Open 365 days a year, Mount Vernon is located just 15 miles south of Washington DC.
From the mansion to lush gardens and grounds, intriguing museum galleries, immersive programs, and the distillery and gristmill. Spend the day with us!
Discover what made Washington "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen".
The Mount Vernon Ladies Association has been maintaining the Mount Vernon Estate since they acquired it from the Washington family in 1858.
Need primary and secondary sources, videos, or interactives? Explore our Education Pages!
The Washington Library is open to all researchers and scholars, by appointment only.
Mount Vernon’s team of professional archaeologists help tell the story of enslavement and plantation life at George Washington’s home.
Below the Archaeology Team has answered some frequently asked questions.
Our team of archaeologists conducts a variety of excavations across the Mount Vernon estate throughout the year.
These may be long-term research projects such as the African American Cemetery project or they may be excavations in advance of construction and infrastructure upgrades to preserve Mount Vernon for generations to come.
South Grove excavation site
Preservation and Restoration efforts at Mount Vernon in the 1930s and 1950s included limited archaeological excavation of parts of Mount Vernon’s historic core. In the 1980s an estate-wide archaeological survey was completed that prompted the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association to create an in-house archaeology department in 1987.
Despite generational campaigns of strategic archaeological projects, we have still only excavated a small percentage of Mount Vernon’s home farm and we continue to make new discoveries in previously excavated areas.
Part of Mount Vernon's Archaeology Team in the Mansion Cellar
Mount Vernon maintains a full-time staff of professional archaeologists, each with advanced degrees (M.A. & Ph.D.) and decades of collective experience excavating sites across the globe. We also work with students, volunteers, and interns in our archaeological laboratory and on certain archaeological field projects.
The archaeologist’s toolkit ranges from high-tech devices such as ground penetrating radar, satellite photography, GPS, and laser equipped surveying and measuring equipment to the tried and true hallmarks of our craft – shovels, wheelbarrows, sifting screens, and our most useful excavation tool of all: a common masonry trowel.
Distinct layers are visible from where Bushrod Washington’s dairy once stood in the South Grove.
Archaeologists read soil layers the way historians read pages of a book. We’re trained to read subtle differences in soil textures and colors to interpret past human activities. Picture a layer cake with different levels of cake and icing. Like the layers of a birthday cake, each soil level represents a different human activity or time period. As we dig deeper, we go further back in time.
Eventually, we reach a dense layer of clay called subsoil with no artifacts or evidence of human activity. We stop our excavations when we encounter subsoil. That might be anywhere from a few inches to dozens of feet below the surface (down a well shaft for example) depending on what we are excavating.
Learn More
