George Washington Papers
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From George Washington to James Anderson, 8 January 1797

To James Anderson

Philadelphia 8th Jany 1797

Mr Anderson,

Your letter of the 3d instant, & Mr Pearce’s of the same date, with the weekly reports—were received by me yesterday and I shall take notice of such parts of both as may require an expression of my sentiments thereon.1

I consent to your commencing a distillery, and approve of your purchasing the Still, & entering of it. And I shall not object to your converting part of the Coopers shop at the Mill to this operation.2 It is to be wished however, that it could be nearer your own house, or at the Mansion house; for I fear at the Mill, idlers (of which, & bad people there are many around it) under pretence of coming there with grist could not be restrained from visiting the Distillery nor probably from tempting the Distiller nay more robbing the Still; as the Mill would always afford a pretext for coming to that plac⟨e⟩. If the advantages were certain, of wch from want of experience in the business I have no adequate idea; I should have no objection to the building of a house for the purpose of distillation; and in that case (unless the house ought to be so situated as that water can be carried through it) I should prefer for this purpose the point below your house at what used to be the ferry landing.3 There the house might be sunk so as to bring the surface of the earth on the Northsid⟨e⟩ and east end, nearly upon a level (or rathe⟨r⟩ a foot below the plates) and this end, and side, might be done up with slabs from th⟨e⟩ Saw-pits, of which there ought to be many nailed (the sawed side inwards) to substantial Posts morticed into a square frame below, in order to prevent the earth which should be rammed around them, from falling in. The South front, and East end migh⟨t⟩ be boarded up with three quarter, or Inch plank in the usual manner, & covered in the first instance, at least, with lap boards, as any other roof would be. The earth by sinking the houses in this manner after throwing enough up on the North side, & East end for filling in, and ramming behind the Slabs, by being spread on the other side & end, would form a level sufficient for casks, or any thing else to stand. On an examination of the ground, something more simple & less expensive even than this, might be found to answer. The situation on many accounts would be good—1. because you would have it immediately under your own eyes, 2 because no body could have any pretext for coming to it but on real business, 3 because it wd be convenient on acct of the Hogs, as well as more secure, if they are to run at large—and 4. because every thing might be brought to, or transported from it, by Water. I question too, whether the expence of such a building as I have described, would be much greater than what would necessarily attend making the alterations in the Coopers shop at the Mill, to accomodate this business.

If upon full consideration of this matter, you should be of the same opinion, and at the sametime are satisfied from your own experience, not from theoretical calculations, that it can be carried on profitably,4 I authorise you to set the Carpenters about getting the framing, & putting up such a building as I have described. In the execution of wch do not crimp the matter, but rather look forward to an extension of the work, than narrow it to the views of the present moment.

As an expeditious, and cleanly mode of getting grain out of the Straw, is of the first importance to a farmer (especially in this country, where our wheat has so many enemies) I highly approve of your providing the materials for erecting a Threshing Machine in time, that the timber may be seasoning; but it will be time enough to put them together before next harvest, by which I think it probable that some improvement will be made on the one at Malborough; I know it is in contemplation.5

I believe with you, that my stock of Hogs is inadequate, and I have no objection to your increasing of them by purchase, of a good sort; and approve of your buying half a dozen, or more cows, of a proper kind, and a Bull. A Mr Gough near Baltimore has the imported breed, and sells them high; the Bulls especially—but I should not stand so much upon the price, provided the breed is to be depended upon.6

I am sorry to find the Mill is unable to grind. What does the Negros do for want of Meal? Secure the cracks in the manner you have recommended, or any other, in the Walls of it, and without delay; lest they should give way, as was the case some years ago.7 “A stitch in time,” to make use of a homely proverb “will save nine.”

My last letter (this day week) to Mr Pearce, gave him my ideas fully with respect to the manner of opening the New road;8 but in case any circumstances may have prevented his communicating these to you, they are as follow—viz.—If the large trees can be cut so low, & even⟨’d⟩ off, as that a carriage will run smooth over them without jolting, I had no objection to his pursuing this method, instead of gr⟨ub⟩bing them up by the Roots. I added, that although the whole road was to be opened 33 feet wide, I only required 20 or 24 of it directly in the middle, to be cleansed of every thing, & made perfectly easy & agreeable for carriages; but if ditched on each side, these ditches ought to be 33 feet, or the width of the whole road, apart. I expect however, that ’ere this, he has communicated these ideas to you; and turned over to you a long memorandum which I transmitted to him, of my views, soon after my return to this City in October⟨.⟩9 It will be necessary for your government in a variety of cases therein mentioned.

With respect to the clumps of Trees on the northern part of the North Visto,10 it would certainly have been judicious, in the first clearing, to have left them on the knowls; but as that was not done; or rath⟨er⟩ as the whole was designed for trees seperated from each other; clumps can only be formed now from those parts which are thickest of trees, whether on knowls or otherwise; as it is not my wish to thin the ground too much of its growth.

The place where the Ice is deposited, was not intended originally, for that purpose; and it was my design when I was last home,11 to have marked out, and prepared another spot for an Ice house; but I found the Road, and other jobs would allow no time to execute it; and therefore I postponed the matter until a more convenient period. If the weather (as it threatens to do) shd continue cold & freezing after you receive this letter, I would have you do what is proposed—that is, to put water upon the Ice. If it congeals & turns to a solid mass it will be fortunate; but whether it does or does not do this, I would have you, as long as Ice is to be had, & that in the house continues to sink, replenish it with more; keeping up the greatest body of it you can, as long as the exterior resource will enable you to do it; for having the means of preserving fresh meat during the Summer will be of immense importance to me, after I get settled at home.12 I forgot to mention it in time, & now I presume it is too late, that the wall all round, as the Ice was put in & rammed, ought to have been lined with straw—that is—straw to have been placed between the Ice & the wall 3 or 4 Inches thick, at least; for there it is the Ice begins always to dissolve first. After the house is filled, and before do not keep it close, for this also is injurious.

When you have taken an Inventory of every thing, examined the fields, and formed your plans, I shall expect to receive an acct of them.13 I have provided five bushels of Clover Seed for the use of the Estate, which I shall send to Mt Vernon so soon as the Water communication is uninterrupted by Ice.14 If there are any other Seeds, or things wanting, let me know it, that they may be provided and sent in due Season. Is rape seed desirable? if so how much would you want? It is dear here & probably (being imported) not very good.15 You talked of an early Potatoe.

I would not have the rotation (marked out for Dogue run farm) deviated from; except by planting the Indian Peas, if to be had, in what otherwise would be a naked fallow for Seeding wheat in Autumn, of the present year. Enquire if there is a probability of getting seed to that extent within reach of Mount Vernon; and let me know as soon as possible, as Mr Landon Carter of Cleve, has promised to supply me with seed if I can not obtain it nearer home.16 this would be far to send for it.

The Gardener complains heavily of the injury which he sustains from my half wild, half tame Deer;17 & I do not well know what course to take with them—especially as the hard weather, if it continues, will make them grow more and more bold & mischievous. Two methods have occurred, one or both combined, may, possibly, keep them out of the Gardens & Lawns; namely, to get a couple of hounds—& whenever they are seen in, or near those places, to fire at them with shot of a small kind that would make them smart, but neither kill or maim them. If this will not keep them at a distance, I must kill them in good earnest, as the lesser evil of the two.18

In your next letter, give me the exact measurement of the chimney in the Small dining room: that is—how wide, & deep it is within the wood, or facing part; how much the Slabs of stone on each side & at top, without the said wood, shews; what the size of the blocks or pedestals (of stone) are, on which these slabs stand; and what the length and breadth of the hearth (without the fire place) are.19 You will readily perceive that the object of this enquiry is to supply these with something else: exactness therefore, in the measurement, is indispensible. I am your friend and well wisher

Go: Washington

P.S. Send me the size of the frame, from out to out, which contains the family picture of the Marquis de la Fayette in the parlour.20

If Mr Pearce should be still at Mount Vernon, tell him I sincerely wish him better health & every prosperity he can desire.

ALS (letterpress copy), DLC:GW; ALS (incomplete), in private hands. The docket of the incomplete ALS reads: “Recd on the 12 Jany.”

1Neither Anderson’s letter to GW of 3 Jan., nor William Pearce’s letter to GW of the same date, has been found. The weekly reports also have not been found.

2Anderson appears to have established the Mount Vernon distillery in a section of the “Cooper’s shop,” which was situated “within a few rods” of GW’s mill. Two stills were in operation by 14 Feb. (Tobias Lear to Oliver Evans, 26 Jan. 1792; see also Anderson to GW, 14 Feb. 1797). Capable of producing about eighty gallons of whiskey in a week, the stills were managed by one boy and one of Anderson’s sons (see Anderson to GW, 22 Feb., and n.4 to that document; see also GW to Anderson, 6–7 Feb. 1798, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 2:74–75). The venture proved successful. By 21 June 1797, Anderson began to keep an account for the distillery, logging both expenses for whiskey production and receipts from sales. Anderson subsequently submitted proposals for a larger-scale operation, and construction of a stone edifice near the mill to house the distillery commenced in the fall of 1797. This larger distillery was in operation by February 1798 and consisted of five or more stills, boilers, and other equipment. GW’s distillery became one the largest in the United States at that time (see Anderson to GW, 21 June 1797, and n.4 to that document, and GW to John Fitzgerald, 12 June 1797, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 1:199–201, 180–81; see also GW to Robert Lewis, 26 Jan. 1798, and n.2 to that document, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 2:47–48; and Pogue, Founding Spirits description begins Dennis J. Pogue. Founding Spirits: George Washington and the Beginnings of the American Whiskey Industry. Buena Vista, Va., 2011. description ends , 111–35).

3Anderson’s house was located near the six-acre tract, south of the mansion on the Potomac River, where John Posey’s ferry stood and which GW had acquired in 1772. The house was situated on Union farm. In December 1790, Virginia law discontinued the ferry (see Cash Accounts, June 1772, and n.2 to that document, in Papers, Colonial Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series. 10 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1983–95. description ends 9:52–54).

In 1799, the fishery and other buildings associated with the ferry were offered for lease. In an advertisement, dated 20 Nov. 1799, Anderson, who signed the ad, described the fishery and nearby houses: “Besides, there are a shed of considerable size … and a house newly built, of 16 by 14, for the fishers to cook in, and another of 14 by 12, for an overseer to lodge in, and keep the accounts of the business.” Anderson added: “Nothing would have induced Gen. Washington to have let such a valuable property, but the firm determination of simplifyng and contracting his concerns” (Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette, 26 Nov. 1799).

4Anderson earlier had given GW an account of his experience operating distilleries, including one located at Salvington, the estate of his previous employer (see his letter to GW of 11 Sept. 1796).

5With a view to building a threshing machine at Mount Vernon, Anderson had taken measurements of one at Marlborough, the estate owned by John Francis Mercer (see Anderson to GW, 12 Oct. 1796, and n.2 to that document). By June 1797, GW had scantling procured for the construction of threshing machines modeled after the type used by Thomas Jefferson, Henry Lee, and others. However, after learning of an improved thresher made by agricultural inventor William Booker, GW had Booker erect machines at Union and River farms (see GW to William Booker, 26 June 1797, and GW to Edward Carrington, same date, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 1:216–17; see also GW to Booker, 15 April 1798, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 2:238–39; and General Ledger C description begins General Ledger C, 1790–1799. Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown, N.J. description ends , 49).

6Anderson later advised GW against purchasing a high-priced bull for sale by Baltimore merchant Henry Dorsey Gough (see Anderson to GW, 22 Feb., and n.7 to that document). GW had long been familiar with Gough’s importation and breeding of livestock (see GW to Pearce, 15 May 1796).

7GW probably refers to the collapse of walls at his mill in January and May 1771 (see Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 3:4, 59; and Lund Washington to GW, 12 May 1771, and n.2 to that document, in Papers, Colonial Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series. 10 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1983–95. description ends 8:467–69).

8GW’s letter to William Pearce of 1 Jan. has not been found. For the new road, see Memorandum for Anderson and Pearce, 5 Nov. 1796, and n.8 to that document.

9Following a month-long stay at Mount Vernon, GW returned to Philadelphia on 31 Oct., just days before finalizing his memorandum for Anderson and Pearce dated 5 Nov. 1796 (see GW to Alexander Hamilton, 2 Nov. 1796, and n.1 to that document).

10The north vista may refer to one opened from the northwest, or inland, side of the Mount Vernon mansion (see Memorandum for Anderson and Pearce, 5 Nov., and n.13 to that document). During the Revolutionary War, GW also had directed the opening of a vista looking toward Muddy Hole farm, northwest of the mansion (see GW to Lund Washington, 3 April 1779, in Papers, Revolutionary War Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series. 25 vols. to date. Charlottesville, Va., 1985–. description ends 19:734–36).

11GW was last at Mount Vernon from around 27 Sept. to 25 Oct. 1796.

12GW had given directives to have the ice house filled and replenished in his memorandum for Anderson and Pearce dated 5 Nov. 1796.

13Anderson sent an inventory with his unfound letter to GW of 18 Jan. (see GW to Anderson, 22 Jan., n.1).

14The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser for 12 and 24 Jan. reported frozen waterways in the region that obstructed the passage of ships. It was not until late February that GW sent the clover seed by a vessel imminently bound for Alexandria (see GW to Anderson, 20 Feb., and n.2 to that document).

15The Gazette of the United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser for 10 Jan. 1797 advertised for sale “Rape Seed” and other seeds imported from London, characterized as “fresh and good.” Rapeseed is the seed of the plant Brassica napus, which is typically used as fodder for livestock. The term can also signify either a turnip or the plant Brassica campestris oleifera, the seed of which produces an oil (OED description begins James A. H. Murray et al., eds. The Oxford English Dictionary: Being a Corrected Re-Issue with an Introduction, Supplement, and Bibliography of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. 12 vols. 1933. Reprint. Oxford, England, 1970. description ends ).

16See Landon Carter to GW, 13 Dec. 1796. GW wrote Carter on 22 Jan. asking him to correspond with Anderson about the peas.

17No letter on this subject from John Christian Ehlers, the Mount Vernon gardener, has been found.

18After making the letterpress copy of the ALS, GW inserted the following text in the margin of the incomplete ALS and marked it for insertion at this point: “Possibly, if there was a Rack for Hay—& a Manger for grain and offal of the Garden placed in the Pines in the Clover lot front of the House & regularly supplied with provender (and Herculas knows how to do this as he used to feed them) it might prevent them from doing mischief—& I might derive some benefit from them.”

19Anderson next wrote GW on 11 Jan., but no letter from him with chimneypiece measurements for the small dining room has been found. Anderson sent GW other room measurements in his letter of 14 February.

In the first several months of his retirement from the presidency, GW supervised repairs and renovations to various areas of the mansion house, including fireplaces. In a letter of 25 March 1797, GW wrote Tobias Lear in part: “The work immediately foreseen, and which must be done without delay, is, to refix the Marble chimney piece in the Parlour which is almost falling out; to fix the New one (expected from Philadelphia) in the small dining room” (Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 1:50–51). Completed in 1775, the dining-room chimneypiece was decorated with an ornate rococo design, which GW had selected from Abraham Swan’s pattern book British Architect, first published in London in 1745. The rich design depicts acanthus leaves, flowers, and scrolls of foliage, among other things (see Dalzell and Dalzell, Mount Vernon description begins Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., and Lee Baldwin Dalzell. George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America. New York and Oxford, England, 1998. description ends , 13, 104–6, 167–69).

20In April 1785, GW had received a family portrait of the marquis and marquise de Lafayette and their three children, which Lafayette had sent as a gift. Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, a Polish literary and political figure, described the painting during his visit to Mount Vernon in early June 1798: “[There is] a picture representing the family of the Mar[quis] de La Fayette: The Mar[quis] in an American uniform is presenting to his wife, who is seated, his son aged 4 also in an American uniform; his two daughters nearly the same age complete the group. The picture is well painted and well composed but the paint has fallen off in many places” (Niemcewicz, Vine and Fig Tree description begins Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. Under Their Vine and Fig Tree: Travels through America in 1797–1799, 1805, with Some Further Account of Life in New Jersey. Translated and edited by Metchie J. E. Budka. Elizabeth, N.J., 1965. description ends , 96). GW had hung the painting in the Mount Vernon mansion’s “Drawing room,” or the front (west) parlor, the space then designated for important family portraits. The portrait is now missing (see Lafayette to GW, 14 May 1784, and n.3 to that document, in Papers, Confederation Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1992–97. description ends 1:380–81; GW to Lafayette, 25 July 1785, and n.8 to that document, in Papers, Confederation Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1992–97. description ends 3:151–55; and Dalzell and Dalzell, Mount Vernon description begins Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., and Lee Baldwin Dalzell. George Washington’s Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America. New York and Oxford, England, 1998. description ends , 12–13, 193–94). GW’s request for the frame measurements suggests that he sought to acquire new frames for his portraits as part of his planned renovations for the mansion. In the spring of 1797, GW asked Philadelphia merchant Clement Biddle to procure nineteen gilded frames. He later requested four more frames (see GW to Biddle, 28 May 1797, n.3, and GW to Biddle, 15 Sept. 1797, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends 1:156–57, 350–51).

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