To George Washington from William Pearce, 13 November 1796
From William Pearce
Mount vernon Novr the 13th 1796
Sir
I have Receved your Letter of the 6th Instant Togeather with the Memorandom and three heads of the Egyption wheat you Mention;1 This I have planted as you directed—and as to the directions Contained In the memorandom I will pay all the Attention to them In my power, during my stay on your Estate, and will Likewise point out to Mr Anderson your Ideas of the diffirent things which you spoke to me about when you ware here2 and In Every other part of your Business I will Give him all the Information In my power.
with Respect to the free stone quarrey I have had Enough of the stone made Bare for the person to Exammine It But as I Mentioned In my Last Letter I fear the Body of Earth that Covers It is too Great to work It to Advantage.3
what Ever part of the New Road I do have done shall be done well but It will be a very heavy Job.4
at the Time I mentioned Mr Neals Being Ill he was very bad for a few days but got better. and got to work again—but his Complaind has now returned and he is very weak and Can scarcly go about5—we have got the Quarter at River Farm In its place and it will be nearly covered In this week.6 I have Inquired the price of oznabrigs In Alex[andri]a but thare is Scarcly any In town, and they asked me from 2/2d. to 2/5d. ⅌ yd for what was good for any thing by the Peice and to pay the cash Down for It and takeing a considerable quantity.
I have Likewise Inquired the price of Linseed oil & paint which Is very Scarce here Oil is 9/ ⅌ Gallon white Lead 24/ ⅌ Cegg [keg] spanish Brown 14/ dito yellow Ocor 1/ ⅌ pound and none of any Account is to be got here.7
The quantity of Barley made at Union farm 166 Bushels It Grew on 13 acres of Land which you Measor’d by the fish house8—but thare was about 3 acres of Land which Lay on the west side that had very Little on it so that I may say It Grew partly on 10 Acres I have sold It for a dollar ⅌ bushel—with the Rest abt 300 bushels In all.
I have had the Line of stakes on the Line of the new road Continued quite down to the River as you directed and It strikes the River by Cupits old house which stood In the Lot By my house.9
I have sent the higth of the Rooms up staires & garret The size of the Cellar windows & of the Gates.10
The weather still keeps dry—we have had no rain Since you Left this place the drought has I think Injured the wheat prety much.11
It was my Intention to have went to the Estern shore of Maryland before now but I have had the Rheumatism, so bad I was not able to Travel—I am now some thing better & hope to set off the Last of the week—and If nothing happens To prevent It I shall be back In 5 or 6 days from the Time I Leave this place.12 I am with the Greatest Respect Sir your Humble Servt
William Pearce
ALS, DLC:GW. With this letter, Pearce enclosed the farm reports for 6–12 Nov. (DLC:GW). GW replied to Pearce on 20 November.
1. GW’s letter to Pearce of 6 Nov. has not been found, but for the “Memorandom,” see Memorandum for James Anderson and William Pearce, 5 November. British agriculturalist John Sinclair had transmitted Egyptian wheat to GW through Enoch Edwards. GW held the wheat in high “estimation” (GW to Sinclair, 10 Dec.; see also Sinclair to GW, 10 Sept.; and Timothy Pickering to GW, 20 Oct., and n.1).
2. GW was at Mount Vernon from late September until 25 October.
3. Pearce’s most recent letter to GW, dated 6 Nov., has not been found, but for GW’s directives to have “Earth” removed from his stone quarry, see his letter to Pearce of 26 October.
4. For the new road, see Memorandum for Anderson and Pearce, 5 Nov., and n.8 to that document.
5. John Neale was the supervisor of GW’s carpenters.
6. The farm reports for 13–19 Nov. record the “Covering of the quarter from the Ground to the Top inside and Out And finishing of the Same” (DLC:GW). The quarter or quarters refer to the often temporary and transportable slave lodgings or cabins at Mount Vernon (see GW to Pearce, 7 Sept. 1794, and Pearce to GW, 11 Nov. 1794; see also GW to Pearce, 14 Nov.).
7. These inquiries into oil and paint prices were undoubtedly related to GW’s plans to have painting and other renovations done at the Mount Vernon mansion in anticipation of his retirement. Spanish brown is “a kind of earth having a reddish-brown colour (due to peroxide of iron), used as a pigment” (). The term “ocor” refers to ochre or ocher, a “native earth, or class of earths, consisting of a mixture of hydrated oxide of iron with varying proportions of clay in a state of impalpable subdivision; varying in colour from light yellow to deep orange or brown” (). GW advised Pearce of a shipment of oil, paint, and osnaburgs to Mount Vernon in a letter to him of 4 December.
8. GW had noted the presence of a fish house at Ferry and French’s plantations, which in 1793 became Union farm (see GW to Pearce, 15 Feb. 1795; see also , 5:6; and GW to James Bloxham, 1 Jan. 1789, source note).
9. Cupid was a dower slave at Union farm. His name does not appear on GW’s slave list of 1799. The exact location of his cabin has not been identified, and it may have been moved during the re-organization of Union farm in the early 1790s. For early slave accommodations at Union farm, see GW to Arthur Young, 12 Dec. 1793.
10. In an undated memorandum docketed “Dimention of the Rooms up Stairs and the Gates and the Cellar windows,” Pearce listed the measurements of the Mount Vernon mansion’s second-story rooms from “floor to Ceiling” as follows: the “Blue room” and the room “over the Small dining room [Chintz Room],” 8 feet 2 inches; the room where Lafayette “Lodged,” 8 feet; and the “yellow room & same side,” also 8 feet. Pearce further noted that the garret rooms, or those on the uppermost floor, were 7 feet 5 inches from floor to ceiling. Pearce then provided the measurements for the gates at the plantation: the gate “front of the Lawn” was over 11 feet wide; the garden gate “from wall to wall” was 8 feet 8 inches; and the kitchen garden gate from wall to wall measured 8 feet 6½ inches. Pearce also recorded measurements of the cellar windows: “The cellar windows 6 In nombr In the west front are of one Size 2 feet 7 Inches & a half In weadth—higth 1 foot 2 Inches to the sill & the Sill is stone 2½ Inchs from the pavement—north End has one window higth 1 foot 6½ In. wedth 2 feet 9½ I. windows In the south End are 2 Both of a Size higth 4 4½ Width of them is 2 11” (ViMtvL). These measurements probably were made in preparation for the anticipated renovations at the mansion.
11. In a letter to Virginia congressman James Madison, written at Monticello on 17 Dec. 1796, Thomas Jefferson commented on the drought that affected Virginia in the last quarter of that year: “The drought is excessive. From the middle of October to the middle of December not rain enough to lay the dust. A few days ago there fell a small rain, but the succeeding cold has probably prevented it from sprouting the grain sown during the drowth” (, 29:223–24).
12. Pearce left Mount Vernon for Baltimore by 18 Nov. and proceeded to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he had property in Hopewell, Kent County (see Tobias Lear to GW, 20 Nov., and GW to Pearce, 11 Dec.; see also Benjamin Chew, Jr., to GW, 16 Aug. 1793, and n.2 to that document).
GW evidently requested Pearce to bring back agricultural implements from Maryland. In an undated document in GW’s writing headed “Memorandums,” GW wrote: “Get a Scythe & cradle from the Eastern Shore of Mr Pearce, by wch to make others for catching the Grain, as cut, in the hand” (CSmH).