“Following the signing of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War in September 1783, General George Washington resigned his commission as commander in chief and returned home to his plantation in Virginia, Mount Vernon. A civilian again, he looked forward to a life of retirement as a gentleman farmer. However, in 1787, he was convinced to return to the public arena to preside over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Amid debates over the structure of the federal government, Washington’s thoughts returned to his home, for which he commissioned a weathervane featuring “a bird (in place of the Vain) with an olive branch in its Mouth…,” an emblem of peace.

In choosing this iconography, Washington drew on familiar symbols from classical antiquity and the Bible to visualize his desire to move beyond military conflict and establish a peaceful future for the young nation. “Peace, with all the world is my sincere wish,” Washington wrote on August 15, 1798, seeing it as possible to foster the growth of individual and national prosperity only in the absence of war. From its perch atop the cupola at Mount Vernon, the weathervane displayed Washington’s commitment to peace to the unending stream of visitors paying their respects during his lifetime, as well as to today’s guests.

Washington commissioned the vane from Philadelphia master-builder Joseph Rakestraw, who later participated in the construction of the President’s House. The specific metalworkers whom Rakestraw would have hired to fabricate the weathervane are no longer known, but the forged nails that hold the rod and directional together may have been made by George Smith or Nat (Natt), enslaved blacksmiths at Mount Vernon.

While Washington’s weathervane retains reminders of ongoing conflicts at the heart of the new nation, it powerfully embodies the ideals that inspired him and on which the United States was established. “