Saturday 28th. Thermometer at 34 in the morning—43 at Noon and 44 at Night.
Morning calm & clear but the [ground] hard frozen. About 10 oclock the wind sprung up at South, but did not blow hard. Thawed the ground a good deal.
Went out after breakfast with my hounds. Found a Fox in the Branch within Mr. Thomson Masons Field and run him sometimes hard and sometimes at cold hunting from 11 oclock till near two when I came home and left the huntsman with them who followed in the same manner two hours or more longer, and then took the Dogs off without killing. In the course of the chase, & at the upper end of the cover in which the above Fox was found I see two run out at once neither of which appeared to be the chased Fox. This shews how plenty they are on that side the Creek.
When I came home found Colo. Gibson a Mr. Pollock (of Richmond) and Colo. Allison here, who dined and stayed all night.
Getting Ice again to day.
George Gibson (1747–1791), born in Lancaster County, Pa., joined the Virginia service at the beginning of the Revolution and held the rank of colonel in the 1st Virginia State Regiment from 5 June 1777 to Jan. 1782. After the war he returned to his home in Cumberland County, Pa. (Va. Mag., 18:24–25, n.1; , 189).
Oliver Pollock (c.1737–1823), born near Coleraine in northern Ireland, came to Philadelphia in 1760. He went into the West India trade and before the Revolution settled in New Orleans, where he developed a prosperous trading business. During the war Pollock served as commercial agent both for Virginia and the Continental Congress. His financial assistance to George Rogers Clark’s army in the West was vital to its success. Gibson’s association with Pollock dated from Aug. 1776 when the two men collaborated in securing a supply of gunpowder for Virginia from Don Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga, governor of Louisiana (, 1, 3, 4, 61, 143–45). Pollock carried a letter of introduction from Patrick Henry (Henry to GW, 18 Jan. 1786, DLC:GW).