WASHINGTON'S HOME REVIVES LIVING HISTORY ROLE FOR ELIZABETH FOOTE WASHINGTON

Chotank.com announced on its website that Mount Vernon, the George Washington historical home estate on the Potomac River near Washington, D. C., has qualified a living history role for Elizabeth Foote Washington.

Mount Vernon Flyer Given to Visitors

Elizabeth Foote is an American kinsman of Topham Foote (or Foot). Peter Scheemakers, known for his works in Westminster Abbey, sculpted the bust of Topham in an agreement with Dr. Richard Mead. The memorial to Topham greets visitors to St. John the Baptist, the Windsor Parish Church, the Royal Borough in Berkshire, just 300 feet from the main gate of Windsor Castle. Elizabeth Foote married Lund Washington, the General's distant cousin who served many years as overseer on the Mount Vernon estate while the General was away with his troops during the American Revolution.

The historic interpretation is created by Jinny Fox, who also guides the Mount Vernon Pioneer Farm exhibit on the estate.

Jinny Fox as Elizabeth Foote Washington

Mount Vernon, with Mrs Fox's supporting participation, hosts this weekend an important regional meeting of the American Living History, Farming and Agricultural Museums Association.

Mrs. Fox suggests that Elizabeth is "an important unknown woman in history, [who] will have a chance to have her story retold." Jinny Fox adds, "Reading Chotankers (Thornwood, 1982) again to refresh my memory, I could not but pause and think what an incredibly strong stock she came from and wonder what bearing that might have had on her." [New Foote/Foot Note: Cornell University has increased awareness of Elizabeth's life with publication of 2006 book, Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South by Catherine Kerrison, history faculty member at Villanova University. Dr. Kerrison received her graduate degrees from William and Mary. You may CLICK the book's title to get lists of libraries with copies in US and worldwide. And you may use the same WorldCat form to search for libraries with copies of Chotankers. Some local libraries such as Windsor, Berkshire, England and Iuka, Mississippi will not be listed by WorldCat for copies of Chotankers. Students and faculty of the University of North Alabama will find both Chotankers and Dr. Kerrison's book in the University Library.]

Both Topham and Elizabeth are members of later generations that grew out of marriages of Richard Foote of St. Mary Aldermary and St. Dunstan's in the East, London. Richard's son Samuel moved to Windsor where he inherited Tyle Place Farm from his mother and married Arabella Topham. Samuel's half brother Richard moved to Chotank, King George County, Virginia in 1688 to be a tobacco factor, or agent, for his father and grandfather Nicholas Hayward.

"Chotankers" is available in the Windsor Library, Berkshire, and 42 US libraries.

For more information visit www.chotank.com.

"Family history is the only history made or written in Chotank." Douglas Southall Freeman Parttime Professor, Columbia University, New York, Richmond Newspaper Editor with PhD from Johns Hopkins, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author of George Washington and Robert E. Lee Biographies

Elizabeth Foote Washington in her 1812 will established an endowment for "the education of of such poor girls as they [Washington Society members] may think proper". See the Historic Alexandria Quarterly for Summer 1996, Vol. 1, No. 2, for Gloria Seaman Allen's article.