Home of George and Martha Washington (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this trailside historical marker:

Home of George and Martha Washington
"No estate in United America is more pleasantly situated than this. It lyes [sic] in a high, dry country 300 miles by water from the Sea and…on one of the finest Rivers in the world."
-George Washington to Arthur Young, 1793

Welcome to the most visited historic house in America, the place George Washington called home from 1754 until his death in 1799. Inheriting a smaller plantation home on more than 2,000 acres of land, he enlarged the house to an impressive 21-room mansion situated on 8,000 acres.

Mount Vernon is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, a private, non-profit organization, founded in 1853. Your admission and purchases, together with private donations, exclusively support our mission of preservation and education.

See Mount Vernon From The Water!
The beloved home of George Washington has been a destination for visitors for more than two centuries. For much of that time, boat service to and from Mount Vernon provided the only safe and convenient mode of transportation by which guests could access this iconic site. John Augustine Washington III, George Washington's great-grandnephew and last family owner, ended a longstanding ban on steamboat travel to the estate in 1850, and visitors flocked to Washington's home aboard the steamship Thomas Collyer, preferring the 90-minute trip by water to 4 hours negotiating poor roads from Alexandria. When the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association officially opened the estate to the public in 1860, construction of a new wharf led to increased steamboat traffic and an important revenue stream. This, however, was soon curtailed by the hostilities of the American Civil War (1861-1865). After the war, boat traffic resumed and continued unabated.

"After next week the trips will be tri-weekly. Of course we personally dread it. Every day will be 'Boat Day' or 'The Day Before'!"
-April 11, 1866, Sarah Tracy, secretary to Ann Pamela Cunningham, founder of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association

By the 1890s, the Mount Vernon and Marshall Steamboat Company offered exclusive riverboat access to the estate and Marshall Hall, an amusement park located across the Potomac in Maryland. For daily excursions to both sites, visitors went to Washington D.C. to board the Charles Macalester, a steamship with a capacity of 1,700 people. Although the turn of the century brought dramatic infrastructure improvements and other transportation options, larger, faster ships like the City of Washington and the Mount Vernon, both operated by the Wilson Line, continued to be very popular. In fact, the Mount Vernon was able to carry over 2,000 passengers and could accommodate 1,000 dancers in its ballroom!

Today, tens of thousands of visitors each year continue to arrive at Mount Vernon by boat, allowing them the opportunity to experience the beauty of the river George Washington loved so much while viewing his magnificent estate from the water.