Mount Vernon: Washington's Home and the Nation's Shrine |
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acres Alexandria Arrived at Mount Bassett Belvoir brick brother built Burgesses buried Bushrod Washington Colo Colonel colonial daughter death diary dined dinner Doctr Dogue Creek domestic early Fairfax County farm father Fox hunting Fredericksburg friends garden General's George Augustine Washington George Washington ha-ha walls horses hundred ington John Augustine Washington John Parke Custis LaFayette land later Lawrence Lewis Lawrence Washington Left for Philadelphia letters Little Hunting Creek lived Lund Washington mahogany married Martha Martha Washington Mary Maryland ment miles military Miss mother Mount Vernon Ladies Mount Vernon Mansion neighborhood neighbors Nellie Custis nephew night painting parish Parke Custis plantation Pohick Church portico Potomac President remained resigned retired river sent servants side tion to-day tomb Truro Parish vault Virginia visitors Wash Washington family Washington's home Westmoreland wife William Williamsburg wrote young
Popular passages
Page 50 - Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man: This was your husband.
Page 184 - About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity ; and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York with the best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations.
Page 131 - I shall hope that my friends will visit, and endeavor to keep up the spirits of my wife as much as they can, for my departure will, I know, be a cutting stroke upon her ; and on this account alone I have many disagreeable sensations.
Page 227 - These swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights ; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof.
Page 129 - MY DEAREST, I am now set down to write to you on a subject, which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased, when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress, that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it. You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in...
Page 40 - It was strange that in a savage forest of Pennsylvania, a young Virginian officer should fire a shot, and waken up a war which was to last for sixty years, which was to cover his own country and pass into Europe, to cost France her American colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the great Western republic; to rage over the Old World when extinguished in the New ; and, of all the myriads engaged in the vast contest, to leave the prize of the greatest fame with him who struck the first blow !...
Page 140 - It would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard, that, in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burned my house and laid my plantation in ruins.
Page 41 - Honored Madam : If it is in my power to avoid going to the Ohio again, I shall ; but if the command is pressed upon me by the general voice of the country, and offered upon such terms as cannot be objected against, it would reflect dishonor on me to refuse it...
Page 227 - To each of my Nephews, William Augustine Washington, George Lewis, George Steptoe Washington, Bushrod Washington, and Samuel Washington, I give one of the swords or Cutteaux of which I may die possessed ; and they are to choose in the order they are named.
Page 247 - The family vault at Mount Vernon requiring repairs, and being improperly situated besides, I desire, that a new one of brick, and upon a larger scale, may be built at the foot of what is commonly called the Vineyard...