250-Year-Old Sealed Bottles of Cherries Unearthed at Mount Vernon

During a privately funded revitalization at George Washington's Mount Vernon, archaeologists uncovered two sealed dark-green glass bottles beneath a brick floor laid in the 1770s. Found upright in a small pit, the vessels were opened in the site's laboratory and released a distinctly cherry aroma.

Conservators date the bottles to the mid-18th century—likely the 1740s or 1750s—based on their form and manufacturing style, which suggests they were buried before the floor was installed and therefore predate the American Revolution. Each bottle contained whole cherries, complete with stems and pits, suspended in an amber-colored liquid.

What the team found and why it matters

To stabilize glass that had not been exposed to open air for roughly two centuries, specialists carefully drained the liquid in the archaeology lab. Preliminary examination indicates the bottles originally contained only cherries; the amber fluid may be groundwater that entered later after corks began to fail. Visible evidence and initial analysis support the idea that the fruit was deliberately preserved—likely dried, placed in a sealed bottle and buried—for later culinary use.

'Not only did we recover intact, sealed bottles, but they contained organic material that can provide us with valuable insight into 18th-century life at Mount Vernon,' said Jason Boroughs, Mount Vernon’s principal archaeologist.

'This is a blockbuster find,' said Doug Bradburn, Mount Vernon’s president and CEO, calling the intact bottles and the sensory connection they provide to the colonial era exceptionally rare.

Context and next steps

Although George and Martha Washington were known to enjoy cherries, archaeologists note the bottles may never have been handled by the household’s owners. Estate records show that more than 300 enslaved people worked at Mount Vernon around the time of Washington's death, and the location where the bottles were found was tied to the broader operations of the estate.

The archaeological team will send the bottles off-site for conservation and forward samples to specialized laboratories for chemical and botanical analysis. Researchers hope scientific testing will confirm species, preservation technique and any additional organic traces that could reveal dietary habits, trade connections or household practices.

This discovery highlights how routine renovation work can yield unexpected windows into daily life more than two centuries ago. The bottles' intact condition and preserved organic material make them rare artifacts for the study of colonial foodways and material culture, offering a direct sensory link to the past.