This Peaceful Nature Sanctuary in Washington, D.C. Sits on the Ruins of a Plantation

Signs on Theodore Roosevelt Island, an 88.5-acre nature preserve nestled in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., note that John Mason—son of George Mason IV, author of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention—once owned “an elegant summer home” on a small rise in the middle of the now-verdant landscape. Between 1792 and 1830, Mason’s “stately mansion” was the…