The well in the new cellar was to prove unsatisfactory (see entry for 5 June). The dry well that GW used as an icehouse was first mentioned in 1773, when it was being repaired (General Ledger B description begins General Ledger B, 1772–1793. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 140). It was located at the southeast corner of the river lawn. In 1784 GW had considered building a new icehouse but decided instead to repair and improve the old one. On 2 June he wrote Robert Morris that the snow with which he had packed his icehouse was already gone, and requested advice and a description of Morris’s icehouse (DLC:GW). Morris suggested, among other things, that GW not use snow but pound ice into small pieces so it would freeze into a mass (15 June 1784, DLC:GW).