While at other sites a long history of multiple applications of red washes would have made dating the first application of red wash very difficult, the fact that Montpelier had been covered with stucco in ca. 1848 meant that any surviving red wash sample had to date to  pre-ca. 1848.  However, because it was still possible that the mansion had been red washed in the period between ca. 1844, when Dolley Madison sold Montpelier, and the ca. 1848 stuccoing, an investigation had to be made to determine if  the red wash could be dated to Madison’s time.