ALS (photostat), CSmH. GW addressed this letter to Deakins at “George Town Potomac.”

Deakins replied to GW from Georgetown, D.C., on 18 Nov.: “I have received your much Esteem’d favor of the 14th Instant with a letter for my Brother which shall be forwarded he has gain’d his Election by a Majority of 347 Votes. In my Journey to the Glades last August I engaged 20 Bushels of Oats to be delivered to Major McCarty at the Mouth of New Creek by the first Instant, & I have Wrote McCarty they were for you & requested him to have them sent down by his Boats this Fall, & I have hopes they will come to hand” (ALS, DLC:GW). For the letter that GW enclosed for William’s brother Francis Deakins, see n.1 below. On 16 Nov., Francis was chosen the presidential elector for the Maryland district that encompassed Montgomery and Prince George’s counties (see The Washington Spy [Hagerstown, Md.], 23 Nov. 1796). The oats that William Deakins procured for GW at the Glades, a large area of meadows in present-day Somerset County, Pa., were scheduled for delivery at an Alexandria firm by 1 March. Deakins made a subsequent effort to procure “Glade Oats” for GW (Deakins to GW, 18 Aug. 1797, in Papers, Retirement Series description begins W. W. Abbot et al., eds. The Papers of George Washington, Retirement Series. 4 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1998–99. description ends , 1:304; see also James Anderson to GW, 14 Feb. 1797, and n.10). Deakins’s letter to “Major McCarty” has not been identified.

Major McCarty may be a member of the McCarty family that owned a large amount of land around New Creek, which flows into the North Branch of the Potomac River at present-day Keyser, West Virginia. An Edward McCarty had land in that region, but he was often referred to as “Colonel” (see Michael J. O’Brien, The McCarthys in Early American History [New York, 1921], 94).