I decided to dig through the only Bradford High School Yearbook, The Barker, 1934, that is published on ancestry.com. I flipped through the pages of graduates looking for any member that may have been in my direct line or one of its many branches. After passing the last listed graduate photo and moving on through the accomplishments and legacies of all of its’ members I was getting a bit tired and thinking of giving up when I got to the page on the class trip.
Twelve years following my grandmothers’ trip to Washington, DC it seems the senior class was following the same route. What caught my eye was the paragraph stating:
“On Monday morning we boarded our buses and left for Mount Vernon where we visited the estate, mansion and tomb of Martha and George Washington. While in Mount Vernon the entire party posed for a group picture.”
I did a quick search for images of Mount Vernon. I finally found out what building was in the background of my grandmothers’ graduation trip photo – Mount Vernon. The photo was taken on the back lawn of the estate, the front of the building did not have the long white pillars.
The mansion was erected in 1741-42, is made of wood and located on the banks of the Potomac River. The plantation would remain in the hands of a Washington descendant until 1858 when the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union would acquire the building and a portion of the land rescuing it from neglect. During the Civil War the estate was a neutral ground for both sides. Mount Vernon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.