Varick transcript, DLC:GW.

On this date Theodosia Ford, owner of the house in Morristown where GW had made his headquarters during the previous winter encampment, wrote GW’s aide-de-camp Richard Kidder Meade from that town: “The Commissioners sent by Genrl Greene to this place in order to settle the charges brought against the public are arrived, and have proceeded to business—I am informed by those Gentlemen that their directions from the Genl prohibit their paying any charges for house rent, unless the owner produces a certificate from the Officers who quartered in the house, many of the inhabitants have procured a certificate, but the hurry and confusion with which the Genl left the house I humbly presume is the reason why I did not also receive one.

“I would therefore beg the favour of Coll Mead to procure me a certificate from the Genl Specifying the time how long and the number of Rooms Occupi[e]d by the family and deliver it to Capt. [Thomas] Prye the bearrer whom I depend on to transmit it to me” (DLC:GW).

Meade replied to Ford on 26 July from headquarters: “I have rec’d your favor by Captain Pry[.] I communicated its contents to His Excellency & am directed to transmit you the inclosed certificate” (DLC:GW). The certificate, also dated 26 July, reads: “I certify that the Commander in Chief took up his Quarters at Mrs Fords at Morris Town the first day of Decr 1779, that he left them the 23d of June 1780 & that he occupied two rooms below all the upper floor, Kitchen, Cellar & Stable—The Stable was built & the two Rooms above Stairs finished at the Public expence, & a Well which was intirely useless & filled up before put in thorough repair by Walling &ca” (DLC:GW). For the repair of Ford’s well, see General Orders, 28 March, source note. For Ford’s home and her reluctance to host GW, see GW to Nathanael Greene, 30 Nov. 1779, and n.4; see also Jude M. Pfister, The Jacob Ford Jr. Mansion: The Storied History of a New Jersey Home (Charleston, S.C., 2009).