The plantation system which prevented town life and put long distances between neighbors developed two forms of society.  One of these was house parties, and probably nowhere else in the world was that form of hospitality so unstinted as in this colony.  Any one of a certain social standing was privileged, even welcomed, to ride up to the seat of a planter, dismount, and thus become a guest, ceasing to be such only when he himself chose.  Sometimes one family would go en masse many miles to stay a week with friends, and when they set out to return their hosts would journey with them and in turn become guests for a week.  The second form of social life was called clubs.  At all the cross-roads and court-houses there sprang up taverns or ordinaries, and in these the men of a neighborhood would gather, and over a bowl of punch or a bottle of wine, the expense of which they “clubbed” to share, would spend their evenings.

Into this life Washington entered eagerly.  As a mere lad his ledger records expenditures:  “By a club in Arrack at Mr. Gordon’s 2/6;” “Club of a bottle of Rhenish at Mitchells 1/3;” “To part of the club at Port Royal 1/;” “To Cash in part for a Bowl of fruit punch 1/7-1/2.”  So, too, he was a visitor at this time at some of the great Virginian houses, as elsewhere noted.  When he came into possession of Mount Vernon he offered the same unstinted welcome that he had met with, and even as a bachelor he writes of his “having much company,” and again of being occupied with “a good deal of Company.”  In two months of 1768 Washington had company to dinner, or to spend the night, on twenty-nine days, and dined or visited away from home on seven; and this is typical.

Whenever, too, trips were made to Williamsburg, Annapolis, Philadelphia, or elsewhere, it was a rare occurrence when the various stages of the journey were not spent with friends, and in those cities he was dined and wined to a surfeit.

During the Revolution all of Washington’s aides and his secretary lived with him at head-quarters, and constituted what he always called “my family.”  In addition, many others sat down at table,—­those who came on business from a distance, as well as bidden guests,—–­which frequently included ladies from the neighborhood, who must have been belles among the sixteen to twenty men who customarily sat down to dinner.  “If ... convenient and agreeable to you to take pot luck with me to-day,” the General wrote John Adams in 1776, “I shall be glad of your company.”  Pot luck it was for commander-in-chief and staff.  Mention has been made of how sometimes Washington slept on the ground, and even when under cover there was not occasionally much more comfort.  Pickering relates that one night was passed in “Headquarters at Galloway’s, an old log house.  The General lodged in a bed, and his family on the floor about him.  We had plenty of sepawn and milk, and all were contented.”