Leonard Tarrant was visiting GW as a representative of the firm of Balfour & Barraud, of Norfolk, seeking to obtain from GW “about a Thousand Barr[el]s flour & a few hundred Bar[rel]s of bread” (Balfour & Barraud to [GW], 25 Dec. 1774, DLC:GW). Tarrant got his contract.

GW today lent Charles Lee £15 cash, probably for traveling expenses to Williamsburg. According to a memorandum that GW wrote for Fielding Lewis on 30 April 1775, the debt was to be discharged by Col. William Byrd, with whom Lee supposedly left money for that purpose (PHi: Gratz Collection). Nevertheless, the £15, plus £9 12s. which GW lent Lee in June of this year, remained unpaid until four years after Lee’s death, when the account was settled without interest by the executor of his estate (General Ledger B description begins General Ledger B, 1772–1793. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 137).

When first organized in Sept. 1774, the company agreed to limit its number to 100 men, to elect its own officers, to drill from time to time, and to supply its own ammunition. Each volunteer was to carry “a good Fire-lock and Bayonet, Sling Cartouch-Box, and Tomahawk” and to dress in “a regular Uniform of Blue, turn’d up with Buff” (MASON [2] description begins Robert A. Rutland, ed. The Papers of George Mason, 1725–1792. 3 vols. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970. description ends , 1:211).

Although most of the Virginia county committees that had been formed before the Continental Association transferred their authority to meet and act from the Virginia Association to the Continental Association in the fall of 1774, there was strong sentiment to hold new elections for county committees as called for by the 11th article of the Continental Association. Many counties simply reelected the old committees or changed them slightly; some other counties took advantage of these new elections to expand the membership of their committees.

Today the committee, chaired by GW, passed resolutions to assess 3s. for every tithable in the county to pay for powder, to keep a list “of such persons as shall refuse to pay the same,” and to organize a. countywide militia system of 68–man companies (MASON [2] description begins Robert A. Rutland, ed. The Papers of George Mason, 1725–1792. 3 vols. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970. description ends , 1:212–13).

No contemporary reference has been found during the period covered by GW’s diaries to any county committee in Virginia being called a committee of safety, each committee usually referring to itself merely as “the committee” for the county.

Adams was still trying to settle his debts to GW growing out of his role in the 1772 voyage of the brig Fairfax to the West Indies (see main entry for 22 July 1772). GW was pressing “that worthless young Fellow” Adams for possession of about 550 acres of Adams family lands in Charles County, Md., which GW accepted later in the year as “all I am likely to get for my debt” (GW to Robert McMickan, 10 May 1774, DLC:GW; General Ledger B description begins General Ledger B, 1772–1793. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 99; Daniel Jenifer Adams to GW, 4 Feb. 1775, DLC:GW; GW to Thomas Pollock, 29 Nov. 1773, DLC:GW).

This meeting had been called to “form and digest proper Plans to be laid before the Assemblies of Virginia and Maryland” in the hope of raising capital for John Ballendine’s Potomac navigation project (Va. Gaz., D, 7 Jan. 1775).

Four Mile Run is a small stream, about eight or nine miles long, which flows into the Potomac approximately four miles north of Hunting Creek. The land GW bought from James and George Mercer consisted of two patents, one for 378 acres and the other for 790 acres. These lands were deeded to GW 12 Dec. 1774 and proved 15 Oct. 1775. GW paid £892 for the two tracts (STETSON [1] description begins Charles W. Stetson. Four Mile Run Land Grants. Washington, D.C., 1935. description ends , 39–60).

Normand Bruce (d. 1811), of Frederick County, Md., brought a letter of introduction from Thomas Johnson, who wrote: “his Drift is to persuade people in general to manufacture coarse Linnens in earnest, to shew that Hemp is the proper material for us to rely on much in preference of Flax. . . . he wishes for your Encouragement of a Work so well intended” (17 Jan. 1775, DLC:GW).

The daughter of Capt. Thomas Hanson Marshall of Marshall Hall was Mary Marshall (1767–1789). Miss Dent is probably Mary’s aunt, Sarah Dent, a sister of Mary’s mother, Rebecca Dent Marshall, who died in 1770 (NEWMAN description begins Harry Wright Newman. The Maryland Dents: A Genealogical History of the Descendants of Judge Thomas Dent and Captain John Dent Who Settled Early in the Province of Maryland. Richmond, Va., 1963. description ends , 35).