While the well-known myth about former President George Washington and his cherry tree might not be true, it is true that the nation’s first leader was a fan of cherries.
Such a fan that preserved bottles of the fruit were recently found at his home, hundreds of years after they were first made. Earlier this month, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union – a nonprofit that operates the estate of Washington – announced the unusual discovery.
“Archaeologists at George Washington’s Mount Vernon have unearthed an astounding 35 glass bottles from the 18th century in five storage pits in the Mansion cellar of the nation’s first president,” said a press release. “Of the 35 bottles, 29 are intact and contain perfectly preserved cherries and berries, likely gooseberries or currants.”
Now, the extracted contents are under refrigeration and are expected be analyzed by scientists.
NPR reported Thursday that Mount Vernon is partnering with the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to analyze the contents. Benjamin Gutierrez, a plant geneticist and the apple and tart cherry curator at the USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit in New York, told the outlet that his team advised Mount Vernon on how to extract the approximately 250-year-old substance from the bottles.
“We had anxiety,” he admitted. “You hear ‘fruit remains’ and you’re picturing what’s in the back of your fridge, right? It’s slowly degrading now that it’s out in the open, we’ve got to get to this before it turns to pulp.”
Already, there have been significant findings, including: 54 cherry pits and 23 stems identified thus far, (these suggest that the bottles were likely full of cherries before bottling) cherry pulp, the discovery that the cherries were likely of the tart variety and microcopy revelations that the cherries may have been harvested by shears, as stems were left attached to the fruit.
According to California Cherries, cherries were brought to the U.S. by English colonists in 1629. Mount Vernon President & CEO Doug Bradburn said the fruits found in the bottles at the Virginia estate “likely haven’t seen the light of day since before the American Revolution,” and they were “perhaps forgotten when George Washington departed Mount Vernon to take command of the Continental Army.”
Founded more than 160 years ago, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association was America’s first historic preservation organization, per the press release. Bradburn said “it’s only fitting that such a remarkable discovery was made,” at their home base. This discovery was made amidst an ongoing restoration of the property.
“These extraordinary discoveries continue to astonish us.
These perfectly preserved fruits picked and prepared more than 250 years ago provide an incredibly rare opportunity to contribute to our knowledge of the 18th-century environment, plantation foodways, and the origins of American cuisine,” said Mount Vernon Principal Archaeologist Jason Boroughs. “The bottles and contents are a testament to the knowledge and skill of the enslaved people who managed the food preparations from tree to table, including Doll, the cook brought to Mount Vernon by Martha Washington in 1759 and charged with oversight of the estate’s kitchen.”
Going forward, the research teams hope to extract DNA from the cherries to compare them to a database of heirloom varieties. Gutierrez said, that could shed light on how the climate has changed since the fruit was bottled. They’re also looking into planting trees with the historic pits.
Gutierrez said he hopes that future researchers may still be testing the material in another 100 years.