Virtual Tour - Washington Hall
Washington Hall
George Washington’s beloved Mount Vernon in Virginia provides the inspiration for Washington Hall at the American Village. The lantern atop the hall features a replica of Washington’s dove of peace, which he had fashioned for Mount Vernon.
There are three spaces inside Washington Hall. The room on the right is called the Mount Vernon room, and is inspired by Washington’s “New Room.” The room on the left is the Assembly Room, inspired by the room of that name at Independence Hall. The central area contains a bronze statue of George Washington, one of four copies made of the original Houdon statue which resides in the Virginia Statehouse.
Mount Vernon, which inspired Washington Hall
The Mansion at George Washington’s Mount Vernon is one of the most iconic 18th-century homes in America. The Mansion is ten times the size of the average home in colonial Virginia. George Washington’s father, Augustine Washington, built a modest one and half story house there in 1734. Washington’s elder half-brother Lawrence lived at the property from 1741 until his death in 1752. George Washington began leasing the property in 1754. Although he did not inherit in outright until 1761, he expanded the house in the late 1750s, raising the roof to make the Mansion two and half stories high. In 1774, he began to add the north and south wings, the cupola and piazza to create the structure we see today.
George Washington commissioned a weathervane for the Mansion’s new cupola while he was presiding over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. In his order, Washington specified that the weathervane should “have a bird…with an olive branch in its Mouth…that it will traverse with the wind and therefore may receive the real shape of a bird.”
Source: www.MountVernon.org
For more information, visit https://www.mountvernon.org
