More Treasures Found At George Washington's Mount Vernon

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George Washington's home, Mount Vernon. In Fairfax County, Virginia.

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Blog Created: 6-27-2024

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More bottles of cherries found buried at George Washington's home ~

By Cara Tabachnick, Updated Sat, June 15, 2024 at 12:55 PM EDT. CBS News

Buried in the cellar of George Washington's Mount Vernon home, a treasure trove was waiting to be discovered – an enormous amount of preserved cherries. Archaeologists discovered 35 glass bottles with cherries, Mount Vernon officials announced on Thursday, just a few weeks after two bottles were found in April.

"Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine this spectacular archaeological discovery," said Mount Vernon President Doug Bradburn.

Mount Vernon officials said the cherries, which included gooseberries and currants, were buried in five storage pits in the mansion's cellar. They had been hidden for about 250 years before being unearthed during ongoing renovation projects at Mount Vernon. Of the 35 bottles, 29 were found intact.

Washington lived at his Virginia family's estate for most of his life. He took over management of the property in 1754, and slowly built and added to the home. The family depended on hundreds of enslaved people to run Mount Vernon.

"The bottles and contents are a testament to the knowledge and skill of the enslaved people who managed the food preparations from tree to table, including Doll, the cook brought to Mount Vernon by Martha Washington in 1759 and charged with oversight of the estate's kitchen," Mount Vernon officials said in the statement.

"These artifacts likely haven't seen the light of day since before the American Revolution, perhaps forgotten when George Washington departed Mount Vernon to take command of the Continental Army," Bradburn said.

The quality of the preserved, albeit fragile, bottles revealed intact fruit, pits and pulp, providing "an incredibly rare opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the 18th-century environment, plantation foodways, and the origins of American cuisine," said Jason Boroughs, principal archaeologist at Mount Vernon.

Analysis of a small sample found 54 cherry pits and 23 stems. The stems were neatly cut and left on before the cherries were bottled. Researchers said they believe the pits are ripe for DNA extraction and possible germination.

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General George Washington.

Mount Vernon.

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The Cherry Bottles Discovery ~

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There was a reason why George Washington never smiled.

Wooden Teeth Myth ~

By William M. Etter, Ph.D., Irvine Valley College

Next to the Cherry Tree legend, the story that George Washington wore wooden dentures arguably remains the most widespread and enduring myth about Washington's personal life. While Washington certainly suffered from dental problems and wore multiple sets of dentures composed of a variety of materials—including ivory, gold, lead, and human teeth—wood was never used in Washington's dentures nor was it commonly employed by dentists in his era.

Nevertheless, even into the mid-twentieth century scholars published studies of Washington describing his false teeth as being crafted out of wood. Today older adults still remember being taught this tale in school, and the National Museum of Dentistry, the Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, and the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia find these mythical dentures a common subject of interest for visitors.

George Washington's dentures.

The origin of this myth remains unclear. The standard, and most likely, explanation given by dental scientists and historians is that the ivory employed in the dentures fabricated for Washington by dentist John Greenwood became stained over time, giving them a grained, wooden appearance that misled later observers. Indeed, in a 1798 letter to Washington, Greenwood emphasized the importance of cleaning these dentures regularly after examining ones Washington had used and sent to him for repair: "the sett you sent me from philadelphia...was very black...Port wine being sower takes of[f] all the polish."1

The now discredited story of Washington's wooden teeth does reflect elements of truth, however. For instance, in one version of this myth Washington carved the wooden teeth himself, and it is true that on occasion he made his own repairs to the dentures made by Greenwood.2 Furthermore, the myth of the wooden teeth remains the only myth associated with a major Founder that calls attention to the individual's physical frailty and thus serves as a reminder of the genuine struggles Washington experienced as he sacrificed his health in public service.

Washington called attention to the "frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time," for instance, in his First Inaugural Address in 1789, a speech he delivered when he had only a single remaining natural tooth.3 The myth of Washington's wooden teeth conventionally imagines such wooden contraptions as understandably painful to wear, thus supposedly explaining Washington's dour expression in his most well-known portraits.

Washington did actually experience great discomfort and facial distortion with his cumbersome metal and ivory dentures.4 Moreover, the belief that Washington had to use teeth made out of ordinary wood—as opposed to the technologically advanced and expensive contraptions he actually did wear—helps make Washington more accessible to the general public as a common person with everyday struggles. Perhaps this myth has endured because it balances Washington's imposing status in American history and the idealized images of the man presented in other myths like the Cherry Tree legend and, in doing so, humanizes an individual who may often seem remote and statuesque.

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