. He would, get a job, working in the theater, and he would basically say, you know what? I can make some side money hustling in theater. So if a person needed a snack, a person needed a button placed on their shirt collar, almost anything, he said yes. He was basically a walking department store, and he charged three times what everything cost. Plus, he asked for a tip. He was a young goer. In really many ways, Saul Bloom was almost a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn type character. Always working an angle, always being successful and doing it with a smile on his face. And yet, for all general purposes, he had no education. He skipped the schooling as a young boy, and everything was self-learned. Now, that being said, a few years later, he made his way to New York City and he ran a music business. He ran a couple other business. He ran real estate but due to the fluke death of a local congressman, he ran for office, and he won the election by 145 votes. Now, anyone knows anything about New York elections in the early 20th century, it might have been a questionable election. But he won, and he found himself in Congress. And with his background in public relations, entertainment and with everything else, when the George Washington Bicentennial was being organized, they looked around Congress and said, who has experience dealing with this type of thing? He was the one man who did. So Saul Blum became the P.T. Barnum of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission.

Jonathan Malriat And so I know he actually had a second chairman, but that second chairman, actually, a man by the name of Grant actually will step down within a couple of months. So for almost six plus years, Bloom is leading the charge on this whole process, and it's impressive what they're able to do. In some ways, it's odd because one of Bloom's like rises in his history is the Chicago's World Fair, and World's fairs were really big deals, big expos. So why didn't they do that for this? And it was intentional, when they were created as a committee, they intended to not do a singular event. That was like in their founding, that we did not want to have this singular event. We wanted to reside in every American and be like part of their nationwide experience. So versus the World's Fair, where you had to travel to visit this, they wanted this to occur everywhere. And it did. The report that they completed in 1933 shows all of the different programs that they had. They did programs in large cities, every town, they estimated by the end that they presented over 4 million programs, versus if they just did a World's Fair, it's two weeks, three weeks. And that's just in the United States. They actually did events all over the world that were connected to this program. That they either helped influence or that others did because of the influence of this committee. They did an estimate that there were 81 countries and or, territories of countries that had events, but like Italy, France, Algeria, there are hundreds of these programs all over just to celebrate George Washington. And a lot of that comes from not only the influence of Bloom, but even the influence of the name of George Washington himself. So the whole broader celebration was going to be, over the seven months occurring everywhere. But there were some things that stood out. There are events and things that even today, we can still see. So like a great example, that is where we're recording from, George Washington Birthplace National Monument. The dedication for this site was all in culmination for this 1932. They were wanting to have, to rebuild in their mind, the original home. So that is still part of the program. But there are other sites, other events.

David Lassman I mean, there obviously are iconic places like Mount Rushmore, which was part of this, really this era of commemoration that was bracketed by the two world wars because you had parks and museums blossoming in the 1920s, largely because there was money to burn. And for the first time, it wasn't just the upper class who were having fun traveling and exploring, and doing things. So parks and museums would blossom, and the National Park Service would actually be part of that situation. So once more you have Mount Rushmore, you'd have Arlington House, which is a related to Washington family. And but more importantly, they really wanted to connect sites about George Washington and some folks proposed that they make a commemorative highway. It was to start at George Washington's birthplace, and the highway would go west to Ferry Farm in Fredericksburg, George Washington lives as a young man. It would continue north to Mount Vernon, where George Washington lived as an adult. And then, this highway would follow the Potomac River past Great Falls, where George Washington built one of the first major canals in North America. And then would go north through Maryland and Pennsylvania up to the Great Lakes, going past several sites where George Washington had experience during and visited during the French and Indian War. Now, originally this was going to be called the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway. Today we know it as the George Washington Parkway, and the main section goes from, Mount Vernon up along the Potomac River for about 25 miles. But they never made that multi, couple hundred-mile highway that they originally intended. Now, that being said, the goal still was to connect things about George Washington's life. So the Park Service expanded largely into history in the 1920s and 30s. And with Colonial Williamsburg, they wanted that, that battlefield where George Washington helped win the American Revolution, Yorktown battlefield. So there'll be dickering going back and forth to get the National Park Service to preserve these Washington sites, revolutionary sites, and American sites. Now, over time, more and more sites were built in this era of commemoration. But the point is, really, it was this opportunity, that was inspired by George Washington, that got the National Park Service really into interpreting American history.

Dustin Baker And it kind of perfectly overlapped with Horace Albright's vision.

David Lassman Yes. In fact, Horse Albright, who would be, I guess, the second director of the National Park Service, he was very much involved in, working with the National Park Service to get involved at George Washington's Birthplace and, and, and he would actually, while mostly known for expanding a lot of the historical and, natural sites out west, Horace Albright really was the one who made the dickering, the deal making, to get these smaller historic sites, the Morristown’s in New Jersey, where George Washington had his, one of his encampments during the revolution. He was the one who was really trying to get the Park Service beyond just, natural sites and a few Civil War battlefields, into actually telling the story of America.

Dustin Baker So even if you're not really involved with or big on National Park history, the bicentennial is actually something that we see every day in our lives. It could, depend on, places you live, but it also could be the money in your pocket.

Jonathan Malriat Yeah, it's interesting because we think about all the presidents are on our money. That was not always a thing. When we originally started off, coins were frequently representations of ideals. So you saw like Liberty on coins, you saw Justice on coins, you saw the images of eagles and bison. But real, specific individual people is something that takes a while to start develop, especially on coins. Paper money, it had been around for a long time, even back to the American Civil War. But coins, we get a different story and the one that ties direct with the Bicentennial is who the Bicentennial was celebrating, George Washington. So what coin do we all have in our pockets that's got George's face on it? It's the quarter, and today it's been such a part of quarters that that's the only thing we think about. The quarters always had George Washington, and it's tied to the Bicentennial. So the Bicentennial Commission actually wanted to create a $1 commemorative coin that was going to be special, one off, just printed in 1932, and that was it. Hoover actually vetoed it. And so to try recouping some of this because they already had this commission design already created, they want to do medals. So they decided, what else can we do. And it was decided to look at the quarter. And the quarter had Standing Liberty at the time. And they decided to change it up and use George Washington. Now the mint actually went for a different design. So it is interesting seeing that, yeah, it was just in some ways luck, but in other ways just the design that allowed it to survive 90 years to now. That we're still using a Washington quarter and it's just become ubiquitous with the quarter today. The design on it actually has only changed really only a couple times till we started the state, the state quarters and then the national park quarters. It was actually for another bicentennial that it gets changed and they put a colonial drummer on the back and talked about it being the bicentennial quarter on it.

David Lassman Bicentennial of 1976!

Jonathan Malriat Yeah. The 76th, yeah the 200th anniversary of United States. So it is interesting that the one time the quarter changed in its vast majority of its years was, it was created for a bicentennial and it got changed for a bicentennial.

Dustin Baker People love bicentennials.

David Lassman Now, one important aspect of the George Washington Bicentennial was the fact that, as Saul Bloom put it, He wanted everyone have connections with, with George Washington. He wanted George Washington accessible to everyone. And he wanted everyone to have essentially a souvenir of George Washington. And besides, coins like the quarter really, the only thing that was universally useful to everyone was postage stamps. Now, originally, they wanted to make a series of 18 postage stamps that would show, George Washington at different places all around his life. Starting obviously with the George Washington birthplace, going to a French and Indian war site, to American Revolution site, presidential sites, and eventually show a, a stamp showing his grave at Mount Vernon. But these panoramic shots of George Washington's stamps until they actually realized, were actually very busy and not well conceived. Instead, we're just going to make several stamps that will show, you see basically portraits of George Washington, and they go anywhere from a half cent stamp. Yes, they did have half cent stamps in those days, all the way up to ten cent stamps. And and once more of the stamps from the various values would go, and showing different phases of George Washington's life, going from his youth to his adulthood. Now, that being said, the most popular stamp, not surprisingly, was the two cent stamp because that was the major, major postage stamp for people to send mail in those days. So the other denominations were useful. But really, of the 7 million postage stamps that had George Washington's face on it in 1932, over half were the two cent stamp. Now, that being emphasized, the Bureau of Engraving would issue these stamps now on the on New Year's Day, 1932. Yes, traditionally, it's a federal holiday and nothing takes place but the post office in Washington, DC. They would release the stamps. They'd have 60,000 people in line. And waiting hours to buy the stamps. And everyone was buying multiples. And you're buying the complete set of all tens, all the stamps in the series, in many cases multiple times. And that first day they sold over 100,000 stamps, $100,000 in stamps, which is when you consider no stamp was worth more than ten cents, that was a lot of stamps. And they would end up, working through their lunch break, their dinner break. They finally closed the post office at midnight. By the end of the day, the postal employees were exhausted. Know what, they opened again the next day. By the end of January 2nd, when the stamps were available all across the country, $1 million in stamps were sold. Two days. Now, that would be, soon lead to stamps being becoming more popular, more used, and, even more stamps were sold on February 22nd, his birthday. And possibly the most unique thing done for his birthday was they made commemorative cache stamps, which were basically envelopes that had special imprints or a postmark and they did a 100,000 of these special envelopes at Mount Vernon. But the special imprint on the envelopes wasn't of Mount Vernon. It was showing George Washington's birthplace. And and once these caches were distributed, sold, everyone essentially had a collectible George Washington in their home, in their pocket. It was available to everyone. And so the stamps truly, in many ways, were the most democratizing of all the ways that George Washington was, honored and celebrated in North America. It wasn't expensive, collectible. It wasn't a rare collectible. It was an accessible collectible.

Jonathan Malriat And for the post office that wasn't the only celebration that they did for the bicentennial. They also did a whole round the United States transit to celebrate all the places George had been. Now, they didn't do it the way George would have done it 200 years before then. They did it via plane. So the pilot of this is actually a very famous pilot today. At that time, he was a well-known aviator, the pilot was Major James H. Doolittle, today more well known for the Doolittle Raid during World War Two. But at that time he was a very accomplished pilot. And his flight that he's going to do, he's actually going to do this flight the day before Post Office Day, which was a celebratory day to celebrate in the post office itself and the Postal Service, was going to be done on July 25th. So just a couple months after the February 22nd start of the celebrations. But during the peak of it, and he's going to travel over 2600 miles and drop mail parcels that had those embossed caches, as you [David] were talking about, that were specific to this flight. And it showed on that envelope where the plane had gone throughout the whole trip. And one of those sites that was on it was Wakefield, which is the site that we’re at at least how it's called today, and was actually delivered to a postmistress who in here is recorded as Julia L Washington, or today we sometimes know her as Julia Washington Muse, who was the postmistress here actually underneath the Memorial Museum. So he's on a travel around and he'll also have flying with him not only a recorder, but also one of George Washington's, let's see if I get this right, great-great-great-grand niece on the flight with him, Miss Ann Madison Washington. So he does his whole flight, traveling all over, meeting with multiple people every time he stops and multiple photographs of this. He even meets with Saul Bloom outside of Washington, D.C. And it's a big celebration. There are even stamps from here that were in celebration for that event. And they marked some of those envelopes and it was this big celebration in its own way. Today, we actually still have in the Park collection some remnants from that initial flight. We actually have some of the packaging material for that parcel. So even today, it's part of the records and the stories that we protect and preserve here at the birthplace. And interestingly enough, if you really want to see the plane, the aircraft itself actually survives through today.

David Lassman Lockheed Orion.

Jonathan Malriat Lockheed Orion, yes! It’s a Lockheed Orion and that actual aircraft that he flew is in, ironically enough, it's in a museum in Switzerland.

Dustin Baker [Laughter] So this bicentennial event was worldwide. Millions of people participating. And I think today it's just so hard to imagine seven years of planning, all of this work, to celebrate the 200th birthday of George Washington. So why do you think that this really resonated with people at the time? Why do you think this was such a huge event? Why do you think that people got swept up into wanting to celebrate and commemorate George Washington's legacy in life?

Jonathan Malriat I think there's a lot of factors that go into it. One of them is we've reached a point in the 1930s and really the 1920s as a society, that we are getting a growing middle class that has time, like they can look at doing celebrations, they can look at doing different events and traveling. Another one in there is it is on the coattails of the 150th anniversary, so 1926, the 150th. So there is already a push towards that. There's other things going on. I mean, you also have the Colonial Revival movement is reaching its peak in this time period. So people are looking back at the colonial era. In their homes, in their esthetics that they're using. So that's almost like a perfect storm coming together of everything, allowing this upswell in interest.

David Lassman I concur. I mean really you had the 150th anniversary of this battle, and that battle, the Declaration of Indepedence, going to the 150 anniversary of the victory at Yorktown, which was a direct lead in to George Washington's 200th birthday in 1932. And even as the depression was taking place, as you noted, so many people out of jobs and nothing and no money to spend. Parks, museums were largely free. And all this new parks, museums that were created, would act as relief, of distraction for the American public. And then you'd have the 150th anniversary of the Constitution Convention, 150th anniversary of George Washington's inauguration. And we were about, in 1941, to have the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Sadly, that event was canceled because the bombing at Pearl Harbor. And so this very commemorative era of the 1920s and 1930s was bracketed by the devastation of two world wars. You have the energy, the vitality of the roaring 20s. You have the hardships of the depression. But Americans, in truth, endured all of it. The wars, prosperity, the hardships. And that's what Washington himself did. That's what the continental soldiers did. It's part of our culture. Just say, being repeated over and over again.

Jonathan Malriat Another one I was thinking about, talking about the in between the world wars, but also technology. In between the world wars, you have one technology that starts to be available to people in their homes that we start to see and it's radio. Radio is reaching the point where it's starting to be almost accepted in every home. You start to see it in gathering places, and it's starting to be starting to be used as a political mechanism. Herbert Hoover is pretty well known for doing these radio broadcasts as part of his campaign for his first term in office, in that 1928 or 1929 election run. So radio actually could be another big part for why it became so big, because we start seeing the broadcasts. Sol Bloom's 1930 almost inauguration of the broader program for the bicentennial, occurring a year and a half later, is on to be simultaneously broadcast all over the United States via radio. People could be anywhere and be able to connect to this event. And it's in many ways still a novelty. It's still something that not everyone has had access to. It's something that's new in their lifetime. I would say a good equivalent for us is smartphones. Smartphones are something that we've only in about a past decade have had access to, and yet it has become revolutionary in our ways to communicate and connect and the way we connect culturally. Social media has become such a big part of how we connect culturally in the same way, how in the 20s and 30s radio becomes that. So that's another one that could tie in with how the bicentennial movement came so big and became having this 8 million programs and presentations.

Dustin Baker Yeah, one thing that everyone knows or might know what I'm talking about, with the iconic photograph of the workers sitting on the high beam on the New York City skyline eating lunch. I think on Rockefeller Center as it's being built and that image was taken in 1932. And it's just so interesting to me that as America was entering the modern age, collectively, we were looking back not to the bicentennial of George Washington's inauguration as president or the founding of the country, but of his birth, the origins of Washington and the beginning of his legacy.

Jonathan Malriat So this Bicentennial Commission and the bicentennial celebrations of 1932, in many ways almost seem like they've vanished into obscurity. There are still remnants that we still see. I mean, we talked about the quarters that we all have. We talk about the parks that are still around, that are influenced and part of this celebration. But for the vast majority of us, it's something that we've never really heard of. And it's interesting because today we're approaching similar milestones. We talked about how they were approaching the American 150th anniversary, we’re next year, approaching the America 250th anniversary, and we're seeing the start of celebrations and start of planning here. We're part of the Northern Neck or NNK 250th commemoration and it's broader celebration. We have speakers that are been recurring talking about those colonial eras and talking about how it even impacts us today. And we're now only, what, seven years from George Washington's tricentennial, the 300th anniversary. And it'll be interesting to see, what do we do now? How do we celebrate? We talked about how in the 1930s, they made a conscious choice to do this, disseminated and disparate celebrations, not in a single one event, not in a single one day or time. What's going to happen now? Are we going to do the same, or are we going to have maybe a virtual celebration, because we're in a very different reality. They had radio and we talked about how radio was a part of their celebrations, the music, the broadcasts. Is that's going to be just slightly tweaked for us, are we going to have more of a virtual celebration, social media pushes? We're going to have to see what happens. I know here at the birthplace, we're already starting to look. We're already starting to plan and think how we are going to be a part of this.

Dustin Baker Thanks for listening and join us next time on Upon This Land history, mystery and monuments.

The George Washington Bicentennial was one of the largest organized celebratory events in American history. As we approach America’s Semiquincentennial in 2026, park rangers Jonathan and David discuss how the commemoration of George Washington's 200th birthday is still evident across America today, including at George Washington Birthplace National Monument.

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

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