Charles Willson Peale, now living in Philadelphia, wrote GW of the “great desire I have to make a good mezzotinto print” of him assuring GW he would “make the business as convenient to you as possible . . . by bringing my Pallette and Pensils to Mr. Morris’s that you might sett at your leisure” (29 May 1787, May–June, 1787, PPAmP: Charles Willson Peale Papers; see also SELLERS description begins Charles Coleman Sellers. Charles Willson Peale. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1947. description ends , 1:257–58; EISEN description begins Gustavus A. Eisen. Portraits of Washington. 3 vols. New York, 1932. description ends , 2:378).

On this day a local diarist recorded: “Before breakfast went with my daughter Hannah to the meadow. . . . On returning we met his Excellency General Washington taking a ride on horseback, only his coachman Giles with him” (HILTZHEIMER description begins Jacob Cox Parsons, ed. Extracts from the Diary of Jacob Hiltzheimer, of Philadelphia. 1765–1798. Philadelphia, 1893. description ends , 128).

The Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, founded in Feb. 1785 to promote agriculture in the United States, consisted of active (resident) members living in or near Philadelphia and honorary (later corresponding) members. GW became one of the latter in 1785. Samuel Powel was president from 1785 to 1794. The regular monthly meetings, drawing between 10 and 20 members, were held in Carpenters’ Hall, on Chestnut Street near Third Street. Built in 1770 by the Carpenters’ Company of Philadelphia, the hall had been the meeting place of the First Continental Congress (1774), to which GW had been a delegate (see GAMBRILL description begins Olive Moore Gambrill, “John Beale Bordley and the Early Years of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 66 (1942): 410–39. description ends , 410–39).