Gunston Hall (LSD 44) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 3 text:

f ■ 9 ll

Page 5 text:

HISTORY OF SHIP ' S NAMESAKE Gunston Hall, the plantation home of George Mason, exemplifies a great period in the history of Virginia and the nation. Famous for architectural beauty as well as his- torical associations, it remains virtually unchanged from the days when Washington and Jefferson visited here. George Mason (1725-1792) was a statesman and political thinker who played an im- portant but behind-the-scenes role in the founding of our nation. He rarely left his acres on the Potomac, but instead wielded his pen in his lifelong fight for individual rights. In his study at Gunston Hall, Mason drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, one of the greatest documents of all time. It was the model for the Federal Bill of Rights of Man, subsequent European governments, and the United Nation ' s Declara- tion of Human Rights. Guston Hall is a story-and-a-half Georgian house made from brick and local Aquia stone. The two outstanding rooms in the house are the dining room, done in the Chi- nese style, and the Palladian Room. The elaborately carved woodwork throughout the house was done by William Buckland. Buckland, a young carpenter and joiner, was brought from England to plan and execute the work. Although he is responsible for many other lovely rooms in Maryland and Virginia; the Palladian Room is consid- ered to be his masterpiece. Gunston Hall was a self-sufficient plantation in the time of George Mason. He owned over 5,000 acres, many of them devoted to growing wheat and tobacco and grazing sheep. Tiny village-like compounds on the grounds provided housing for craftsmen, servants and slaves who lived there with their families. To the east of the Hall is the kitchen yard. Surrounding the original well are the reconstructed kitchen, laundry, dairy, and smokehouse. To the west, the schoolhouse stands on the founda- tion of the original building where Mason ' s nine children studied their lessons. The formal gardens have been carefully restored by the Garden Club of Virginia with documented plants of colonial days. The original English boxwood allee is now some 12 feet high. From the end of the garden, there ' s an unspoiled view over the deer, park to the Potomac, where sailing ships once docked to load Mason ' s crops for ship- ment to Europe.