The Mount Vernon Red Maple grows at George Washington’s Virginia home, where the nation’s first president and commander of the Colonial Army returned after retirement to the tranquil acres of his beloved Mount Vernon. Virginia, which Washington called the “infant, woody country,” offered him new opportunities, and Little Hunting Creek Farm was his favorite parcel of land. It had been deeded to his older brother Lawrence when Washington was 7 years old, and Lawrence renamed the plantation Mount Vernon in honor of his friend Admiral Edward Vernon, a British naval officer.