Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory - Virginia
Virginia
Smokehouse, Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, Virginia (38.707879, -77.086747)
Primary Smokehouse Felling Dates: Winter 1761/2, Winter 1760/1, Winter 1759/60, Winter 1755/6
Interior Sheathing Felling Dates: Winter 1795/6
Site Master 1663-1795 (white oak) SMVAx1 (t = 10.63 MTVx4; 9.15 RBLVAx1; 9.14 MDZ7).
The smokehouse at Mount Vernon is a small, single-story framed structure located on the south lane of outbuildings next to the Mansion House. It is protected by clapboard siding on the outside and clad with timber sheathing on the inside and contains an interior hanging system for the smoked meats. After meat was smoked, it was often stored in the smokehouse to prevent theft until it was needed.
Dendrochronological analysis has shown that the original framing of the building was constructed from timbers felled over a period of time stretching from the winter of 1755/6 through to the winter of 1761/2. One of the interior sheathing timbers provided a felling date of the winter of 1795/6, suggesting that this sheathing was a later addition or modification to the original structure. Interestingly, this date ties in with known documentation of the building. In May 1795, while George Washington was living in Philadelphia, his farm manager William Pearce wrote to inform him that “some person (R)ip[p]ed a plank of the Back part of the smoke House and Took out several pieces of Bacon I have not been able to find out yet who It is” (“To Washington from Pearce” 31 May1795). Washington quickly replied, “I wish you could find out the thief who robbed the meat house at Mount Vernon, & bring him to punishment. And at the sametime secure the house against future attempts; for our drafts upon it will be pretty large, I expect, when we come home” (“From Washington to Pearce” 7 June 1795). On December 20 of that year, Pearce informed Washington that the year’s hogs had been killed and that sixty hogs had been “salted a way for your own use,” presumably in the smokehouse (“From Pearce to Washington” 20 December 1795). The dendrochronological dates therefore suggest that the smokehouse was built in the early 1760s and the interior sheathing was added the winter after this theft occurred in 1795 to enhance the security of the building, perhaps timed to coincide with the period when the house was at its emptiest just before the yearly batch of new meat arrived in the smokehouse.
Both the original framing and the interior sheathing were found to match other timbers used throughout the buildings in Mount Vernon with very high t-values, suggesting that all of this wood came from the same source, probably located somewhere nearby on the estate itself.
Worthington and Seiter 2023 "The Tree-Ring Dating of the Smokehouse, Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, Fairfax County, Virginia." Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory 2023/13.
Picture Credit: The smokehouse at Mount Vernon in 1942 (Library of Congress: Survey Number HABS VA-505-D)
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Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory
ProprietorsMichael Worthington
Jane Seiter, Ph.D
25 E. Montgomery St.
Baltimore, MD 21230
410-929-1520