Mount Vernon and its associations, historical, biographical and pictorial . men—mighty in moral force—among the noblest the worldever saw—were gathered in council from time to time, anddetermined those movements which achieved the independenceof these states! In it, too, many distinguished men sat at thetable of the chief—members of the old congresses; foreignersof note in diplomacy and war ; and last, Cornwallis as captiveand guest, after his humiliation at Yorktowm. It was quitespacious, and, when fully spread, one hundred guests mightconveniently dine beneath its ample roof. That marquee an
Mount Vernon and its associations, historical, biographical and pictorial . men—mighty in moral force—among the noblest the worldever saw—were gathered in council from time to time, anddetermined those movements which achieved the independenceof these states! In it, too, many distinguished men sat at thetable of the chief—members of the old congresses; foreignersof note in diplomacy and war ; and last, Cornwallis as captiveand guest, after his humiliation at Yorktowm. It was quitespacious, and, when fully spread, one hundred guests mightconveniently dine beneath its ample roof. That marquee and tent, wrapped in the old portmanteau,with tlie poles and cords as they were taken from the battle- 126 MOUNT VERNON field, are at Arlington House. The fornner has been spreadoccasionally for j^eacefiil purposes. For several years , who was much interested in the improvement of thebreeds of sheep, had annual gatherings of the friends ofagriculture and manufactures at a fine spring on his estate,near the banks of the Potomac, in the early days of May. On. Washingtons tents in their portmanteaux. these occasions the old marquee would be erected, and some-times nearly two hundred guests would assemble under it topartake of refreshments. Tliese sheep-shearings at ArlingtonSpring are remembered with pleasure by the surviving parti-cipants. When Lafayette was in this country, in 1824 and 25, asthe guest of the nation, that marquee was used at Baltimore bythe Society of the Olncinnati^ for the purpose of receiving theIllustrious Friend as the guest of that fraternity—a fraternityof which he had been a member ever since its formation onthe l)anks of the Hudson, more than forty years before. Onthat occasion Colonel John Eager Howard, one of the heroesof the Cowpens, presided; and Charles Carroll, who soon after- AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 127 waid had the proud distinction of being the last survivor ofthe signers of the Declaration of Independence, was a twice s
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