Mount Vernon

Thanks to Mark Santangelo and Mary Thompson of Mount Vernon for supplying historical research for this column.

Washington gave his servants—and, yes, slaves—four days off to mark the holiday in broad Mount Vernon-wide celebration.

But a few years of retirement brought Washington back to his beloved Mount Vernon, with its year-crowning Christmas cheer.

Precisely 230 years ago today, he rode up to Mount Vernon to celebrate his first holiday at home after eight years of revolution.

A British raid on Mount Vernon had stripped him of his livestock and many of his slaves.

Then he went back to his farm at Mount Vernon, to take up again his usual work.

Mr. Washington had agriculture at his finger ends, and gave me some advice which he had found serviceable at Mount Vernon.

I suspected that his acres were not as broad, nor his produce as salable, as those of Mount Vernon.

He delighted to have him at his Mount Vernon home, and insisted that he should spend all his time there when out of school.

Often vessels anchored in the river, and the officers enjoyed the abundant hospitality of the Mount Vernon mansion.