George Washington Papers

From George Washington to Alexandria General Assemblies Managers, 12 November 1799

To Alexandria General Assemblies Managers

Mount Vernon 12th Novr 1799

Gentlemen

Mrs Washington and myself have been honoured with your polite invitation to the Assemblies in Alexandria, this Winter; and thank you for this mark of your attention. But alas! our dancing days are no more; we wish, however, all those whose relish for so agreeable, & innocent an amusement, all the pleasure the Season will afford them. and I am Gentlemen Your Most Obedient and Obliged Humble Servant

Go: Washington

ALS, ViAlL; ALS (letterpress copy), ViMtvL.

In 1791 a group of men in Alexandria organized a new dancing assembly separate from the long-established Alexandria Assemblies. Before the end of the year the managers of the two organizations agreed to unite into what was to be called the “Alexandria General Assemblies.” The managers of the General Assemblies’ ball in November 1799 at Gadsby’s Tavern, whose names GW wrote at the bottom of the page, were Jonathan Swift, Charles Alexander, Jr., George Deneale, Robert Young, James H. Hooe, and William Newton (Powell, Old Alexandria, description begins Mary G. Powell. The History of Old Alexandria, Virginia: From July 13, 1749 to May 24, 1861. Richmond, 1928. description ends 138–42).

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