Alexander Gordon operated a tavern in Woodbridge, Virginia, near the Occoquan River toll bridge. In August 1805, he relocated to Occoquan Mills in order to accommodate those traveling by way of Nathaniel Ellicott’s new road. Gordon was innkeeper at Alexandria’s Washington Tavern in 1808 (John Davis, Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America; During 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802 [New York, 1909], 251; Alexandria Daily Advertiser, 30 Aug. 1805, 11 Apr. 1808, 28 Aug. 1811).

Please pay: on 25 Mch. 1806, TJ recorded paying Wheaton for “Alexr. Gordon at Occoquan Jack’s board 6.75.” According to his financial memoranda, TJ stayed at Gordon’s tavern on 15 July 1805 en route to Monticello. If his enslaved servant Jack was at Gordon’s tavern awaiting his arrival, Jack’s stay likely began on 13 July and not 3 July as stated in the statement printed above (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Princeton, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1160, 1176).