Once upon a time in the colony of Virginia, there was a young man of modest means and circumstances who would one day become a great leader and this nation’s first President. His name was George Washington.
In this real and true story, he didn’t tell a tale about chopping down a cherry tree, yet he did decide at a very young age that he needed to better conduct and comport himself in public. At roughly the age of 14, young Washington copied in his own longhand “Rules of Civility,” which had originated from French Jesuit schools in the 1590s and were later translated into English during the 1640s, as America was being colonized.
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In 1746, Washington copied those 110 rules, which covered etiquette, morals, and social graces, as an exercise both for his penmanship and character building. Lacking formal education or coming from a wealthy family, Washington would use these maxims and rules as a lifelong guide for his own conduct, reportedly carrying them with him, even later into battle. Though the verbiage is a bit formal for more modern audiences, Washington took these maxims as words to live by. His Commanding General during the French and Indian Wars of 1755, wrote this of young Washington, “He strikes me as being a young man of extraordinary and exalted character, and is destined to make no inconsiderable figure in our country.”
General Edward Braddock apparently had an eye for talent, as Washington would be named by the Continental Congress as the Commanding General of all state militia, a meager navy, and all revolutionary forces standing in 1776 at the young age of 44.
Washington’s 110 “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,” were first published in book form in 1888, and have remained in publication since, contributing in part to Washington’s reputation as not only the first man to serve as U.S. President, but one of the greatest gentlemen to occupy that post.
Washington died at home in Mount Vernon in 1799. Washington’s by then grand 8,000-acre estate along the Potomac River became a challenge to maintain, including the great house by his descendants and heirs.
By 1853, his grand-nephew, John Augustine Washington, III, was seeking either a wealthy buyer or preservation support, first from the state of Virginia, and later from the federal government. Virginia said it could not afford the expense of Mount Vernon, and Congress of that day rebuffed the request, stating that preserving historic properties was not a proper function of the federal government.
That same year, two women from South Carolina, in reverence to both the national shrine of Mount Vernon and Washington’s standing as the father of our nation, would lead efforts to save Mount Vernon from further decay. Louis Bird Cunningham would pass the great manor during a Potomac River cruise, noting the deterioration of the once grand home from the water.
Saddened and angry, she wrote a letter to her daughter, Ann Pamela Cunningham, chronically frail and ill from a spinal injury in her youth. Yet despite her frail spine, AP Cunningham had a determined will, as she founded the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, our nation’s first historic preservation organization in that same year..
In a time when women could not own property, nearly 70 years prior to gaining the right to vote, without any government or private sector support, Mrs. Cunningham raised $200,000 (a fortune in those days) to acquire, restore and maintain Mount Vernon. Support came in from across the country in small donations from school teachers, housewives and seamstresses, with little money, but a strong desire to contribute. By 1858, the MVLA made JA Washington, III an offer he could not refuse, and paying in installments, by February 22, 1860, on George Washington’s birthday, the final payment was made.
Perhaps even more astounding is that Mount Vernon is owned and operated, even to this day by the MVLA, 172 years after its creation. The MVLA restored, maintains and manages the plantation and grand manor, not the U.S. Park Service, nor the state of Virginia.
The still private foundation maintains the manor and its many artifacts and furnishings, as well as outbuildings with admissions, event fees, voluntary donations, and memberships, still in support of the great man, our first President, and his exemplary life. It certainly makes one wonder, a century from today, just how the women of New York City may endeavor to preserve Trump Tower, or the ladies of Palm Beach to champion Mar-a-Lago.