When an amateur historian and artifact collector named Richard “Dana” Moore spotted an unusual listing on Goodwill’s online auction site in 2022, he was skeptical at first. After all, the nonprofit thrift store chain seemed an unlikely place to find a legitimate piece of American history up for grabs.
Curiosity got the best of Moore, who lives in Virginia. He ended up bidding just over $1,700 for the item, alleged to be a piece of tent once used by the United States’ first president, George Washington.
Moore’s gamble paid off, although he initially hid the purchase from his wife.
The auction listing that sparked Moore’s curiosity claimed that the tent remnant, encased in a frame, had been displayed in 1907 at a celebration commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Jamestown colonial settlement’s founding. Posted in Goodwill’s online “historical documents” section, the fabric was accompanied by a card identifying it as a piece of the leader’s tent.
It seemed too good to be true. “But when I zoomed in, the fabric looked authentically old,” Moore told Fox News Digital. “The brief handwritten note referencing the Jamestown Exposition of 1907, which was attached with a rusty pin, added to the feeling of age.” He bought the item.
A year after making the purchase, Moore and his wife, Susan Bowen, contacted the Museum of the American Revolution. Museum curator Matthew Skic confirmed that the cloth scrap was genuine and that the tent had been loaned to the 1907 Jamestown Exposition by Mary Custis Lee, Martha Washington’s great-great-granddaughter and daughter of Robert E. Lee.
Per Skic, the weave and color of the cloth helped to identify this particular tent, or marquee, which served as a dining facility for General George Washington as he traveled with his troops in 1778. “We were able to determine that this fragment was cut away from the scalloped edge of the roof of the dining marquee.”
Skic emphasized how rare it is to find genuine historical items for sale online, “especially through a Goodwill Online auction!” There could be hope for other budding artifact collectors eager to find similar treasures. “Prior to the discovery of this fragment, nine fragments of Washington’s tents were known to exist, all in the collections of museums or other institutions,” the curator explained. While the Museum of the American Revolution owns three tent pieces, Skic said there could well be others out there.
As for Moore and Bowen, their lucky purchase is now on loan to the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where it will remain on display as part of an exhibit called Witness to Revolution: The Unlikely Travels of Washington’s Tent until January of 2025.
The tent scrap is estimated to be worth tens of thousands of dollars… not a bad return for a $1,700 online purchase.
