Originally published on November 30, 2015. As the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, we’re revisiting this look at Washington the entrepreneur.

The entrepreneur’s life seems to involve endless toil and anxiety punctuated by the occasional success and, sometimes, an hour of cheerful distraction. That’s how it is for me, anyway. So, when I strolled into a primitive flour mill at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Alexandria, Virginia, one evening in October, I thought I was in for the distraction part of my chosen field.