Washington DC/Virginia Mount Vernon/Washington's Distillery Oct 2019

Mount Vernon is President George Washington's home on the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia.
It's a pretty setting, assured to remain that way because the land on the opposite bank has been set aside as a protected nature area. The estate is about 500 acres and you can tour the house as well as several outbuildings and even see the President's final resting place.

We had a timed ticket for the house tour so we spent a hour or two looking around the grounds first.  We walked down to the dock and also checked out the farm area which had docents in period clothing describing the everyday tasks on the farm. There were ladies cooking a traditional farm worker meal and a young lady who described how they made cloth from the wool and flax that were grown there. There was an innovative round barn where the wheat kernels were separated from the chaff by the vibration of horses' hooves on the wooden upper floor of the barn which caused only the finest kernels to drop through the floorboards to the lower floor of the barn where they were collected.
Washington was always experimenting with better ways to grow crops and different soil amendments. He adapted farm implements to better achieve those goals too. He was quite an innovative thinker.  You can also see the horse and carriage stables and the kitchen building. Kitchens were always built in a separate building to lessen the chance of house fires.

The house tour was interesting and even though the house was huge by colonial standards, the rooms are fairly small compared to rooms today. We saw several rooms including the dining room, Washington's office,  and the bedroom where Washington died. There is also a key from the French Bastille, a gift to the President from the Marquis de Lafayette following the French Revolution.
George Washington died of epiglottis, a condition easily cured by the antibiotics of today.

The  porch of the house looks out over the river and there are chairs there to sit and enjoy the view.  We even saw a pair of Bald Eagles by the river as we were standing on the porch looking out! How cool is that?

We went back to the visitor center and looked at the museum there, then had some lunch in the cafe.
After that, we took the free shuttle bus to George Washington's gristmill and distillery.

President Washington switched from growing tobacco to growing large amounts of wheat due to the British taxation of tobacco imported from the U.S. The wheat from Mount Vernon was very fine and Washington could get a good price for it and it wasn't subject to the same taxation as tobacco. So he built a gristmill on a stream and ground his own floor as well as flour from neighboring farms. You can go in the gristmill and see the big grinding stones and the water wheel too.

Washington's farm manager was a young Scotsman who convinced him to build a distillery. They had all this fine grain, why not make whiskey?  So they made whiskey from the grain and Washington actually made more money from the sale of whiskey than any of his other crops. The distillery still makes 1,000 gallons of whiskey twice a year, using the original recipe - you can buy it in the gift shop.

                                          the round barn

                                          the mansion and back porch

                                               the big water wheel at the gristmill

                                          The wooden gears at the gristmill

                       

                                         Still and barrels at the distillery

  the front of the mansion (with scaffolding for painters)  

                                         Distillery exterior

                                         Gristmill exterior

                                   View of the Potomac from the back porch

Washington DC Ford's Theater Oct 2019

Ford's Theater is the theater where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.  We liked this tour very much and I highly recommend it.  You need tickets but they're very inexpensive, and you can buy them online ahead of time.

The tour starts downstairs at the theater and there are a lot of items on exhibit about Lincoln's presidency, the Civil War, his family and marriage. They have the derringer that John Wilkes Booth used to shoot President Lincoln and lots of info about the manhunt for Booth and his conspirators. There is so much to see that we actually went back in and looked at more things after the ranger talk in the stage area of the theater.

The ranger's talk in the theater was extremely well done. As she described the events around the assassination, the theater was completely still - you could have heard a pin drop. She talked a bit about Booth and his background as an actor which enabled him to easily access the theater, about his anger that the Confederacy had lost the war, about his conspirators who helped him carry out his plan, and also about his hatred for Lincoln. She pointed out the presidential box and explained who was with the President that night and where everyone was sitting. You can imagine the group was ready to enjoy a nice evening together after all the years of war were finally over. Booth waited for a line in the play that always caused loud laughter from the audience, to cover the sound when the single shot rang out. The President slumped in his chair and Major Rathbone, one of the Lincolns' guests, was stabbed trying to subdue Booth who escaped by leaping to the stage and running outside to a horse he had waiting.

The President was mortally wounded and was moved from the theater to the Peterson House across the street where he died the next morning. Your ticket also includes entrance to the Peterson House and you can see the room where the president died as well as more exhibits. Most of the exhibits in the Peterson House are about the President's death, his funeral train returning the President's remains to Illinois and the fate of Booth and his conspirators.

                                                              Booth's derringer

                     

The President's box