Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-23

l
hous. in which George Washington
was born has just been discovered
among the ancient records in the court
| house at Montrose, Va.
This property list, compiled Is years
before the mansion was destroyed by
fire on Christmas day, 1880. and 20
years after the birth of the first Presi-
against the country-w wide tradition that
the family was in humble circumstances
and that the birthplace was no more
than q four room cabin.
The inventory lists nine BEDS eight
bedside carpets, dressing tables and
mirrors, IA tables and So chairs, IL of
which were of mahogany. The table
silver alone, appraised at the current
values of the middle of the eighteenth
century, was valued at more than 81 900
The entire chattel property of the es-
MISUNDERSTANDING slaves, stock
and farm inplements-waS valued at
more than $4,000.
School Book Views Faxed.
During the greater part of the nine
teenth century school histories and
readers" contained pictures of the
birthplace of Washington-always a
mediocre pioneer dwelling. But when
| the property in WeStmoreland County
Va, was made a national monument
| by the Government few years ago and
the Wakefield National Memorial AS
ISOLATION was organized to restore the
birthplace, it soon became obvious that
the old pictures were fakes" Archeo-
logical and historical investigations
made clear that the Washington family
| lived in pretentious house at the time
| their distinguished son came into the
world
Ever since the plans for restoring
this house have brought protests from
persons who remember the school-book
| pictures. Actually, there were no pic
lures OF the house extant and the task
OF reconstruction required bringing
back from the dead past something
which had disappeared completely.
First, parts of the old foundation walls
were excavated. These were not in
their original outline. Years before
country people had used them as a
| brick quarry
All Reconstructed,
But enough was left for architectural
science to reconstruct the whole pic
ture from the part. The architect IA
miliar with old Virginia houses, in fact,
| needed only a glance at the dimen-
| Sions of one wall uncovered by the ex-
cavators to guess at the dimensions of
! the whole substructure. This conjecture
| calculations.
Now it was assumed that the Wash
lngton home at Wakefield was of ap-
| proximately the same design as other
, houses built in the same section of the
country at approximately the same
time on Substructures of the same di-
mansions by families in similar circum-
| stances. There was not much varia-
ton in architectural ideas in eighteenth
house was found still standing. The
preliminary plans were drawn accord
| ingly. These were recognized by sur
viving members of the Washington fam
lily as conforming to the family tradi-
ton OF the old manor house.
But. according to officials of the as
sociation, which plans to turn the man
sion over to the Government as soon
as it Is built in time for the Washington
Blcentennial next year, the finding of
the property list is the final bit of EVIL
dence needed. It confirms the fact that
augustine Washington. father of
George. was a very wealthy man. At
least 10-room house would have been
required for that much furniture. There
probably were bed rooms So the pic
ture Is finally composed of a 10-room
brick house with a gabled attic and four
nanking ch1mneys, surrounded by a
! well ordered estate. Here washington
spent the formative years of his life.
Wrong House Depicted.
The Memorial Association, it was an
nounced, finally has traced down the
old picture of Wakefield upon which the
false public impression was founded. It
nrst appeared, according to the associa-
TONS official examiner Of ancient rec
ord of persons and property, as a crude
little wood cut in Lossings "Fieldbook
OF the Revolution" published in the
middle of the nineteenth century. But
Losing represented 1t only as a house
| on the Washington estate, not as the
actual birthplace. Actually a similar
house was the only one left standing
on the property in 1880. The pencil
sketch from which the woodcut was
taken was made about 1850. The house
was 80 miles from Wakefield
LOSING knew this house was not
Wakefield, but he argued the other
houses on the Washington estate must
nave been quite similar and that there
lore Washington must have been born
IN approximately the same sort of house
as was pictured. Washington Irving,
VINO wrote his Life of Washington" a
lew years later, copied LOSING, but still
avoided saying that the picture was that
OF his hero's actual birthplace
Inc next appearance is in an old
Currier and Ives print Here all eau
ton is thrown aside and the house def
| nltely pronounced the birthplace of
washington. The same error was re-
peated shortly afterward by Frank Les
| lies Weekly, which distributed an etch-
ing OF the house as subscription pre-
| MUM. Leslie tried to dignity the house
by putting the chimneys inside, thus
producing picture which was false on
its face as representing a colonial Vir-
ginia dwelling.
Log Cabin Hero" False.
But the picture was becoming fixed
In the mind Of the public, which, in
the latter half Of the nineteenth CEN
fury, was obsessed, say association Of
| f1ctalS, with the log cabin hero" idea.
1t would actually have seemed un-
American for Washington to have been
born in big house with luxurious fur
nlshings.
The actual facts as confirm d by
documentary evidence are stated by the
association as follows:
George Washington was born at
Wakefield, on Popes Creek, in West
moreland County, February %, 1892.
The house had been built by his father,
Augustine Washington, some time be-
tween l7l7 and 1920 1t was burned
to the ground in 1880, and for years
afterward it's ruins served as a quarry
for local builders, until nothing of the
| original structure remained above
ground.
| But Augustine Washington owned
large tracts of land at Mount Vernon
and in 1888 purchased $50 acres OPP
posite the present town of Fredericks-
burg, more than 80 miles from Wake
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