Mount Vernon, estate, United States

Mount Vernon, NE Va., overlooking the Potomac River near Alexandria, S of Washington, D.C.; home of George Washington from 1747 until his death in 1799. The land was patented in 1674, and the house was built in 1743 by Lawrence Washington, George Washington's half brother. Mount Vernon was named for Admiral Edward Vernon, Lawrence's commander in the British navy. George Washington inherited it in 1754 and made additions that were not completed until after the Revolution. The mansion is a wooden structure of Georgian design, two and one-half stories high, with a broad, columned portico; wide lawns, fine gardens, and subsidiary buildings surround it. The mansion has been restored, after Washington's detailed notes, with much of the original furniture, family relics, and duplicate pieces of the period. The estate was purchased in 1860 by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association (organized 1856), its permanent custodian. In the tomb (built 1831–37) are the sarcophagi of George and Martha Washington and the bodies of other members of the family.

Bibliography

See E. Thane, Mount Vernon Is Ours (1966) and Mount Vernon: The Legacy (1967).

Mount Vernon, cities, United States

Mount Vernon.

1 City (1990 pop. 16,988), seat of Jefferson co., SE Ill.; settled 1819, inc. 1872. It is a trade, rail, and industrial center in a farm and coal region. Tools, tires, transformers, coal-mining equipment, and neon signs are manufactured, and there is diversified agriculture. Nearby is a state game farm.

2 City (1990 pop. 67,153), Westchester co., SE N.Y., between the Bronx and Hutchinson rivers and adjacent to the Bronx; settled 1664, inc. 1892. Although primarily a residential suburb of New York City, it has manufactures that include pharmaceuticals and electronic components. Mount Vernon is also notable for being a city with an African-American majority in a predominantly white county. John Peter Zenger Zenger, John Peter (zĕng`ər), 1697–1746, American journalist, b. Germany.
..... Click the link for more information. was arrested there for libel in 1733. The city itself was not founded until 1851, when a cooperative group bought the land and built a planned community. St. Paul's Church (c.1761), a national historic site, is there.

3 City (1990 pop. 14,550), seat of Knox co., central Ohio, on the Kokosing River; laid out 1805, inc. as a city 1880. It has livestock and dairy farms and manufactures diesel engines, steel, turbines, and glass.

Mount Vernon

Home and burial place of George Washington. It is located in northern Virginia, U.S., on the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. The estate was inherited by Washington in 1752. Near the 18th-century Georgian mansion is a plain brick tomb, built at Washington's direction, that holds his remains and those of his wife and several family members. After the U.S. government declined to buy it, in 1858 the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union raised $200,000 and purchased the house and 200 acres (80 hectares) of the estate; the association still maintains the site.