He is about 5 feet six inches high and well made, rather turned of 30, with light brown hair, and roundish face....

They went off in a small yawl, with turpentine sides and bottom, the inside painted with a mixture of tar and red lead." In the course of his business career Washington also employed a considerable number of free white men, who likewise were usually skilled workers or overseers.

He commonly engaged them for the term of one year and by written contracts, which he drew up himself, a thing he had learned to do when a boy by copying legal forms.

Many of these papers still survive and contracts with joiners and gardeners jostle inaugural addresses and opinions of cabinet meetings.
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.