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FERRY FARM YIELDS SECRETS

July 3, 2008 12:15 am

Archaeologists have just blown centuries of dust off the least-understood part of George Washington's life.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine broke the news yesterday afternoon at Ferry Farm that researchers have found the remains of the southern Stafford County home where the first president grew up.

Before a battery of TV cameras, Kaine and a host of state and local dignitaries praised the years of dogged effort that led archaeologists to the house site.

Kaine said the nation will learn much from the ongoing work at the National Historic Landmark, which is owned by the George Washington Foundation.

Pointing past the dig site, he said, "Directly across the Rappahannock, George Washington could see the bustling trade center of Fredericksburg, which enticed his sense of adventure. It was here that his ambition to be excellent began to be nurtured and grow."

With the find, Ferry Farm will become a must-see for visitors from all across America, said John Hennessy, chief historian at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

"It is a legitimately big deal," he said. "The two big stories here are the Civil War and George Washington. Now, George Washington goes from being an idea to being a place where people can touch, understand and see" his early roots.

Archaeologist Julia King, an associate professor at St. Mary's College in Maryland and one of several outside consultants tapped to review the findings at Ferry Farm, said there's no doubt about the discovery's significance.

"Here's a man born in the coastal plain, and he's part of the [nation's] westward movement," said King, a former president of the Society for Historic Archaeology. "If youthful experiences form the man, Washington's boyhood and teen years at Ferry Farm need to be understood.

"It's so important for that reason. Ferry Farm will allow people to focus on, 'Who was this man who was so important to our history and how was he shaped?'"

A LONG-SOUGHT PRIZE

Locating and excavating the Revolutionary War hero's boyhood home, the holy grail of Fredericksburg-area historic sites, had been the goal of many groups over many years.

"This site did not give up its secrets easily," said David Muraca, director of archaeology for the foundation, which owns the 113-acre property off State Route 3 and two other Washington-related historic sites.

The farm is the scene of some of the best-known tales about Washington, including his chopping down a cherry tree ("I cannot tell a lie, Pa") and throwing a stone across the Rappahannock River.

"If George Washington did indeed chop down a cherry tree, as generations of Americans have believed, this is where it happened," said archaeologist Philip Levy. "There is little actual documentary evidence of Washington's formative years. What we see at this site is the best available window into the setting that nurtured the father of our country."

A SEVEN-YEAR SEARCH

Muraca and his colleagues said that evidence excavated over seven summers proves they've found the foundation and cellars of the clapboard house that sheltered George, his parents and siblings.

Far from being the rustic cottage of Washington lore, the house was a much larger 11/2-story affair, perched on a bluff overlooking the Rappahannock, the researchers determined.

Their evidence also shows that a fire that struck the home on Christmas Eve 1740 was small and localized, near a hearth, and not the major catastrophe that some had depicted.

The archaeologists have discovered thousands of Washington-era artifacts, including pieces of the house's plaster ceilings, painted walls and family hearth; fragments of 18th-century pottery and other ceramics; glass shards; wig curlers; toothbrush handles made of bone, and a tobacco pipe bowl that bears a Masonic crest. Washington, of course, was a Mason.

"The land was plowed in the 19th century, so some of the objects we've found are in small pieces," Muraca said. "We do have larger objects--parts of a tea set that probably belonged to George's mother, Mary Ball Washington, wine bottles, knives, forks and 10 pieces of a group of small figurines that might have stood on a mantle."

Though the tract was long known as the residence of the Washington family, several attempts by others failed to locate the house among the remains of five farms that occupied the 600-acre property over the years.

Beginning in 2001, the foundation archaeologists excavated two other areas on the site, uncovering remains of one house that predated the Washingtons and one from the 19th century.

As for the Washington house, most of its wood and other structural elements are gone, many "recycled" by builders of later houses or destroyed by Union troops who entrenched and camped there during the Civil War.

The part of the house foundation nearest the river, which the home faced, has eroded away.

But as they painstakingly peeled away layers of soil, the archaeologists came upon what was left of two chimney bases, two stone-lined cellars and two root cellars.

They also located the family's kitchen outbuilding and slave quarters, and continue searching for their dairy, smokehouse and, perhaps, warehouses.

"But it's more than buildings," Muraca said. "It is places where people worked, socialized and even played, and it is orchards and gardens. We hope to recover all of that."

FERRY FARM HISTORY

Augustine Washington moved his family to the farm in 1738 from their plantation on Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, where George was born. Augustine's death in 1743 dealt a major blow to the family.

The indomitable Mary Washington chose not to remarry, which left the family in precarious financial straits. No longer able to afford school for George, Mary found him a part-time tutor and managed the farm herself.

Here, George swam in the river, took the ferry to and from town, practiced his math and penmanship, and became an accomplished horseman, and began seeking a military career.

"He decided to learn surveying, worked at making social contacts and contemplated joining the British Navy, until his mother vetoed the idea," Muraca said. "If she had let him go, the future of our country would have been very different."

The riverfront house was the centerpiece of the Washington landscape from the 1740s to 1772, when Mary Washington moved to Fredericksburg.

George spent less time at Ferry Farm as he grew older, often taking trips north to visit his half-brother Lawrence at his plantation on Little Hunting Creek, later renamed Mount Vernon. Around 1753, he finally moved to that estate near Alexandria, though he continued to own Ferry Farm.

Now that the sites of the dwelling and some of its outbuildings have been found, The George Washington Foundation plans to recreate the 1740s structures, including the Washington house, for educational purposes.

The George Washington Foundation unveiled two artist's renderings of the house, based on its archaeological, historical and architectural research, during yesterday's press conference at the site.

FRIENDS IN THE SEARCH

Ferry Farm has many benefactors, but two of the big ones are Dominion Foundation, the charitable arm of Dominion power, and the National Geographic Society. Early on, Dominion Foundation gave $750,000 to support the archaeological work at the site.

National Geographic provided a grant of $18,250. It plans a TV documentary, "The Real George Washington," to be aired sometime in November on the National Geographic Channel. There is no word yet on whether there will be a story about Ferry Farm in National Geographic Magazine.

ferryfarm.org mountvernon.org nps.gov/gewa nationalgeographic.com/news dom.com/about/community/foundation/index.jsp

Clint Schemmer: 540/368-5029
Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com