MOUNT VERNON

city, seat (1808) of Knox county, central Ohio, U.S. It lies along the Kokosing River, 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Columbus. John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), the orchardist, owned several lots in the original settlement that was laid out in 1805. The settlement was incorporated as a city in the same year and named for its location on a height by the river (then called Vernon but now known by its Indian name). Mount Vernon is the centre for an area of general farming and of oil and gas production. Livestock auctions are held regularly in the city. Manufactures include diesel engines, compressors, and glass and paper products. Daniel (Dan) Emmett, the composer of Dixie and other well-known songs, was born (1815) in Mount Vernon, and Mary Ann Bickerdyke, a pioneering war nurse in the service of the Union armies, was born (1817) on a nearby farm. Mount Vernon Nazarene College was founded in 1964, and Kenyon College (1824) is in nearby Gambier. Pop. (1990) 14,550; (1994 est.) 15,036. Mount Vernon, aquatint by Francis Jukes, 1800. home and burial place of George Washington, in Fairfax county, Virginia, U.S., overlooking the Potomac River, 15 miles (24 km) south of Washington, D.C. The 18th-century two-story Georgian mansion is built of wood, but the siding is of wide, thick boards paneled so as to give the appearance of cut and dressed stonework. The rooms have been restored as they were when occupied by Washington and his family; most of the furniture pieces on the first floor and all of those in Washington's bedchamber are originals. Additional Washington relics are in a separate museum building. From both ends of the house, a curved colonnade leads to a row of outbuildings. A spacious lawn surrounds the mansion, with shaded drives, walks, and gardens. A short distance southwest of the mansion is a plain brick tomb built at Washington's direction on a site chosen by himself. It contains his remains and those of his wife and of several members of the family (all removed there from the old family vault in 1831). The estate, originally called Little Hunting Creek Plantation, consisted of about 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares). It descended by inheritance from John Washington, the first of the family in America, to his son Lawrence, who in turn devised it to his daughter Mildred. From Mildred it was purchased in 1726 by her brother Augustine, George Washington's father; and in 1735, when George was three years old, the family moved there from Wakefield (a site now occupied by the George Washington Birthplace National Monument). The central part of the house was probably built during that time. In 1740, Augustine conveyed the plantation to his son Lawrence, elder half brother of George, and Lawrence settled there three years later. He renamed the plantation Mount Vernon in honour of Admiral Edward Vernon, under whom he had served in the Caribbean. Young George, after his father's death in 1743, spent part of his youth at Mount Vernon with Lawrence. After Lawrence's death in 1752, George inherited the property; but because of military service he did not take up residence until January 1759, when he married Martha (Dandridge) Custis. During the next 15 years he enlarged the house, added smaller wings, erected several of the outbuildings, and expanded the gardens. He also tried crop rotation and other agricultural experiments on the plantation. Again called into public service, it was not until December 1783, when he tendered his resignation to Congress as commander in chief of the Continental Army, that he again settled at Mount Vernon. But in 1789 his plantation life was again interrupted when he became the first president of the United States. From 1797 until his death (December 14, 1799) he lived at Mount Vernon. At his death, a life interest in the place went to his widow. The estate then passed to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, and from Bushrod it descended to John Augustine Washington, Jr., who was authorized by will to sell it to the U.S. government, which refused to buy the property. In 1853 Ann Pamela Cunningham of South Carolina organized the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, which raised about $200,000 and purchased the house and 200 acres (80 hectares) of the original estate in 1858. The association, under its charter, was bound to restore and maintain the estate, which was designated a national registered historic landmark; the state of Virginia agreed to exempt the estate from taxation so long as these terms were fulfilled. Washington's home, gardens, family cemetery, and outbuildings comprise what is considered America's first historical tourist attraction. city, Westchester county, New York, U.S., situated on the Bronx and Hutchinson rivers, just north of the Bronx, New York City. It was settled in 1664 near the site where religious dissenter Anne Hutchinson (banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony) was killed in 1643 by Indians. It became a farm village (considered part of Eastchester township), the meeting house of which was the scene of the election of Lewis Morris to the provincial assembly in 1733. Colonial governor William Cosby's persistent opposition to Morris was reported by the antigovernment newspaper of John Peter Zenger, whose subsequent trial for seditious libel was the first major victory for the principle of freedom of the press in the American colonies. Mount Vernon was the scene of several battles during the American Revolution, including a delaying action by Glover's Brigade on October 18, 1776, which probably saved General George Washington's army from defeat by General William Howe. The village's growth was assured when the Industrial Home Association, a cooperative group seeking relief from high New York City rents, purchased land for home sites there in the early 1850s and named the community for Washington's home. Diversified industrial development includes the manufacture of jewelry, automatic fire sprinklers, and packaging materials. A dredged portion of the Hutchinson River serves as a port. St. Paul's Church (1763), used during the Revolution as a British military hospital, was dedicated a national historic site in 1943. Inc. village, 1853; city, 1892. Pop. (1990) 67,153; (1998 est.) 66,824. city, seat (1819) of Jefferson county, southern Illinois, U.S. Founded in 1819 by settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas, it was named for George Washington's home. The Illinois Supreme Court was located in Mount Vernon (185696), and there in 1859 Abraham Lincoln argued and won a tax case. The city is an agricultural, manufacturing, and distributing centre, and oil is produced in the area. Mount Vernon is the site of Rend Lake (junior) College, and a state tuberculosis sanitarium. Inc. town, 1837; city, 1872. Pop. (1990) 16,988.