Saturday Jany. 5th. Mrs. Washington appeard to be something better. Mr. Green however came to see her abt. 11 Oclock and in an hour Mrs. Fairfax arrivd. Mr. Green prescribd the needful and just as we were going to Dinnr Captn. Walter Stuart appeard with Doctr. Laurie.
The Evening being very cold, and the wind high Mrs. Fairfax went home in the Chariot & soon afterwards Mulatto Jack arrivd from Fredk. with 4 Beeves.
Mrs. Fairfax is Sarah (Sally) Cary Fairfax (c.1730–1811), wife of George William Fairfax. Walter Steuart (Stuart, Stewart) served with GW in the Virginia Regiment and in 1755 was wounded in Braddock’s Defeat. At Grant’s Defeat in 1758, where he was again wounded, Stuart “distinguished himself greatly. . . . He was left in the Field, but made his escape afterwards” (GW to Francis Fauquier, 25 Sept. 1758, DLC:GW). Dr. James Laurie (Lowrie), a physician of Alexandria, may have come that day to tend those in GW’s “family” who were down with measles.
Mulatto Jack, a dower Negro from the Custis estate, was regularly used by GW as a courier, often to and from his Bullskin plantation in the Shenandoah Valley, which at this time was part of Frederick County (later Berkeley County and now Jefferson County, W.Va.; see entry for 19 Jan. 1760).