George Washington's Grist Mill in Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Background
The story of Ona Judge, the enslaved woman who escaped from President George Washington's residence in Philadelphia in 1796 is well known. Her escape angered Washington and his inability to recover her, despite knowing where she was, highlighted for him the weaknesses of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. Judge's existence in Philadelphia also illustrates how Washington, like other wealthy southern planters, traveled with and utilized their enslaved laborers in Pennsylvania.
George Washington made many trips to western Pennsylvania, as an officer in the French and Indian War and later as a surveyor, always accompanied by a number of his enslaved people from Virginia. He acquired land in southwestern Pennsylvania as a result of his military service and increased his land holdings there dramatically by buying up land from other veterans, many of them impoverished and in desparate need of money, at a fraction of the value.
In 1772, Washington received an offer from an acquaintance and Virginia neighbor, Gilbert Simpson, to form a partnership to settle and develop some of the western land. They decided the venture would be best accomplished at a spot near the Youghiogheny River that offered land suitable for crops and a fall that could be utilized for a grist mill. Simpson, a man of fewer resources than Washington, would manage the site and join the work crew, but it was Washington who would provide most of the supplies and money. Simpson proposed taking one of his own enslaved men as a worker and asked Washington to provide "one fellow and one wench."
London and Nancy
Gilbert Simpson took his enslaved man Orson to accompany the party westward, and we also know the names of the enslaved people sent by George Washington from Mount Vernon into the backcountry of western Pennsylvania. Washington, a cautious businessman, wished to be clear with his new parter, "in order that each may know he stands indebted to the other on acct. of the joint Concern." To that end he requested that fellow Virginian Craven Peyton inventory and appraise all of the tools, livestock, and other articles supplied by each of the partners in the venture. It is from this inventory that we have the names of the two enslaved people sent by Washington to settle the land and build the gristmill.
In a February 1773 letter to Gilbert Simpson, Washington included a detailed list of everything that he provided, among all the tools, gear, wagons, livestock and sundries are listed " a negro man -- London," and "a negro girl -- Nancy." Both were notated as "to be appraised. The young man named London was not Washington's first choice to go. At that time he had about two hundred enslaved people. The man he initially chose, someone only recently purchased in Alexandria, refused to leave the Virginia plantation for the Pennsylvania wilderness, so in his stead Washington sent London, who was purchased from a seller in New England for £55. In his letter, Washington explained the switch to Simpson:
As the Negro Fellow I bought in Alexandria will by no means consent to leave this Neighbourhood and as you did not seem Inclind to take him without I have sent a young Fellow which I bought last Spring in his room. In coming from Boston here he got Frost Bit and lost part of his Toes which prevents his Walk'g with as much activity as he otherwise would but as they are quite well, and he a good tempered quiet Fellow I dare say he will answer the purpose very well.
On the girl Nancy, for whom Washington paid £47, 10 shillings, he wrote "I also send you a fine, healthy, likely young Girl which in a year or two more will be fit for any business, her principal employment hitherto has been House Work but is able, or soon will be to do any thing else." This description implies that Nancy, the young girl sent to help settle a patch of wild frontier ground, was almost certainly a pre-teenaged child, perhaps as young as nine or ten years old. Enslaved children of that age were entrusted with simple household chores such as sweeping, washing, laundering, carrying water and firewood and tending to a fire. At about age twelve they were typically given heavier and more complicated house and farm chores, those duties that fell under the popular phrase "fit for any business." Nancy would not be old enough for that level of responsibility for one or two more years.
Settling the Land and Building the Mill
Duffy and Simon Join the Workers
The party reached the nearly 1600 acre site on the Youghiogheny River in April of 1773. Letters from Gilbert Simpson to George Washington provide much of what we know about how the venture progressed. The first year was marked by illness from the difficult journey, personal problems for Simpson, as his wife did not want to move to the frontier, and Simpson's frequent requests to Washington for additional funds, supplies and laborers. He wrote to Washington in October 1773 asking "pray let me have Two Negros of the kind I wrot To you For." In November Washington recorded in his ledger the names of two additional enslaved workers sent to Gilbert: Duffy and Simon. In the image above, the two, recorded as "Negro boys" are appraised at £50 and £40 respectively.
It was not until May of 1774 that actual construction of the grist mill began. That year was marked by trouble with local Native Americans, however, and Simpson found it necessary to construct a "fort," or a stockaded house, next to his log house for protection from raids. He named it Fort Triall, as if to mark the partnership's frequent challenges.
Simpson asked for additional money for the mill in the months that followed, but was able to boast of good corn crops brought in by his family and enslaved laborers. Once the mill was built and operational, Simpson's fortunes improved. Within a few years his house became a frequent stopping place for travellers and he even supplied provisions to the Continental Army during the war. In May 1781, a bit more than eight years into the operation, he wrote to George Washington with an update on the settlement, now known as Washington's Bottom. Simpson reported that his family and all laborers "are in good helth and the negros and stock of every kind sems to incres fast." Washington's enslaved girl Nancy would have been of childbearing age by this time, probably somewhere between eighteen and nineteen years old, and it is very likely that some of the "increase" were children born to her.
Despite Simpson's statement in 1781 that "your mill has made you good profet within this year past," by February 1784 Washington had yet to receive any money from the venture and wrote a curt letter to Simpson demanding a full accounting of the operation so far. Simpson replied that April with a glowing report of a prosperous farm and mill, healthy increases in livestock, the addition of "six young slaves...and one more expected in a short time." Since Simpson had requested an additional enslaved man and woman from Washington some years earlier, although it is not clear if Washington sent any additional slaves, and as Simpson almost certainly brought an enslaved woman from this own household when his family joined him from Virginia, it is unlikely that all of the "six young slaves" were Nancy's children, but there are clues that the "expected" birth of an enslaved child that spring was hers.
The Partnership Collapses
Not long after receiving Simpson's last letter, George Washington made plans to travel to western Pennsylvania to investigate not only his mill but also stories of squatters who had settled on his land nearby. Prior to the journey he made the decision to lease the mill and plantation on the Youghiogheny and sell all of his stock. His advertisement, published in the Pennsylvania Packet, offered to lease the mill for ten years and to sell by public auction on September 15 of that year all of the livestock, "and the Negroes, for the ensuing year, hired, or otherwise disposed of." In a pre-sale letter to Gilbert Simpson, Washington noted that the decision to sell all of the stock did not include "Negroes which may be necessary to finish the crop."
George Washington was at the settlement for the sale on September 15, 1784. He was somewhat disappointed that that they were unable to lease the gristmill, but was otherwise successful in selling off the "stock," which included the young children of the enslaved workers. He recorded in his personal journal:
This being the day appointed for the Sale of my moiety of the Copartnership Stock — many People were gathered (more out of curiosity I believe than from other motives) but no great Sale made. . . My Mill I could obtain no bid for . . .The Plantation on which Mr. Simpson lives rented well.
After the initial sale of assets, about nine enslaved people remained on the farm, including the woman Nancy and several of her children. In the fall of 1785, Washington instructed his agent in western Pennsylvania, Thomas Freeman, to return all of his remaining enslaved people to Mount Vernon "if the measure can be reconciled to them." Possibly Washington anticipated their reluctance to leave Pennsylvania, a state that 5 years earlier had begun the process of abolishing slavery, for Virginia, where they forsaw no chance of eventually becoming free. When all refused -- Freeman wrote to Washington that "they would not be Prevailed with to come down from any Argument I could use" -- Freeman arranged their sale to local farmers in early October 1786.
Nancy's Children
A township farmer, Samuel Burns, was at the October 1786 sale and purchased two infant enslaved children, twins Tom and Charity, both about two years old. Two-and-a-half years later, in March 1789, as required by Pennsylvania law, Samuel Burns traveled to the Fayette County prothonotary's office to officially register these enslaved children. Burns, a farmer, may have been illiterate or had such bad handwriting that his return was neatly written out by the county prothonotary, Ephraim Douglass, with Samuel Burns' signature appearing below his sworn statement in an obviously different hand. The return reads:
Description of Negroe Children the property of Samuel Burns of Washington Township in Fayette County Farmer --
Tom a Negroe boy of about four & half years old
Charity a Negroe girl of the same age -- they being twins, born of Nance a wench then the property of General Washington --
Samuel Burns
Fayette County. On the eleventh day of March 1789 the above named Samuel Burns made oath that the above description is true to the best of his knowledge.
Before Ephraim Douglass
Burns' household already held one enslaved worker, a woman born in 1777 named Susanah. It is this woman, registered as a slave for life in December 1782 by Burns, who would have the responsibility of raising the enslaved twin children. Susanah would give birth to her own son, Peter, in August 1792, and was probably the mother of James, registered by Samuel Burns in April 1791, although the mother of James was not specified on the return.
The fate of London, the first of George Washington's enslaved people sent from Mount Vernon is uncertain. It is not known if he was among the enslaved people remaining on the plantation after the initial sale of stock in September 1784. His name does not appear on the final accounting of enslaved people sold in October 1786. The same is true of Duffy, the boy sent from Mount Vernon in November of 1773. After 1784, George Washington wanted all of his enslaved people connected to the Fayette County gristmill and plantation hired out to work the plantation or sold. It was Gilbert Simpson who acquired the lease on the farm and who kept Washington's enslaved workers as hired help through October 1785, when Washington decided to shut down the operation and made arrangements with Thomas Freeman to bring the enslaved workers originally part of the partnership back to Mount Vernon. The subsequent sale of those enslaved workers, arranged by Freeman on October 5, 1786 reveals their fate.
(Image from Library of Congress)
Simon, who was listed in Washington's ledgers as a "boy" in 1773, would have been a man in his twenties at the time of his sale to Basil and Thomas Brown, farmers of Menallen Township, for £100. As noted above, Washington Township farmer Samuel Burns purchased Nancy's children, Tom and Charity. The line in Freeman's Memorandum of Sale says "Tom & Charity The Twins to Samuel Burns, William Sunderland Surety} 27.10.0."
Nancy, mother of the twins and one of the three original enslaved workers used to build the mill in 1773, was sold to Luzerne Township farmer James Hammond, along with a "Young Child," probably an infant at the time of the sale, for £80, five shillings. Ephraim Douglass stood as surety for the sale. A female named Lydia was sold to Peter Patterson, with Thomas Patterson providing surety for £45. The relatively low amount suggests that Lydia was probably a young girl, possibly pre-teenaged as adult women sold for between £70 to £80.
General Ephraim Douglass, the venerable Indian trader and war hero, purchased three enslaved people that October: Joe, for £81, Allice,for £70 and 15 shillings, and the child Dorcas. for £13 and 15 shillings. The sale of the 5-year-old girl Dorcas proved to be a problem for Washington as she was proven to be a term slave, originally registered by Gilbert Simpson in Westmoreland County. In the course of transactions following the 1784 sale of the mill, Simpson had transferred ownership of his enslaved girl Dorcas to Washington for £30, but did not disclose her true legal status to Washington. Freeman explained the situation to Washington in a December 1786 letter:
In the Sale of the Negroes there is one Named Dorcas that you Receivd of Mr Simpson as a Slave proves to be free at the Age of Twenty Eight Years the Records from Westmoreland we had & I took the Supreme Judge McKeans Opinion on the matter & he declares her free, so that you must have recourse to Mr Simpson as you Settled with him at the rate of Thirty Pounds and now after keeping her Two Years she Sold at Thirteen Pounds fifteen shillings as ⅌ acct.
A check of Westmoreland County Slave Registrations shows that Gilbert Simpson registered fourteen enslaved people with the county clerk on November 25, 1782, per Pennsylvania law. The last and youngest registered was "Darcus," a one-year-old female at the time of registration. Among the registrations made by Simpson are "Duffey" and "Simon," which almost certainly are the two young boys sent by Washington in late 1773. Simpson reported their ages as 20 and 18 respectively. This allows us to set Simon's age at 22 years old when he was sold to Basil and Thomas Brown for £100, the largest amount paid by any of the Fayette County farmers for any single one of Washington's enslaved workers. Simpson's registrations include names of enslaved people similar to or even matching the names on Thomas Freeman's memorandum of sale of slaves but at this time more information is needed to positively identify them as people enslaved by George Washington at the gristmill.
We are able to link the enslaved children Tom and Charity to Nancy through Samuel Burns' 1789 record of registration for the twins. Pennsylvania law as it applied to Westmoreland, Fayette and other western counties did not require slaveholders to register children born to enslaved mothers between the years 1782 and 1789. The 1788 Act to Amend the 1780 Gradual Abolition Act sought to record the births of all of those children and required slaveholders possessing any of those children to make a return to their county clerk with their names, dates of birth, and sex, as Burns did for Tom and Charity. But what about her child, probably an infant, sold along with Nancy to James Hammond? Although Hammond registered later children born between 1789 and 1794 to enslaved mothers in his possession, no return was made for a child born in 1785 or 1786 to account for the "young child" sold to him with Nancy. One possible reason is that the child died between the time of the sale in October 1786 and April 1, 1789, the deadline for registering all such children.
We may also never learn the identities of some of the other enslaved children born at Washington's Bottom, reported by Gilbert Simpson to George Washington in his letter of April 1784 as "six young slaves...and one more expected in a short time." Tom and Charity account for two, Dorcas for one more, and Nancy's "young child" the fourth, but of the other three, no account has yet turned up. Gilbert Simpson's partnership with Washington dissolved in 1784. He leased the gristmill and plantation during the year 1785 but after that moved his family to Kentucky, well before the reporting requirements of the 1788 law were passed. Perhaps those last three children were among the few that returned to Mount Vernon after Washington's initial decision to sell the Fayette County plantation.
Sources
Cecil E. Goode, "Gilbert Simpson: Washington's Partner in Settling His Western Pennsylvania Lands," The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, Vol. 62, Number 2, April 1979, pp. 149-166.
The Washington Papers, Center for Digital Editing, University of Virginia, "George Washington Financial Papers," Ledger B, 1772 - 1793: 04 March 1773 and 04 November 1773, pg.87.
"Gilbert Simpson to George Washington, 1 October 1773," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-09-02-0266, accessed 07 October 2026.
"George Washington to Gilbert Simpson, 23 February 1773," note #1, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-09-02-0141, accessed 07 October 2026.
"Thomas Freeman to George Washington, 18 December 1786," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-04-02-0397, accessed 07 October 2026.
The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, 24 June 1784.
George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: Thomas Freeman, October 5, Bill of Sale of Slaves. October 5, 1786. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mgw435695/.
"Birth Records for Negroes and Mulattoes, 1788-1826," Fayette County, Pennnsylvania Prothonotary Records, RG-47 Birth Records for the County Governments, Pennsylania State Archives; Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
George D. Albert, editor, History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1882), page 447.
Young, Cory James. "A Just and True Return: Pennsylvania’s Surviving County Slave Registries, 1780-1826." Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation 3, no. 1 (2022). https://doi.org/10.25971/QS08-YE30. Accessed 29 January 2025.
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