21st. Accompanied by Colo. Cannon & Captn. Swearingin who attended me to Debores ferry on the Monongahela which seperates the Counties of Fayette & Washington,1 I returned to Gilbert Simpson’s in the Afternoon; after dining at one Wickermans Mill near the Monongahela.2
Colo. Cannon, Captn. Sweringin & Captn. Richie all promised to hunt up the Evidences which could prove my possession & improvement of the Land before any of the present Occupiers ever saw it.
1. Devore’s ferry in 1784 connected Westmoreland and Washington counties; in 1788 the northeast landing of the ferry became part of newly formed Allegheny County while the southeast landing remained part of Washington County. GW apparently did not realize that he had crossed from Fayette to Westmoreland County near Col. Edward Cook’s house on 18 Sept. (, 172; , pt. 1, 120).
2. Adam Wickerham of Washington County, a German immigrant, lived on the bank of the Monongahela near Devore’s ferry. According to tradition, he avoided arrest during the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794 by feigning idiocy (, 165–67).