Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, Nathanial Philbrick, author and narrator.
The book is mainly a description of the author’s road trip with his dog Dora and his wife Melissa. They visited the places, across America’s thirteen colonies, that George Washington visited on his very own road trip in 1789, albeit not by car, rather by horse or carriage and sometimes on foot! Some places of legend turned out to be true and some simply rumor. There are false stories of Washington’s history concerning Elm trees, and there are letters attributed to George that were not written by him. Some of the places no longer resembled what they once were, or were completely gone, so that they existed only in that specific location in one’s imagination.
Because of the distance and his mode of travel, Washington did sleep in a lot of places and eat in a lot of places, private and public, since not all roads had equal facilities. Also, as with our current government, the times were rife with disagreement, backroom discussions and secret agreements between enemies and friends alike. Washington was not aware of the plots to oppose some of his policies from his own cabinet. It reminded me of some of today’s Congressional struggles. However, the seat of government was established, as it went from New York City to Philadelphia to its final home, in Washington DC.
More than the history of George Washington, the book includes the relevance of slavery and the resultant racism of the times. It is an obvious choice of topic since identity politics is a very strong issue today, and the problem of racism is at the forefront, including reparations for ancestors of slaves. Although the book seems to condemn the practice of dividing us by race, during George’s time, it refrained from mentioning the identity politics that divides us today. Patrick Henry’s “united we stand, divided we fall”, seemed to be the growing movement then. Today, we seem to be promoting the opposite. Many of the policies, both negative and positive, attributed to the Republicans of Washington’s time, a far different Party then, than the one of the same name today, are now practiced by Democrats in our times, i.e. labeling people by background and supporting a policy that divides us by race, religion and birthplace, or country of origin. Historically, it was a very different time, however, and it is relevant that not only George was a slave holder, but so were many others including Thomas Jefferson.
The author does point out the obvious flaws in America, regarding slavery and racism, and he also reveals those who had slaves and those whose family had slaves, as well as those who also abused them. George Washington had a side many of us would not approve of, as he was known not only to own slaves, but to punish them and put bounties on the heads of those who escaped, even though he professed to want an end to the practice. When in Washington DC, the author visited the African American Museum, but he made no mention of the belief by some, that Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice, was presented unfairly because of partisan politics. Justice Thomas is a Conservative. On the other hand, he revealed a little-known fact about Alexander Hamilton, not revealed by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway play, “Hamilton”. Alexander Hamilton was also a slave owner.
I have been to many of the places that Philbrick mentions in the book: Cape Cod, Nantucket, Cold Spring, Oyster Bay, Rye and Charleston, on the East Coast, as well as Punta Gorda on the Gulf, on the west coast of Florida. I never knew about many of the landmarks he mentioned, however. Some of the locations only had simple markers on the land. The place was not preserved.
When you get right down to it, however, it is an easy book to listen to, with interesting tidbits offered. I had no idea that Greenwich CT had not always been Greenwich, but had once been called Horseneck! I never knew about the boundary rock in Alexandria or the 40 stones that marked the perimeter of the permanent seat of our government. There are many such reveals as the travels of the “father of our country” are explored. Did Washington really chop down a cherry tree?
Philbrick reads his book admirably well and seems to be enjoying both the trip and the narrating. When realizing that so much of the research was of documents and restored places protected by historical societies, I found it sad that today we do not write letters or preserve our artifacts with the same zeal. Will we have to rename Washington DC because George had slaves? What about Washington University? Will the statues of Alexander Hamilton be destroyed, pulled down? Will the faces on our money be changed? We are canceling our history and our culture by tearing down statues and renaming landmarks in the interest of alleviating every member of our society’s grievances, rather than educating everyone on the meaning of our past.
I found the descriptions of the cars they drove during their trip, the many dogs, some running in the surf and the insects, like chiggers, to all be interesting nuggets, but they seemed irrelevant to the trip that George took in 1789. As Philbrick traveled with his dog Dora, George traveled with his horse, Prescott. John Steinbeck traveled with his dog Charley. They each had their familiar or beloved companion. It is safe to say, however, that each of them loved the country, and many patriots, historians and philosophers still with us, really do love and respect America and Americans whether it is a melting pot or a stew.