Purchase of Mount Vernon: The Friend (Honolulu), October 1858

The following column appeared in the October 1858 edition of The Friend, a monthly newspaper edited and published in Honolulu by Rev. Samuel C. Damon of the American Seaman’s Friend Society. Damon's column references an oration on the character of Washington by Edward Everett. Click this link to a paper delivered by Roger Mudd delivered at the Annual George Washington Symposium in 2003. It is also available in pdf format. Click here for Everett's oration on the character of President Washington.

"By the last mail, re have received a monthly sheet, (just the size of the Friend) published in Philadelphia, and “devoted to the purchase of the home and grave of Washington.

As our readers are doubtless aware, an enterprise has been started among the ladies of the United States, to raise two hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of Mount Vernon, where Washington lived and died. It is designed to fit up the establishment as nearly as possible in the style in which it was left by the Father of his country.

The Hon. E. Everett, it is well known, has become deeply engaged in the enterprise. In behalf of the Fun, he has raised $40,000 by the sale of tickets to hear his Oration upon Washington’s character. He has delivered his oration seventy times, and promises to repeat it seven hundred and seventy times more if the people will pay their money for the purchase of Washington Domain.

We could wish Mr. Everett would visit California, and just make a trip to the Sandwich Islands, and we are confident the people of Honolulu would give a $1000 to hear him deliver his oration!

Report says the ladies of Honolulu are collecting subscriptions to add their quota to the General Fund. We have not heard how they succeed; but we say, success ladies, to your enterprise. No doubt success will crown your efforts.

The name Washington is very popular in Honolulu, for we have our ‘Washington Place,’ and portraits of him who was “first in war, first in peace,” &c., hang in almost every dwelling."