Terrestrial Floor Globe

Four months after taking office, President George Washington directed his London agents, Wakelin Welch & Son, "to send me by the first vessel, which sails for New York, a terrestrial globe of the largest dimensions and of the most accurate and approved kind now in use." Dudley Adams, globemaker to King George III, took several months to craft the globe, which Washington undoubtedly consulted throughout his presidency and then placed in his Study at Mount Vernon. After Martha Washington's death in 1802, Thomas Jefferson tried unsuccessfully to purchase it from Judge Bushrod Washington as a "relic." It is among the few rare items that have remained at Mount Vernon since George Washington's lifetime, leaving the property only when conservation work has required it.

Transferred to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association through the generosity of John Augustine Washington III, 1860 [W-166]

Conservation courtesy of T. Eugene and Joan H. Smith