George Washington's wartime 'oval office' getting extreme makeover

George Washington's wartime 'oval office' getting remade
By JOANN LOVIGLIO
The Associated Press
Published: March 31, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — A large canvas tent that served as George Washington's home and command center during the Revolutionary War is being duplicated down to the finest stitch and will serve as an educational tool and ambassador for a new museum coming to Philadelphia's historic district.

The 22-foot-long, 15-foot-wide oval tent, also called a marquee, is being reproduced this summer as part of a new partnership between the planned Museum of the American Revolution and Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg.

While the original will be a centerpiece of the museum, slated to open in 2016, its sturdier new cousin being made in Virginia will be on tour ahead of the museum opening.

"We all know Mount Vernon, but this is a home of George Washington that most people don't even think about," said R. Scott Stephenson, director of collections for the Revolution Museum. The future first president stayed in the field with his troops through the war, living and working in the tent that was the nation's first "oval office" of sorts, he said.

Stephenson and Mark Hutter, Colonial Williamsburg's journeyman tailor supervisor, will pick up 160 yards of hand-loomed linen from a facility in Northern Ireland that was able to produce the fabric to 18th-century specifications. An additional 90 yards of linen making up the inner chambers of the tent are being handmade by weavers at Colonial Williamsburg.

Hutter's team will spend a few days in April at a secret location outside Philadelphia where the tent and some 3,000 other artifacts are being carefully stored and archived until the museum is built. The Williamsburg artisans will get up close and personal with Washington's marquee, examining its seams, grommets, eyelets and thousands of stitches while perfecting their techniques for re-creating the 225-year-old artifact.
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"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."
George Washington