Mountain Road Lottery: Setting the Record Straight by Ron Shelley

The wikipedia entry under Mountain Road Lottery was written by me with research from the article I wrote in 1989 for Lottery Players Magazine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Road_Lottery

When Eric Bender, (Tickets To Fortune, 1938), made the incorrect statement that George Washingtgon's Mountain Road Lottery
"was to build a road over the Cumberland Mountains," he had no idea that his unsubstantiated conclusion would find its way into the Encyclopedia Brittanica, and thus become an erroneous reference source for lottery historians.

To set the record straight, the following facts were found and documented by me in 1998 during several months of research in Virginia, including a visit to the site of the proposed "Mountain Road."


In 1767, Washington was seeking land within the Alleghany Mountains to develop for himself and fellow officers in the Virginia Regiment. One such endeavor involved a Captain Thomas Bullitt, who had earlier served with Washington in the Alleghanies, where during long patrols they used to rest in an area known as the Warm Springs Valley. It was here that Bullitt owned land, and in 1767 he went to Washington with a proposal for a joint venture to develop Bullitt's land into a resort. Washington agreed to the project. However, they needed to build a road to the area, and thus was born the "Mountain Road" lottery.


Below: Ledger entries from George Washington's cash accounts showing charges of six pounds to Col. Fielding Lewis and Captain Thomas Bullitt for "Augusta Springs" project. Dated 5 Nov, 1767. (Warm Springs was located in then Augusta County, Va.)
Col. Lewis was Washington's brother-in-law, and also one of the partners involved in the scheme - see Bullitt's rescission notice (below) of Feb. 8, 1771.






Washington saw the commercial value of this venture, because there existed a successful resort with "warm springs" several hundred miles north, in the Virginia towns of Bath and Berkley, which Washington visited along with many other wealthy families of the time. Washington's family owned the land on which this resort had been developed. The resort was on a style similar to that found at Bath, England, which had been the site of a warm springs spa since Roman times, and was a mecca for the rich in the 18th century. Washington's venture was to take place in the warm springs of Augusta County, an area now known as the towns of Warm Springs and Hot Springs, Bath County, Virginia. So the similarity to Bath, England, was intentional and eventually came to pass.

Advertisements were placed in the Virginia Gazette that offered the lottery tickets at a price of 20 shillings (one pound) each, with a total of six thousand planned for sale. 85% of the money was to be paid out in prizes, and the remainder used for the project. Unlike modern lotteries, the public would not accept lottery operators making large profits. The advertisements refer to the purpose of the lottery as "to make a road over the mountains to the warm and hot springs in Augusta County."

Below: Mountain Road Lottery advertisements placed in the Virginia Gazette as shown by this copy dated July 21, 1768.

As Washington's diary shows, the tickets did not sell, and the lottery did not take place.
Below: Ledger entries show tickets sold to a Mr. James Gibson, then later written off as "not sold"

The lottery failed in part because the king banned all lotteries, and there were many other competing lotteries at the time.


Bullitt published a rescision of agreement notice in the Virginia Gazette on Feb 21, 1771.




The partners in the project: Fielding Lewis was George Washington's brother-in-law, and Gabriel Jones was a leading political lawyer in the Virginia Legislature.
Later, in 1772, the road was built with 300 pounds in funds allocated by the Virginia Legislature for the purpose of "clearing a safe and good road from the Warm Springs in Augusta to Jennings Gap." That road is now part of Virginia Routes 629 and 39 from Jennings Gap into Warm Springs.
Bullitt went on to develop his land into a resort which eventually became home to the magnificent structure that is known today as:

The Homestead: Pictured below nestled in the Warm Springs Valley. The bath houses, fed by warm waters from the springs, are the white buildings in the foreground. Over the years, the resort has featured a casino, ballrooms, banquet halls, and golf courses.





Driving to the Homestead takes a route through the George Washington National Forest, and along the original road site planned by Bullitt and Washington.