Tuesday 22d. Mercury at 45 in the Morning, 52 at Noon and 51 at Night.
Mizling Morning and very little Wind. About 8 Oclock it sprung up at No. West, & encreasing, blew hard all the remaining part of the day from that point & West.
Mrs. Grayson sent me 8 Yew & 4 Aspan trees & Colo. Mason some Cherry Grafts. Planted the intermediate holes round the Walk in the Wilderness on the right and filled the spaces between with young Pines.
Went to Alexandria—dined & returned in the Evening.
Eleanor Smallwood Grayson was the wife of GW’s friend and former aide, Col. William Grayson. GW had written William Grayson, asking him to send him scions of the aspen and shoots of the yew or hemlock growing along Quantico Creek near Dumfries, which Grayson had offered during an earlier conversation. “Plantations of this kind are now become my amusement & I should be glad to know where I could obtain a supply of such sorts of trees as would diversify the scene” (22 Jan. 1785, DLC:GW). Grayson replied from New York that he had procured some aspen trees from Landon Carter’s plantation on Bull Run and that Mrs. Grayson promised to send them to Mount Vernon along with any of the yew scions she could procure (10 Mar. 1785, DLC:GW).
If GW went to Alexandria today to check on the progress of the Potomac commissioners, he discovered they had already “waited some Days” for the two absent Virginia commissioners (George Mason to James Madison, 9 Aug. 1785, , 2:826).