History Fix

Ep. 69 Washington: How We Barely Know America's First President

• Shea LaFountaine • Episode 69

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George Washington - most of you know him as America’s first president, Revolutionary War hero, founding father, face of the one dollar bill, chopped down a cherry tree, wooden teeth, real man’s man if you know what I mean. I think that’s all most people know or think they know about him. But the cherry tree thing, that never happened. The wooden teeth? They weren’t made of wood. I don’t think many people actually know George Washington’s story - who he was, what he did, what his life was like, the good, the bad, the truth. Let’s fix that. 

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George Washington - most of you know him as America’s first president, Revolutionary War hero, founding father, face of the one dollar bill, chopped down a cherry tree, wooden teeth, real man’s man if you know what I mean. I think that’s all most people know or think they know about him. But the cherry tree thing, that never happened. The wooden teeth? They weren’t made of wood. I don’t think many people actually know George Washington’s story - who he was, what he did, what his life was like, the good, the bad, the truth. Let’s fix that. 


Hello, I’m Shea LaFountaine and you’re listening to History Fix where I discuss lesser known true stories from history you won’t be able to stop thinking about. This week we’re talking about America’s golden boy, George Washington. I actually wanted to do this episode last week, you know like before the fourth of July so that you could drop some interesting facts at your fourth of July cookouts but I had just done Jefferson Davis and it just felt too soon. Not that George Washington and Jefferson Davis are alike. I mean, they were both rather revolutionary, both Presidents, both middle aged white men, both enslaved people, but you know otherwise different stories entirely. I just got a lot of backlash about Jefferson Davis, especially on Instagram. Probably because I included a photo of Donald Trump at the end of the Reel. People did not like that. They really didn’t get it, I realized. I think a lot of people thought I was trying to make a statement about Donald Trump and like slavery or racism or something. I wasn’t. He just has felony convictions and involvement in insurrection and I was examining the sort of precedent set by Davis not getting in trouble for that kind of thing. I mean, he just seemed the most fitting President to picture there to be honest. But anyway, what I realized was, when I really sat and thought about it, because I did. I’m an incredibly non confrontational person and I reflected on this hard, how I managed to make all these people so upset. And what I realized was that, I wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true. And if I say true things and they make people feel a certain way, these people were defensive. They were having an emotional reaction. But if I say true things and it makes you feel a certain way, that is beyond my control. So I’m going say true things about George Washington today. And some of them you may not like. Some of them may force you to reconsider the way you’ve viewed him in the past. Readjusting your worldview is hard. It often elicits an emotional defensive reaction. But is it me, or is it George Washington? I also pushed this off a week because I was thinking about my international listeners who could care less about Jefferson Davis or George Washington. Sorry guys. It’s an interesting story at least though so hopefully you’ll still get something out of this. And come hang out with me on Instagram @historyfixpodcast. It’s always entertaining over there like an episode of Real World or Bad Girls Club or something, not my intention. 


Oh and I did a fun thing for the Patreon! History Fix Trivia. That’s right, I sat down with my husband Joey and asked him 20 trivia questions, all of which have been covered throughout the various episodes of History Fix. But, he has never listened to a single episode of History Fix and is admittedly not a history fan. So it was rather entertaining. It’s a video. You can watch a sample of it by going to patreon.com/historyfixpodcast and you can watch the whole thing if you join the patreon for just $5 a month. I’ll share a little audio sample with you though but remember it is actually a video. And if you’re just here for George Washington, feel free to skip ahead 4 minutes. But this is actually pretty fun, you can play along. 


[4 minute sample of History Fix Trivia]


The full video can be found on patreon.com/historyfixpodcast. There are 20 questions. Go see if you can beat Joey with your history trivia knowledge. Okay, George Washington. 


George Washington was born in 1732 but not all that much is known about his childhood. He’s such a well known figure today, though, that people have tried to fill in the blanks with myths and legends and so it’s all gotten a bit muddy. So I’ll tell you what we know to be true. We know that Washington’s great grandfather immigrated to the Virginia colony in 1657. Before that his family were quote “gentlemen” back in England meaning they were of some nobility. They were even granted land by none other than Henry VIII. Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, England was the Washington family’s ancestral home built in the 1500s and is maintained as a memorial to this day. But much of the family fortune was lost during the puritan revolution that took place soon after and George’s great grandfather John Washington opted to start over in the New World and so he headed for the newly established Virginia Colony. That guy’s grandson, George’s father, Augustine, was very ambitious. He acquired a lot of land, built mills, even messed around with iron mining. He had four children with his first wife, Jane Butler, and then 6 more children with his second wife, Mary Ball. George was the oldest of that second set of 6 children. So he had 4 older half siblings and 5 younger full siblings. He grew up on a farm by the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, Virginia and he went to school some, irregularly, between the ages of 7 and 15. Always wild to me how little schooling people actually got back in the day. Augustine Washington actually sent his two oldest sons back to England for formal schooling. But the man had ten kids so after that I guess he threw in the towel. According to Encyclopedia Britannica quote “his best training, however, was given him by practical men and outdoor occupations, not by books. He mastered tobacco growing and stock raising, and early in his teens he was sufficiently familiar with surveying to plot the fields about him,” end quote. That article also says quote “Little is known of George Washington’s early childhood… Mason L. Weems’s stories of the hatchet and cherry tree and of young Washington’s repugnance to fighting are apocryphal efforts to fill a manifest gap,” end quote, which like, holy big words. But this is what I was saying about people filling in with myths and legends. This is where the cherry tree thing comes from. Some guy just made it up. Cool. 


Mason Locke Weems was a traveling minister, bookseller, and one of George Washington’s earliest biographers. The year after Washington died, Weems said to a publisher quote “Washington you know is gone! Millions are gaping to read something about him...My plan! I give his history, sufficiently minute…I then go on to show that his unparalleled rise and elevation were due to his Great Virtues,” end quote. So he took it upon himself to give the people what they wanted, Washington’s great virtues. And to do that, he embellished somewhat. According to mountvernon.org quote “The cherry tree myth is one of the oldest and best-known legends about George Washington. In the original story, when Washington was six years old, he received a hatchet as a gift and damaged his father’s cherry tree with it. When his father discovered what George had done, he became angry. Young George bravely said, “I cannot tell a lie…I did cut it with my hatchet.” Washington’s father embraced him and declared that his son’s honesty was worth more than a thousand trees,” end quote. And the moral of the story is, don’t give a six year old a hatchet. But this myth really went viral in the 1830s when a minister and professor named William Holmes McGuffey created a set of readers for students with the intentions of teaching children morals and religion, nevermind separation of church and state. These McGuffey readers were in print for almost 100 years and included the myth of George Washington and the cherry tree. So American school children were taught this completely fabricated story as if it were fact for nearly a century. Mountvernon.org says quote “The cherry tree myth has endured for more than two hundred years. It remains influential in Americans' beliefs about Washington,” end quote. Which, I think, is, you know, kind of a problem considering it isn’t true. 


Washington’s father died when he was 11 years old and he became a ward of his older half brother Lawrence. Lawrence inherited an estate that had been granted to their great grandfather, John Washington and he named it Mount Vernon. Vernon was the name of an admiral he had served under during the siege of Cartagena. So George Washington lived with his older brother Lawrence Washington. When he was 16, he started surveying plots of land and became official surveyor of Culpeper County. All of this involvement in land development also sparked his interest in westward expansion. In 1751, so when Washington was like 19, 20 years old. His brother Lawrence became ill with tuberculosis. So he went to Barbados for his health. He died a year later, and Washington inherited Mount Vernon. He was pleased, writing to a friend quote “No estate in United America is more pleasantly situated than this,” end quote. He began farming and expanding the land to over 8,000 acres and for the next 20 years, this was his main focus, Mount Vernon. 


But let’s talk about the elephant in the room, for a minute. When he inherited Mount Vernon, it came with 18 enslaved people. And Washington purchased, I hate to even say purchased, he enslaved more people over the years. In 1760, so roughly ten years after he inherited Mount Vernon and the 18 enslaved people, there is record of him paying taxes on 49 enslaved people. Many of these came with his marriage to Martha Dandridge Custis in 1759. But by the end of his life, 300 enslaved people were living on his property, half his, half Martha’s. And Encyclopedia Britannica attributes this to the fact that quote “He had been unwilling to sell slaves lest families be broken up, even though the increase in their numbers placed a burden on him for their upkeep and gave him a larger force of workers than he required, especially after he gave up the cultivation of tobacco,” end quote. Which is a really really nice way of explaining why the man owned 300 human beings. “Oh you know, he just felt bad he didn’t want to sell them because he didn’t want families to get separated.” Umm… okay why don’t you go ahead and let them go then bub? Because you see, throughout Washington’s life he became more and more opposed to the institution of slavery. According to mountvernon.org quote “As a young Virginia planter, Washington accepted slavery without apparent concern. But after the Revolutionary War, he began to feel burdened by his personal entanglement with slavery and uneasy about slavery’s effect on the nation. Throughout the 1780s and 1790s, Washington stated privately that he no longer wanted to be a slaveowner, that he did not want to buy and sell slaves or separate enslaved families, and that he supported a plan for gradual abolition in the United States. Yet, Washington did not always act on his antislavery principles. He avoided the issue publicly, believing that bitter debates over slavery could tear apart the fragile nation. Concerns about his finances, separating enslaved families, and his political influence as president led him to delay major action during his lifetime. Ultimately, Washington made his most public antislavery statement after his death in December 1799, when the contents of his will were revealed.” End quote. And the contents of his will that they’re referring to, that was him freeing all of his slaves, not now, not now that he was dead, but after his wife Martha died. After Martha died, they were all free, according to Washington’s will. But Martha was like “um dude, no, how dumb are you? You just put the hugest target on my head. Now 300 people are waiting for me to die so they can finally be free. No thank you.” And fearing for her life, she went ahead and freed all of the enslaved people a year later. 


So, I have such conflicting emotions about all of this. I don’t know what to think here. In 1786 Washington said quote “There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for this abolition of [slavery] but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, & that is by Legislative authority,” end quote. And yet he did nothing. He didn’t even free his own enslaved people until, not even after his death, after his wife’s death. He knew it was wrong and yet he did nothing. Legislative authority? If you don’t have legislative authority as the first president of the United States of America then who the heck does? I honestly can’t decide what’s worse, enslaving people because you think slavery is okay, you think it’s morally acceptable, even justified, like Jefferson Davis, or enslaving people when you know it’s wrong. I’m leaning towards the latter. How can you enslave 300 people when you know it’s wrong. How did he live with himself? But I know, I know, I know it was a complicated issue, it would have torn the country apart, it would have meant another war, I know. But it just seems like, I mean he could have freed those 300 that he enslaved at least, right? Even if he didn’t put a stop to the whole thing country wide. He could have at least done that. It would have sent a powerful message. But, like the folks at Mount Vernon said, concerns about his finances and his political influence as president led him to delay action. So, you know, just selfish reasons. 


And, I’m going to go off on a tangent here for sec cause I just gotta address this. Some people get really upset when we, when I, start talking about how immoral slavery was and why these people were in the wrong for enslaving people. They’ll be like “you’re taking it out of context, slavery wasn’t viewed as wrong or immoral at the time, yada yada.” Y’all that is BS. George Washington knew it was wrong back in 1750 whatever. They definitely knew it was wrong by 1861. If you hadn’t caught on by then, then you were either real dumb, or real immoral, like just did not care that you were doing something horrific so long as it was making you money. 


Okay but I’ve gotten way ahead of the story. Let’s go back to the 1750s. Washington has just inherited Mount Vernon after his brother Lawrence’s death. Around this same time lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie, a British colonial administrator guy, he appoints Washington as adjutant (adj-u-tint) for the southern district of Virginia. And I honestly had no idea what that meant adjutant. But apparently it’s sort of like a lesser officer who assists a main, commanding officer in the military. I’m not sure what qualified Washington for this appointment. He was a tobacco farmer. But I guess he comes from British nobility so maybe it was just like a blood line thing, I don’t know but he’s sort of in the military now. Soon after that, there’s a problem. The French are starting to encroach on lands in the Ohio valley that had already been claimed by the British crown. Dinwiddie sends a messenger to be like “hey guys get out of here, this is our land that we stole from the Native Americans first, so, go on get.” But this guy is ineffective, the French are just like “nah,” so next Dinwiddie sends Washington to try to achieve this same goal, get the French out of the Ohio valley. Which, by the way, we’re not talking about the actual state of Ohio. The Ohio River runs through a bunch of states and this was actually happening in Pennsylvania, not Ohio. Washington gets there, talks to the French commander and reports back quote “[his officers] told me That it was their absolute Design to take possession of the Ohio, and by God they would do it,” end quote. That’s the message he takes back to Dinwiddie, the message he barely gets back to Dinwiddie. They are fired upon by Native Americans on the return trip, then Washington falls off the raft they were using to cross the icy Allegheny River and almost freezes to death. But he gets that message to Dinwiddie who sends it off to London. Can you imagine how long all this took? For real, from someone first noticing that the French were creeping in to that message getting to the King that had to have been like a year. 


So now the British and the French are dueling over this Ohio Valley situation. Dinwiddie appoints Washington lieutenant colonel and they start recruiting troops to go hold the land and defend it against the French. Once again, Washington is just a 20 some year old tobacco farmer with no military training but, that’s good enough I guess. They get back over there to Pennsylvania, remember not actually Ohio, and learn that the French have taken over the fort of the Ohio Company and renamed it Fort Duquesne (doo-kane). And on top of that, the indigenous people were backing the French. Which makes sense, the British had claimed indigenous lands, I’m sure they saw helping the French as a way to get them back. Washington surprise attacks the French and this starts the French and Indian War. Yes, George Washington basically started the French and Indian War and for this he was promoted to colonel. This war is also called the Seven Years War even though it lasted from 1754 to 1763 which, according to my calculations, is actually 9 years but whatever. During this war Washington was promoted to commander of all Virginia troops at the tender age of 23. In a letter to his brother he wrote quote “I have heard the bullets whistle; and believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” But he was kind of annoyed with it all too. Colonial officers were underpaid and the British war office had ordered that “provincial officers of whatever rank would be subordinate to any officer holding the king’s commission.” He actually got so frustrated by this that he resigned from the commander position in 1758. 


Soon after, he married Martha Dandridge Custis, who was the widow of a rather wealthy man. She entered the relationship with 15,000 acres of land near Williamsburg, Virginia, two surviving children, and, as I mentioned earlier, quite a few enslaved people. According to Encyclopedia Britannica quote “Though it does not seem to have been a romantic love match, the marriage united two harmonious temperaments and proved happy. Martha was a good housewife, an amiable companion, and a dignified hostess,” end quote. For whatever reason, George and Martha never had any children of their own but he helped to raise Martha’s children from her previous marriage, John who was called Jacky and Martha who was called Patsy. They were 6 and 4 when their mother remarried. Encyclopedia Britannica says quote “He lavished great affection and care upon them, worried greatly over Jacky’s waywardness, and was overcome with grief when Patsy died just before the Revolution. Jacky died during the war, leaving four children. Washington adopted two of them, a boy and a girl, and even signed his letters to the boy as “your papa.” Himself childless, he thus had a real family,” end quote. 


During this time, he served in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg and as a Justice of the Peace in Alexandria. But he was also known to quote “pull off his own coat and perform ordinary labor.” The Washingtons were major social lites, constantly hosting guests at Mount Vernon Encyclopedia Britannica reports quote “It has been computed that in the seven years prior to 1775, Mount Vernon had 2,000 guests, most of whom stayed to dinner if not overnight,” end quote. But, of course, war was on the horizon and the fun and games would soon come to a halt. Britain, which remember still governed the colonies at this point, was in debt after the French and Indian war thanks in part to Washington’s own surprise attack on fort Duquesne sparking that conflict, the irony. So they’re in debt and they’re continuing to fund all this military in the Americas just to try to hold it. And it’s just like the investment is souring right. This whole colony idea is turning into a money pit. They need to turn it around. So they start taxing the colonists, hard. That’s how they are going to recoup their losses. Washington had always kind of stayed out of any anti-British sentiment up until now, even when they banned western expansion in 1763 which he thought to be a huge bummer. He was a loyal subject of the crown, until he wasn’t. Tax after tax and insult after insult from the British would sway him towards seeking a resolution. But he was against independence at first. He was sure there was some way to resolve these issues and remain at peace.  When the House of Burgesses was dissolved in 1769, he joined a group of men who met at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg. And it was this group, which met irregularly at the Raleigh Tavern over the next several years that would eventually call for a Continental Congress. Washington was elected as a delegate from Virginia to attend the first and second Continental Congress meetings in Philadelphia. At the first meeting, they basically came up with a list of resolves, demands right like “Look Britain, we don’t like what you’re doing, you better stop or else.” And then they didn’t stop. So the second Continental Congress, that’s the one where they created the continental army and chose Washington to lead the army, adopted the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation which was like a precursor to the Constitution, and they pursued an alliance with France. So it got real real between the first and second meetings. They basically went from “um, could you please stop?” to “screw you guys we’re out.” 


So the Revolutionary War is on and Washington, who remember was originally against independence, is now leading the charge. And this was mostly strategic because he was from Virginia. Virginia and Massachusetts were the two most powerful colonies but Virginia was more southern. So by choosing a guy from Virginia, they would quote “augment the zeal of the southern people.” Cause we all know the zeal of the southern people is pretty dang powerful. It led to initial success in the Civil War despite the South being a major major underdog. That zeal goes a long way. So Washington’s running the show during the war and he’s pretty good at it, I must say. So much so that he is considered America’s first spymaster. Because these guys were breaking all the rules during this war. They’re not lining up in flashy red coats and beating drums and marching in unison to announce their arrival. No, they are using guerilla warfare. They are sneak attacking, they are attacking on Christmas. They have an inferior army and they know it so they are not playing by the rules. And if they had not done this, and also if the French had not helped, they would have lost. But part of this untraditional style involved espionage. George Washington, Patrick Henry, other dudes were part of a secret spy ring called the Culper Ring. They had code names and everything. Washington was Agent 711. And I was like wait, 711? Like the convenience store? No, no connection, I checked, just a coincidence. 


The participants in the Culper spy ring were so top secret they themselves often did not know who all was in the ring with them. And this is like classic spy stuff like Harriet the Spy stuff. They used code names, ciphers, book codes, they sent secret messages through the way clothes were hung on clothes lines, they used invisible ink that only revealed itself when heat or acid were applied like National Treasure style. They intentionally spread misinformation. According to mountvernon.org, Washington quote “encouraged members of the Culper Ring to exaggerate the size and strength of his forces in their conversations with British supporters. He would also spread false messages about military movements and attacks on various forts, sending them via regular post to ensure that they would be intercepted,” end quote. This is what won the Revolutionary War. The Americans were the inferior army but they were dirty tricksters and they just outsmarted the British. mountvernon.org says quote “Washington took his role as spymaster in chief quite seriously, laying the groundwork for today’s complex intelligence community and recognizing that civilian observation, mobilization and insight was just as important as military might. Without this foresight, the outcome of the Revolutionary War might have been quite different. The war for independence from Great Britain was not just one of battles and firearms, it was one of intelligence. As one defeated British intelligence officer is often quoted as saying, “Washington did not really outfight the British. He simply out-spied us,” end quote. I love it. I love that the power of the mind can be more powerful than the power of the gun or whatever. That mental might can outweigh physical might. 


There’s so so much to it though. I could create a whole podcast about just the stuff that happened in the Revolutionary War but it would be so boring. I could barely get through a forever long Encyclopedia Britannica article about it without my eyes glazing over. I’m not going to rehash it all for you. Just know that it happened, that Washington led the charge, and that they did some really cool spy stuff that helped them, as the underdogs, win the war and gain independence from Great Britain. Woohoo! But also, please remember, that, while he was doing all that cool heroic stuff, he was enslaving hundreds of people back home all while knowing it was morally wrong to do so. So, yes he’s an American hero, but, I don’t know, he’ll always be a bit tarnished to me because of the slavery thing. How can you fight for independence, for freedom, while enslaving hundreds of people. I just wish you had made better choices in that department George. I know free labor is nice and political power is dandy but some things are more important. 


After the war, Washington was elected the first President of the United States. He was the obvious choice, but honestly, he didn’t really want the job. He wrote a diary entry on April 16, 1789 just before heading to his inauguration quote “About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity; and with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York in company with Mr. Charles Thompson, [sic] and Colonel Humphries, with the best dispositions to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations,” end quote. He does not sound very confident there. And he almost seems to be grieving the loss of a normal life. Like he just wants to go back home and do his thing on his farm with his family and be left in peace but he’s being forced to answer this call. Washington had so much support from the people he remains the only president ever to get literally every single vote… twice. Like, he could not turn that down. mountvernon.org reports quote “Modern presidential candidates make it absolutely clear how badly they want to be President of the United States. They spend millions of dollars winning the endorsements of their parties and then mounting nationwide campaigns. But Washington did not place his name in nomination, did absolutely no public campaigning, and even cast doubt on whether he would take the job if elected. Washington's acceptance was by no means a sure thing. The retired general said that he had "no wish which aspires beyond the humble and happy lot of living and dying a private citizen" at his Mount Vernon farm,” end quote. He didn’t even run you guys. They basically just wrote him in. You know how when you go vote you can write someone in? That’s basically what happened. They all just wrote him in. And he could have said no, but he didn’t. He begrudgingly accepted the position. 


But, by the time Washington was sworn in as president at the age of 57, he had only one tooth left in his mouth, one. That’s how bad dental hygiene was back then. Soon, even that tooth had to be pulled and, according to a JSTOR article by Matthew Wills, his dentist John Greenwood actually kept Washington’s last tooth in a gold locket that he wore on his watch fob. Okay. So Washington wore dentures throughout his entire presidency. Cause the first president of the United States can’t be toothless. That’s not a good look. But, contrary to popular belief, these teeth were not made of wood. I’m not sure who made that up, but I think I know why. I think it was because the truth is far more gruesome. Wills reports quote “Some of the teeth might have been Washington’s own pulled teeth. Others came from ivory and the teeth of cow, horse, and hippopotamus. Still others may have come from enslaved people,” end quote. In 1784, there are records that Washington paid 9 enslaved people for their teeth. Like, here’s ten bucks, or whatever, pull that sucker out, I need it. I mean he paid them, but one source that I read says he paid them significantly less than the going rate dentists were paying for human teeth at the time. Plus, he was enslaving them, could they have said no? Wills says quote “Having dentures was a mark of wealth and privilege. But unlike most luxury goods, dentures were made to be hidden. Having the teeth of enslaved people in the mouth needed to be concealed as well, lest they become a literal manifestation of racial mixing,” end quote. So, there you go, I guess that’s why the whole wooden teeth lie came about, to hide the racial mixing. Which, just like okay, it wasn’t that he underpaid people whom he enslaved to give him their teeth. That wasn’t the bad part, the part they wanted to hide. It was that a white man had a black person's teeth in his mouth. The racial mixing, that was the bad part. Apparently Mount Vernon, the attraction, cause you can go visit Washington’s home it’s a tourist attraction now, apparently they used to sell a souvenir replica magnet of Washington’s teeth in their gift shop and they have recently pulled that off the shelves because of the whole teeth from enslaved people thing. Yeah, I don’t need that magnet on my fridge. No thanks. 


Washington served two terms as president, not because he had to, there were no term limits then. He stepped down after his second term, setting the two term standard. But also because he never wanted to do it to begin with, right? He stepped down in 1797 and died of a throat infection two years later at the age of 67. So two years is all he got to do what he really wanted which was just to be home chilling with his family. He served and served and served his country hard, probably more than any one man has ever served his country. He served it for liberty, for freedom, for justice for all. And he won that for us, for some of us. But the real irony is that, while he fought valiantly to free white Americans, he continued to enslave Black Americans by the hundreds for the rest of his life and that is a fact. 


Thank you all so very much for listening to History Fix, I hope you found this story interesting and maybe you even learned something new. Be sure to follow my instagram @historyfixpodcast to see some images that go along with this episode and to stay on top of new episodes as they drop. I’d also really appreciate it if you’d rate and follow History Fix on whatever app you’re using to listen, and help me spread the word by telling a few friends about it. Also, join the Patreon for exclusive bonus content like the rest of History Fix Trivia with Joey, plus all regular weekly episodes early and add free. That $5 a month, 16 cents a day, that’ll make it much easier to get your next fix.  


Information used in this episode was sourced from Encyclopedia Britannica, mountvernon.org, The Atlantic, Encyclopedia Virginia, Cracked, and JSTOR. As always, links to these sources can be found in the show notes.