Existing comment:
High Chest, Owned by Mary Ball Washington, 1700-1730
George Washington's mother, Mary Ball Washington (1708-1789), owned this finely-made high chest. Mary, orphaned at an early age, inherited land, livestock, or furniture each time she lost a parent or stepparent. This high chest was likely among these legacies. When Mary Ball married widower Augustine Washington in 1731, she moved her belongings into his one-and-a-half story brick house on the banks of the Potomac in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Their son George was born there the following year. Much later in life, Mary lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia. A neighbor bought this high chest at a sale of some of Mary's possessions and it descended in that Virginia family. The family loaned the chest for display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Fairgoers likely saw it in the Virginia State Building--a reproduction of George Washington's Mount Vernon home--along with other "heirlooms of old Virginia families." |