Today we celebrate George Washington’s Birthday.  You read that correctly.  While most people refer to this Monday holiday as ‘Presidents Day’, the federal holiday (and many state holidays) only celebrates one President of the United States: George Washington.

Washington’s birthday celebrations go back to the time when Washington was living.  Washington was born on February 11, 1731, but with the changing from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, it was shifted to February 22, 1732 in 1752.  (Check out a video of us visiting the site of Washington’s birth!) While there are no records of how he and his family celebrated the day privately, the first real public celebration of his birthday occurred at Valley Forge in 1778.  A fife and drum corps serenaded the commanding general outside his headquarters building at the Potts House during that dreadful winter.  Historically, the colonists had celebrated annually the birthday of the King, so it was symbolic for the Continentals to celebrate Washington’s birthday instead during the war.

After becoming President of the United States, large public celebrations of Washington’s birthday occurred across the country including large ones in Philadelphia and New York.  These celebrations included the ringing of church bells, feasts, toasts, artillery firings, and fireworks.

His hometown of Alexandria, Virginia celebrated Washington’s final two birthdays on the old-style date of February 11.  On Washington’s final birthday (February 22, 1799), Washington celebrated the marriage of his step granddaughter, Nelly Custis, to Lawrence Lewis at Mount Vernon by candlelight.  Washington donned his Continental uniform for this final birthday, at Nelly’s request.

After his death, communities continued to celebrate Washington’s birthday.  While there was some debate in a society that was very anti-monarchical about celebrating a President’s birthday, Washington proved to be a figure almost universally admired.

During the American Civil War, both sides would celebrate Washington’s Birthday.  The Confederate government even inaugurated Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy on February 22, 1862 in honor of Washington.

After the Civil War, in 1879, the federal government officially made February 22 a holiday in Washington’s honor.  Originally only for federal employees in Washington, DC, this was expanded to all federal employees in the country in 1885.

When the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968 was passed by the United States Congress, Washington’s Birthday was moved from February 22 to the third Monday of every February, thus making it impossible for the holiday to land on either of Washington’s real birthdays.

While it was proposed to combine Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays together to create “President’s Day”, this motion failed and the holiday went into effect as just Washington’s Birthday.  That remains the case to this day.

While many states recognize both Washington and Lincoln (and other Presidents), more than ten states recognize only Washington, including his home state of Virginia.  Despite this, local governments, schools, and most businesses often remove this holiday altogether or simply call it “Presidents Day.”  The result is of course expected.  The holiday set aside to remember the Father of Our Country has lost most of its importance.  In a prescient speech before Congress in 1968, Dan Heflin Kuykendall (R-Tennessee) opposed moving Washington’s birthday observance to the third Monday of February.  He noted that “If we do this, 10 years from now our schoolchildren will not know or care when George Washington was born. They will know that in the middle of February they will have a 3-day weekend for some reason. This will come.”  How right he was.

It is up to us to bring back this important holiday.  If you have the day off, celebrate the holiday by visiting a historic site associated with Washington, attend a parade, read an article or book about the character of Washington, read his 1796 farewell address to the nation, or take a moment to simply be thankful for what our country is because of him.  He was the indispensable man of the Revolution.  If there was no George Washington, there would be no United States of America.

As for myself, I’ll be enjoying George Washington’s favorite breakfast of hoecakes swimming in butter and honey before taking the kids to George Washington’s boyhood home of Ferry Farm.  After all, we need the next generation of Americans to know how important Washington was and why his birthday deserves and needs to be celebrated.