1. For the purchase of land in the Dismal Swamp by the members of the Dismal Swamp Land Company from the executors of Mills Riddick’s estate, see Mills Riddick’s Bond, 24 Nov. 1766, and GW’s General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 194. See also 4 Nov. entry in contra, above.

2. In his tobacco account, under the date 6 Aug. 1767, GW records having sold six hogsheads of tobacco to the merchant Hector Ross in Colchester (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 250).

3. Wager was probably Col. William Wager of Hampton, who was clerk of the Elizabeth City County court and had represented his county in the House of Burgesses from 1758 to 1765. See Cash Accounts, May 1768.

4. George Purdie was a merchant in Smithfield, Suffolk County.

5. Thomas Lilly was captain of the Lord Baltimore.

6. This appears to be the total collected during the year for GW by the manager of his dower plantations. See Cash Accounts, October 1763, n.4.

7. See GW to Capel and Osgood Hanbury, 3 Nov. 1767.

8. See GW to Robert Cary & Co., 4 Nov. 1767.

9. Fairfax drew the bill of exchange for £50 sterling on Samuel Athawes & Co., the London merchants to whom Fairfax consigned tobacco, and sold it to the merchant James Gibson who put it to the credit of GW. See GW’s accounts with Fairfax in General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 105, 263.

10. The value of the bills of exchange is given in sterling money.

11. This was the total GW was paid for attending the sessions of the House of Burgesses, 6 Nov. to 16 Dec. 1766 and 12 Mar. to 11 April 1767, the allowance for traveling included. See General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 191. GW, who had been a member of the Committee of Propositions and Grievances since 1761, was added to the even more prestigious Committee of Privileges and Elections on 7 Nov. 1766 (JHB, 1766–1769 description begins H. R. McIlwaine and John Pendleton Kennedy, eds. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia. 13 vols. Richmond, 1905–15. description ends , 14).

12. For the parliamentary bounty on hemp, see GW to Capel and Osgood Hanbury, 20 Sept. 1765, n.4.

13. Robert Donaldson’s petition, “setting forth that he has received several Wounds in the Service of this Colony, and is now blind, and rendered incapable of doing any sort of Work for a Livelihood,” was read in the House of Burgesses on 28 Nov. 1766. On 4 Dec. 1766 the House agreed that Donaldson should receive “£5 per Annum . . . during his life” (ibid., 44, 52–53, 56, 76).

14. Warner Washington (1722–1790) of Gloucester County paid GW this sum for “18 Yds floss Trim[min]g for yr Lady’s Wed[din]g Suit—bot of Mr [Benjamin] Hubbard in Wmsburg” at a cost of £1.13.9 in 1764 and for “four Flax Heckles—@ 12/” (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 177). In May 1764 Warner Washington married Hannah Fairfax, his second wife.

15. The Truro Parish vestry received a report on 23 Feb. 1767 from workmen who reviewed the work done on the new Falls Church, regarding “what Deficiency appeared in the same &c.—By which report there appears to be a Deficiency of Nine pounds fourteen shillings and Six pence—Ordered that the Church Wardens of this Parish [GW and William Gardner] apply to Majr Charles Broadwater (the Undertaker of the said Work) for the said sum and account with the Vestry of Fairfax Parish for their Proportion of the same, when it is received” (Truro Parish Vestry Book description begins Vestry Book of Truro Parish, Virginia, 1731–1802. Manuscript on deposit at the Library of Congress. description ends , 119). The Falls Church was in the new Fairfax Parish.

16. “Chr” probably means “chair”; Alexander Craig (c.1717-1776) ran a saddlery shop in Williamsburg. The word, however, may be “Chn,” a contraction of “Christian.” There was a Christian Harness living in Frederick County in the 1750s.

17. See note 3.

18. GW paid John Washington ten shillings per thousand in 1768 and 1770. See Cash Accounts, General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 282.

19. See note 1.

20. In his account with Fielding Lewis in November 1767 regarding their purchase of the “Carolina Plantn” from Marmaduke Norfleet, GW entered £30.11.10 due “Mr Gibson & Mr Granburys Acct” (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 241). Josiah Granbery was in partnership with James Gibson in Suffolk until his death in 1772.

21. Sampson Darrell was sheriff of Fairfax County in 1767 and 1768. GW paid the £38.2.10½ in taxes that John Posey owed and charged this against Posey’s account with him. GW’s own taxes were £16.16 on eighty-four tithables, £5.6.5 on 5,318 acres of land, and £1.10 on “1 Chariot & 1 Chair” (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 236).

22. GW’s entry for 6 Nov. under “Augusta Springs” reads, “To Cash advancd Colo. Fieldg Lewis to secure the Lands Surveyd for T. Bullit in the Secretys office,” with the same amount under the contra account, “By amount chargd to Captn Thos Bullit in Ledger B—folio 23” (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 264). In 1772 however GW wrote this money off as a loss against Bullitt.

Before June 1763 Thomas Bullitt and Thomas and Andrew Lewis had acquired a tract of about three hundred acres in Augusta County (now Bath County) which included the Hot Springs, or Little Warm Springs as it was often called. On 24 June 1763 Bullitt and the Lewises signed an agreement to finance jointly bathhouses and other buildings necessary to entertain visitors at the springs. When the Lewises failed to furnish their half of the funds, Bullitt signed a deed of partition with them on 21 Nov. 1766 by which the land was divided, half going to Bullitt and half to the two brothers, with each getting a portion of the Hot Springs (Augusta County Deed Book 13 [1766–67], 147–50, ViStACh). It must have been shortly after this that Bullitt made an agreement with GW, Fielding Lewis, Archibald Cary, and Gabriel Jones for them to “immediately proceed, as well to build and improve upon my Lands adjoining to the Springs, as to advance all the Charges attending the same.” Bullitt repudiated the agreement in 1771 on the grounds of nonperformance of the terms. See Bullitt to Washington et al., 8 Feb. 1771 (Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon; Williamsburg], 21 Feb. 1771).

The Mountain Road lottery of 1768, for which GW became a manager, was most likely organized to aid in the development of the Hot Springs area, which also included the Warm Springs. There are in existence in various repositories tickets signed by GW for this lottery. There are also in several editions of Rind’s Virginia Gazette for 1768–69, including 21 July 1768, advertisements for a lottery to build a road over the Warm Springs Mountain to the Warm and the nearby Hot Springs in Augusta County (now in Bath County). The road over the mountain was impassable except by horseback, and a wagon road was needed to enable invalids and others to go to the healing waters of the springs. Although GW’s name is not listed in the advertisement as a manager, it seems likely that this is the same as the Mountain Road lottery, although it may be a separate lottery for the same or similar purposes. The newspaper advertisement announces: “A Scheme of a Lottery For raising the sum of nine hundred pounds, to make a road over the mountain to the warm and hot springs in Augusta county.” It lists sixty-two cash prizes, including a first prize of £1,000, with tickets selling for twenty shillings, “15 per cent to be deducted from the Prizes.” It specified that “the said Lottery will be drawn at Fredericksburg, under the management and direction of Messrs Charles Dick, Charles Yates, John Stewart, Henry Mitchell and John Glassell, of whom tickets may be had.” In November of this same year, GW gave fifty tickets in a “Warm Springs lottery” to John Washington and twenty-five to James Gibson, both of Suffolk, for them to sell at twenty shillings each. He later wrote off the whole amount of the seventy-five tickets as either not sold or unaccounted for (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 282, 283). There is, of course, the possibility that the Mountain Road lottery was not in any way connected with the Warm Springs lottery. The roads from Alexandria and Colchester that crossed the Blue Ridge Mountain at both Vestal’s Gap and Williams’s Gap were sometimes referred to as the mountain roads and were in need of repair at this time.

In any case the Mountain Road lottery evidently was a failure. In February 1772 a petition to the House of Burgesses from people in Augusta and other counties asked that money be appropriated for a road from Warm Springs across the Warm Springs Mountain to Jennings Gap, west of Staunton. The same act included a provision for the repair of the two roads from Vestal’s and Williams’s gaps to Alexandria and Colchester. An act for this purpose was passed in April (JHB, 1770–1772 description begins H. R. McIlwaine and John Pendleton Kennedy, eds. Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia. 13 vols. Richmond, 1905–15. description ends , 167, 211, 299, 315; 8 Hening description begins William Waller Hening, ed. The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619. 13 vols. 1819–23. Reprint. Charlottesville, Va., 1969. description ends 546–51).

23. Richard Charlton announced in the Virginia Gazette (Purdie and Dixon; Williamsburg) on 25 June 1767 the opening of “The Coffee-House in this city” of Williamsburg “as a Tavern.”

24. See note 4.

25. See Cash Accounts, February 1767, n.1.

26. In 1766 the Virginia assembly appointed new trustees to complete the long-delayed settlement of the large estate of George Carter (died c.1742); GW, Fielding Lewis, and Robert Burwell were the new trustees. When the trustees sold Carter’s remaining land in November 1767, GW bought a 2,682–acre tract in Fauquier and Loudoun counties for himself, out of which he formed 100–acre lots for lease. See Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 2:133, 134, and General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 265. See also the advertisement, dated 17 Sept. 1767, for the sale of Carter’s land to be held at Capt. Robert Ashby’s on 25 Nov. in Fauquier County (Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon; Williamsburg], 17 Sept. 1767) and leases, 17 Mar. 1769.

27. This may be Robert Boggess who lived at La Grange near Mount Vernon at the head of Pohick Creek.

28. GW noted spending 3s. 1½d. to pay for “Copying a Deed from the Proprietors Office for his [i.e. George Carter’s] Tract of 5088 Acres” (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 265).