As a rule the hired employees received a house, an allowance of corn, flour, meat and perhaps other articles, the money payment being comparatively small.

Some of the contracts contain peculiar stipulations.  That with a certain overseer provided:  “And whereas there are a number of whiskey stills very contiguous to the said Plantations, and many idle, drunken and dissolute People continually resorting the same, priding themselves in debauching sober and well-inclined Persons the said Edd.  Voilett doth promise as well for his own sake as his employers to avoid them as he ought.”

Probably most readers have heard of the famous contract with the gardener Philip Bater, who had a weakness for the output of stills such as those mentioned above.  It was executed in 1787 and, in consideration of Bater’s agreement “not to be disguised with liquor except on times hereinafter mentioned,” provided that he should be given “four dollars at Christmas, with which he may be drunk four days and four nights; two dollars at Easter to effect the same purpose; two dollars at Whitsuntide to be drunk for two days; a dram in the morning, and a drink of grog at dinner at noon.”

Washington’s most famous white servant was Thomas Bishop, who figures in some books as a negro.  He had been the personal servant of General Braddock, and tradition says that the dying General commended him to Washington.  At all events Washington took him into his service at ten pounds per year and, except for a short interval about 1760, Bishop remained one of his retainers until death.  It was Bishop and John Alton who accompanied Washington on his trip to New York and Boston in 1756—­that trip in the course of which, according to imaginative historians, the young officer became enamored of the heiress Mary Phillipse.  Doubtless the men made a brave show along the way, for we know that Washington had ordered for them “2 complete livery suits for servants; with a spare cloak and all other necessary trimmings for two suits more.  I would have you choose the livery by our arms, only as the field of arms is white, I think the clothes had better not be quite so, but nearly like the inclosed.  The trimmings and facings of scarlet, and a scarlet waist coat.  If livery lace is not quite disused, I should be glad to have the cloaks laced.  I like that fashion best, and two silver laced hats for the above servants.”

When the Revolution came Bishop was too old to take the field and was left at home as the manager of a plantation.  He was allowed a house, for he had married and was now the father of a daughter.  He lived to a great age, but on fair days, when the Farmer was at home, the old man always made it a point to grasp his cane and walk out to the road to see his master ride by, to salute him and to pass a friendly word.  He seems to have thought of leaving Mount Vernon with his daughter in 1794, for the President wrote to Pearce:  “Old Bishop must be taken care of whether he goes or stays.”  He died the following January, while Washington was away in Philadelphia.