238 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



The place is still occupied by one of the old family, Mr. 

 John A. Washington/ but is a most undesirable resi- 

 dence, because everybody, like myself, that comes within 

 reach of the home and tomb of the great and good 

 George Washington, feels it almost a sacred duty to make 

 a pilgrimage to visit the sacred spot. The consequence 

 is, that the house is constantly overrun with visiters; I 

 have no doubt but that the family are literally "eaten out 

 of house and home." 



There has been some talk in former years of Congress 

 buying the place. I think it should be done — otherwise 

 it must inevitably go to ruin. I think it is a duty of the 

 grateful and great American family, who love everything 

 connected with the name and memory of their country's 

 father, that Congress should buy his old home and tomb, 

 and put it in a good state of repair, and keep it as near 

 exactly as he left it as possible, for coming ages to look 

 at and love, without feeling as all do now who visit it, 

 grieved at the thought that unless the decaying hand of 

 time is immediately arrested, we shall soon have to 

 mourn over what was once the home of Washington. 



It might be made the home of some old war-worn 

 worthies, who should live there as pensioners of the gov- 

 ernment, and preserve the place in order, and show it to 

 visiters, and from whom a display of hospitality would 

 not be expected. 



I am sorry to think our government so poor that they 

 would hesitate to buy it, or so careless of the memory of 

 Washington, as to see his house become the hooting place 



^ John Augustine Washington, soldier, great-great-grandson of 

 General Washington's brother, John Augustine, and on his mother's 

 side the grandson of General Richard Henry Lee, born in Blakely, 

 Jefferson County, Virginia, May 3, 1821 ; died September 13, 1861. 

 Graduated from the University of Virginia, 1840. Served as aide- 

 de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, on the staff of General 

 Robert E. Lee, and was killed with a reconnoitering party near 

 Rich Mountain, Virginia. Unable to keep up the Mount Vernon 

 property, he sold it to the association of ladies which now has pos- 

 session of it. Appletons' Cyclopxdia of American Biography, 6:385 

 (1889). 



