Leisurely Start

Today we had a slow leisurely start to just explore some of Winchester, Va. We visited George Washington's office museum, located in Old Town Winchester on Braddock St. He used this office while overseeing the construction of Fort Loudoun to the north of town. The original dirt floored, log building has been vastly improved over the years and is now owned by the town.

The photo of the original wood floor planks, installed in the early 1800's, shows blood stains left there during Civil War surgeries while the building was used as a temporary hospital. The foot is included for scale.

The interior displays included 1750 era muskets, surveying equipment, a wood bench built from Fort Loudoun's ruins and a lock of George's Hair! He had RED hair!! Two cannons are displayed on the grounds; one used by General Braddock in his ill-fated attempt to attack the French at Fort Duquesne (later to become Fort Pitt, as in Pittsburgh). He never got to Duquesne because the French surprised his troops and he was killed in the battle. The other cannon on the site was actually used at Fort Loudoun by Washington. Washington's first election to public office was to the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg as a representative from Winchester. Along with other qualifications to be elected to office, a man(no women!) had to own land in the district and Washington owned two plots of land in Winchester. He never actually built on either plot. The docent was very informative about Washington but we finally took our leave; "escaped" was more like it, and proceeded to other sites.
From Washington's office, we visited yet another old building that Stonewall Jackson used as his Headquarters while in Winchester and it appears pretty much as it was then, except for the indoor "facilities" and electrical, etc.
On our way to Costco, we drove past Patsy Cline's gravesite. She was born and raised here and worked Gaunts Drugstore(it's still operating today), before becoming a famous country singer. For those of you who don't know Patsy Cline's songs, she was noted for "Crazy" and "I Fall to Pieces" in the 60's. She died in a plane crash in 1963.
The building in the last photo is the recently renovated Handley Library and Jim had to photograph it. It's unlike any other building in the whole town and absolutely beautiful inside and out. It houses some of the most historically significant documents on the Lower Shenandoah Valley that exist, especially for family historians.
Enough on today..Tomorrow we drive to Mount Vernon for a look at Washington's estate before going into D. C. for lunch at Old Ebbitts Grill.

Well, by the time I went to upload to the blog, it was raining hard enough to block our up and down links to the sat so this is actually sent on 06/03.