A COLLEGIAL Stewardship

LIVING IN AND WITH A HOME’S SIGNIFICANT HISTORY

It’s not every day you find yourself being entertained in the very same room where our nation’s first president, enjoyed an evening of fine company, cocktails, and dancing. That is, however, where I did recently find myself as the guest of the President of Washington College in his residence at Hynson-Ringgold House in Chestertown. And, yes, I did say George was dancing.

“What’s notable about this room is that George Washington recorded in his diary that he stayed here and that he danced at a party in this room,” explains Dr. Michael J. Sosulski. “And he was known to be a terrific athlete, and a great dancer.”

There’s something that happens to a person when you find out someone so notable inhabited the very space where you are sitting. The eyes widen, the posture straightens, and imagination alights. I had never heard about Washington’s prowess on the dance floor before, but I could certainly see him there lightly skimming the original, wide-plank hardwoods as his dashing coat fleetingly catches the air under his woolen tails.

Calibrating back to the life of a modern-day visitor, I continue the enlightening tour of the residence that Sosulski and his wife, Dr. Cori Crane, have called home on Water Street since the latter half of 2021, when he became president of Washington’s namesake college, founded in 1782.

The Washington Room, to the left of the main entry hall, has all the 18th century details and historical bones befitting a residence of import with those enduring wood floors, tall, sash windows with weighty inner and outer shutters, and deep, built-in window seats so indicative of the period.

Upon further examination of the room, we pass a glass-front, antique cabinet that contains a collection of writings from our Founding Father. Then, along the fireplace wall, there is a set of double doors, that when opened, reveal a stellar Colonial period detail: a gorgeous concaved built-in with a serving surface. Sosulski tells me this probably functioned as a bar during that very evening when Washington took a turn on the floor, and reportedly was very graciously entertained in this residence.

“This is an original part of the house,” Sosulski says. “They used this during the Colonial period as a bar…and we know this from contemporary accounts from townspeople who walked up and down Cannon Street and noted that they would often see redcoats drinking at the bar.”

As we exit this lovely, sunny room, we pause to admire a framed work of embroidered art on the wall that Sosulski has been told is original to the Colonial period. Dating back to the 18th century, the “mourning picture” was highly representative of a practice of the era when artists would mark the death of a prominent person by honoring their life through art. There were several iterations of these works created at the time of Washington’s passing, many that depicted plinth and urn-like forms, as well as representations of angels and trees amidst an ethereal, garden-like backdrop.