1From George Washington to Charles Pettit, 3 January 1781 (Washington Papers)
...following articles which he desired Pettit to purchase: two skeins of white silk, two skeins of buff silk, four sticks of buff twist (tightly twisted sewing silk) to match a piece of cloth that he enclosed, six toothbrushes, two almanacs for 1781, and half a pound of brown thread (