Saturday Apl. 26th. Visited all the Estates and my own Quarters about Williamsburg. Found these also in pretty good forwardness.
Receivd Letters from Winchester informing me that the Small Pox had got among my Quarter’s in Frederick; determind therefore to leave Town as soon as possible and proceed up to them.
estates: John Parke Custis’s plantations in York County. He had also inherited the Custis lands in New Kent, Hanover, and Northampton counties as well as lots in Williamsburg and Jamestown (Custis to GW, 11 May 1778, ViHi; Va. Gaz., P, 16 Oct. 1778). my own quarters: Martha Washington’s dower plantations in York County—Bridge Quarter and the Ship Landing, both of which lay near the Capitol Landing on Queen’s Creek about two miles north of Williamsburg. Together they contained about 1,000 acres, of which “100 or more” were “firm hard marsh, supporting a numerous flock of cattle winter and summer,” and 10 to 12 were swamp (Va. Gaz., P&D, 2 April 1767). Tobacco and corn were grown on the higher ground by 19 dower slaves who worked there at this time. The dower property also included a gristmill, which adjoined the two York plantations, plus lots in Williamsburg and Jamestown (“A List of Working Dower Negroes, where settled, & under whose care, 1760,” DLC:GW, at the beginning of GW’s 1760 Virginia Almanack; GW to Custis, 12 Oct. 1778, DLC:GW).