Wednesday 12th. Thermometer at 44 in the Morning—52 at Noon and 51 at Night. Wind at So. Wt. all day & pleasant—Clear in the morning, but a little lowering towards 3 oclock—clear afterwards.
The force of yesterday was employed in the roads to day.
Mrs. and Miss Stuart went away after breakfast. I rid to the repairers of the Road and to my New Barn—the Rafters of which were all raised about Noon.
Mr. Lund Washington dined here again to day.
GW bought about 100,000 eighteen-inch-long juniper shingles for the barn from Thomas Newton, Jr., of Norfolk at a cost of about £40, but unfortunately the last and largest load of shingles did not reach Mount Vernon until the middle of December (GW to Newton, 1 Aug., 10 Oct., and 17 Dec. 1788, DLC:GW). “The Season,” GW wrote the comte de Moustier 15 Dec. 1788, “will be so far advanced before I shall have compleatly finished covering my Barn, that I can be able to do nothing more to it this year” (Arch. des Aff. Etr., Mémoires et Documents, Etats-Unis, vols. 5–6). George Augustine Washington oversaw the completion of the building the following spring (GW to George Augustine Washington, 31 Mar. 1789, DLC:GW).