Washington Winter Show 2014

This page is sponsored by Carol Anne Barth, Marjorie Hulgrave, and Heather Nolan with the two large plated coolers, the four small plated coolers with the bottle castors,” to her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, who built his plantation home, Arlington House, opposite Washington, D.C. His daughter Mary Anna Randolph Custis inherited the house and lived there before the Civil War with her husband, Robert E. Lee, and their children. On April 22, 1861, General Lee left Arlington House for the last time, riding to Richmond to accept command of Virginia’s forces as the state severed ties with the Union. Knowing the house would be a strategic and symbolic target for Union forces, Lee urged his wife to evacuate: “I think therefore you had better prepare all things for removal, that is the plate, pictures, &c., & be prepared at any moment.” Mrs. Lee recalled in her memoirs that “the family plate so long treasured, especially that portion of it which my Father inherited fromMt. Vernon was first secured.” The silver was packed into two trunks and sent to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington for safekeeping. In June 1864, when the Union Army raided the Valley of Virginia, these relics came close to falling into enemy hands. As the army advanced on Lexington, VMI Superintendent Francis Smith had the two trunks buried. On June 12, Union troops set fire to the public buildings on the VMI campus. Concealed underground, the heirlooms went unnoticed. After the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, a return to Arlington House was no longer possible. Robert E. Lee was named president of Washington College in Lexington (later, Washington and Lee University), and in the fall of 1865, the silver was retrieved and returned to the Lees at their new home. The Washington silver remained with the Lee family, and over the course of the 20th century a number of descendants graciously returned pieces to the care of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. Curators identified many of these pieces using the 1799 inventory, but a few—including the once- buried silver—remained elusive. In 2007 Mary Lee Bowman and her brother Robert E. Lee IV decided to open a pair of trunks long stored in a corner of Mrs. Bowman’s basement. Tucked inside were a large, silver- plated four-bottle wine cooler and a silver bottle roller that the Washingtons used during the presidency and, afterward, at Mount Vernon. Two Revolutionary War spoons decorated with Washington’s griffin crest were also found in the trunks. Mrs. Bowman and Mr. Lee donated the silver to Mount Vernon. So after two centuries of traveling around Virginia, above and below ground, these remarkable pieces now found their way back home. 53 Above: Washington ordered this elegant silver-plated wine cooler from England for use during presidential entertaining in Philadelphia. It was also used at Mount Vernon during the final years of his life. Left: George Washington custom ordered this silver bottle roller from Philadelphia silversmith Joseph Cooke in 1789 to facilitate the passing of wine at the dinner table. (Photos by Mark Finkenstaedt) Previous page: Ann Pamela Cunningham of South Carolina, the “Southern Matron,” founded the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in 1853 for the purpose of rescuing the home of George Washington.