HERCULES POSEY, C. 1747 - 1812

Hercules Posey was an enslaved cook at Mount Vernon. Washington prized Posey’s culinary skills so highly that he took him to Philadelphia to cook for the presidential family, friends, members of Congress, and visiting foreign dignitaries.

Hercules Posey was likely born sometime between 1747 and 1749. Before he became the property of George Washington, he was enslaved by Washington’s neighbor John Posey, who owned an adjoining plantation called Rover’s Delight. Posey was indebted to Washington who had tried, unsuccessfully, to be repaid for some years. In 1769, Washington called in a mortgage note he held against Posey. Among the property Posey relinquished to Washington were twenty-six enslaved persons including Hercules, who was then about twenty years old. Although the exact date he began working in Mount Vernon’s kitchen is unknown, by 1786 he is listed in the slave census as a cook in the Mansion House.

Hercules would have learned to cook as an apprentice under the older enslaved chefs such as Doll. He likely started out doing scullery work - peeling vegetables, plucking fowl, fetching water - and worked his way up to master chef, laboring sixteen-hour days to produce sophisticated feasts for his enslavers.

Posey bought fashionable clothes with money he earned by selling various kitchen leftovers. He was a well-known figure in the city, seen walking the city streets in his distinctive dress. In 1797, after he was reassigned to manual labor at Mount Vernon, he escaped bondage. He eventually made a life for himself as a free man and chef in New York City.

Learn more about Hercules on his Faces of Mount Vernon’s Enslaved Community webpage.