The development of George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and its component farms occurred in several distinct stages. The development of Mount Vernon is evidenced by not only changes to the Mansion and its dependencies under the decades of George Washington’s ownership, but the physical expansion of his holdings in the immediate area. In acquiring more properties, Washington subsequently enslaved more people to labor on them. As Washington shifted his agricultural focus from tobacco to wheat under the study of new husbandry in the 1760s, the landscape of these properties changed. Enslaved people labored to implement changes to field design, build new infrastructure, facilitate experiments, and maintain the day to day operations of these properties, as their labor often shifted from year to year. Washington was heavily involved in and directed the close supervision of those he enslaved across his properties of Mount Vernon at the Mansion Farm, River Farm, Union Farm, Douge Run Farm, and Muddy Hole Farm.
First Phase: Early Acquisitions
The first phase of the development of Mount Vernon spanned from 1754 to 1773. It was characterized by Washington’s acquisition of land and his improvements to the existing story and-a-half dwelling house at Mount Vernon. Washington leased the original 2,126 acre Mount Vernon tract from Ann Fairfax Washington, the widow of his deceased half-brother Lawrence Washington, who took full legal title upon the death of their daughter Ann Washington Lee in 1761.1
Key acquisitions made during this twenty year span include the Mill tract at the head of Dogue Creek, the Clifton tract that later became River Farm, and three parcels of what was referred to as Ferry Farm, before Washington’s reorganization of his property.2 By the early 1770s, Washington accumulated 6,500 acres of nearly contiguous land fronting on the Potomac with Mount Vernon at the center on the river.
Second Phase: Upgrades to the Mansion House
The second phase was marked by the execution of Washington's carefully designed plan to dramatically upgrade the mansion house and its associated dependencies. He completed extending the mansion house on each end in 1775, adding several rooms.3 He also added a piazza across the river façade, which was continually upgraded with weather proofing.4 Washington replaced the earlier support buildings with a new array of domestic outbuildings such as a spinning house. These buildings were laid out in a geometric landscape plan that became the centerpiece for further improvements and embellishments over the next two decades. The building program was interrupted but not fully halted by the Revolutionary War. During Washington’s absence, construction and building upgrades were supervised by Lund Washington. 5
Third Phase: Mansion Upgrades, Land Acquisitions, and Reorganization
When Washington returned from the war in December 1783, he launched what is considered the third phase his management of Mount Vernon, which was to consolidate and reorganize his estate. In the two decades leading into the third stage, Washington addressed crop selection and planting, plantation management, and the physical improvement of the soil, buildings, and livestock. He expanded on these practices as he acquired more outlying properties and reorganized the structure of his farms, which serve as an important marker to the development of Mount Vernon.
Washington's first concern was to repair the mansion house and its immediate environs, while also completing the building projects still unfinished from before the war. Washington set out to complete these renovations with a greater purpose as he desired to use his home to host other political leaders. During the first year of renovations work inside the mansion was the norm with a significant part of the progress completed by 1785, such as the construction of the New Room.6 Washington turned his attention increasingly outward from the mansion house to direct the development of the landscape immediately outside. As construction work proceeded on the mansion house and its village of outbuildings, enslaved people cleared underbrush, pruned trees, opened vistas to and from the house, and assisted the gardener with planting beds, walks, and other landscape amenities.7
By 1786, Washington's scope extended as he turned his attention to the larger plantation. By the fall of 1786, Washington acquired the four remaining tracts needed to consolidate his holdings into a single, contiguous plantation of about 7,400 acres. With an interconnected land plot, Washington set out to reorganize the entire tract into a coherent whole, subdivided to create discrete working units and a structured land management system using new husbandry across his five farms: Mount Vernon, Union Farm which consisted of the former Ferry Farm and French’s Farm, Dogue Run Farm, Muddy Hole Farm, and River Farm. Additionally, there was a grist mill and land holdings that comprised the mill race, meadows, and a dam and pond on Dogue Run Farm. Previous owners had worked these farms in the local tradition, relying on tobacco as the principal cash crop and on corn as a food source in a three-crop rotation of tobacco, corn, and fallow. Overtime, Washington developed these properties to follow his seven-year crop rotation.
To manage the plantation, each farm was placed under the supervision of an overseer. In some instances, enslaved people oversaw labor at Muddy Hole Farm and, at times, Dogue Run Farm and River Farm. The enslaved overseers were placed under the charge of a farm manager or superintendent, who in turn reported to Washington. Each manager was expected to submit weekly work reports to the superintendent, and the farm manager submitted a summary of all activity to Washington.8
The land acquired by Washington are representative of the Chesapeake landscape. Individual tracts ranged from the 2,100 acre river front mansion house tract to the land-locked tract, aptly named Muddy Hole Farm. When purchased by Washington, River Farm and parts of Union Farm were more typical of an established farm, with excellent deep-water access, substantial tillable land, and house sites with a view of the Potomac.
The former Ferry Farm, also known as Posey's after a prior owner, was similarly located on the river but smaller in size. It offered a desirable seat for a landed farmer as well as an entrepreneurial opportunity in the form of a ferry. There was an excellent fishery, complete with buildings and a landing to support that enterprise to, which was valuable in the years to follow.9 The mill tract offered a more traditional form of business and was compatible with growing wheat. It was enhanced by water access from the headwaters of Dogue Creek. Dogue Run Farm was typical of an inland farm with good soil. Muddy Hole was the poorest land and received only passing attention from Washington.
Improvements to Agriculture and Infrastructure Throughout the Development of Mount Vernon
As Washington embraced practices in new husbandry, he oversaw improvements to his properties to ensure the most up to date agricultural practices. When Washington entered into the business of farming in the 1750s, he followed the local tradition of growing tobacco until adopting methods in new husbandry in the 1760s. Washington began studying new husbandry and completing agricultural experiments using its methodologies. He began rotations of wheat, crops, and barley as well as streamlining fertilizer usage from livestock. In 1766, Washington chose to no longer produce primarily tobacco at Mount Vernon, and opted to produce primarily wheat as he entered a seven year crop rotation. These changes affected those he enslaved, as they had to learn new farming practices, facilitate his experiments, and complete the work therein to make improvements from year to year. This included clearing fields for animals to graze and fertilize. As Washington recorded and studied the outputs of his properties, he began to impose time metrics on the enslaved and workers to promote what he believed to be efficiency.
Individual farms underwent changes. In 1766, improvements to River Farm included more than a dozen buildings, three large cleared fields, five orchards, lanes, fences, and a landing. Washington centralized barn locations for closer supervision of labor. The buildings included a "home house" with two gable-end chimneys and domestic outbuildings on a prominent site near the river. Other structures included a smaller chimneyed dwelling houses scattered about the farm, including a house for a white overseer and several houses for enslaved people. Each farm included framed houses for white overseers' and managers (some including wooden chimneys), frame and log houses for the enslaved, and less permanent structures such as fodder houses, livestock sheds, pens, and yards.
Washington reconfigured the design of fields and outbuildings in accordance to best practices in new husbandry. Through the 1780s, physical improvements made to each of the farms produced a similar landscapes. This required an immense amount of labor of those enslaved there to complete construction projects that required skills like carpentry and brick making and laying. Larger projects, such as for a two-story barn to thread wheat at Douge Run Farm known as the 16-Sided Barn, began in 1792 took years to complete due to experimentation and labor demands. Beyond the labor required for the infrastructure, this required clearing land and maintaining day to day agricultural activities. The implementation of new husbandry was not exclusive to outlying properties, as Washington directed the construction of a Greenhouse at Mount Vernon in 1787 to experiment with the growth of subtropical plants, and also served as quarters for enslaved people.10
Throughout the phases of development at Mount Vernon, Washington’s vision for the estate and its outlying properties demonstrate his attentiveness to market and agricultural trends in the greater Atlantic economy. As he rose in political prominence, he desired that mansion house and its dependencies would allow him to host guests through additional bedrooms and event spaces. Through each phrase, the labor of enslaved people maintained the properties and facilitated the large-scale agricultural and infrastructural changes directed by Washington.
Revised by Zoie Horecny, 14 March 2025.
Notes:
1. “Lease of Mount Vernon, 17 December 1754,” Founders Online, National Archives; “[Diary entry: 2 January 1768],” Founders Online, National Archives.
2. “[Diary entry: 23 January 1760],” Founders Online, National Archives.
3. “To George Washington from Lund Washington, 10 December 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives.
4. “From George Washington to William Hamilton, 6 April 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives.
5. “To George Washington from Lund Washington, 29 September 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives.
6. “April—1785,” Founders Online, National Archives.
7. “[Diary entry: 9 February 1785],” Founders Online, National Archives.
8. “To George Washington from James Anderson, 11 January 1797,” Founders Online, National Archives.
9. “From George Washington to Anthony Whitting, 14 November 1792,” Founders Online, National Archives.
10. “From George Washington to George Augustine Washington, 29 July 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives.
Bibliography:
Dalzell, Robert, Jr. and Lee Baldwin Dalzell, George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America. Oxford University Press, 1998.
Ragsdale, Bruce A., Washington at the Plow: The Founding Farmer and the Question of Slavery. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021.
Schoelwer, Susan P., ed. Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington's Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon, VA: Mount Vernon Ladies Association, 2016.
Thompson, Mary V. “The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret”: George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2019.
Wall, Charles Cecil. George Washington, Citizen-Soldier. Mount Vernon, Va.: Mount Vernon Ladies Association, 1983, 17-18, 24-31, 93.
