1. Gordon’s letters to GW of 12 and 19 July have not been found.

2. Gordon had returned to Massachusetts after visiting Mount Vernon in June. During his visit, Gordon perused GW’s public and private papers in order to conduct research for his proposed multi-volume work on the history of the American Revolution, first published in 1788. Gordon consulted and copied out numerous volumes of “copied letters of the General’s,” as well as GW’s private correspondence and general orders (Gordon to Horatio Gates, 31 Aug. 1784, found at William Gordon to GW, 8 March 1784, source note; see also GW to William Gordon, 8 May).

3. William Gordon’s wife was Elizabeth Field Gordon.

4. Historian Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham and Mary Wilkes Hayley both recently traveled to the United States from England. Macaulay Graham and her husband, William, arrived in Boston in late July after a voyage of sixty-three days from London aboard the Rosamond (see Pennsylvania Packet, and General Advertiser [Philadelphia], 5 Aug. 1784). On 4 June 1785 the Grahams arrived at Mount Vernon, where Macaulay Graham examined GW’s “Military records” which he showed her "for her perusal & amusemt” (Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 4:148-49). The Salem Gazette for 28 June 1785 printed an extract of a letter likely from George Lux (who had arrived at Mount Vernon the same day as Macaulay Graham), dated 6 June 1785 at Alexandria, which relates an account of the meeting between Catharine and “our patriotick, disinterested and beloved General WASHINGTON.” The letter reports that “Two such congenial minds, animated with the genuine refined sentiments of liberty, soon became acquainted with each other.” The Grahams departed Mount Vernon for New York on 14 June 1785, and on 16 July Catharine and her husband sailed from New York to Lorient, France, aboard the packet-boat La Martinique (Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser [London], 15 Sept. 1785; Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 4:153).

Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham (1731-1791) of Kent, England, was the celebrated historian and author of the History of England from the Accession of James I to That of the Brunswick Line, which was published in London in eight volumes between 1763 and 1783. She had married her husband William Graham, a surgeon’s mate, in December 1778.

Mary Wilkes Hayley, the sister of politician John Wilkes and widow of London merchant and alderman George Hayley, had arrived in Boston from Falmouth on 25 May 1784 aboard the United States, rumored to be the former Continental frigate Delaware “captured by the British in the course of the war, and purchased by Mrs. Hayley” in order to ensure her safe passage to America. Hayley traveled to the United States from “an ardent desire to see America, for which she has ever had the partiality of a native.” She also sought to collect debts still owing to her deceased husband, and secure property of considerable value (United States Chronicle: Political, Commercial and Historical [Providence], 3 June 1784; see also Butterfield, Diary of John Adams description begins L. H. Butterfield, ed. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams. 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1961. description ends , 3:160-61; and the Morning Chronicle and London Daily Advertiser, 20 April 1784). In late July, Mary traveled to Providence and Newport, R.I., but there is no evidence that she went to Mount Vernon (see Independent Ledger and the American Advertiser [Boston], 9 Aug. 1784). In February 1786, Mary married Patrick Jeffery (Jeffry), a Boston merchant of the firm Jeffrey & Russell, and she later returned to England (see Hamilton Papers description begins Harold C. Syrett et al., eds. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 27 vols. New York, 1961–87. description ends , 3:568; see also Adams Family Correspondence description begins Lyman H. Butterfield et al., eds. Adams Family Correspondence. 13 vols. to date. Cambridge, Mass., 1963–. description ends , 7:384).

5. GW set out on his western journey on 1 Sept. and returned to Mount Vernon on 4 Oct. (see Diaries description begins “Papers of General Elias Dayton.” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 9 (1860-64): 175–94. description ends , 4:1-71). GW’s reference to “the occupants” is likely an allusion to the squatters who had settled on his 2,813-acre Millers Run tract and who, after making improvements to the land, claimed rights to it. On 14 Sept., GW recorded in his diary that the inhabitants on his Millers Run lands “set forth their pretensions to it; & to enquire into my right” (Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 4:21). GW made them an offer of sale, which was not accepted, and as a result GW and his attorney filed ejectment proceedings against the squatters in 1785. The suit, Washington v. James Scott, et al., was ultimately settled in GW’s favor. GW’s other primary reasons for his western journey were threefold: to arrange for the dissolution of the partnership with Gilbert Simpson, Jr., who had unsucessfully served since 1773 as manager of GW’s Washington’s Bottom tract in Fayette County, Pa.; to inspect his vacant bounty lands on the Ohio and Kanawha rivers; and to investigate the potential for waterway transportation between the Ohio Valley and the east (see Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 4:1-2, 21-25; see also Papers, Presidential Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series. 19 vols. to date. Charlottesville, Va., 1987–. description ends , 1:51-54).

6. Elizabeth Foote Washington, the wife of GW’s cousin Lund Washington, gave birth to their daughter, Lucinda sometime between 10 and 30 August.