Young George’s World

Nobody today really believes the old tale about George Washington, the mischievous lad who chopped down a cherry tree on his father’s farm in Virginia and then ‘fessed up to the misdeed because “I cannot tell a lie.” And yet, as I stood among the wild cherries growing there last month, I wasn’t quite so skeptical. Perhaps there’s truth to the story--or at least it’s fun to think so. After all, the Father of His Country did earn wide admiration for his honesty. And what about that legendary stone young George tossed across the river that flowed past his boyhood home? As I walked along the grassy bank of the Rappahannock River at the farm, it didn’t look all that wide. A strong lad, he could have done it.

As you read this, let me ask you a question. What is the name of the farm where these youthful antics are said to have taken place? Watch out; this is a trick question.

If you answered Mount Vernon, the home that is so prominently featured in history books, you’re wrong. George inherited Mount Vernon, his magnificent Potomac River mansion and farm outside Alexandria, Va., as an adult. Until then he lived at two lesser known Virginia plantations that his father owned nearby--Popes Creek Plantation (also called Wakefield) on the Potomac, where he was born on Feb. 22, 1732, and Ferry Farm on the Rappahannock, where his father moved the family when George was 6.

Although Mount Vernon is the most important of Washington’s homes, it doesn’t tell the full story of his life. For deeper insights into the man George became, add Popes Creek and Ferry Farm to your Washington itinerary. Both can be toured on an easy day trip from, appropriately enough, the city that bears his name, Washington, D.C.

At Mount Vernon, 18 miles south of the nation’s capital, a visitor learns about George the farmer, the soldier and the statesman-- an imposing man of laudable qualities, not the least of which is that he was a gentleman.

At Popes Creek and Ferry Farm, preserved like Mount Vernon as a tribute to Washington, we see the two boyhood homes outside Fredericksburg that helped shape his life. On these farms he learned to ride and hunt, and he was instilled with the virtues that thrust him into leadership. Martha is not yet on the scene; rather, we get to know his kindly father, Augustine, and especially his strong-minded mother, Mary, who mostly raised him after her husband’s early death. His great-grandfather John, an English merchant seaman who established the Washingtons in Virginia in 1656 or ‘57, is buried at Popes Creek.

Mount Vernon treats George as the lofty icon of our nation’s birth. At Popes Creek, 90 miles south of Mount Vernon, and especially at Ferry Farm, a bit more than halfway between the two, we learn about George the kid, who got into embarrassing scrapes. Once, when he went for a dip in the Rappahannock, two Fredericksburg women stole his clothes. We know this because Spotsylvania County records indicate the culprits were caught and punished. Picture George scampering home au naturel, and the Mount Vernon icon descends from his pedestal and becomes more human, more approachable--and, I think, all the more interesting.

We’ve all read about young George tossing a stone--or a silver dollar, as it’s sometimes told--across the Rappahannock. Like the cherry tree fable, this story was popularized in the 19th century by Mason Locke Weems, an Episcopalian minister, in his “Life of Washington.” On Ferry Farm, George, who grew into a large and powerfully strong young man, had ample opportunities to pitch that stone. (Always thrifty, he wouldn’t have wasted a dollar.) Though channeling has narrowed its path, the Rappahannock’s original banks remain evident. “Contests have proved,” says a signboard in Ferry Farm’s small museum, “you can stand on the bank and throw a stone across the river.” I doubted my skill, but any visitor might give it a try.

I have been to all three Washington plantations on numerous occasions as an amateur student of Washington’s life. I too was born on Feb. 22. My parents almost named me George. Sharing his birthday--formerly a national holiday--I made him my personal hero, someone I would try, however feebly, to emulate. My admiration has never dimmed, although I would challenge him sharply for keeping slaves.

Popes Creek, which officially is called the George Washington Birthplace National Monument, is maintained by the National Park Service as an 18th century working farm. A pair of Devon oxen grazes in the field, and a trio of turkeys struts the farmyard. Situated on Popes Creek, a broad inlet of the Potomac, the 550-acre park offers visitors a detailed look at George’s early years.

Ferry Farm, operated by a nonprofit foundation, is a historic work in progress. Only recently acquired from private owners--thwarting Wal-Mart, which had its eye on the land for a shopping center--the 115-acre property is the site of archeological digs from spring through fall. The public, including school groups, is invited to watch and even join.

So far both have escaped the caravans of tourist buses that besiege Mount Vernon every morning. As a result, they are much quieter places, where I find it somehow easier to get to know George. Popes Creek Plantation occupies a rural setting surrounded by farms and woods.

It must have looked much the same when he romped in the yard. Its river view, an attraction in itself, is as impressive as Mount Vernon’s. Ferry Farm sits just across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg, a pretty colonial city of about 20,000, and thus is somewhat pinched by urban expansion. And yet when I walk the land, I find it easy to believe that George must have been as appreciative of its gentle beauty as I am. Wild turkeys and whitetail deer find a home here.

If you’re pursuing George Washington’s footsteps for the first time, visit Mount Vernon first to reacquaint yourself with the man from the history texts. Then move on to the two other farms where he lived. See them on a day trip, as I have suggested, or spend a night or two in Fredericksburg, a place rich in Washington lore. The final home of Washington’s mother, the Mary Washington House, is a museum open to visitors, as is Kenmore Plantation, the nearby home of George’s sister Betty. (Kenmore and Ferry Farm are both properties of the George Washington’s Fredericksburg Foundation, which bought Ferry Farm in 1996.)

In George’s day, the Potomac rated as one of America’s busiest commercial waterways, and the Northern Neck (the Virginia peninsula formed by the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers flowing to the Chesapeake Bay) was dubbed the “Athens of the New World” for the sophistication of its plantation homes. Three of the country’s first five presidents--Washington, James Madison and James Monroe--were born here, as was Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee a century later. This made it a propitious birthplace for a lad with spirit.

The 38-mile drive east from Fredericksburg to Popes Creek on Virginia Route 3 passes through rolling farm country. On a blustery winter day, the trees were stripped of leaves and the fields were dried and brown, a scene not unlike the one into which baby George made his debut. Although George had no children himself, descendants of other Washingtons still farm the land adjacent to the plantation, Chief Park Ranger Larry Trombello told me.

The visitor center, where Trombello briefed me on the park’s mission, is a red-brick structure with a terrific view of Popes Creek. A large flock of Canada geese, afloat on the ice-rimmed water, greeted me with a chorus of honks. “We get some people here who think they’ve come to Mount Vernon,” Trombello said. “We like to tell them here is where it all started.” I was one of only a handful of visitors on that morning.

A small museum displays a few 18th century items of the thousands excavated on the farm, among them a fragment of a Venetian wine goblet indicating, so a note says, the “elegant tastes” of a tobacco planter. A 14-minute movie, “A Childhood Place,” traces the seasons on a colonial farm, and more exhibits provide a look at George’s ancestors.

Great-grandfather John arrived in Virginia on the Sea Horse of London. When it subsequently sank in a storm, he stayed on, marrying advantageously: His bride’s father gave the couple 700 acres near Popes Creek as a wedding gift. He prospered, serving as a lieutenant colonel in the militia and as a member of the House of Burgesses, Virginia’s colonial legislature. At his death, he claimed 10,000 acres in land holdings. As I read the family history, it became clear that George enjoyed a substantial foundation on which to build his life.

A paved walk along the creek leads to the Historic Area, where the birth home, a fine manor house, once stood. It burned to the ground on Christmas Day 1779 and was never replaced. Now oyster shells outline the original foundation, which is covered over for preservation. A stone’s throw away is the red-brick Memorial House, constructed in 1930 when the park was established in anticipation of the 200th anniversary of George’s birth.

Built of handmade bricks from a nearby field, it is not a replica of the original, but it is typical of a prosperous plantation of the era. Inside the two-story house, ranger David Kinnamont, dressed in breeches and other period attire, pointed out a tea table and other items salvaged from the fire.

In the nearby Kitchen House, guide Krista Karasinski, garbed in a long white apron, stirred the cooking fire. She often gives colonial cooking demonstrations. A favorite is peach turnover, baked in an iron Dutch oven buried in hot coals. The staff gets to enjoy the food, she said, but health regulations prevent serving anything to visitors. We can only sniff and dream.

An herb garden, the Weaving Room, a tobacco barn and other colonial structures also help re-create young George’s world. But more than anything, it is the plantation’s seemingly untouched rural setting that brings you closest to him here.

Ferry Farm takes its name from a commercial ferry in George’s day that crossed the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg on the edge of the property. As the embryonic memorial is developed, a new ferry service shuttling tourists from downtown Fredericksburg to the farm is envisioned. It will provide a more authentic introduction to the past than the arches of the McDonald’s that mark the driveway into the plantation today.

Right now there is not much at Ferry Farm beyond the archeological work to catch your attention except for the park-like historic site itself. No original Washington structures remain, although it is known that the family’s six-room house was spacious for its time. A small museum and administrative offices are housed in what was a boys’ school. It eventually will be torn down and replaced with a complete museum. But the dramatic site alone is well worth a visit.

Even discounting author Weems’ myths, the open fields and woods are rich in import, as you quickly learn from brochures guiding visitors on a walking tour. Here George played and fished as a boy, until his father’s early death forced him to grow up fast. A century later, the farm became a major encampment in the Civil War for Union troops building pontoon bridges across the river to Fredericksburg, an aspect of the farm’s heritage that also is featured.

Efforts to preserve Ferry Farm began in the 1890s, according to W. Vernon Edenfield, who heads George Washington’s Fredericksburg Foundation. But only in 1996 was its safety reasonably assured when the foundation raised $2.2 million to match a purchase offer from Wal-Mart. “That past unpleasantness,” Edenfield called the preservation fight. Extensive archeological digs are underway, and now the challenge is to tell the story of George’s later boyhood years.

In Edenfield’s view, George’s Ferry Farm years make for a very personal story, touching on the relationship between George, a mature young man for his age, and his independent-minded mother. She did not remarry after being widowed, retaining control of her children’s inheritances as a single mother. In the past, some historians have disparaged her; she has been described as a “shrew.” But Edenfield believes this is partly because they “couldn’t bring themselves to write that George was shaped not by his father but by his mother.”

When George inherited Mount Vernon in 1752, he made it his permanent home, leaving his mother at Ferry Farm. She remained there until 1772, when George bought her a comfortable house in Fredericksburg near her daughter Betty. He sold Ferry Farm in 1774.

Here on the East Coast, history-minded travelers like me are constantly coming upon places linked to Washington. The man got around, as the proverbial “Washington slept here” notices attest.

At these historic sites, we learn of the impressive deeds of his mature years. At Popes Creek and Ferry Farm, we meet the engaging lad before he set out on his path to glory. Here he seems so much more approachable--a spunky kid like the rest of us.

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GUIDEBOOK

Touring Washington’s First Playgrounds

Getting there: Washington, D.C., has two main airports: Dulles, 26 miles outside the city, and National, at the edge of downtown, both served by most major airlines. Nonstop flights, however, are limited to United and American airlines (to Dulles) and TWA (to National). Round-trip fares begin at $358.

You can visit Popes Creek Plantation and Ferry Farm in an easy day trip from Washington. But to immerse yourself in George Washington lore, plan to spend at least one night in Fredericksburg, about 60 miles south of Washington via I-95. Or you can take George Washington Parkway/Mount Vernon Memorial Highway south from Washington via Reagan National Airport and Alexandria, Va., to Mount Vernon. Continue west on Virginia Route 235 to U.S. 1 south, and follow the signs to I-95.

To reach Popes Creek: From Fredericksburg, take Virginia Route 3 east for about 36 miles. Make a left turn onto Virginia Route 204, which ends in two miles at George Washington Birthplace National Monument (Popes Creek). To reach Ferry Farm from Popes Creek, return to Fredericksburg via Virginia Routes 204 and 3, bearing right at the city outskirts onto Business Route 3. Immediately after passing a McDonald’s on the right, make a U-turn (as directed) at the light to reach the Route 3 entrance to Ferry Farm.

Where to stay: At the 12-room Kenmore Inn, in a quiet residential neighborhood, the nightly rate for a double room (four have a working fireplace) ranges from $105 to $145. Restaurant and pub are on the premises; 1200 Princess Anne St., Fredericksburg, VA 22401; telephone (540) 371-7622, Internet https://www.kenmoreinn.com. On busier Caroline Street, the six-room Richard Johnston Inn dates from the 18th century. A room for two is $115 to $135, and a two-room suite, $150; 711 Caroline St., Fredericksburg, VA 22401; tel. (540) 899-7606.

There is also a 194-room Holiday Inn Select with doubles from $89; 2801 Plank Road, Fredericksburg, VA 22401, tel. (800) 682-1049 or (540) 786-8321, https://www.hiselect.com.

A budget option with a Potomac River view is one of the 26 fully equipped housekeeping cabins at Westmoreland State Park, a 10-minute drive east from Popes Creek. The minimum stay is two nights from September into May, a full week in summer. An efficiency cabin for two runs $43 to $66 a night; tel. (800) 933-7275, https://www.dcr.state.va.us/parks/westmore.htm.

For more information: George Washington Birthplace National Monument (Popes Creek), 1732 Popes Creek Road, Washington’s Birthplace, VA 22443; tel. (804) 224-1732, https://www.nps.gov/gewa. George Washington’s Ferry Farm, 268 Kings Highway, Fredericksburg, VA 22405; tel. (540) 370-0732, https://www.kenmore.org. Fredericksburg Visitor Center, 706 Caroline St., Fredericksburg, VA 22401; tel. (800) 678-4748 or (540) 373-1776, https://www.fredericksburgva.com.