George Washington Papers

[Diary entry: 20 July 1772]

20. Colo. Fairfax & Lady, Mr. W. Washington Lady & 3 Children; Mrs. B. Fairfax, Miss Carlyle, Mr. Norton, Mr. Prentis, Mr. Whiting & Mr. Jno. Lewis Dined here & in the afternoon Colo. Lewis came.

Mr. Norton is John Hatley Norton (1745–1797) of Yorktown, who, after his father’s return to London in 1767, became the Virginia agent for John Norton & Sons of London (PRICE description begins Jacob M. Price. “Who Was John Norton? A Note on the Historical Character of Some Eighteenth-Century London Virginia Firms.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 19 (1962): 400–407. description ends , 401–2). Mr. Prentis is Joseph Prentis (1754–1809) of Williamsburg, a ward of Norton’s father-in-law, Robert Carter Nicholas. Both Norton and Prentis had been invited by George William Fairfax to accompany him this summer to Warm Springs, “not so much for the recovery as for the Establishment of his [Norton’s] Health” (Robert Carter Nicholas to John Norton, 4 Aug. 1772, MASON [1] description begins Frances Norton Mason, ed. John Norton & Sons, Merchants of London and Virginia, Being the Papers from Their Counting House for the Years 1750 to 1795. 1937. Reprint. New York, 1968. description ends , 263).

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