I took this picture in November 2010, while visiting
Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate in Alexandria, VA.
Ignore the apocryphal tale about Washington tossing
a silver dollar across this waterway (more likely, it was the narrower Rappahannock
River). It is an undeniable truth that in every other way that counted, the Potomac River remained central to his life.
He located his business—his plantation—here.
Believing the Potomac to be “the Nation’s River,” he helped formation a company that sought to link it to the Ohio River, binding the
different sections of the young republic in a web of commerce.
And I have to believe, looking out from the back of
his home, that Washington appreciated the sheer beauty of this landscape, and
sought, every time he had the chance to grab greater power, to forsake it all
for the chance to return here.
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