To George Washington from James Anderson, 14 February 1797
From James Anderson
Mount Vernon 14th February 1797
Sir
Your letter of 5th came duely, And have now to hand You reports of last Week, in Writing of which in mistake began on the wrong end of 3 page1—I am sorry that I have hitherto been unsucessfull in procuring Fowls for Mrs Washing—It is said we are too late—And they are all sold—Shall still try—I have never heard from Mr Carter, And if I do not in a few days Shall try in some other place2—Am glad You are Satisfied with the speed in cuting down the Road—I am seldom pleased with the work of Negroes, being accustomed to more expedition—when speaking of this Shall take some notice of the Overseers—who are all Attentive to my Orders—But find Allison has little Authority. And his hands does little—Davie does as well as may be expected from a Negroe, Stewart is a man of some Ideas—But has these in much esteem, and is rather Opinionative; upon the whole not a bad Overseer—Cash and Violet are good Overseers.3 And have Authority (And I hope You will not be Offended by my informing that I enforce theirs and all of the Overseers Authority, by Assisting in some Chastisements when needfull[)]. I really do find pretences of Sickness When I can Observe scarcely any Ailment. And I do not wish to encourage this—I do think there are due Negroes And all servants their right (Negroes right being food & Cloathing) And when this is given them, the demand upon them is a Competency of work And when they fail in performing it—That they must be forced thereto—I will Attend to have the road fit for Your Excellency & Lady’s traveling to Mount Vernon alongst it, as You return.4
I find more difficulty in pushing our Overseers to Hedging than any thing—They being unaccquainted have rather an aversion thereto—In planting a Hedge of Locust from the Mill alongst the side of the Road untill You reach the bed of the River with a small Ditch on each side, & post & Rail fence on the Bank I can find no thorns—must fill the Gaps with Locust.
We must Attend, to have Potatoes, Turnip & Pease on each Farm for the Stock of all kinds—They do not thrive so well on dry food, as if they had part green. besides the vast expence of Corn, I did not get the Stills so soon to Work as I did expect—The Carpenters are but very Slow And the Water not being brought forward hindered us—The Worm of the new Still was too small which I have returned (It did not on Trial Answer) And will have in a day or two a proper one the Old Still does well5—And We shall save the Corn fed to the Hogs at the Mill, And on Thursday6 I shall go after these in Loudon, as I find our two Stills will be able to supply nearly 100 Hogs7—I am glad You think upon procuring something at Philadelphia—I have got Spades, But if You please may buy—12 large Shovels for throwing up mud cleaning the Bottoms of Ditches, Loading Manure &c. I think we may do without any Riddles—Buy 12 Grass Sythes of 3 feet 4 Inches long, 2 Dozen plates Rolled Iron for covering Moold boards 2 Dozen of plough plates for Shares, And 200 lb. nail rods As our smiths may make some nails by times especially of the large kind8—And if You can meet with it 30 Bushels Buck Wheat & 2 Bushels of the best & perfectly clean flax-seed, What we have is full of Cheat9—Besides a farmer ought always to be changing some of His seeds every Year, Your Observations as to puting in Seed are coinciding with mine, But when I harrow in wheat I wish to leave a rough Surface—and for any Spring Grain a smoothe one—Colln. Deakins says the Oats 12 or 13 Bush. is to be with Rickets & Neuton by 1 March.10 I am wishing the Gardner not to sell any fruit trees this Spring as You may need them in the Fall—I send some white & some English grey pease ⟨lying⟩ by which I will attend to sow When the Season will Admit. I have about ⟨7⟩ Gall. of a very fine grey pea much in repute in Glouster & Essex which I will plant in good Land to raise thereupon all I can, I think the small field by My house will be a kind of Garden11 for these Sundrie things being with the greatest esteem Sir Your most Obed. Humble Set
Jas Anderson
The fine flour by Allison & Violet is to be paid by the difference between midling & fine. Callahan pays the 25th from his hire.12
J.A13
I have Frank Airing the Rooms, Carpets &c. And in a few days before You arrive Shall have small fires in the rooms to Sweeten the Air.
Liras14 & Herculus are diging Brick Clay. Shall need some of them to assist in Grubing the Ground by white Gate.
J.A.
ALS, DLC:GW. GW replied to Anderson on 20 February.
1. Anderson enclosed the farm reports for 5–11 Feb., which are at DLC:GW. The data for the Dogue Run and Mill farms is upside down on page three of the farm reports.
2. GW had asked Landon Carter of Cleve to correspond with Anderson about the peas that Carter had offered to send to GW (see GW to Carter, 22 Jan.; see also GW to Anderson, 8 Jan. and 5 Feb.).
3. John Allison and Davy served as overseers of Mansion House farm and Muddy Hole farm, respectively. William Stuart superintended River farm, and John Violet and Joseph Cash were overseers at Union and Dogue Run farms, respectively.
4. GW returned to Mount Vernon on 15 March (see , 6:239). For the new road under construction at Mount Vernon, see Memorandum for Anderson and William Pearce, 5 Nov. 1796, and n.8 to that document.
5. For the recent establishment of a small-scale distillery at Mount Vernon, see GW to Anderson, 8 Jan., and n.2 to that document.
The farm report for 5–11 Feb. described the following work at the distillery: “finishing a Worm Tub for Distillery.” A “Worm,” which is submerged in water inside a worm tub, or condenser, is a “long spiral or coiled tube connected with the head of a still, in which the vapour is condensed” ().
6. The following Thursday was 16 February.
7. Byproducts from the distilling process were used to feed livestock (see , 111).
8. For GW’s offer to procure farm implements in Philadelphia, and for the shipment to Mount Vernon of many of the articles requested here, see GW to Anderson, 5 Feb., and n.5 to that document.
9. Cheat is a “name given locally to certain grasses ‘from resemblance to the grain among which they grow’” ().
10. William Deakins, Jr., had procured oats for GW from Pennsylvania and must have directed their delivery to the Alexandria, Va., mercantile firm of Ricketts & Newton (see GW to Anderson, 29 Jan.).
Later named Ricketts, Newton & Co., the firm Ricketts & Newton was then located at the corner of Prince and Fairfax streets in Alexandria. The firm, which sold a variety of goods, included among its partners John Thomas Ricketts (d. 1821), William Newton (c.1762–1814), and John Mills, Jr. (see , 2:5, 74–75; see also , 170; and Alexandria Gazette, Commercial and Political, 29 Dec. 1814). GW’s former estate manager William Pearce had done business with the firm on at least one occasion; he recorded a payment of $17 (without date) on a “Bill of Rickett & N[e]wton for a Barrell of pork when the people ware mowing & the pork here had Give out” (, p. 113).
11. For the location of Anderson’s house, see GW’s letter to him dated 8 Jan., and n.3 to that document.
12. Patrick Callahan had been hired as GW’s miller on 12 Aug. 1796, and served in that capacity until late summer 1799. GW later considered Callahan a competent miller but an “indolent man” (GW to William Roberts, 17 June 1799, in 4:132–34).
Callahan kept an account with GW between 7 Feb. and 26 Aug. 1797, which shows a cash payment of £9 to Callahan on 7 February. GW later debited him 9 shillings for “fine flour” in May 1797 (ViMtvL).
13. Following his initials, Anderson began a new paragraph with the phrase “The Measures of the Rooms are,” followed by a list of measurements for the four rooms off the first-floor central passage in the Mount Vernon mansion. The four rooms were the dining room (now known as the small dining room), parlor (the west parlor), and two bedrooms on the east or river side of the mansion. The bedroom on the south side of the central passage remained a bedchamber, but the second bedroom became the small parlor during GW’s retirement. Anderson began with the measurements of the small dining room, which he described as “long at long side 14 feet four Inches.” He measured “Its breadth” at “9½% feet say 9 feet 6.” The “Short end Side” measured “10 feet 2 Inches. Its breadth is 7 [feet] 2½ [inches] full breadth 16 8½.” Anderson next described one of the downstairs bedrooms: “Bed room of that, long at long side 14 feet 7 Inches, Broad at this side 8 6[.] long at short side 10 feet 1 Inches Broad at this side 4 full Breadth feet 12 6.” The measurements for the west parlor read: “long on long side 16 feet 1 Inches Broad at this side 10 7 [.] long on short side 11 feet 9 Inches. Broad at this side 5 [feet] 5 [inches.] full 16.” Anderson concluded by providing the measurements for the second bedroom located off the central passage: “Bed room off this long on long side 16 feet 4 Inches Broad at this side 7 1½ long on that side 12 feet 2 Inches Broad at this side 5 [feet] 7 [inches.] full 12 8½.” GW had requested these measurements in his letter to Anderson of 5 February.
14. No slave by this name has been identified, but Anderson may have meant the dower slave Cyrus.