Once again the alarm clock went off at exactly 6:00am on Saturday May 18, 2019. On that morning, however, my two companions didn’t exactly bounce out of bed. Their late-night visit to the White House and then to the Jefferson Memorial was a fitting end to their Washington visit, but it seemed as though Tom and Bob were physically spent. While their time in D.C. had come to an end, they still had several Virginia Presidential sites yet to visit before we headed for home.
After an 80-mile drive that retraced our path from earlier in the week, we arrived at the birthplace of our first President George Washington that was located along the shore of Pope’s Creek in Virginia’s Northern Neck. We began our visit at the Visitor Center, but when we didn’t see much there that interested us, the three of us made the long hike along a gravel trail to the actual Washington birth site. At one point during the walk, my photographer stopped; grabbed his camera; and I heard him say to Mongo: “There’s an eagle flying over the water – that’s so cool to see a bald eagle at Washington’s birthplace. Does it get anymore patriotic than that? I was waiting for the Star Spangled Banner to start playing!”
It took roughly 10 minutes for my companions to make the journey from the Visitor Center to the site of Washington’s birth. When we arrived, I was surprised to see an outline in the grass rather than an actual house. It turned out that the house where our first President was born on February 22, 1732 had been destroyed by fire and flood on Christmas Day 1779. Crushed white oyster shells were placed in the outline of the birthplace house. In the distance, I could see a building called the Memorial House that was constructed in 1931 and opened for the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth. With no way of knowing for sure where in the house that Washington had been born, Tom placed me on the ground within the footprint and I posed for a handful of photos. After his birth in the house, George Washington lived there until age three when his father moved the family to Little Hunting Creek – later known as Mount Vernon. Washington did return to his birth house as a teenager, and he lived there for a while. When Tom and Bob finished shooting images of the birth site, we headed back to the Acadia instead of waiting for the Memorial House to open.
Our second site on that Saturday morning was another place associated with George Washington – his boyhood home known as Ferry Farm that was roughly 35 miles West of his birthplace. It was a little after 11:00am when we arrived at the historic site situated on the outskirts of downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia. Due to the ten dollar fee that was required to tour the replica home, which was constructed in 2018, Mongo decided to stay in the vehicle while my photographer carried me onto the property and into the house.
Tom wanted me to pose for exterior shots of the replica house before we ventured inside; but that proved to be a bit treacherous. The house was positioned on top of a steep bluff that overlooked the Rappahannock River and my photographer had difficulty navigating on the angled incline. As I posed for a few photos in front of the house, I thought about the two George Washington mythical legends that occurred on the Ferry Farm property. The first happened when George was six years old, right after his family moved to the farm in 1738. It seemed as though the boy George barked one of his father’s favorite English cherry trees with a new hatchet. When confronted by his dad, the boy confessed: “I cannot tell a lie; I did it with my little hatchet.” The second legend featured George throwing a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River. While a person with a decent arm could skip a coin or flat stone across the river today, the Rappahannock was a lot wider in the mid-1700s, which made the feat more unbelievable. When my photographer carried me inside the house, we walked into every room where I saw authentic replica items that resembled the ones the Washington family had used on the farm. It was no surprise that I was allowed to stand on the furniture or near the replica artifacts; and although it seemed good to not have to sneak those photos, I knew in my heart that they were only fakes.
At first I was honored to walk onto the property where George Washington had grown up; but after my short tour was finished, I couldn’t help but think in the back of my mind that Bob made the right decision to save ten bucks. The dirt of the ground was the only authentic artifact from George’s childhood and I’m just not a fan of authentic reproductions. After my disappointment at Ferry Farm, I wasn’t overly excited for our next scheduled stop either; one that was located about two miles away in downtown Fredericksburg. The building on our agenda was touted as the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library and was constructed on the site of Monroe’s law office that he used from 1786 to 1789. After Tom parked the Acadia, he carried me to a section of the original law office where I posed for some photos. While I was thrilled to stand near the original brick law office of James Monroe, the thought of visiting a subpar museum made the cracks in my legs ache. But as soon as my photographer carried me inside, I knew that I had underestimated what I would see on display in the museum. Not only was there an original key to the front door of the President’s House and a chess set that was a gift to Monroe from his neighbor Thomas Jefferson, I posed on some cool furniture that was used in the White House as well; including the desk that President Monroe used throughout his presidency. On that desk, Monroe wrote his seventh annual message to Congress that included his famous Monroe Doctrine. I was honored when I stood on the Monroe Doctrine desk. For the minute or so that I stood on its marble top, it was as though James Monroe was seated in front of me as he wrote his historic address to Congress.
Before we went inside the museum dedicated to our fifth President, I didn’t expect to see much of anything that would interest me. But I was terribly wrong. As a matter of fact, it was one of the best Presidential museums I had ever visited. It was far better than a few of the official Presidential Library’s that I’ve been in – especially Bill Clinton’s Library in Little Rock and George W’s in Dallas. And to top it off, this hidden gem in Fredericksburg was very cost effective – there was only a six-dollar entry fee to enter, which pleased both of my cheapskate travel mates.
Our next stop in Fredericksburg turned out to be only two blocks North of the Monroe museum, but Tom drove there because he and Bob initially thought the site was a bit further away. The Acadia was parked across the street and I was carried to the front of the Mary Ball Washington House where I posed for a handful of photographs. This house was purchased by George Washington for his mother, Mary, in 1772 where she resided for the rest of her life. George Washington was a frequent visitor to the house and in April 1789 he came to the home to receive his mother’s blessing before his first inauguration as President. Mary Washington died in that house just four months after her son’s inauguration; passing away of breast cancer on August 25, 1789. As I stood in front of the home, I envisioned some of the famous men who paid visits to Mary Washington – including John Marshall, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Marquis de Lafayette, and members of the Lee family. My photographer carried me into the front parlor of the home where he nearly paid the seven dollar admission fee for a tour. But when he heard that photography was prohibited inside Mary’s house, in addition to the fact that nearly every piece of furniture in the home was a period piece, he declined and abruptly took me back outside.
Located nearly a half-mile South of the Mary Washington House was our last site of the trip associated with George Washington. It was the Fredericksburg Masonic Lodge Number 4 and it’s members proudly call it “George Washington’s Mother Lodge”. On November 4, 1752, twenty-year old George Washington was initiated into Freemasonry at the Lodge of Fredericksburg. At that time, the numbering system was not in place. Washington passed to the Degree of Fellowcraft on March 3, 1753 and raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason on August 4, 1753. Shortly thereafter, George departed for the wild frontier on a surveying expedition. He remained a member of Fredericksburg Lodge Number 4 until his death on December 14, 1799. After I had posed for a few exterior photos alongside the large brick Masonic Lodge, Tom carried me inside where he and Bob met a woman who was busy organizing a luncheon. When my photographer explained the reason for our visit, which was his usual spiel about my travels to Presidential sites, she said that only a Masonic Lodge member could give us a tour; and unfortunately there were none on sight. Then out of nowhere, and likely because she felt sorry for us, the young lady escorted us to an area where we stood near what appeared to be an altar. As Tom held me up for a photo, I saw a podium that featured the Masonic symbol known as the Square and Compasses. Near the back of the altar, there was a large wooden chair that was positioned below two paintings of George Washington. Once we finished our photoshoot at the altar, the woman took us into another room where we saw five framed tri-folded American flags that surrounded a bust of George Washington.
We were inside the historic Masonic Lodge for roughly 15 minutes. Tom and Bob thanked their generous host for the abbreviated tour, albeit better than no tour at all. It was just after 1:30pm when we began heading North towards home. My photographer had his sights set on reaching the Niles, Ohio area where he and Bob would be in perfect position to visit William McKinley’s birthplace at the crack of dawn.
Tom had the “pedal to the metal” on the Acadia and managed to avoid getting pulled over by the police during the entire 350-mile jaunt to the northside of Youngstown, Ohio. At roughly 7:50pm, we pulled into the parking lot of the Warren/Niles Holiday Inn; and I was happy to get out of the camera case after we checked in. I was placed next to the television set, and I watched as my photographer and Mongo left for dinner, which was takeout from Taco Bell. I was worried when the pair returned and began to eat; I watched in horror as Tom wolfed down seven beef tacos. I knew from past experiences that I would “enjoy” the taco effects throughout the night.
When the lights in the room were turned off, I stood in silence and thought about my time standing on the Monroe Doctrine desk. Even though we didn’t have permission for me to set foot on the historic desk, I was very careful and totally honored to be there. The Monroe Doctrine was a policy that prohibited all European nations from colonizing any part of North or South America from that point forward. It also stated that European countries could no longer interfere with independent governments in the Americas. I laughed to myself after I came up with my newly fabricated Bobble Head Doctrine, which was a policy where foreign taco fumes would not be allowed to interfere with my resin-molded nostrils. Unlike the Monroe Doctrine, however, my credo didn’t work!
