Dear President George Washington,
We stopped by your mansion on Saturday. And we all agree, it is pretty lovely! The gardens, fruit trees and the expansive land on all sides--a lot of room for my boy Gabriel to run around and we know our dog, Abe would have loved it. In particular, we were fond of the riverfront view. Pretty extraordinary.
Your place isn't so close to our house, so we read up about you along the way and learned quite a lot. Some interesting facts, although I'm sure you know, but we didn't:
1) You never had any children, but an heir, your nephew, Bushrod and you didn't get along with his mother.
2) You didn't have great teeth. I guess the dentist didn't tell you as a kid that it wasn't a good idea to break brazil nuts with your teeth. But, that's cool. You just had new ones made out of hippopotamus and elephant ivory. Maybe that's why you didn't smile much. Either that or you took a page from Mona Lisa's book.
3) Apparently, after you retired there wasn't a lot of extra cash flow for you, because of attacks on your land and people refusing to pay rent. But, your place was worth quite a bit--one million at the time (the equivalent of 18 million in today's currency, roughly) and you were known as one of the wealthiest people in America.
4) Even though you had many slaves and servants, you were against slavery from the beginning and knew it would be a major dividing issue for the country in the future.
And of course, there are many admirable qualities of which you are well-known for. History speaks well of you. And your place looks lovely in your absence.
Warmly,
Stephanie and Family
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