IN PERSON EVENT: "Travels with George" with Nathaniel Philbrick

68 Main Street,Falmouth MA 02540

29 November, 2021

Description

In Search of Washington and His Legacy IN PERSON EVENT: First Congregational Church | 68 Main Street, Falmouth When George Washington became president in 1789, the United States of America was still a loose and quarrelsome confederation and a tentative political experiment. Washington undertook a tour of the ex-colonies to talk to ordinary citizens about his new government, and to imbue in them the idea of being one thing--Americans. In the fall of 2018, Nathaniel Philbrick embarked on his own journey into what Washington called "the infant woody country" to see for himself what America had become in the 229 years since. Writing in a thoughtful first person about his own adventures with his wife Melissa and their dog Dora, Philbrick follows Washington's presidential excursions: from Mount Vernon to the new capital in New York; a month-long tour of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island; a venture onto Long Island and eventually across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The narrative moves smoothly between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries as we see the country through both Washington's and Philbrick's eyes. Travels with George grapples bluntly and honestly with Washington's legacy as a man of the people, a reluctant president, and a plantation owner who held people in slavery. At historic houses and landmarks, Philbrick reports on the reinterpretations at work as he meets reenactors, tour guides, and other keepers of history's flame. He paints a picture of eighteenth century America as divided and fraught as it is today, and he comes to understand how Washington compelled, enticed, stood up to, and listened to the many different people he met along the way--and how his all-consuming belief in the Union helped to forge a nation. The Falmouth Museums on the Green, owned and operated by the Falmouth Historical Society, is a two-acre campus that has been serving the residents and visitors of Falmouth since 1900. One of the most popular sites in Falmouth for visitors, it contains the 1790 Dr. Francis Wicks House—a magnificent Federalist-period residence with guided tours demonstrating what life was like for an affluent physician in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; the recently-restored 1730 Conant House—used for exhibits, research and genealogy studies; the Hallett Barn Visitors’ Center—rebuilt in 2002 on the site of an original barn and used a welcoming point for those coming to Falmouth as well as the “Whaling Wives Gift Shop”; the Colonial Gardens—showing off plantings, such as a boxwood tree, that go back to the days prior to the American Revolution; Memorial Park—a tranquil place of refuge that is open to all visitors looking for relaxation; and the recently-opened (2012) Cultural Center—a superb, 3600 square foot structure used for public and private programs and events, public restrooms, kitchen facilities, and as a repository for archival collections to preserve Falmouth’s past. It also has a series of rotating historical exhibits throughout the campus.