To George Washington from William Minor, 24 May 1785
From William Minor
Alexandria 24th May 1785
Sir
The proposition that your Excellency was pleased to make of Leaving to Some Gentlemen the Matter I laid before you on Saturday the 21st Instant in Regard to my Claim against you on Account of Lawrence Posey—is perfectly agreeable to me.1 I wish I had had presence of mind to have asked your Excellency to have Appointed Some Gentlemen to do the Business when I was at your Place—but I did not know that I Cou’d Stay So Long as I have done—If your Excellency will be pleased to nominate any two Gentlemen in Alexandria, and let me name a third, I will be Satisfied with their Determination—I am not Acquainted with any Gentlemen in this County, but Mr George Minor & Captn Moss, at whose House I shall Stay a day or two Longer2—Or if the Hble Gentleman who will deliver you this will do the Business for us, his Determination Shall be perfectly agreeable to Sir your Excellency’s Most Obedt and Most hble Servt &Ca
Wm Minor
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. In the summer of 1772 John Posey was released from jail in Queenstown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore where he had been held for failure to pay his debts. Posey then returned to Virginia for several months. While he was away in Virginia, a Queenstown tavern keeper took in Posey’s son, St. Lawrence Posey, and put him to work tending bar—on orders of his father according to another Queenstown tavern keeper, Francis Baker, or because the boy fell ill, according to John Posey. Posey returned to Queenstown after 14 Oct. 1772 and rescued his son from the tavern barroom, after St. Lawrence had lived and worked at Minor’s tavern, according to John Posey, for only about three months. See John Posey to GW, 25 May 1771, n.5; see also Francis Baker to GW, 15 Dec. 1772, and Posey to GW, 9 Aug. 1773. Evidently Minor went to Mount Vernon on 21 May to demand that GW pay him for other expenses he incurred while St. Lawrence Posey was in his care for several months in 1772. For GW’s denial of any obligation to pay Minor anything, see GW to Minor, 27 May 1785.
2. John Moss and George Minor gave up their seats on the Fairfax County court in June 1789 when they became inspectors at the tobacco warehouse in Alexandria, the town where both lived.