The most exciting scientific find of the period was Charles Willson Peale’s exhumation in 1801 near Newburgh, New York, of the bones of the mastodon, or mammoth. Peale displayed his mammoth in his celebrated museum and in 1806 painted a marvelous picture of what was perhaps the first organized exhumation in American history. Peale’s discovery electrified the country and put the word mammoth
on everybody’s lips. A Philadelphia baker advertised the sale of mammoth bread.
In Washington a mammoth eater
ate forty-two eggs in ten minutes. And under the leadership of the Baptist preacher John Leland, the ladies of Cheshire, Massachusetts, late in 1801 sent to President Jefferson a mammoth cheese,
six feet in diameter and nearly two feet thick and weighing 1,230 pounds.
Washington, Martha
Mt. Vernon, VA — Originally a cottage built on 2,300 acres by his father, George Washington expanded both house and acres, and lived there until his death; he and first lady, Martha, are buried on the grounds.
Princeton, NJ — George and Martha Washington rented this substantial farmhouse in 1783 while waiting for the treaty with Britain; includes period furnishings and a Children's Museum.
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)