“I am most gratified that so many people wish to give me well wishes and greetings upon the anniversary of my natal day,” George Washington said Monday.

He looked pretty spry for nearing 294 years old, answering questions from visitors, and posing for portraits with them as well.

The humble first president hoped he didn’t overshadow the legacy of his time: “I would say that I would prefer not to be remembered as the man, but I would prefer that my generation and the ideals that we stood for be remembered, because of the things that we have set into motion.”

“It is the Super Bowl here at Mount Vernon, absolutely. This is our big day! And it’s all hands-on deck,” Doug Bradburn, the president and CEO of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, told ������Ƶapp.

Visitors got a look at the newly renovated presidential home, weaponry from revolutionary times and even more modern artillery brought by the U.S. Army.

Of course, they also saw demonstrations from reenactors and music from the U.S. Army’s Old Guard.

“They’ve got great tradition here, and with the infantry display, as well as the Old Guard Fife and Drum. And that’s kind of what was of most interest to me,” said Ken Simmons from Stafford, Virginia.

Karen Bass stopped by Mount Vernon on her way home from touring Revolutionary War battlefields in the Carolinas. She paid her respects at Washington’s tomb recognizing him as the best president in U.S. history.

“My son-in-law was like ‘George Washington because he was the first,’ and I have to agree with that. After watching the Ken Burns series … we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for George,” she said.

Bradburn said the first president would want the country to understand his “sense of humility” and care for others.

“He tried to take multiple perspectives in view. I think our country right now, we’re so eager and fed this rapid-fire, high-tech world. Opinions are coming at us 100 miles an hour. I think he would want people to take a step back and listen to people they disagree with,” Bradburn said.

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Following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, militias had pinned down the British in Boston in April 1775. The Continental Congress, recognizing the need for a more organized military effort, selected Washington to lead the newly formed army.

The Siege of Boston and its significance

On this day , Washington would have been nearing the end of an almost yearlong siege that bottled up as many as 11,000 British troops and hundreds more loyalists. The British were occupying Boston at the time, and the goal of the siege was to force them out.

A critical decision made by Washington was sending Henry Knox, a young bookseller, to Fort Ticonderoga in New York to retrieve dozens of cannons. The cannons, transported hundreds of miles in the dead of winter, were eventually used to fire on British positions. That contributed to the decision by the British, facing dwindling supplies, to abandon the city by boat on March 17, 1776.

Historians argue that the British abandoning their positions, celebrated in Boston as Evacuation Day, rid the city of loyalists at a critical time, denied the British access to an important port and gave patriots a huge morale boost.

“The success of the Siege of Boston gave new life and momentum to the Revolution,” Chris Beagan, the site manager at Longfellow House in Cambridge, a National Historic Site that served as Washington’s headquarters during the American Revolution. “Had it failed, royal control of New England would have continued, and the Continental Army likely would have dissolved.”

How the siege shaped Washington

The siege was also a critical test for Washington. A surveyor and farmer, Washington had been out of the military for nearly 20 years after commanding troops for the British during the French and Indian War. His successful campaign ensured Washington remained the commander-in-chief for the remainder of the revolution.

Doug Bradburn, president of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, said Washington took the first steps to creating a geographically diverse army that included militiamen from Massachusetts to Virginia and, by the end of the war, a fighting force with significant Black and Native American representation. It was the most integrated military until President Harry S. Truman’s desegregated the armed forces in 1948, he said.

Washington, a slave owner who depended on hundreds of slaves on his Mount Vernon estate, was initially opposed to admitting formerly enslaved and free Black soldiers into the army. But short of men, Washington came to realize “there are free Blacks who want to enlist and he needs them to keep the British from breaking out” during the siege, Bradburn said.

Ridding Boston of the British also turned Washington into one of the country’s most popular political figures.

“He comes to embody the cause in a time before you have a nation, before you have a Declaration of Independence, before you’re really sure what is the goal of this struggle,” Bradburn said. “He becomes the face of the revolutionary movement.”

Commanding the military for more than eight years also prepared Washington for the presidency, Pulitzer Prize-winning military historian said. “Perhaps most important, it gave him a sense that Americans could and should be a single people, rather than denizens of thirteen different entities.”

Myths of Washington

His rise to prominence also led to plenty of myths about Washington, many which persist to this day.

One of the most popular is the cherry tree myth. It was invented by one of Washington’s first biographers, according to George Washington’s Mount Vernon, who created the story after his death. Supposedly, a 6-year-old Washington took an ax to a cherry tree and admitted as much when caught by his father, famously saying “I cannot tell a lie … I did cut it with my hatchet.”

The second one is the wooden teeth myth. It was rumored that Washington had wooden dentures and scholars, well into the 20th century, were quoted as saying his false teeth were made from wood. Not true. He never wore wooden dentures, instead using those with ivory, gold and even human teeth.

More than a statesman

During his lifetime, Washington had myriad pursuits. He was known as an innovative farmer, according to the George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and an advocate for Western expansion, buying up to 50,000 acres of land in several Mid-Atlantic states. After returning to Mount Vernon, he built a whiskey distillery that became one of the largest in the country.

His connection to was complicated. He advocated for ending slavery, and his will called for freeing all the slaves he owned after the death of his wife, Martha Washington. But he didn’t own all the slaves at Mount Vernon so he couldn’t legally free all of them.

Celebrating Presidents Day

For fans of George Washington, Presidents Day is their Super Bowl. Originated to celebrate Washington’s birthday, which falls on Feb. 22, the holiday has become associated with good deals at the mall. Still, there are plenty of places celebrating all things Washington on this day.

There will be a wreath-laying ceremony at Washington’s tomb at Mount Vernon, and there will be a Continental Army encampment. There will be a parade honoring Washington in Alexandria, Virginia, and, in Laredo, Texas, a monthlong celebration features a carnival, pageants, an air show and jalapeno festival.

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“If you go in the house right now, it looks more like the house that George Washington knew the time they lived there than ever before in its history,” said Doug Bradburn, the president and CEO of George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

For the past few years, visitors have only seen sections of the first president’s home while deep foundational issues were repaired and restored.

“The house was originally built in the 1730s, made out of wood and added to kind of piecemeal over time,” Bradburn told ������Ƶapp. “It’s a complicated house. It certainly never intended to last for almost 300 years.”

Washington’s home had fallen into disrepair until the site was taken over by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in 1860.

They decided to make the home look like a snapshot of 1799, the last year the first president was alive.

“This was a place that was designed by George Washington. It was his intention to have it look a certain way,” Bradburn said. “And so by 1799, we see that as the fullest expression of his hopes and dreams for Mount Vernon that he was able to achieve within his lifetime.”

That includes 19th and 20th century brick pillars in the cellar that had been holding up the house as it sagged over the years. Those are being removed as they continue to refurbish the cellar, which will be opened to visitors for the first time in the coming year.

This mansion revitalization project is the largest that Mount Vernon has ever undertaken. The project closed much of the house over the past two years, holistically repairing the drainage, framing and the foundation as well as adding a new HVAC system that will help with moisture issues.

“The most difficult challenge and the one that took up much of the seven-year planning process was how we were going to hold the house in place,” said Thomas Reinhart, the director of preservation at Mount Vernon.

The bottommost part of the wall frame had to be replaced without moving the house.

What they used were steel beams that weighed equal to the presidential mansion that allowed them to cantilever the house.

“They were literally balancing those steel beams on a center point to keep the house exactly level and exactly in space,” Reinhart said about the engineering marvel.

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Not only are they tasked with renewing this house, they are also undertaking the renovation using period accurate methods and materials.

“It may look like we’re actually taking steps backwards by using linseed oil paint and using materials and techniques that were that were used to actually build the house in the 18th century,” Reinhart said. “But we’re finding through an assessment of the process of preservation over the last 170 years, that those were the most effective ways to deal with this house and to make it the most healthy and to give it the best chance of surviving indefinitely.”

Restoration specialists also took the time to make certain rooms in the home more historically accurate.

“The bedchamber is really the pièce de résistance,” Bradburn said about the Washingtons’ bedroom.

What once was white walls is now richly decorative wallpaper. The new baby blue wallpaper with flower and bird themes was found in another house in New Jersey. The original owner of that home had purchased wallpaper from the same dealer as the Washingtons.

“There’s a good chance that this was very like the paper that would have been in here,” Reinhart said.

The original bed and French writing desk of Martha Washington is in the room as well.

While a majority of this monumental project wrapped in December, work on Mount Vernon truly never ends for Reinhart and other preservationists. Already talk of repainting and refurbishing the “New Room” is underway.

“To work in preservation at Mount Vernon is an honor,” Reinhart said. “I’m not going to pull any punch — It’s the most important house in America, and it’s the home of arguably the most important person in the history of this country. So, to be asked to care for it is a great honor.”

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Starting Nov. 11, the Virginia 250 Passport can be picked up at any of the 70 sites across Virginia taking part in the program for free.

Julie Almacy, the vice president of media and communications at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, explained to ������Ƶapp that the 64-page pamphlet spotlights sites like “the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Colonial Williamsburg, Monticello,” and more.

The passports are free, and once participants get the first stamp in their passport, they can begin to collect enough to earn them up to a 15% discount at sites that charge for admission. Once five stamps are collected, participants will be eligible to enter a drawing for prizes, including yearlong museum memberships. There’s even a chance to win cash prizes of up to $2,500.

Sites from Northern Virginia to the Shenandoah Valley, Tidewater and Southwestern Virginia are included in the program.

Almacy said making the passports analog-only was intentional.

“Just like a passport from an international visit — you can have a passport for Virginia and be able to show all the different destinations that you visited,” she said.

It’s not just a guidebook, Almacy said, but a keepsake of the nation’s semiquincentennial.

The Virginia 250 Passport program runs from Nov. 11 through Dec. 31, 2026.

For more information on the passport’s participating locations, visit the

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“We consider the work that we’re doing now as kind of getting ready, and ultimately it’ll be a birthday present to America,” Julie Almacy, vice president, media and communications at Mount Vernon told ������Ƶapp.

The $40 million renovation project began in early 2024 with the closure of the mansion’s Now, it is one of the only rooms open to visitors as crews add massive upgrades to the mansion, including a new HVAC system and large steel beams to bolster the home’s framing.

“We’re fixing the fixes of the last 150 years, and some of the things that were put in during the early 20th century have unintentionally created more problems within the mansion,” said Almacy.

The entire restoration project is expected to wrap up in early 2026, before the nation’s semiquincentennial. That’s when Mount Vernon will open the mansion’s cellar to the public for the first time.

“We will ultimately have that cellar space looking like it did during George Washington’s time,” Almacy said. “There is a kitchen down there. We have since learned there’s documentation of an enslaved family living in the mansion, and they lived down in that kitchen space.”

An exhibit at t is also getting a major facelift for the 250th.

“It was created in 2006. We have demolished it, and we are in the middle of creating a brand new George Washington exhibition,” Almacy added.

The exhibition, scheduled to open next spring, will be called “George Washington: A Revolutionary Life” and promises to tell Washington’s stories in new ways.

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Hundreds gathered at the Virginia home of the first U.S. president for a special naturalization ceremony, with one of the most famous action stars welcoming the new citizens with open arms.

One hundred people from 95 countries became U.S. citizens Friday at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Movie star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the keynote speaker, bringing cheers from the crowd after he was introduced.

Before the ceremony, Schwarzenegger placed a wreath, with a ribbon that read “America’s First Action Hero. Love, Arnold” inside George Washington’s tomb. He called the moment “an honor.”

“We’re here to recognize what you have overcome, what you have achieved,” Schwarzenegger said. “To recognize the responsibilities that is still in front of you.”

Schwarzenegger became a U.S. citizen in 1983. “The Terminator” actor said he spent the day with an American flag wrapped around his shoulders.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Schwarzenegger said. “I kept saying to myself, ‘Arnold, you have a new home.’”

After reciting the , the new Americans read aloud the Pledge of Allegiance, letting out a big cheer and waving American flags in celebration.

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The new Americans

Randa Alakkad made the U.S. her home after moving from Syria to study cybersecurity in 2013.

Once war broke out in the Middle Eastern country, she applied for asylum. Now, she works as a cybersecurity analyst “fighting bad guys, bad hackers” ever since.

Alakkad wore a special Uncle Sam style hat with a U.S. flag popping out that her sister made for her to celebrate the big day.

“This is where I belong, and this country has become my country now,” Alakkad said. “That’s how I’ve been feeling, even before the citizenship.”

Verna Guadeloupe, of Arlington, came to the U.S. from Jamaica nine years ago.

“It’s wonderful,” Guadeloupe said. “And for it to happen on this day, it’s historic for me.”

During Friday’s ceremony, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service officials called for the new citizens to register to vote.

Jean Frantz, of Haiti, said the main reason he became a citizen was to vote and to “participate in the democracy here.”

Kamilla Giliazova has lived in the U.S. for 15 years after leaving Russia. She said patriotism for her is “supporting the morals and ethics of the United States and living by the law of the United States.”

Schwarzenegger addressed his view of patriotism during his speech, calling on the new citizens to continue showing their hard work ethic, while making a difference in their communities going forward.

He said that they didn’t need to “run for governor as I did,” but they can help buy groceries for a homebound neighbor or help at a bake sale.

“Action is what got you here,” Schwarzenegger said. “You wanted something more, so you went after it. You worked hard, you struggled and you persevered.”

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Sunday marks 250 years since George Washington left Mount Vernon to travel to Philadelphia where he was appointed commander-in-chief of the new Continental Army.

It marks the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.��

“It’s really a very special, interesting weekend,” Julie Almacy, vice president, media and communications at Mount Vernon told ������Ƶapp. “They can meet the women and children who traveled with the Continental Army and learn about their daily lives. We have colonial artisans and crafts people, where they can have demonstrations and people can actually shop for artisan wares.”

During the Revolutionary War, Washington only briefly returned to Mount Vernon in 1781, just before the Yorktown campaign and ultimate victory for American independence.

“He was never back in his beloved estate for almost the entirety of the Revolutionary War. So it’s a big deal for him to leave,” Almacy said.

At 1:30 p.m. Sunday, the reenactment of Washington’s departure also will include a ribbon cutting of the newly-installed ��Revolutionary War encampment.

“There are actual replica battles,” Almacy said. “There will be cannon fire and there will be George Washington’s replica tent from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. They come down and they interpret what George Washington’s tent was like, and people can actually go experience that themselves as well,” she said.

The event will also feature remarks from a George Washington reenactor, Fairfax County Supervisor Dan Storck and Mount Vernon CEO Doug Bradburn.

On Sunday, a George Washington reenactor will march down the Patriots Path and out of Mount Vernon’s front gates, marking the start of his journey to Philadelphia.

He will be accompanied by 18th-century musicians and several historic reenactors dressed in period costumes.

The reenactment is part of the , during which��Mount��Vernon’s serene 12-acre field transforms into a battleground. Continentals, Redcoats, and Hessians conduct military drills and 18th-century tactics.

Almacy said the ribbon cutting of the is a “one-of-a-kind” outdoor Revolutionary War encampment to immerse in the daily life of soldiers, military officers and camp followers.

Visitors to Mount Vernon can step back in time to experience the hardship and resilience of the Continental Army.

“Year-round, visitors are going to be able to walk through an 18th century Continental Army encampment that we’re going to have here at Mount Vernon, and it’s featuring soldiers tents and an officer’s tent,” Almacy said. “It’s going to be a hands-on attraction, where they can touch the items inside the tents.”

The Patriots Path includes opportunities to explore 18th-century tents, wash clothes in the laundry yard, examine cooking utensils and engage with historical interpreters.

“It is something that people here in the DMV can experience for themselves what it would have been like to be in an encampment in the 18th century,” she said.

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