Archaeological Investigation May Uncover New Information About George Washington’s Boyhood Home

The George Washington Foundation is planning an archeological investigation of an area of the 75-acre George Washington’s Boyhood Home National Historic Landmark, also known as Ferry Farm. The investigation would include an area measuring 65 ft. by 55 ft. Because the landmark is under a conservation easement held by the National Park Service, NPS is currently reviewing the plan for approval.

George Washington and his family lived at Ferry Farm from the time Washington was six years old, meaning he spent the majority of his childhood there. The 2026 research design for the investigation includes the goal of developing a better understanding of the spatial use of the Ferry Farm landscape over thousands of years of its occupation. However, it also hopes to uncover more about the formative years of the nation’s first president.

Documentation indicates that the area set aside for the excavation encompasses a complicated zone disturbed throughout the 20th century but potentially containing subsurface evidence of a kitchen constructed when the farm’s original builder, William Strother, owned the site; the kitchen was retained in use during the Washington family era of the early 18th century. Later, the same area hosted a nineteenth-century farmhouse; a 1914-1995 farmhouse featuring a concrete-lined cellar that burned; and, lastly, an exhibit structure that was later removed.

According to the Proposed Scope of Work, in 2024 and 2025, foundation archaeologists exposed a block that contained the architectural remnants of a 16 ft. square outbuilding that featured an Aquia sandstone block cellar foundation. The 2025 work plan called for a continuation of the search for outbuilding-related architectural remains outside the cellar, including potentially a chimney, along with evidence of the structure’s chronology and design. In 2025, they also began excavating the fill of the outbuilding’s cellar; exposing its stone foundations; identifying evidence of architectural details situated within the foundation walls; and identifying and excavating any builder’s trenches and a robber’s trench.

In 2025, the cellar fill was divided into four roughly equal parts, and two quarters were excavated to subsoil, leaving one quadrant unexcavated. They are now proposing to excavate the last quarter of cellar fill and areas around the cellar itself and more of the area surrounding the cellar.

The goals of the planned archaeological investigation, according to the George Washington Foundation, include:

• Developing a better understanding of the spatial organization of eighteenth-century plantations.
• Developing an understanding of how George Washington came to exhibit certain unique attributes that served him well in his adult life.
• Developing an understanding of the economic and social circumstances of the Washingtons before and after Augustine’s (Washington’s father) death.
• Developing a better understanding of the spatial use of the landscape over the thousands of years of occupation at the Ferry Farm site.

The excavation will use 5-ft.-square excavation units, and the research design calls for the use of the open-area excavation technique. This technique requires archaeologists to uncover a site layer by layer resulting in a detailed "snapshot" of a particular point in time.