Identifier: picturesquewashi00moor (find matches)
Title: Picturesque Washington: pen and pencil sketches of its scenery, history, traditions, public and social life, with graphic descriptions of the Capitol and Congress, the White House, and the government departments ..
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Moore, Joseph West
Subjects: Washington (D.C.)
Publisher: Providence, J.A. & R.A. Reid
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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s a fire-place, around which is a beautifully carved mantel ofCarrara marble, wrought in Italy, it is supposed by Canova. It hasthree panels in which are scenes of agricultural life. It was presentedto Washington by an English gentleman, and it is related that thevessel bringing it to the United States was captured by pirates. Whenthey learned that the mantel was intended for Washington they for-warded it to him uninjured. Extending across the western end ofthe apartment is a colossal painting by Rembrandt Peale, entitled Washington at Yorktown, which was presented to the Mount Ver-non Association in 1873. In a glass case is a model of the Bastile,the gift of Lafayette ; and in the apartment is also the celebratedarm-chair which came over in the Mayflower. In this old slat-back oaken chair more than 100,000 visitors to Mount Vernon havesat. One short sitting is usually enough, as the chair is very hardand uncomfortable. Several pieces of antique furniture, portraits, MOUNT VERNON. 287
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tsq >«m*qL*%. THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON, MOUNT VERNON. and the military equipments used by Washington while serving mGeneral Braddocks army, are disposed about the apartment. In this grand hall Washington gave his state dinners when enter-taining the distinguished men and women who visited him ; and manya brilliant reception, followed by a ball, also has been held here byMartha Washington. If the old walls could speak, what interestingtales they might tell of the scenes they have enclosed — the entertain-ment of Lafayette, Rochambeau, and the French officers ; of theillustrious American generals of the Revolution ; of Franklin, of Jef-ferson, of Hamilton; of the heroic men and the stately dames of theOld Dominion in those far-off days when the mansion was brightand cheerful with the highest social life. There still remains in the music-room the harpsichord Washing- 288 PICTURESQUE WASHINGTON. ton gave his charming adopted daughter, Eleanor Parke Custis, onher wedding-day. It is a t

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