On the Road with George Washington between Greenville and New Bern on his Southern Tour…�� Did Capt. Keais see any of George Washington’s favorite travelling gear from his Commander in Chief days?! ��Let’s first look at the route where Keais did his meet up with GW, then let’s look at ten of GW’s favorite pieces of campaign gear and travel items.
Keais rode from Washington NC to greet George Washington on his1791 Southern Tour.
Capt Keais, port official, took the initiative to ride on horseback from Washington NC to Blackledge’s plantation on the Tar River.
Keais must have learned somehow that Washington had chosen to bypass Washington and the wide Pamlico River crossing. Washington’s carriage and retinue travelled down from Virginia taking a more westerly inland route; from Halifax to Greenville then south crossing Swift Creek to New Bern.
Keais may have seen many of the items pictured here.
Good manners and southern hospitality paid off for Capt. Keais and the town of Washington. The Port official was soon sent a contract to build one of ten new nation’s revenue cutters to patrol the coast… the award came from Alexander Hamilton!
The good manners Keais demonstrated must have paid off because archived letters show George Washington wrote a recommendation about Keais to Alexander Hamilton, our country’s first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. As a result Keais built the state’s first revenue cutter on the Washington’s waterfront.
Named “the Diligence” the new two masted revenue cutter was built and towed to New Bern for a 1792 commissioning.
Wilmington became her home port from which she patrolled the whole N.C coast seeking smugglers and pirates.
Neither Keais nor the town of Washington received a historical marker from the state of N.C. ( New Bern did.) However, U. S. Coast Guard historians remember “the Diligence” and where she was built to this day. The Revenue Marine fleet protecting the nation’s coast was not renamed the U.S. Coast guard until 1915.
Drawings do not survive of “The Diligence” but each state was sent the same drawings by Alexander Hamilton. “The Massachusetts “ is believed built similarly, although she was built slightly bigger without permission.
B o n u s S l I d es
The 1808 Pasteur map of Washington and the Pamlico River
This copy of the map was painted by Linda Tripp Poore in the 1970’s.
The original map by was commissioned by Pasteur, first name unknown in by John Gray Blount. At one time the original was donated to the Brown Library.
Redrawn street plan of Washington from the Pasteur map.
What did George Washington really look like?�A life mask and a clay bust was made at his home Mount Vernon of Geo. Washington – A French sculptor Jean-Antoinette Houdon made them in October of 1785.
The Ladies Mount Vernon commissioned three faces of George Washington as three ages including as a young surveyor, as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. and as President of the United States. Today the mask is at the Morgan Library in New York City and the bust may be seen at Mount Vernon, Virginia.