George Washington Papers

Cash Accounts, May 1769

Cash Accounts

[May 1769]

Cash
May 1— To Ditto [cash] of Mr Chas Smith by Mr Edd Taylor1 £  5. 0. 6
3— To Ditto Won at Cards 4.17. 6
4— To Ditto borrowed of Colo. Fieldg Lewis 50. 0. 0
6— To Ditto recd of Mr P[hilip] Whitehd Claiborne for a years Interest of his Bond 14. 0. 0
8— To Ditto recd from Mr Wm Dandridge on Acct of Do. 22. 0. 5
9— To Ditto recd of Doctr Js Carter for a years Intt of Mrs [Joanna] McKenzies Bond2 10.16. 0
To Cash of Mr James Gibson for a Bill of Excha: dra. by Jas Kirk for £160.0.0 Stg Exchange 22½ prCt 36. 196. 0. 03
To Cash recd of Mr Jos. Valentine 140. 0.10 1/24
To Ditto Won at Cards 1. 5. 0
13— To Ditto recd from Mr Josh Valentine 24. 0. 0
Ditto recd of Do on Acct of Intt due from Francis Foster 14. 0. 0
 
14— To Cash won at Cards5 1. 0. 0
23— To Cash recd from Wm Cash on Acct of Weavg6 0. 2. 9
26— To Ditto recd from Mr Wm Triplett on Acct of Do 2. 0. 0
27— To Ditto won at Cards7 0. 8. 0
Contra
May 1— By Expences at Peyton’s Ordy8 0.19. 7 1/2
By Ditto at Hubbards 0. 8. 6
By Ditto at Todds 4/. Servants 2/ 0. 6. 0
2— By Ferriages at Ruffins 0. 4. 0
By Expences of my Sick Horse 0.15. 0
3— By Anthony Hay for 3 purses (that is Subscripn to 3 Wmsburg Purse Races)9 3. 0. 0
4— By Cash paid Peyton Randolph Esqr. for my tenth of 100 Tickets taken in Partnership with himself and others in Colo. Byrds Lottery10 50. 0. 0
By Cards 20/. Servants 2/6—Charity 6/3 1. 8. 9
7— By Dinner & Supper at Ayscoughs 10/. Coffee 2/11 0.12. 0
8— By Cash lost at Cards 1. 0. 0
10— By Cash paid for 2 pr of Snap Earings for Colo. Mason12 1. 0. 0
11— By Charity 20/. Ferriages at York 3/9 1. 3. 9
13— By Servants 1/3—Gave away 2/6 0. 3. 9
18— By Anthony Hays Acct 32/9. And Club at Do arisg from the Associators meetg there 20/13 2.12. 9
By 2 Oz. Pollichrista 2/. 2 Oz. Gumguacum 2/14 0. 4. 0
By the Farmers Letters 3/6.15 a pr of Gloves 2/6 0. 6. 0
By Coffee 1/3. lent Edmd Randolph16 0.10. 0
By Alexander Craig for J. P. Custis 1.15. Ditto for myself .16.17 2.11. 0
13— By Cash paid Colo. Fieldg Lewis by Mr James Gibson 196. 0. 018
By Ditto paid Do myself 2.16. 1 1/2
19— By Servants 5/—Ditto 7/6 0.12. 6
20— By Cash Lent Mr Robt Rutherford 5. 0. 0
By George Lafong Barber pr Rect 2. 6. 0
 
By Mrs Campbells Acct for Board &ca 6.15. 0
By Mr [William] Rind for Gazette due this Month &ca 1. 0. 0
21— By Mrs Bassett for Sundries viz.19
1 piece of Chintz 2.12.6
1 Hair Pin . 6. 
1 Comb for the Hair 3. 9.  3. 2. 3
By Servants 3/9—Exps. at Todds 6/5 0.10. 2
22— By Expences at Port Royal 0.10. 4
By Ferriages at Do 2/6. Servants 1/320 0. 3. 9
23— By Cash Lent Valentine Crawford 1. 0. 0
25— By Joseph Sole Alterg J. P. Custis’s Boots21 0. 2. 6
26— By Expences at Cameron22 0. 3. 9
27— By Mrs Washington 2. 0. 0
By Mary Wilson 0.15. 0
28— By Servants 0. 3. 9

AD, General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 290–91.

1Lt. Charles Smith, whom GW placed in command of Fort Loudoun at Winchester in 1756, rented for several years until October 1763 a lot in Winchester with some sort of building on it belonging to GW. The £5 that Edward Taylor gave GW was in partial payment of what Smith owed in back rent.

2A photocopy of the receipt GW gave Dr. James Carter is in DLC:GW.

3On 4 Mar. 1769 GW got from Carlyle & Adam in payment on his account “a Sett of Excha. drawn by James Kirk, on Messrs Crosbies & Trafford of Liverpool, payable in London for Ster[lin]g—£160.0.0 & dated March 4th 1769” (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 280). The exchange rate was 22½ percent. For the disposition of the bill, see note 18.

5GW visited Warner Lewis at Warner Hall in Gloucester County on 13 and 14 May during the weekend recess of the House of Burgesses.

6GW’s account of weaving done by “Thomas Davis &ca” from 1767 to 1771 (DLC:GW) includes in each entry the name of the person for whom a piece of work was done, the weight of the thread, the type of the finished cloth, and the price charged. A transcription of the complete account is in CD-ROM:GW.

7On 27 May GW “Went in to Alexandria to a Barbecue and stayed all Night” (Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 2:154).

8GW set out for Williamsburg on 30 April and, on the first night of his journey, “was forcd into Peytons Ordy. at Aquia where we lodgd” (ibid., 143).

9In the 27 April issue of the Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon; Williamsburg), there appeared this item: “This day the Williamsburg purse of 100£ was run for, at our race ground, by Nonpareil, the property of the Hon. John Tayloe, Esq; Mark Anthony, belonging to Capt. Littlebury Hardyman, and Fanny Murray, the property of Nathaniel Walthoe, Esq. Mark Anthony won the first heat with ease (in which Fanny Murray was withdrawn the second mile going round) the other heat Nonpareil more warmly contested, but Mark Anthony came off victor.” Races were held at Williamsburg twice a year, in the spring and autumn. GW may have been paying his subscription late for the April races, or early for the ones to be held in the autumn.

10On 10 July 1784 GW wrote his lawyer Edmund Randolph in Richmond that, “in partnership with Peyton Randolph (your Uncle), John Wayles, George Wythe—Richard Randolph, Lewis Burwell, William Fitzhugh (Chatham), Thompson Mason, Nathl Harrison Jur & Richard Kidder Mead Esqrs. (ten in all) I have, or ought to have a joint interest in the following prizes, the produce of an hundred Tickets which were purchased amongst us.” GW goes on to list the tickets; he also notes that he bought twenty tickets “on my own Accot” and that for one of these, ticket 4965, he drew prize 265, a ½-acre lot, which in 1784 was in the town of Manchester. GW gave the following receipt to William Byrd at Williamsburg on 5 May 1768: “Receivd from the Honble William Byrd Esquire Twenty Tickets in his Lottery, to be paid for with a protested Bill of Exchange of his (own) drawing on Jno. Morton Jordon Esqr. In May 1766 for Sixty four pounds Sterling (that is to say so far as the said Bill with the Interest thereon will go)” (ADS, ViMtvL).

As early as 23 July 1767 and as late as 27 Oct. 1768, two-thirds of a page in Purdie and Dixon’s Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg) was devoted to William Byrd’s advertisement of “A Scheme, for disposing of, by way of Lottery, the Land and Tenements under mentioned, being the entire towns of Rocky Ridge and Shockoe, lying at the Falls of James river, and the land thereunto adjoining.” He was offering for sale 10,000 tickets at £5 a piece with the promise of 839 prizes, including some on one side of the river and some on the other, a forge and mill on the canal with 2,000 acres, ferries, fisheries, a large number of improved and unimproved 100–acre tracts and ½-acre town lots, and ten islands in the river. Byrd valued the whole at £56,796, and he hoped to derive from the sale of tickets up to £50,000 to stave off the financial ruin that threatened him. The managers of the lottery were to be Presley Thornton, Peyton Randolph, John Page, Charles Carter, and Charles Turnbull. The drawing, originally scheduled at Shockoe in June 1768, was held on 2 Nov. 1768 in Williamsburg.

11Christopher and Anne Ayscough ran a tavern in Williamsburg on Francis Street near the capitol.

13For the meeting at the Raleigh Tavern on 18 May, see Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 2:151–52, and source note in GW to George Mason, 5 April.

14Polychrest, or polychrestum, a medicine adapted to several uses, was formerly a name for neutral sulphate of potassium and for sodiopotassic tartrate. Gum guaiacum, or guaiacum, is a resinous substance from the trunk of several species of the guaiacum tree, used to treat gout and rheumatism.

15This was John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies.

16Edmund Randolph, with whom GW was to have a close connection after the Revolution, was the 15–year-old son of the king’s attorney, John Randolph.

17Alexander Craig’s receipt, dated 19 May 1769, for £1.15 in payment for “1 pr of Boots” made for John Parke Custis is in the Custis Papers (ViHi).

18See note 3. In his account with the “Trustees for selling the Lands of Geo: Carter Esqr. decd,” GW recorded £196 “paid [Fielding Lewis] in [Williamsburg] by Mr Jas Gibson” in May 1769 (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 283). GW and Lewis were both trustees for the sale of the Carter land.

19GW spent the night of 20 May at the Bassetts’ house, Eltham.

20GW reached Mount Vernon on 22 May.

21Joseph Soal (Sole), a cobbler, rented a plantation from GW in 1769 and 1770 (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 304).

22On 26 May GW “went up to a Race at Cameron” (Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 2:154).

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