Evening Star Newspaper, March 13, 1932, Page 82

Sp——— 12 == —— THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 13, 1932 Gunston Hall Becomes Virginia State Shrine History of Famed Mansion Is Traced as the Last Owner Dedicates It to Old Dominion in Mem- ory of His Wife, Eleanor Hertle. BY HELEN ESSARY. UNSTON HALL, one of the most cha.ming and historic mansions in America, has just been presented to the State of Virginia by its owner, Mr. Louis Hertle. About 20 years ago Mr. Hertle bought the lovely decaying mansion that had been built about 1760 by Geo:ge Mason, the great Virginia patriot and statesman and author of the famous Bil: of Rights, the forerunner of the Declaration of Independence. With the sympathetic assistance of his wife, Mr. Hertle set slowly and prayerfully about the task of restoring the house. Today it is much as it was. when it was newly built. Now, pleasantly mellowed by age and hallowed by tradition, its present and future place in the restless world is assured by its dedication to Virginia. The State will accept the estate as it is presented by Mr. Hertle “in memory of my wife, Eleanor Doughaday Hertle.” Gunston Hall, during the wise and generous ownership of Mr. and Mrs. Hertle, has been visited by hundreds of eager people. The old place has always had a particular appeal not only to historians and antiquarians but to Plain folks like you and me who ask as the first requircment that any house be a home. Gunston Hall is undoubtedly a home. It is not only a home of historic association and of architectural beauty, it is also friendly and comfortable. Just the sort of a place to which the next-door neighbor, George Wash- ington, felt free to come for a bit of cheerful gossip, for a word of honest advice on the conduct of the new and agonizing Republic. Or merely for a slip of boxwood or a grafting of a choice pear tree or a share in a bowl of rum punch. Its doors are so welcoming it is not surpris- ing the excitable Patrick Henry often hurried within for soothing talks with the master, George Mason, on the frightening subject of American independence. Nor is it unexpected to discover that immediately after the battle of Yorktown the house received Gen. Lafayette, triumphant with news of the victories of the Continental forces. HAT sort of a man was this George Mason who lived at Gunston Hall—this phil- osopher who for more than 40 years refused public office; this wise man to whom the leaders of the countryeduring the perilous rev- olutionary days came so confidently for counsel and encouragement? Perhaps the question is best answered by quoting a paragraph in a faded old letter in the possession of one of his descendants. The letter was written by a Christmas. guest at Mout Vernon, where George Mason had called to wish the Washington family a happy foliday. “George Mason,” the chronicler re- ported, “is said to be one of the wisest men and the greatest statesman in Virginia. We were delighted to look into his face and hear him speak and to take his hand, which he offered in a courtly though modest manner. He is slight in figure but not tall and has a grand head and clear gray eyes.” This naive description of George Mason sug- gests the personality of his home. Gunston Hall was not built by a man who wished to astonish his friends with his magnificence. Nor is it the dwelling place of a man big physically. Nor of a man who advertised his good qualities and his wealth. It is a dignified home, rather small, construct- ed of fine material exquisitely manipulated, and showving a careful restraint and simplicity of treatment. Not chillingly impressive, but warm and hospitable. The home of a man of sym- pathy and judgment. Each room is vivid with memories of Colonial and Revolutionary days and particularly alive with recollections of George Washington. In the kitchen the small housewife, little Mary Mason, baked some cakes for her father's friend, George Washington, to be enjoyed in the celebration that followed Washington's election to the Virginia House of Delegates. ‘Col. Washington, who was always a punc- tilious man, and carefully turned in to his government every small expense made while in its service, mentions in his diary that he “charged the State of Virginia 15 shillings and 7%, pence for cakes baked by Miss Mary Ma- ”n" on this occasion. In the drawing room of Gunston Hall the children of the neighboring planters used to assemble for dancing school. George Wash- ington mentions that in April, 1770, he took “Patscy Custis and Milly Posey to Col. Mason's to dancing school.” (Col. Washington, though & painstaking diarist, was ofteri an imaginative speller.) This same “Patscy” Custis wss the daughter of John Parke Custis. Her mother was Eleanor Calvert and her grandfath:r was Benedict Calvert, son of the third Lord Bal- Yimore. In the gardens of Gunston Hall were many fime fruit trees and the finest boxwood in the Gunston Hall, the home of George entire Colonies. Often in his diary Washington tells of having received from the orchard of Col. Mason graftings of pear and cherry trees. As early in their friendship as 1760 Mr. Wash- ington refers to “12 black graftings of pears from Col. Mason's orchard. These are a large, Course Fruit for Baking.” (Mr. Washington was also a good housekeeper.) Gunston Hall considered less from these per- sonal associations and more from an architec=~ tural viewpoint is an interesting example of the Southern Colonial manner. In the method of execution and in the use of ornamental de- tails it is strongly suggestive of the more classic Georgian. One first glimpses its pillars and welcoming portico through the vista of a drive- way bordered by clipped boxwood. Of red brick, supported at the sides by stone quoins, the house is a low-lying, agreeable structure. Four chimneys rise from its gambrel roof. The gray stone steps are pleasantly worn by the feet of generations. The instant the front door is opened one sees through the wide rear door a box-lined path and catches a quick, spicy scent. Although the historic rooms are here to be admired, the gar- den and its illusive fragrance are very tempting. First, however, one must stop and appreciate the mahogany-railed stairway that ascends from the back of the hall, just behind graceful double arches that meet in a center ornamen- tation of a pineapple pendant. HE most interesting room, historically, is the study. Though serene in mind, Col. Mason was troubled in body by gout—the curse of in- dulgent Colonials. He spent many hours in his study. Here he received visits from soldiers and statesmen eager to learn the ideas of “the wisest man in Virginia.” Here were expressed opinions later the nucleus of events of tre- mendous importance in the struggling new Nation. It was undoubtedly in this very room that the famous Bill of Rights was formulated, if not written. Therefore, it is particularly ap- propriate that Mr. Hertle, the last owner of Gunston Hall, should have placed over the mantel an enlarged photographic copy of the document. Architecturally, the study is distinguished by two deep, high book shelves, with arched heads and fan-shaped transoms, more like cupboards with doors than book shelves. These are typi- cal of the generation's taste for ornamental de- tails in domestic architecture, The drawing room is the most interesting room in appearance in the mansion. Its walls are of plain pine boards cut from trees on the estate. When Mr. Hertle began the work of res- toration he removed seven layers of paper covering the pine. The walls in their original state were doubtless draped with silk. Now the wood, beautifully grained and darkened by age, makes a rich background for the white woodwork of doors and windows. The doors, framed in Corinthian columns, form an unusual treatment in a Colonial house. In the draw- ing room are two open semi-circular cupboards or niches with delicate, carved ornamentation of broken pilasters. These are the earliest examples in the country of open niches. The carving of the adjoining drawing room is an exquisite example of Chinese Chippen- dale. Here, too, the windows are not only deep set, but tall. Deep-set windows were common in Colonial houses, but tall ones were not. The dining room is lovely with the fine proportions and the graceful wood carving characteristic of the rest of the mansion. From the portico at the rear one has a broad view of the garden. One of the finest in Mason, recently presented to the State of Virginia by Louis Hertle, its owner. America, its great pride is its splendid box- wood, 40 years older than the boxwood at Mount Vernon. The narrow path to the river terrace is doubly lined by box. So massive are the bushes that a man walking between looks dwarfed by contrast. At the endgof the box walk is an unexpected and welcome Summer house and a vine-covered pergola built by Mr. Hertle. Here one stands enchanted with the sweep of the country be- yond the hills, with the sight of the Potomac River, down which Washington used to come in his eight-oared barge. . Close at one’s feet are sand-walked gardens of old-fashioned flowers and the grassy slope that ends at the river. Off on the right and left are the woods where Washington and Ma- son and other distinguished Colonials used to hunt. It is recorded that George Mason loaned Gen. Washington his hounds for one Oc- tober morning, but that not a trace of fox was seen. I suspect that Col. Mason or one of his minions was accustomed to better luck at the chase than Washington had. For there is this suggestive diary record—a note written by Col. Mason to the then President Washington on November 9, 1785: “The bearer waits on you with a side of venison (the first we have killed this season) which I beg'your accept- ance of.” Hunters of today could find fox and quail in plenty if they were permitted to hunt on the estate. Mr. Hertle did not farm his acres, but encouraged the woods and fields to return to their primitive state. The grave of George Mason is on the place. In 1869 the Sons of the Revolution put up a shaft to his memory. In 1912, 60 years after Gunston Hall passed from the descendants of George Mason, the his- toric house was in a condition of tragic neg- lect. A family of Negroes was living in the room where the Bill of Righis was planned. A second Negro family occupied the drawing room where “Patscy” Custis and her pretty friends had curtsied in the minuet. In the next drawing room, beautiful with Chinese Chippendale carvings, still other Negro family was camping. In the dining room, where many famous men had eaten and drunk, both with enthusiasm, was another brood of pickaninnies. Upstairs, in the bedrooms where Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Lafayette and Jefferson had slept, two woodcutters lived. When Mr. Hertle was considering the pur- chase of the place, a dairyman was also bar- gaining for its purchase. The dairyman’s plan was to clear out the useless boxwood, dig up the rose gardens, from whose bushes Washington had once grafted ‘“shoots of Persi and Jessa- mine and Guilder roses,” and put in instead some useful stables and cowsheds. Fortunately for the cause of history and beauty Mr. Hertle secured the old place. Soon after the puchase 20 men were set to work to bring the mansion back to its original ap- pearance and to revive the gracious personal- ity hurt by Civil War pillaging and later dep- redations. The 20 men worked for an entire year before they could capture the early spirit of the house. Each brick was scraped painstakingly by hand. The fine interior woodwork, carefully cleaned, slowly revealed delicate carving. From the gambrel roof a four-story tower was re- moved. Another tower, equally high, was taken away from the garden overlooking the Potomac Now Gunston Hall stands much as it did when it was built. AF’I‘ER leaving Gunston Hall on the return journey to Washington one must pass old, vine-covered Pohick Church, on the main highway between Washington and Richmond. George Mason and George Washington were vestrymen of the church for 20 years. Wash- ington had been elected by 51 votes, Mason by 282 votes. The balloting was an expression of regard for George Mason. Before the church was built, there was much discussion as to its ultimate location. Mason and Washington preferred cne site. Other parishioners preferred another site. When the time for the final decision ar- rived, Washington proved that he himself had surveyed every foot of distance between the houses of the church members and the two proposed sites and found that the site he and his friend Col. Mason preferred was closer to the houses of more members than the other site. Naturally, with such a conclusion, the Wash- ington-Mason faction won the controversy. ‘The funeral services of George Mason's first wife, the Jovely Ann Eilbeck, were held at Po- hick. On her death Mason had these lines inscribed on her tomb: Once she was all that sweetens life, The tender mother, daughter, friend and wife; Once she was all that adore; Now view this marble and be vain no more. makes mankind ‘When George Mason died, in October, 1792, he asked to be buried by the side of his first wife, whose death had been a great sorrow. The George Mason who erected Gunston Hall was the fourth of his name. His earliest American ancestor was a George Mason who, in the cavalier days of England, had emigrated from Staffordshire. In 1655 he had settled in what was then Westmoreland County, now Fairfax County, Va. For having brought with him to the Virginia Colony 18 people he was entitled to what was known as “head rights” and was rewarded with a grant of 900 acres of land. With his assist- ance a new county was soon carved out of Westmoreland. This he named Stafford after his native shire. A few years later he was made county lieutenant or commander of plantation, an office similar to one in England held only by knights. The origiral tract was increased by later purchase. When George Mason the fourth came into his inheritance he found himself master of a tract of Dogue Neck, on the Potomac River, a tract near Mount Vernon, where George Washington lived. In 1750 he married Anne Eilbeck, daughter of Col. Wililam Eilbeck of Charles County Md. Anne Eilbeck is often refered to as the “lowland beauty” of George Washington's romance. Shortly after the marriage the erection of Gunston Hall was begun. Perhaps no man in the young Nation exerted as much influence as did George Mason. He was “the pocwer behind the throne” of the excited Revolutionary days. He was a modest man, honestly unassuming, but possessed of an amag- ing courage and a clear vision. His name does not appear in the American history books as often as the names of less able and mcre showy patriots. Historians do gratefully credit him, however, with the author- ship of two of the greatest documents of American history, the Virginia Bill of Rights and the Virginia Constitution. The Virginia Bill of Rights was the inspiration of many of the sentiments cf the Declaration of Indepen- dence. The Virginia Constitution was the first con- stitution written on either side of the Atlantie Ocean to set up a complete system of govern- ment.