Long-hunted home of George Washington finally found

George Washington’s childhood home has been located, said the overjoyed archaeologists on finding the remains on a terrace overlooking the Rappahannock River, 50 miles south of the capital city that bears his name.

Researchers said that the remains dug out during the last three years were those of the long-hunted lodging, on the old family farm in Virginia.

“What we see at this site is the best available window into the setting that nurtured the father of our country,” said Philip Levy, an archaeologist and associate professor of history at the University of South Florida.

The site was the setting of many important events in the life of the first president. It may help throw some light on his childhood and growing up years.

The excavation team said the foundations, stone-lined cellars and other remains suggested that this was far from being the rustic cottage of general perception. The large one-and-a-half-story residence, with eight rooms and an adjacent structure for the kitchen was, instead the kind of house an upper class family would reside in.

Washington's father "was wealthy within the county ... not on the colonial level but locally important, and we see a home befitting that status," said David Muraca, director of archeology for The George Washington Foundation.

The researchers, however, could not locate the cherry tree which has often been mentioned in stories of Washington’s youth. There was no trace of the cherry tree, not even a stump or a rusty hatchet which left the researchers baffled.

"If George Washington did indeed chop down a cherry tree, as generations of Americans have believed, this is where it happened," said Levy. "There is little actual documentary evidence of Washington's formative years."

Three possible locations were searched over seven years. The site where the foundations of Washington's home were discovered was built during the first part of the 18th century (Washington was born in 1732). It matched the picture of house in which Washington would have lived and also yielded artifacts likely linked to his family.

The 113-acre Ferry Farm, which forms a National Historic Landmark had been previously recognized as the former home of the Washington family, but the house could not be located during earlier endeavors.

George’s father, Augustine, had bought the farm, which then covered 600 acres, to be closer to an iron furnace that he managed. The family moved in to the farm in 1738, where Augutine, his second wife, Mary Ball Washington, and their six children occupied a house that was already standing.

Besides, pieces of a tea set, wine bottles, knives, forks and some ceramics and pottery, the researchers also discovered a well-used pipe bowl, blackened from smoking that was marked with a Masonic crest. Washington joined the Fredericksburg Lodge of the Masons in 1753.

"While we can't say that this was George Washington's pipe, we can wonder about it," Levy said.

As suggested by Washington’s letters the house fire on Christmas Eve 1740 was palpable through some remains. Augustine died in 1743 and George eventually inherited the farm and lived in the house until his early 20s.

George’s mother lived in the house until 1772, when she moved to Fredericksburg. The farm was sold five years later and the house was razed sometime in the early 19th century, as evident by an 1833 painting that shows its ruins. Other buildings were demolished and the farm was occupied by Union soldiers in the Civil War.

Although uncovering the house has just begun, facts about the legend’s childhood have already started appearing.

The confirmation comes in dismissing all doubts that the structure could be anything else and by the time the researchers found Washington's home, they had accounted for every other major structure on the property. “If we didn’t hit here, we had no other place to look,” Muraca said.

Archaeologists would now carry on the search for other buildings and gardens at Ferry Farm. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct the house young George grew up in, according to the Washington Foundation.