Booker T. Washington was born in Bedford County, Virginia, in 1856, into the so-called Peculiar Institution of American slavery. At the tender age of 9, Booker and other slaves on the Burroughs family plantation were freed, and Booker began a journey that would make him a well-known and important figure during the Reconstruction Era.
Read MoreHigh on a bank looking eastward over the Potomac River sits Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home. The setting is so beautiful, it’s a wonder he was ever lured from there to engage in the founding of and leading a new country. Washington’s father owned the land, which had some smaller buildings on it. By 1758, Washington started building an expansion to the existing building and by 1774, he started adding the wings onto the house, the cupola, and other elements that define it today.
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