1822.] 
[ 519 ] 
STEPHENS! ANA. 
No. IV. 
The late Alexander Stephens, Esq. of Park House, Chelsea, devoted an active 
and well-spent life in the collection of Anecdotes of his contemporaries, and generally 
entered in a book the collecting of the passing day ;—these collections we hare purchased, 
and propose to present a selection from them to our readers. As Editor of the Annual 
Obituary, and many other biographical works, he may probably have incorporated 
many of these scraps ; but the greater part are unpublished, and all stand alone as cabi¬ 
net pictures of men and manners, worthy of a place in a literary miscellany. 
An Original letter, from a Traveller 
of Distinction, concerning general 
WASHINGTON. 
44 On my arrival at Alexandria, I 
was exceedingly desirous to visit Mount 
Vernon, a seat belonging to General 
Washington at ten miles distance. 
After having traversed several exten¬ 
sive woods, and surmounted two hills, 
I discovered a house built in a style of 
elegant simplicity, and appearing in 
every respect agreeable, in front of 
it, were meadows kept in excellent 
order; on one side were stables and 
offices, and on the other a greenhouse 
and several buildings in which negroes 
were at work, and a court yard adjoin¬ 
ing was full of turkies, ducks, geese, 
and other fowls. This house which 
commands a charming prospect of the 
Potowmac, has a large and elegant por¬ 
tico on the side towards the river; the 
apartments are admirably adapted to 
tlie building, and the outside is covered 
with a kind of varnish, that renders it 
impenetrable to the rain. 
Tlie general, who did not arrive 
until the evening, when he came home 
exceedingly fatigued, had been visiting 
a distant part of his property, where 
he intended to open anew road. You 
have often heard him compared to 
Cincinnatus ; the comparison is exact. 
This celebrated general is no more at 
present than a plain planter, un¬ 
ceasingly occupied about the cares of 
his farm, as he himself terms it. 
He shewed me a barn which he had 
just finished; it is a “building about 
one hundred feet in length, and of a 
breadth in proportion. It is destined 
to contain his corn, his potatoes, his 
turnips, &c. Around it lie has con¬ 
structed stables for his cattle, his horses, 
and his asses, of which he has multi¬ 
plied a breed hitherto unknown in that 
country. The different parts of this 
building are so skilfully distributed 
that one man may fill the racks with 
potatoes, hay, &c. in a very short time, 
and that without any difficulty; the 
general informed me that it was built 
after a plan transmitted him by the 
celebrated Arthur Young, but that lie 
had made several alterations in it. 
I his barn, which is of bricks made 
upon the spot, did not cost above 3001. 
—in England the expenses would have 
amounted to 10001. He has planted 
700 bushels of potatoes this year: all 
this seems very surprising in Virginia, 
where they neither erect barns, nor 
raise provender for their cattle. 
His asses, his horses, and his mules, 
were feeding in the neighbouring fields. 
He informed me that it was his inten¬ 
tion to introduce the use of artificial 
meadows, which are so uncommon, and 
yet so necessary in that province, for 
the cattle often want provisions in 
winter. His mules thrive uncommonly 
well, and he has a noble stallion which 
will keep up the race of the finest horses 
to be found in this part of America. He 
also possesses two superb asses, one of 
which came from Malta and the other 
from Spain. He has three hundred 
negroes, who are distributed in log 
houses, scattered over different parts of 
his property which, in this neighbour¬ 
hood alone,‘amounts to 10,000 acres, 
and Colonel Humphrey, his secretary, 
assured me that in different parts of 
America, he has more than 200,000. 
The general sent to England for a 
farmer well skilled in the agriculture 
of that country, and this person pre¬ 
sides over the cultivation of his lands. 
Every thing in his house bespeaks 
simplicity; his table is served plenti¬ 
fully but without any pomp, and every 
part o! his domestic economy evinces 
uncommon regularity. Mrs. Washing¬ 
ton superintends every thing, and joins 
to the good qualities of a farmer’s wife, 
that dignified simplicity which ought 
to characterize a lady whose husband 
has acted so conspicuous a part. 
General Washington has nothing 
very characteristic in his countenance, 
and it is owing to this circumstance 
that his likeness is so very difficult to 
be 
