December 25, 1799
Mount Vernon, Fairfax County, Virginia
This is direct, contemporaneous operational evidence that enslaved labor was part of Mount Vernon’s whiskey enterprise. It also preserves an unusual payment entry, allowing the labor history to be narrated from a specific date and record rather than a generalized assertion.
Primary evidence: manuscript ledger p. 42 (scan PDF p. 47), corroborated by the official complete transcription p. 48. Annual-account repetition: manuscript ledger p. 45 (scan PDF p. 50), transcription p. 51. Publication boundary: the entry documents holiday payment in this instance; it does not establish freedom, ordinary wage status, the recipients’ identities, or their precise tasks that day. The source’s period racial terminology should be quoted only when necessary and contextualized.
The Mount Vernon cash ledger records a December 25, 1799 payment of $1.16 to enslaved workers at the distillery for labor performed during the holidays. The annual distillery account repeats the charge as cash paid at the Christmas holidays.