Treasures From Mount Vernon: George Washington Revealed New-York Historical Society

By Richard Stengel

See Washington's false teeth. (No, not wood but porcelain). Step into his military field tent. (Pretty comfy.) Read two of his billets-doux to his beloved Martha. (He's no Robert James Waller.) The objects are all featured in a charming exhibition of artifacts that have never before left Washington's Mount Vernon residence and that go a long way toward humanizing the dour and frosty image of our Founding Father. The show, in honor of the bicentennial of Washington's death, will make its way around the country for all of 1999. What the collection also reveals is that it was Washington, not Jefferson, who was the true visionary planner and manager of a colonial estate. The man was organized.

--By Richard Stengel