Credit Side Annotation

Line 13 - Agricultural inventor William Booker (d. 1802), who had previously erected a threshing machine at Union Farm, was at Mount Vernon from 7 to 12 July 1799 in order to construct a horse-powered grist mill for GW. On 3 March 1799, GW had written Booker on the subject of the mill: "Mr [James] Anderson has shewn me your letter of the 23d Ultimo, to him, with an estimate of the expence of building horse Mills, differently constructed. For the trouble you have taken in this business, I feel myself very much obliged." GW added that he required "A Mill grinding from 15 to 20 bushls a day, with two horses . . .  with the occasional aid of the Water Mill, which in the driest Seasons, grinds a little." GW advised Booker that he preferred his plan to attach "a Mill to one of the threshing machines now erected, " and even "annexing it to the Machine at Union, as most central to the Farms, & more convenient on other accounts." See GW to William Booker, 3 March 1799, and the notes to that document [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Retirement Series, Volume 3, pages 404-405)]; see also Diaries, 6:356 [Rotunda | Founders Online]; and the credit side annotation to Ledger C, 47.

Line 25 - GW's plowman Tom, a slave rented from Penelope Manley French, was suffering from an eye tumor that caused partial blindness. In July 1799 GW sent Tom to be treated by William Baynham (1749-1814), a surgeon with a medical practice in Essex County, Virginia. Baynham operated on both of Tom's eyes in early August, but the procedure proved unsuccessful. In a letter to GW of 21 Aug. 1799, Baynham wrote in part: "I am sorry that present appearances afford me no reason to alter my opinion. The tumor in the left Eye is, I am convinced, incurable; and a growing film in the right threatens to overspread the transparent Cornea and thereby deprive him of the sight of this eye, in which the vision is, at present, but imperfect—against this increasing evil I know of no remedy save that which I have applied, and which having failed I would advise that nothing more be attempted but to leave it to nature." Baynham released Tom from his care and charged GW a "consultati⟨on⟩ fee of five dollars." On 27. Aug., the date of this transaction, GW sent Baynham $10, which covered the surgeon's fee as well as travel expenses that Tom had asked Baynham to provide. See GW to William Baynham, 30 July 1799 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Retirement Series, Volume 4, page 217)]; Baynham to GW, 10 Aug. 1799 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Retirement Series, Volume 4, pages 229-30)]; Baynham to GW, 21 Aug. 1799 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Retirement Series, Volume 4, pages 263-64)]; and GW to Baynham, 27 Aug. 1799 [Rotunda | Founders Online | Print (Retirement Series, Volume 4, page 271)].