Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon was a great stop, and I am so happy I decided to change my plans to include this historical site. I arrived in the morning and there were only a few people there. This worked to my advantage because there was no wait to get into the Mansion. In the Mansion they have many original pieces such as, paintings, Washington's bed (the same one he died in), a fan chair he invented, and the presidential chair he sat in during his time in office. No pictures are allowed in the house, but they had a scaled down model of the mansion in the visitors center so I took a picture of the mini fan chair so you all could see what it looked like. I saw the tomb George and Martha Washington are buried in and walked through all the gardens and farming land. George was always thinking strategically whether in war or at home. He took farming very seriously and when realized how much wheat he was wasting during the treading process he invented the 16-sided barn. This was an almost circular shaped barn where the horses could tread the wheat indoors and the floor boards were spaced apart so the wheat could fall through to the barn floor underneath. It could then be easily harvested.
A couple of things I learned struck me as particularly interesting. One was that during the war Washington only returned to Mount Vernon one time... the war lasted 8 years! The other was that Washington gave up supreme power twice. I knew that he refused to be named King after the war, but then when he was president he resigned from the post so the position could be peaceably transferred to the next person. He was a great man and did not allow power to corrupt him.