Under Your Nose: A Trip Back to 1799

Last of Major Mount Vernon Restorations Is Complete

• By Andrea Cohen
• Roll Call Staff
• March 17, 2008, Midnight

In the years following George Washington’s death in 1799, the ownership of Mount Vernon — which at one time was an 8,000-acre plantation — changed hands among family members five times. The former president’s sprawling Virginia estate just proved to be too much to manage, especially as tourists started flocking to the “national shrine.”