George Washington wrote reviews of early American inns.

 

When he wasn’t busy winning the Revolutionary War and not telling lies, George Washington had a thoroughly modern pastime: reviewing American inns. The founding father penned a series of these assessments early in his presidency, a time when he swore not to accept invitations to stay in his fellow Americans’ private residences while traveling. This was not because he didn’t enjoy home-cooked meals, but because he didn’t want to “incommode any private family,” as he wrote in a 1791 letter, and also to avoid any appearance of political favoritism. This necessitated patronizing inns during two major trips — one to New England and one to the South — as he got the lay of the land and greeted citizens, who he hoped would think of him as a man of the people.

 

Most of these accommodations, according to his extensive writings, were hardly five-star experiences. One he described as “not a good House” situated near an “intolerable” road, while at another “the entertainment was not very inviting.” Conditions were especially dire in the rural South, where, Washington wrote, he failed to find “a single house which has anythg. of an elegant appearance.” He fared better in Boston, where he noted a widow kept a “very decent & good House” and found that Delaware’s Buck Tavern was “a better house than the appearances indicate.” 

George Washington didn’t have children.

Despite being a founding father, the first U.S. president never had biological children of his own. He and Martha Washington were married for 40 years, and together they raised her two surviving children from her first marriage: John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis. Martha also had four grandchildren in addition to several nieces and nephews who came to live with the couple at Mount Vernon. Five other presidents had no known biological children: James Madison, James Polk, Warren G. Harding, James Buchanan, and Andrew Jackson.

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