From George Washington to George Fitzhugh, 28 January 1796
To George Fitzhugh
Philadelphia 28th Jan. 1796
Sir,
In answer to your letter of the 14th Instant, I inform you that the price of the land which I have in Gloucester County (Virginia) is Eight hundred pounds—estimating dollars at Six shillings—with interest thereon since the first day of April 1789 to the day on which I shall convey it: this being the precise cost of it to me.1 One fourth of the money to be paid at the time the Land is conveyed, and the other three fourths in annual payments, with interest until the whole is discharged.
The tract contains four hundred Acres; the situation of it, you appear to know; one hundred and five acres of which I am informed (by the Survey thereof) is covered with good white Oak timber. I am Sir Your Very Hble Servt
Go: Washington
ALS (letterpress copy), DLC:GW.
1. John Dandridge conveyed the Gloucester County land to GW in 1789 to satisfy a debt owed by his father’s estate. At that time the two men agreed to value the tract at £800. For the debt, see GW to Burwell Bassett, Jr., 3 Feb. 1788, source note ( 6:78–79). For the transfer of the land, see Dandridge to GW, 27 Oct. 1788, and 2 April and 8 Oct. 1789; GW to Dandridge, 18 Nov. 1788, and 26 March and 11 April 1789; and GW to Warner Lewis, 24 May 1789. For Dandridge’s description of the land, see his letter to GW of 6 Dec. 1788.