Gunston Hall (November)

I’m back for another one in my series “remember when we could go places and be near other people?” This also is a part of my “I’m now 7 month behind in my blogging so it’s good we haven’t done anything or gone anywhere in 3 months” series.

So in November, Natasha organized a picnic at Gunston Hall in Virginia. The weather turned out not to be very temperate, so we instead met up for tea nearby (the service was EXTREMELY slow and food so-so). The company was lovely. Then we got a tour of the Gunston Hall mansion and wandered the grounds in costume and it was really fun!

Gunston Hall was George Mason’s house and estate on the Potomac. It’s very hard to tour a southern plantation without being very aware of this fact that it was run by enslaved people. It’s maybe even more paradoxical because Mason was the other of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was the basis for the US Bill of rights. Yet Mason owned 90 enslaved people.

“One of the richest planters in Virginia, Mason spoke out against slavery, calling it “that slow Poison . . . [that] is daily contaminating the Minds & Morals of our People.” He was particularly outraged by a change in the Constitution that allowed the continued importation of slaves for an additional 20 years.

But unlike his neighbor George Washington, Mason did not free his slaves at his death. http://places.afrovirginia.org/items/show/187

So I’m going to leave that there.

Natasha and Jennifer in their 18th century Quidditch uniforms:





In the museum building at Gunston Hall, an American Duchess shoe in the wild:



I’m wearing my Outlander wool gown because it’s one of the warmer gowns I own and we were going to be outside. My mitts and scarf (Outlander, not period accurate) were knit by Gloria!



more after the cut:

























The gardens were being renovated.