Cash Accounts, December 1758
Cash Accounts
[December 1758]
What is known as (DLC:GW) includes GW’s personal accounts with individuals for the years 1750 to 1774. Interspersed in the ledger among the individual accounts are GW’s cash accounts in which he recorded his cash intake (“Cash”) and his cash expenditures (“Contra”). Except for letter-book copies of his letters to London merchants very little of what must have been an extensive correspondence between the time he left the Virginia Regiment in December 1758 and 1774 has survived. For this reason it seems useful to print month by month with some annotation the cash accounts for these years. GW followed the same form for his cash accounts, except in 1761 and 1762, with only minor variations. No attempt has been made to preserve variations in form such as placement of dates and the omission of zeros in the money amounts. Before this edition of GW’s Papers is complete, his ledgers will be edited and printed in their entirety.
| Cash | ||
| Decr 9— | To Ditto [cash] of Lieutt Charles Smith | £28.16. 41 |
| Contra | ||
| Decr 10— | By Ditto [Thomas Bishop] 21/. My Waggoner John Adams 40/.2 | 3. 1. 0 |
| By Expens. at Wests 7/5. Servants at Colo. Fx 7/63 | 15.11 | |
| By Jno. Alton for Tom Brownley4 | 5. 4. 0 | |
| By Jno. Alton5 35/. | 1.15. 0 | |
| By Miles Richardson6 | 1.10. 0 | |
| Decr 19— | By Cash paid my [brother] Chs Washington7 | 13. 0. 0 |
| 22— | By the Servants at Colo. Baylors 1/3 Exps. at Tods 5/8 | 0. 6. 3 |
| 25— | By Exps. at Chizzels Ordy9 5/. Coach 2/6 | 0. 7. 6 |
| 27— | By Miles Richardson10 | 2. 0. 0 |
1. For the source of this money paid to GW at Fort Loudoun by Charles Smith, see Smith to GW, 2 Dec. 1758.
2. Thomas Bishop (c.1705–1795) became GW’s personal servant in the army in the fall of 1755. For Bishop’s future service to GW, see George Mercer to GW, 17 Feb. 1760, n.5. In his account with his wagon driver John Adams, GW indicates that he paid the £2 to Adams at Bullskin plantation in Frederick County (, folio 50).
3. GW arrived at Winchester on the night of 8 Dec. and was preparing to leave for Mount Vernon when he wrote Fauquier on 9 December. William West’s ordinary was in Loudoun County at the junction of the Carolina and Colchester roads. The payment of 7s. 6d. to George William Fairfax’s servants suggests that GW spent at least one night at Belvoir before leaving for Williamsburg on or before 18 December. The total should be 14s. 11d., not 15s. 11d.
4. Thomas Brownley (Bromley, Brumley), who died c.1778, owned land in Fairfax County.
5. In his account with his servant John Alton GW indicates that he paid £1.12.6 to Alton at Mount Vernon (, folio 12).
6. For the identity of Miles Richardson, see Christopher Hardwick to GW, 12 Dec. 1758, n.1.
7. In his account with his youngest brother, GW notes that he “paid you [the £13] myself at Fredericksburg” on 20 Dec. (, folio 13).
8. GW sometimes stayed at Newmarket, the house of Col. John Baylor (1705–1772) in Caroline County, on his way to Williamsburg. This was probably George Todd’s ordinary down the road from New Market, also in Caroline County.
9. Chiswell’s ordinary was on the road in New Kent County, about fifteen miles from Williamsburg and less than that from the residence of Martha Custis at the White House plantation on the Pamunkey River.
10. GW gave Richardson the £2 of his army pay at Williamsburg.