A water-mill, with its staff, not merely ground meal for the hands, but produced a fine flour that commanded extra price in the market In 1786 Washington asserted that his flour was “equal, I believe, in quality to any made in this country,” and the Mount Vernon brand was of such value that some money was made by buying outside wheat and grinding it into flour.  The coopers of the estate made the barrels in which it was packed, and Washington’s schooner carried it to market.

The estate had its own shoemaker, and in time a staff of weavers was trained.  Before this was obtained, in 1760, though with only a modicum of the force he presently had, Washington ordered from London “450 ells of Osnabrig, 4 pieces of Brown Wools, 350 yards of Kendall Cotton, and 100 yards of Dutch blanket.”  By 1768 he was manufacturing the chief part of his requirements, for in that year his weavers produced eight hundred and fifteen and three-quarter yards of linen, three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter yards of woollen, one hundred and forty-four yards of linsey, and forty yards of cotton, or a total of thirteen hundred and sixty-five and one-half yards, one man and five negro girls having been employed.  When once the looms were well organized an infinite variety of cloths was produced, the accounts mentioning “striped woollen, woolen plaided, cotton striped, linen, wool-birdseye, cotton filled with wool, linsey, M.’s & O.’s, cotton-India dimity, cotton jump stripe, linen filled with tow, cotton striped with silk, Roman M., Janes twilled, huccabac, broadcloth, counterpain, birdseye diaper, Kirsey wool, barragon, fustian, bed-ticking, herring-box, and shalloon.”

One of the most important features of the estate was its fishery, for the catch, salted down, largely served in place of meat for the negroes’ food.  Of this advantage Washington wrote, “This river,... is well supplied with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year; and, in the spring, with the greatest profusion of shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, &c.  Several valuable fisheries appertain to the estate; the whole shore, in short, is one entire fishery.”  Whenever there was a run of fish, the seine was drawn, chiefly for herring and shad, and in good years this not merely amply supplied the home requirements, but allowed of sales; four or five shillings the thousand for herring and ten shillings the hundred for shad were the average prices, and sales of as high as eighty-five thousand herring were made in a single year.

In 1795, when the United States passed an excise law, distilling became particularly profitable, and a still was set up on the plantation.  In this whiskey was made from “Rye chiefly and Indian corn in a certain proportion,” and this not merely used much of the estate’s product of those two grains, but quantities were purchased from elsewhere.  In 1798 the profit from the distillery was three hundred and forty-four pounds twelve shillings and seven and three-quarter pence, with a stock carried over of seven hundred and fifty-five and one-quarter gallons; but this was the most successful year.  Cider, too, was made in large quantities.