Thursday 10th. Mercury at 34 in the Morning, 38 at Noon and 32 at Night.
Wind fresh from the No. Wt. all day and cold. Ground hard froze in the morning and but little thawed through the day.
Sent my Waggon with the Posts for the Oval in my Court Yard to be turned by a Mr. Ellis at the Snuff Mill on Pohick & to proceed from thence to Occoquan for the Scion of the Hemlock to plant in my Shrubberies.
Continued with my jobbers to pound the Plaister of Paris as the Earth was too hard frozen to be dealt with.
Went to return the visits of Colo. Mason and others in his Neighbourhood. Called first at Mr. Lawrence Washington’s, who being from home, I proceeded to Colo. Masons, where I dined & lodged.
mr. ellis: GW means William Allison, who, in partnership with Col. George Mason’s son Thomson Mason, operated a snuff mill or factory in Fairfax County. The mill was on Pohick Creek above Gunston Hall, on land owned by George Mason of Pohick (, 2:777–79, 874).
scion of the hemlock: In grafting today, a scion is considered to be that portion of the plant to be grafted to the main stock. Here and elsewhere GW uses the term to mean young seedlings. The hemlock is Tsuga canadensis.
Lawrence Washington (1740–1799), Lund’s brother, had moved from the Chotank area during the Revolution and settled at Belmont, the old Catesby Cocke home near the mouth of Occoquan Creek in Fairfax County.