George Washington celebrated the beauty of the Potomac River and its connection to his life at Mount Vernon, calling it in a 1793 letter to Arthur Young "one of the finest Rivers in the world" and later reflecting that after the American Revolution he had "become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and under the shadow of my own Vine and my own Fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life…solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments…" In 1853, Ann Pamela Cunningham organized women nationwide to form the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association and raise money to buy Mount Vernon from the Washington family. In 1858, John Augustine Washington III agreed to sell the Mansion, outbuildings, and 200 acres to the Association for $200,000, the full price was paid by 1860, and the estate opened to the public that year as repairs continued. In 1955, rumors of oil storage tanks planned on the Potomac opposite Mount Vernon led Congresswoman Francis Payne Bolton, the Association's Vice Regent for Ohio, to buy nearly 500 acres on the Maryland shore, creating one of the nation's earliest land trusts and blocking the project. In 1960, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission announced plans for a water treatment plant facing Mount Vernon, but citizens and other groups appealed to Congress, and on October 4, 1961, President Kennedy authorized Piscataway National Park, preserving the vista. With crucial help from the Association, the government kept buying land along the riverbank, and the park now covers 4,650 acres and extends 6 miles along the Maryland shoreline. In the decades that followed, further efforts protected Washington's view, and Mount Vernon continues working with the National Park Service, the Conservation Fund, The Trust for Public Land, the Accokeek Foundation, and Maryland Neighbors to preserve more acreage and uphold Ann Pamela Cunningham's 1874 charge to guard Washington's home from desecration by "the fingers of progress."