With him went again his old friend Doctor Craik. Their equipage
consisted of three servants and six horses, three of which last carried
the baggage, including a marquee, some camp utensils, a few medicines,
"hooks and lines," Madeira, port wine and cherry bounce. Stopping at
night and for meals at taverns or the homes of relatives or friends,
they passed up the picturesque Potomac Valley, meeting many friends
along the way, among them the celebrated General Daniel Morgan, with
whom Washington talked over the waterways project. At "Happy Retreat,"
the home of Charles Washington in the fertile Shenandoah Valley, beyond
the Blue Ridge, Washington met and transacted business with tenants who
lived on his lands in that region. On September fifth he reached Bath,
the present Berkeley Springs, where he owned two thousand acres of land
and two lots. Here fifteen years before he had come with his family in
the hope that the water would benefit poor "Patey" Custis, and here he
met "the ingenious Mr. Rumney" who showed him the model of a boat to be
propelled by steam.

At Bath the party was joined by Doctor Craik's son William and by the
General's nephew, Bushrod Washington. Twelve miles to the west
Washington turned aside from the main party to visit a tract of two
hundred forty acres that he owned on the Virginia side of the Potomac.
He found it "exceedingly Rich, & must be very valuable--the lower end of
the Land is rich white oak in places springey ... the upper part is ...
covered with Walnut of considerable size many of them." He "got a snack"
at the home of a Mr. McCracken and left with that gentleman the terms
upon which he would let the land, then rode onward and rejoined
the others.

The cavalcade passed on to Fort Cumberland. There Washington left the