More bottles of cherries found at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home in “spectacular” discovery

June 14, 2024
1 min read
More bottles of cherries found at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home in “spectacular” discovery


Buried in the basement of George Washington’s Mount Vernon home, a treasure waited to be discovered – a huge quantity of preserved cherries. Archaeologists have discovered 35 glass bottles filled with cherries, Mount Vernon officials announced Thursday, just weeks after two bottles They were found in April.

“Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine this spectacular archaeological discovery,” said Mount Vernon President Doug Bradburn.

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Archaeologists discovered 35 glass bottles of cherries in the basement of George Washington’s Mount Vernon home.

George Brown/Mount Vernon Ladies Association


Mount Vernon officials said the cherries, which included gooseberries and gooseberries, were buried in five storage pits in the mansion’s basement. They were hidden for about 250 years before being discovered during ongoing renovation projects in Mount Vernon. Of the 35 bottles, 29 were found intact.

Washington lived on his family’s Virginia estate for most of his life. He took over management of the estate in 1754 and slowly built and expanded the house. The family depended on hundreds of slaves to run Mount Vernon.

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35 bottles of cherries were discovered buried in the basement of George Washington’s Mount Vernon home.

George Brown/Mount Vernon Ladies Association


“The bottles and contents are a testament to the knowledge and skill of the enslaved people who managed food preparations from tree to table, including Dollthe cook brought to Mount Vernon by Martha Washington in 1759 and charged with supervising the estate’s kitchen,” Mount Vernon officials said in the release.

“These artifacts have probably not seen the light of day since before the American Revolution, perhaps forgotten when George Washington departed Mount Vernon to take command of the Continental Army,” Bradburn he said.

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Cherries discovered buried in the basement of George Washington’s Mount Vernon home are analyzed.

George Brown


The quality of the preserved bottles, although fragile, revealed intact fruit, pits and pulp, providing “an incredibly rare opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the 18th-century environment, plantation eating habits and the origins of American cuisine,” he said. Jason Boroughs. , Mount Vernon’s chief archaeologist.

Analysis of a small sample found 54 cherry pits and 23 stems. The stems were carefully cut and left before the cherries were bottled. The researchers said they believe the wells are ripe for DNA extraction and possible germination.



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