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AMERICA. Joel Cook
Читать онлайн.Название AMERICA
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066393632
Автор произведения Joel Cook
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The steamboat lands at Washington's wharf at the foot of the bluff, where he formerly loaded his barges with flour ground at his own mill, shipping most of it from Alexandria to the West Indies. The road from the wharf leads up a ravine cut diagonally in the face of the bluff, directly to Washington's tomb, and alongside the ravine are several weeping willows that were brought from Napoleon's grave at St. Helena. Washington's will directed that his tomb "shall be built of brick," and it is a plain square brick structure, with a wide arched gateway in front and double iron gates. Above is the inscription on a marble slab, "Within this enclosure rests the remains of General George Washington." The vault is about twelve feet square, the interior being plainly seen through the gates. It has upon the floor two large stone coffins, that on the right hand containing Washington, and that on the left his widow Martha, who survived him over a year. In a closed vault at the rear are the remains of numerous relatives, and in front of the tomb monuments are erected to several of them. No monument marks the hero, but carved upon the coffin is the American coat-of-arms, with the single word "Washington."
The road, farther ascending the bluff, passes the original tomb, with the old tombstone antedating Washington and bearing the words "Washington Family." This was the tomb, then containing the remains, which Lafayette visited in 1824, escorted by a military guard from Alexandria to Mount Vernon, paying homage to the dead amid salvos of cannon reverberating across the broad Potomac. It is a round-topped and slightly elevated oven-shaped vault. The road at the top of the bluff reaches the mansion, standing in a commanding position, with a fine view over the river to the Maryland shore. It is a long wooden house, with an ample porch facing the river. It is built with simplicity, two stories high, and contains eighteen rooms, there being a small surmounting cupola for a lookout. The central portion is the original house built by Lawrence Washington, who called it his "villa," and afterwards George Washington extended it by a large square wing at each end, and when these were added he gave it the more dignified title of the "Mansion." The house is ninety-six feet long and thirty feet wide, the porch, extending along the whole front, fifteen feet wide, its top being even with the roof, thus covering the windows of both stories. Eight large square wooden columns support the roof of the porch. Behind the house, on either side, curved colonnades lead to the kitchens, with other outbuildings beyond. There are various farm buildings, and a brick barn and stable, the bricks of which it is built having been brought out from England about the time Washington was born, being readily carried in those days as ballast in the vessels coming out for Virginia tobacco. The front of the mansion faces east, and it has within a central hall with apartments on either hand. At the back, beyond the outbuildings and the barn, stretches the carriage road, which in Washington's time was the main entrance, off to the porter's lodge, on the high road, at the boundary of the present estate, about three-quarters of a mile away. Everything is quiet, and in the thorough repose befitting such a great man's tomb; and this is the modest mansion on the banks of the Potomac that was the home of one of the noblest Americans.
THE WASHINGTON RELICS.
As may be supposed, this interesting building is filled with relics. The most valuable of all of them hangs on the wall of the central hall, in a small glass case shaped like a lantern—the Key of the Bastille—which was sent to Washington, as a gift from Lafayette, shortly after the destruction of the noted prison in 1789. This is the key of the main entrance, the Porte St. Antoine, an old iron key with a large handle of peculiar form. This gift was always highly prized at Mount Vernon, and in sending it Lafayette wrote: "It is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adopted father; as an aide-de-camp to my general; as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch." The key was confided to Thomas Paine for transmission, and he sent it together with a model and drawing of the Bastille. In sending it to Washington Paine said: "That the principles of America opened the Bastille is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes to the right place." The model, which was cut from the granite stones of the demolished prison, and the drawing, giving a plan of the interior and its approaches, are also carefully preserved in the house.
The Washington relics are profuse—portraits, busts, old furniture, swords, pistols and other weapons, camp equipage, uniforms, clothing, books, autographs and musical instruments, including the old harpsichord which President Washington bought for two hundred pounds in London, as a bridal present for his wife's daughter, Eleanor Parke Custis, whom he adopted. There is also an old armchair which the Pilgrims brought over in the "Mayflower" in 1620. Each apartment in the house is named for a State, and cared for by one of the Lady-Regents of the Association. In the banquet-hall, which is one of the wings Washington added, is an elaborately-carved Carrara marble mantel, which was sent him at the time of building by an English admirer, Samuel Vaughan. It was shipped from Italy, and the tale is told that on the voyage it fell into the hands of pirates, who, hearing it was to go to the great American Washington, sent it along without ransom and uninjured. Rembrandt Peale's equestrian portrait of Washington with his generals covers almost the entire end of this hall. Here also is hung the original proof-sheet of Washington's Farewell Address. Up stairs is the room where Washington died; the bed on which he expired and every article of furniture are preserved, including his secretary and writing-case, toilet-boxes and dressing-stand. Just above this chamber, under the peaked roof, is the room in which Mrs. Washington died. Not wishing to occupy the lower room, after his death, she selected this one, because its dormer window gave a view of his tomb. The ladies who have taken charge of the place deserve great credit for their complete restoration; they hold the annual meeting of the Association in the mansion every May.
As the visitor walks through the old house and about the grounds, solemn and impressive thoughts arise that are appropriate to this great American shrine. From the little wooden cupola there is seen the same view over the broad Potomac upon which Washington so often gazed. The noble river, two miles wide, seems almost to surround the estate with its majestic curve, flowing between the densely-wooded shores. Above Mount Vernon is a projecting bluff, which Fort Washington surmounts on the opposite shore—a stone work which he planned—hardly seeming four miles off, it is so closely visible across the water. In front are the Maryland hills, and the river then flows to the southward, its broad and winding reaches being seen afar off, as the southern shores slope upward into the forest-covered hills of the sacred soil of the proud State of Virginia. And then the constantly broadening estuary of the grand Potomac stretches for more than a hundred miles, far beyond the distant horizon, until it becomes a wide inland sea and unites its waters at Point Lookout with those of Chesapeake Bay.
MARY, THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.
To the southward of the Potomac a short distance, and flowing almost parallel, is another noted river of Virginia, the Rappahannock, rising in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and broadening into a wide estuary in its lower course. Its chief tributary is the stream which the colonists named after the "good Queen Anne," the Rapid Ann, since condensed into the Rapidan. The Indians recognized the tidal estuary of the Rappahannock, for the name means "the current has returned and flowed again," referring to the tidal ebb and flow. Upon this stream, southward from Washington, is the quaint old city of Fredericksburg, which has about five thousand inhabitants, and five times as many graves in the great National Cemetery on Marye's Heights and in the Confederate Cemetery, mournful relics of the sanguinary battles fought there in 1862–63. The town dates from 1727, when it was founded at the head of tidewater on the Rappahannock, where a considerable fall furnishes good water-power, about one hundred and ten miles from the Chesapeake. But its chief early memory is of Mary Ball, the mother of Washington, here having been his boyhood home. A monument has been erected to her, which it took the country more than a century to complete. She was born in 1706 on the lower Rappahannock, at Epping Forest, and Sparks and Irving speak of her as "the belle of the Northern Neck" and "the rose of Epping Forest." In early life she visited England, and the story is told that one day while at her brother's house in Berkshire a gentleman's coach was overturned nearby and