AFA Summer 2020

Summer 54 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com I n t e r p r e t i n g t h e D o c u m e n t a r y E v i d e n c e Recreating George & Martha Washington’s Front Parlor by Adam T. Erby I n September 2013, an incredible document showed up that completely remade what is known about the interiors of George and Martha Washington’s Mount Vernon, their home in Fairfax County, Virginia (Fig. 1). The document was an account book kept by George William and Sally Fairfax at neighboring Belvoir, a brick mansion on the west bank of the Potomac River, four miles downstream from Mount Vernon. The Fairfax family was one of the wealthiest and most influential in the Virginia Colony, and close personal friends with the Washingtons. The account book listed the items the family purchased from London merchants between 1760 and 1773. The book is a remarkable accounting of elite Virginians’ purchases—it lists coaches and carriages, yards of fine textiles, ceramics, and silver, but the first four pages of dense notations intrigued me the most. They recorded sixty-two crates of case furniture, beds, textiles, and carpeting purchased from the London upholsterer William Gomm & Son & Company—enough to furnish a substantial dwelling (Fig. 2). As it turned out, the Fairfaxes purchased an entire household of furniture for Belvoir, the only known instance of American colonists purchasing the furniture for a whole house from one London upholsterer. But why should this have any connection to George Washington’s Mount Vernon? The Fairfaxes were the style leaders of the colony, and George and Martha looked to them for the latest in British taste. As we studied the document, its importance became ever more apparent. In 1773, ten years after the furniture was bought, the Fairfaxes moved permanently to England. The next year, as ties between Great Britain and her colonies broke down and British goods could no longer be acquired, Washington purchased a large quantity of the Belvoir furniture at auction. The Washingtons used the furniture in nearly all of their main rooms, but very little of it has survived. Although we had George Washington’s hand-written account of auction purchases, these offered little in the way of description. By contrast, the account book offered precise details, such as the size of some of the pieces, the molding profiles used, and fabric colors. The account book has proven to be a Rosetta Stone for rediscovering the furnishings of Mount Vernon. facing page clockwise from upper left Fig. 1: William Fairfax and George William Fairfax Account Book, 1742, 1748, 1760–1772. Account book B kept by George William Fairfax “Containing Tradesmen Shop Notes & c from the Year 1760 to the Year [1772].” Courtesy, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. Photo, Gavin Ashworth. Fig. 2: Invoice for furniture and upholstered goods purchased by George William Fairfax from the London firm William Gomm & Son & Company on March 31, 1763, on pp. 1–2 in George William Fairfax’s account book. Courtesy, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. Photo, Gavin Ashworth. Fig. 3: Mount Vernon’s Front Parlor with reproduction furniture based on documentation in the George William Fairfax Account Book. Courtesy, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. Photo, Gavin Ashworth.