Washington Winter Show 2014

52 This page is sponsored by Anne S. Hansen, Margaret Kirk Brady, and Courtney B. Burhnam Her mother’s words had an immediate effect on the 37-year- old spinster Ann Pamela Cunningham, who was inspired to write a letter of her own—over the pseudonym “A Southern Matron”—to the Charleston Mercury. It was first published there on December 2, 1853, and later picked up by other newspapers. Addressed to “Ladies of the South,” the letter appealed to their public spiritedness, patriotism, and generosity, and although Miss Cunningham’s language was florid—with references to vestal virgins, souls aflame, and vultures—her argument came through loud and clear: it was time for patriotic women of the South to join forces and rescue Washington’s home. And through her tenacity and talents, Miss Cunningham sparked America’s historic-preservation movement, which would in time lead to the rescue and restoration of countless historic structures and districts, gardens, waterways, and archaeological sites. Miss Cunningham determinedly set about to raise funds to purchase Mount Vernon. She began by founding the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, establishing herself as Regent— that is, chairwoman of the board—and enlisting prominent, well-connected Vice Regents to carry out the Association’s work in their respective states. All her first appointees were from the South: Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Missouri, respectively. The original Vice Regents were certainly influential, but they were also an eclectic, colorful, almost exotic assortment— illustrating Miss Cunningham’s quest for action-oriented women whose reputations reached beyond the confines of what was then called polite society. For instance, her very first appointee, Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie, of Richmond, Virginia, was an internationally known actress as well as a playwright, poet, and novelist. To represent Florida, she chose Catherine Daingerfield Willis Grey Murat, who was not only a great-grandniece of George Washington but also a bona fide princess by virtue of her marriage to a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. And fromAlabama she pickedMme Octavia Walton Le Vert, an accomplished author and one of the great belles of 19th-century society. Even though the nation was heading toward sectional conflict in the 1850s, Miss Cunningham was asked to consider expanding the geographic scope of her cause. “Editors north of the Potomac began to take notice,” she wrote, “and some of my Northern friends made overtures to me to open the matter to the North and have it made national.” She acted by choosing such women as Louisa Ingersoll Gore Greenough, widow of the famous sculptor Horatio Greenough, to represent Massachusetts; and Mary Morris Hamilton, granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton, from New York. The Ladies’ mission had indeed struck a chord in Americans nationwide, enabling the Association to gather and deliver John Augustine Washington’s formidable asking price of $200,000 within just five years of starting its fund-raising campaign. When the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association finally took possession of theMansion and 200 acres of adjoining land, the house was not only sorely in need of repairs but also had lost nearly all its original furnishings. Since that time, the Association has worked tirelessly to acquire original objects and furnishings, with the goal of restoring Washington’s estate to its appearance in 1799, the year he died. A critical document used in accurately achieving this goal is the inventory taken at Washington’s death, which includes a room-by- room listing of the Mansion’s contents. The inventory’s purpose was to assign value to all the general’s belongings. Today, however, the list provides an invaluable tool for curators charged with furnishing and interpreting the home more than two centuries after his death. BURIED SILVER Among the many items listed in the 1799 inventory are silver- plated wine coolers and a sterling silver bottle roller George Washington ordered for his presidential dining table. We know that these objects remained in Martha Washington’s care after her husband’s death, but they also have a compelling story, full of Southern intrigue. In her will, Martha Washington bequeathed “all the silver plate of every kind of which I shall die possessed, together