hich Washington
was always in the foreground on a white horse "with the British
streaking it." Washington bequeathed to him a square in the City of
Washington and twelve hundred acres on Four Mile Run in the vicinity of
Alexandria. Upon land near by inherited from his father Custis built the
famous Arlington mansion, almost ruining himself financially in doing
so. Upon his death the estate fell to his daughter, Mrs. Robert E. Lee,
and it is now our greatest national cemetery.

Mrs. Washington not only managed the Mount Vernon household, but she
looked after the spinning of yarn, the weaving of cloth and the making
of clothing for the family and for the great horde of slaves. At times,
particularly during the Revolution and the non-importation days that
preceded it, she had as many as sixteen spinning-wheels in operation at
once. The work was done in a special spinning house, which was well
equipped with looms, wheels, reels, flaxbrakes and other machinery. Most
of the raw material, such as wool and flax and sometimes even cotton,
was produced upon the place and never left it until made up into the
finished product.

In 1768 the white man and five negro girls employed in the work produced
815-3/4 yards of linen, 365-1/4 yards of woolen cloth, 144 yards of
linsey and 40 yards of cotton cloth. With his usual pains Washington
made a comparative statement of the cost of this cloth produced at home
and what it would have cost him if it had been purchased in England, and
came to the conclusion that only L23.19.11 would be left to defray the
expense of spinning, hire of the six persons engaged, "cloathing,
victualling, wheels, &c." Still the work was kept going.

A great variety of fabrics were produced: "striped woolen, wool plaided,
cotton striped, linen, wool-birdseye, cotton filled with wool, linsey,
M's and O's, cotton Indian dimity, cotton jump stripe, linen filled with
tow, cotton striped with silk, Roman M., janes twilled, huccabac,
broadcloth, counter-pain, birdseye diaper, Kirsey wool, barragon,
fustian, bed-ticking, herring-box, and shalloon."

In non-importation days Mrs. Washington even made the cloth for two of
her own gowns, using cotton striped with silk, the latter being obtained
from the ravellings of brown silk stockings and crimson damask
chair covers.

The housewife believed in good cheer and an abundance of it, and the
larders at Mount Vernon were kept well filled. Once the General
protested to Lund