CHAPTER XIX.
THE FIRST PRESIDENT.
IT now became the duty of the new republic to seek out the man to preside over it, and George Washington seems to have had no rivals. He rather reluctantly left his home at Mount Vernon, where he was engaged in trying the rotation of crops, and solemnly took the oath to support the Constitution of the United States, which had been adopted September 17, 1787. His trip in April, 1789, from Mount Vernon to the seat of government in New York was a simple but beautiful ovation.
Everybody tried to make it pleasant for him. He was asked at all the towns to build there, and 'most everybody wanted him "to come and make their house his home." When he got to the ferry he was not pushed off into the water by commuters, but lived to reach the Old Federal Hall, where he was sworn in.
In I791 the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia, where it remained for ten years, after which the United States took advantage of the Homestead Act and located on a tract of land
191
