Decorative hinges help to understand furniture used in the Mansion.

Artifacts, like this copper alloy drawer pull, provide evidence of fashionable furniture.

George Washington and his new wife, Martha made their choices of ceramics and glass to set a fashionable and modern table; they undoubtedly did the same with furniture and textiles, discarding older, out of fashion items to make way for newer objects. During the late 1750s and 1760s, the Washingtons ordered new chairs, tables, sideboards, and other furniture pieces, along with cloth for bed hangings, curtains, and the like, to properly fit out their newly expanded Mansion. A brass lock plate, decorative hinges, an incised brass handle plate with a silver wash, two brass architectural hooks (one for holding fireplace tools and the other a curtain tie-back), and multiple furniture tacks provide some archaeological evidence of the furniture in the Mansion during this period.

This key excavated from the midden could have unlocked a door in the Mansion or one of the outbuildings.

Because of the quantity and excellent preservation of artifacts, and floral and faunal remains, soil from the midden was processed through water screening and flotation. Water screening uses water to recover materials as small as 1/16” while flotation recovers even smaller seeds and other items lighter than water. Through water screening, small fragments of silver and gold threads were recovered from the midden, testifying to the costly fabrics that the Washingtons could afford to acquire.

One artifact found is remarkable in that it provides an undeniable and evocative link to George Washington’s military career. The object in question is a copper plate, oval in shape and roughly three by two inches in dimension, with the words “Gen: Washington”

This name plate was attached to the trunk George Washington purchased after becoming General of the Continental Army.

inscribed in an ornate flowing script. The plate is identical to one that is mounted on a trunk in the Mount Vernon curatorial collections. Washington purchased that trunk second-hand  in 1776 in Boston, Massachusetts, soon after he took up his duties as General of the Continental Army. Given that he purchased the trunk in Boston, it seems likely that the plate was made by a craftsman in that city. Interestingly, the plate is placed over the initials of the trunk’s previous owner, a Boston merchant named John Head. The initials “I[J]H” along with the date “1775” are spelled out by brass tacks nailed into the wooden trunk lid. The trunk served as part of General Washington’s baggage throughout the war, returning to Mount Vernon with its owner when Washington retired from military service in 1783. Given the remarkable similarity of the two specimens, the excavated plate almost undoubtedly had the same origin.

The name plate found in the South Grove Midden is identical to the one on this trunk, on display in the mansion.

The name plate was recovered from one of the soil layers that overlay the brick drain installed about 1775. Since the plate could not have been deposited before Washington’s return to Mount Vernon in December 1783, it reinforces the date of the drain’s construction. That trash still was being deposited in the South Grove as late as 1783 seems a bit  surprising given Washington’s stated intention (in 1776) to transform the area into a flowering grove to border the enlarged Mansion. The lesser quantity and smaller size of the artifacts deposited in these upper layers testifies to the assumption that trash disposal in the area had declined considerably by that time. However, the fact that artifacts such as the name plate were recovered speaks to the difference in our modern idea of a lawn and that held by people in the 18th century.