It’s well-established that U.S. presidents have historically been fans of fine food and wine. That includes the nation’s first Commander in Chief, Madeira drinker and whiskey distiller George Washington. (It may have run in the Washington family.)
With a recent archaeological discovery at the president’s Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia, now a museum owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, we have more evidence that Washington was a fan of fruit too. (No, it isn’t the cherry tree he cut down … because that probably never happened.)
The Mount Vernon team announced this month that archaeologists discovered dozens of 18th-century glass bottles in storage pits beneath the estate cellar; 29 of them were still intact, sealed and packed with preserved cherries and berries (probably currants or gooseberries).
Researchers have extracted and refrigerated the presumably 250-year-old fruits, and the bottles, which are of typical shape for the mid-18th century, are being prepared for conservation in the museum’s archaeology lab.
Archaeologists found the bottles during excavations for the three-year, $40 million Mansion Revitalization Project at Mount Vernon, which began in 2023. “Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine this spectacular archaeological discovery,” said Mount Vernon president and CEO Doug Bradburn in a statement. “We were ecstatic [this past April] to uncover two fully intact 18th-century bottles. Now we know those bottles were just the beginning.”
So far, researchers have identified 54 cherry pits, 23 stems and some pulp. The cherries are probably a tart variety, and their natural acidity may have given them more longevity. Their stems were left attached and appear to have been neatly cut, which may indicate the cherries were snipped with shears. Analysts will likely be able to extract DNA from the remains, and they’re looking into germinating the pits.
Who Preserved George Washington’s Fruits?
Per Bradburn, the fragile bottles were probably buried before the American Revolution, and it’s possible Washington forgot about them when the war started. It’s likely that enslaved people on the Mount Vernon estate harvested the fruit and prepared these preserves.
“[These fruits] provide an incredibly rare opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the 18th-century environment, plantation foodways and the origins of American cuisine,” said Mount Vernon principal archaeologist Jason Boroughs, highlighting the efforts of Doll, the Washington family's enslaved cook.
This is a significant gastronomic discovery to make just two years before July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. “To our knowledge, this is an unprecedented find,” Bradburn explained. “We now possess a bounty of artifacts and matter to analyze that may provide a powerful glimpse into the origins of our nation.”
Indeed, Mount Vernon researchers spend significant time and effort digging into Washington’s agricultural endeavors; in 2018, they planted industrial hemp, one of the president’s preferred crops, at the estate. “[We] are crossing our fingers that the cherry pits discovered will be viable for future germination,” Bradburn added.
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