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Vast Cache of Financial Papers Is Rich in Details One day in 1791, President George Washington received a bill for 60 pounds, 1 shilling and 7 pence from his physician friend James Craik, who regularly made the rounds at Mount Vernon. The invoice ran two pages: "Anodyne Pills for Breachy . . . Laxative Pills for Ruth . . . syphilic Pills for Maria . . . oz 1 Antiphlogistie Anodyne Tincture . . . Bleeding Charlotte . . . oz 4 Powdered Rhubarb . . . Extracting one of your Negroes tooth . . . a Mercurial Purge for...

The mayor of Glenn Beck's hometown in Washington state presented the Fox News personality with a ceremonial key to the city Saturday evening, an event preceded by weeks of protests and petitions calling for the cancellation of the visit. Beck received a boisterous, minute-long standing ovation after receiving the plaque-mounted key from Mount Vernon Mayor Bud Norris, who weeks earlier proclaimed Saturday "Glenn Beck Day" as a way to mark the conservative commentator's success as a nationally known broadcaster. Beck spoke for about an hour, remembering his childhood in Mount Vernon, an agricultural city of 31,000 people 60 miles north...

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) -- Glenn Beck's visit to his hometown in Washington state this weekend seemed simple enough on the surface, with a ceremonial key to the city awaiting him and the mayor naming the day in the Fox News personality's honor. But this being Glenn Beck, nothing is that easy. Groups have demonstrated on the streets and in city council meetings over the conservative commentator's visit. Petitions have been collected calling on the cancellation of the visit. A small business owner put up a sign that says: "Glenn Beck & Hatred not welcome here." And the leader of...

The mayor of Mount Vernon has made it official. Mayor Bud Norris says he will give the key to his city to conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on September 26. Norris says Beck will deliver a short talk that night and become the first person to receive a key to the city in the six years Norris has been mayor. Protesters from the Skagit County Young Democrats walked outside city hall Tuesday with protest signs, one reading "Change the locks!"

Just about every American, from the time they're 6 or so, learns that Mount Vernon is Founding Father George Washington's home. They draw pictures of the grand farmhouse in art class. Study it in history. File onto buses and reverently visit the hallowed ground along the Potomac River. And right now, that's Mount Vernon's problem. There's just too much George, according to some international culture experts, who are considering whether the historic estate belongs on the United Nations' list of World Heritage sites. A group advising the U.S. government on getting American sites onto the prestigious list initially rejected Mount...

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A stack of leather-bound gardening books sat on a simple wooden desk in the middle of a small room. Two broad-brimmed hats, one for winter and one for summer, hung on pegs in the corner. In the bedroom, a pair of shoes lay at the foot of the bed, as if the gardener had just stepped out of them.  With the restoration of a two-story pine structure used by one of George Washington's gardeners, William Spence, Mount Vernon is again complete nearly 209 years after the first president died.  The gardener's house, built around the spring of 1776 and...

Getting there: Route 95 south to Washington, D.C., cross the Potomac River on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, move to the far right lane. After crossing the bridge, take the exit for Route 1 north, marked Alexandria. Once on Route 1, make the first right turn, onto Franklin Street. Turn right again at Washington Street, which is marked for Mount Vernon. Washington Street becomes the George Washington Parkway as you leave Alexandria, and Mount Vernon is 8 miles south, at the large traffic circle at the end of the parkway. Info: 703-780-2000 or mountvernon.org. Hours: Basement is open weekends from 9...

His Royal Highness, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York today joined public officials and leaders of the Scottish and American spirits industry at Historic Mount Vernon to celebrate the official dedication of the restored George Washington's Distillery. The Duke, who cut the ribbon at the event, was celebrating the close Scottish-U.S. ties and paying tribute to Scotland's connection to George Washington's distillery. He noted that it was George Washington's Scottish farm manager, James Anderson, who convinced Washington in 1797 that distilling whiskey would be a lucrative business venture and a good use of the excess grain from the nearby gristmill....

MOUNT VERNON, Va. - New facilities, a craft fair and fall foliage all make this a good time of year to pay a visit to George Washington's Mount Vernon estate. The craft fair, which features a recreation of an 18th-century marketplace with costumed re-enactors, will be held at Mount Vernon on Sept. 16-17. Activities include craft demonstrations, family entertainment and sightseeing cruises on the Potomac River. Two new visitor facilities, the Ford Orientation Center and the Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center, open Oct. 27. The Ford center offers an action-adventure movie on Washington's life, and "Mount Vernon in...

In a ceremony steeped in Masonic tradition, Mount Vernon officials and local Masons laid the cornerstone for a museum yesterday morning at George Washington's historic estate. The Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center will house theaters, exhibits and life-size models of George Washington at three pivotal periods in his life: ages 19, 45 and 57.

Produced by Greystone Films, an 18-minute feature, is being shot and produced at Mount Vernon. Waiting in the wings for the command of 'action,' crew members aim fans at the actors in order to introduce fake snow onto the set to replicate the weather when the troops crossed the Delaware River. In the role of Continental Army soldiers about to cross the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War, actors wait on the set between takes as grips and crew members adjust lighting. The film will be shown to visitors in the new Ford Orientation Center. In the role of George...

WASHINGTON, April 21, 2006 – Not far from the city that bears his name, George Washington reposes in his crypt at Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate he retired to after serving as America's first president and commander in chief of the armed forces. George Washington, commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and the first president of the United States, originated the Purple Heart Medal. After the American colonists had won their freedom from England, the medal was discontinued until it was revived in 1932. Photo by Gerry J. Gilmore  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Yesterday,...

  "I pledge allegience to my black people"   One of the nation's fastest-rising poetry prodigies is a 7-year-old New York girl whose poisonous demagogic advocacy of black separatism makes Al Sharpton look like Mister Rogers. Autum Ashante' of Mount Vernon, N.Y., has performed at HBO's Def Poetry Jam, The Cotton Club in L.A., The Apollo Theater in Harlem, the African Street Festival, Caroline's on Broadway, the Russell Simmons Phat Farm Fashion Show, Steve Harvey's "Big Time," a prestigious Grammy Foundation event, and at universities and other venues across the country. She recites her verses not only in English,...

News 02/17/2006 00:13:06 EST Wax Figures Show 'Real' George Washington By RICHARD PYLE Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - In a former box factory on an old Brooklyn street named for him, half a mile from where his defeated army escaped by night to fight another day, George Washington has all but come back to life. Not just one George Washington, but three - the 19-year-old wilderness surveyor, the 45-year-old Revolutionary War general and the 57-year-old president on his inauguration day in 1789. The trio of life-size wax figures, created by British-born artists Stuart Williamson and Sue Day, is destined...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

George Washington, say who? Feb. 25, 2005 Kathleen Parker George Washington, say who? http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Mount Vernon, Va. — President's Day came and went as it usually does — without much notice and little attention to the man whose birthday makes February's three-day weekend possible. For those stumped by the riddle, that man would be George Washington, also known as the father of our country and our first president. Those not stumped are probably thinking, 'This is ridiculous,' and wondering, 'Who doesn't know that?' Would that they were right. Alas, the un-stumped are vastly outnumbered by the perplexed, who arrive...

Reading Free Blacks Out of HistoryBy Anita L. WillsHistory News Network | February 28, 2005 "We reside among you and yet are strangers; natives and not citizens; surrounded by the freest people and most Republican Institutions in the world and yet enjoying none of the immunities of freedom though we are not slaves we are not yet free." -- Memorial of the Free People of Color, African Repository, December 1826, Baltimore MDAfrican American History month is a month in which Americans celebrate the history of people of African descent. It is a sharing of a culture long ignored by the...

MOUNT VERNON, Va. - George Washington's estate on the Potomac River hasn't been home to a working distillery for about two centuries, but that changed Tuesday as whiskey makers toiled on the founding father's popular recipe. "For me, it's like standing on hallowed ground," Jim Beam master distiller Jerry Dalton said as he took a break from recreating the 18th century recipe to survey the scene, three miles from the main house where Washington lived from 1754 until he died in 1799. Washington started his whiskey business in 1797, after leaving politics. It was a thriving enterprise that yielded 11,000...

There’s a controversy brewing over the Old North Church in Boston, from the window of which patriot Paul Revere received the signal that British troops were headed for Concord and spread the word through the Massachusetts countryside. It seems that the old church needs some work, and the U.S. government is chipping in with a grant for the much-needed repairs. The trouble is, the church is an active Episcopal house of worship, and an organization called Americans United for Separation of Church and State is protesting the funding decision. For its part, the federal government is ecstatic over the move,...

Gen. Washington courageously attempting to rallyfleeing militia at Kip's Bay, Manhattan MOUNT VERNON, Va. — Say goodbye to the stern and remote George Washington, the boring one who wore a powdered wig, had wooden teeth and always told the truth. Embrace instead the action hero of the 18th century, a swashbuckling warrior who survived wild adventures, led brilliant military campaigns, directed spy rings and fell in love with his best friend's wife. That is the new message from the people who run Mount Vernon, the estate where Washington spent much of his life and where more than one million people...