![Historical Background](images/menu1.jpg)
![Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings](images/menu2.jpg)
![Suggested Reading](images/menu3.jpg)
![Credits](images/menu4.jpg)
|
Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings
![National Park Service](images/AH_small_black.gif) |
GEORGE WASHINGTON BIRTHPLACE NATIONAL MONUMENT
Virginia
|
![George Washington Birthplace](images/sitea21.jpg)
George Washingon Birthplace NM
|
Location: Potomac River 38 miles east of
Fredericksburg; address, Washington's Birthplace, Va. 22575.
|
|
George Washington was born at his father's tidewater
plantation on February 22, 1732 (February 11 by the old-style calendar).
Here he spent the first 3 years of his life before moving to the
plantation farther up the Potomac that became Mount Vernon. The earlier
plantation passed to his half brother, Augustine Washington, Jr., and
the home burned to the ground during the Revolutionary War.
![](images/sitea21a.jpg) |
Aerial view of George Washington
Birthplace National Monument, from northeast. Popes Creek in
foreground. (U.S. Department of Defense
photo.) |
Part of the birthplace site became a Federal area in
1882, and the Wakefield National Memorial Association later helped to
acquire additional land. This organization also conducted extensive
research to determine the original appearance of the plantation, but
failed. A memorial mansion was therefore built. Patterned on tradition
and surviving structures of the period, it is intended to represent the
typical 18th-century Virginia plantation house such as Washington was
probably born in. A mile northwest of the memorial mansion is the family
burial ground containing the graves of many of Washington's
forebears.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/colonials-patriots/sitea21.htm
Last Updated: 09-Jan-2005
|