On September 29, 1794, the day before leaving Philadelphia for Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to inspect federalized militia troops assembling against the Whiskey Rebellion, President George Washington remained occupied with the domestic business of Mount Vernon. In a memorandum with estate carpenter James Donaldson, Washington set out practical terms of employment—including provisions concerning housing, food, a garden, a cow, tools, moving expenses, and occasional leave. The document illustrates how, even at the threshold of a major federal military expedition, Washington continued to attend to the granular obligations of his household and estate.
Such concerns were not new. Earlier that year, in a March 30 letter from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon manager William Pearce, Washington directed that, if his sister Betty Washington Lewis requested one, she should receive an unbroken mule “of midling quality and size.” The language is characteristically precise: Betty was to be accommodated with a useful animal, but not one selected from the estate’s finest stock.
The convergence of public and private duties was especially visible in the force mobilized against the western insurrection. Five of Washington’s nephews served in the campaign: George Lewis, then captain of the Fredericksburg Troop of Volunteers and later promoted to major; Lawrence Lewis, who served as an aide-de-camp to Major General Daniel Morgan; Howell Lewis; and Samuel and Lawrence Washington, both light-horsemen.
Their participation reflected an era in which elite families were expected to furnish public service as well as political influence. As Washington prepared to assert federal authority against armed resistance to the whiskey excise, he remained simultaneously a president and commander, a Virginia planter responsible for a far-flung estate, and the senior figure in a large extended family. He departed Philadelphia on September 30 and reached Carlisle on October 4, where he reviewed forces gathering for the march west.
Image credit: Print of President George Washington, c. 1794, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
