Washington Winter Show 2014

58 shall choose.” We know that a bed Nelly chose was an English- made one that George Washington purchased in 1757, together with matching bed and window curtains of “Yellow Silk and Worsted Damask Window Curtains.” The bed was passed down among Nelly’s descendants until the carved foot posts were given to the Smithsonian Institution, while the pieces of bed hangings were distributed to friends and family members. The discovery of an unusual handmade valentine dated February 12, 1913, illustrates how descendants continued to adore these fragmentary reminders of the family’s heritage. The valentine still includes a note from one Anne H. Marsh to a Mrs. Clay, stating “the old gold tapestry that covers the front is a piece of a curtain that hung at the window in Martha Washington’s bedroom at Mount Vernon . . . the one Mrs. Washington took to after her husband’s death in 1799.” The letter also confirms that Mrs. Daingerfield Lewis, the wife of Nelly Custis Lewis’s grandson, gave Marsh the precious fabric. Objects such as this one provide curators with vital infor- mation in their quest to interpret the Mansion more accurately. Using the 1913 valentine and other pieces of documentary evidence, the Association employed Gainsborough Silks to create a silk-and-wool damask dyed to match the fragment on the valentine—facilitating restoration of the third-floor garret bed- chamber, which Mrs. Washington occupied after her husband died and until her death in 1802, to its original appearance. SAVING FAMILY PAPERS Southern families are frequently known for preserving family papers and ephemera over generations. Washington and Custis family descendants have certainly exemplified this custom. Martha Washington’s granddaughter Martha (Patty) Parke Custis married Thomas Peter, the builder of Tudor Place in Georgetown, and one of the executors of Mrs. Washington’s will. Probably because of this connection, the Peter family came into possession of a vast collection of the Washingtons’ personal correspondence, journals, and ledgers, which were safeguarded by succeeding generations. An outstanding example among the papers the Peter family preserved is a large, astonishingly precise drawing known today as the “Vaughan Plan” (see page 60). English amateur architect Samuel Vaughan visited Mount Vernon in the summer of 1787. He explored the estate, took detailed measurements of the Mansion and its immediate surroundings, created this drawing, and presented it to his friend George Washington. The bird’s-eye view delineates major elements of Washington’s “pleasure grounds,” with a lettered key identifying landscape features. Seen at top are the curving Potomac River and the expansive east lawn.Groves of trees, planted irregularly, Mrs. Goldsborough (see page 55) presented Mrs. Washington’s boxwood sewing rule to her friend Susan Johnson Hudson, the Vice Regent for Connecticut, along with a note reading “Martha Washington rule which was always in her work basket.” (Photo by Mark Finkenstaedt)