in the Ohio.  While at the Federal Convention in 1787 he and Gouverneur Morris went up to Valley Forge partly perhaps to see the old camp, but ostensibly to fish for trout.  They lodged at the home of a widow named Moore.  On the trip the Farmer learned the Pennsylvania way of raising buckwheat and, it must be confessed, wrote down much more about this topic than about trout.  A few days later, with Gouverneur Morris and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morris, he went up to Trenton and “in the evening fished,” with what success he does not relate.  When on his eastern tour of 1789 he went outside the harbor of Portsmouth to fish for cod, but the tide was unfavorable and they caught only two.  More fortunate was a trip off Sandy Hook the next year, which was thus described by a newspaper: 

“Yesterday afternoon the President of the United States returned from Sandy Hook and the fishing banks, where he had been for the benefit of the sea air, and to amuse himself in the delightful recreation of fishing.  We are told he has had excellent sport, having himself caught a great number of sea-bass and black fish—­the weather proved remarkably fine, which, together with the salubrity of the air and wholesome exercise, rendered this little voyage extremely agreeable.”

Our Farmer was extremely fond of fish as an article of diet and took great pains to have them on his table frequently.  At Mount Vernon there was an ancient black man, reputed to be a centenarian and the son of an African King, whose duty it was to keep the household supplied with fish.  On many a morning he could be seen out on the river in his skiff, beguiling the toothsome perch, bass or rock-fish.  Not infrequently he would fall asleep and then the impatient cook, who had orders to have dinner strictly upon the hour, would be compelled to seek the shore and roar at him.  Old Jack would waken and upon rowing to shore would inquire angrily:  “What you all mek such a debbil of a racket for hey?  I wa’nt asleep, only noddin’.”

Another colored factotum about the place was known as Tom Davis, whose duty it was to supply the Mansion House with game.  With the aid of his old British musket and of his Newfoundland dog “Gunner” he secured many a canvasback and mallard, to say nothing of quails, turkeys and other game.

After the Revolution Washington formed a deer park below the hill on which the Mansion House stands.  The park contained about one hundred acres and was surrounded by a high paling about sixteen hundred yards long.  At first he had only Virginia deer, but later acquired some English fallow deer from the park of Governor Ogle of Maryland.  Both varieties herded together, but never mixed blood.  The deer were continually getting out and in February, 1786, one returned with a broken leg, “supposed to be by a shot.”  Seven years later an English buck that had broken out weeks before was killed by some one.  The paddock fence was neglected and ultimately the deer ran half wild over the estate,