Among the picturesque objects on the Potomac, to be seen from the
eastern portion of the mansion house, was the light canoe of the house's
fisher. Father Jack was an African, an hundred years of age, and
although enfeebled in body by weight of years, his mind possessed
uncommon vigor. And he would tell of days long past, when, under African
suns, he was made captive, and of the terrible battle in which his royal
sire was slain, the village burned, and himself sent to the slave ship.

Father Jack had in a considerable degree a leading quality of his
race--somnolency. Many an hour could the family of Washington see the
canoe fastened to a stake, with the old fisherman bent nearly double
enjoying a nap, which was only disturbed by the jerking of the white
perch caught on his hook. But, as we just said, the domestic duties of
Mount Vernon were governed by clock time, and the slumbers of fisher
Jack might occasion inconvenience, for the cook required the fish at a
certain hour, so that they might be served smoking hot precisely at
three. At times he would go to the river bank and make the accustomed
signals, and meet with no response. The old fisherman would be quietly
reposing in his canoe, rocked by the gentle undulations of the stream,
and dreaming, no doubt, of events "long time ago." The importune master
of the kitchen, grown ferocious by delay, would now rush up and down
the water's edge, and, by dint of loud shouting, cause the canoe to turn
its prow to the shore. Father Jack, indignant at its being supposed he
was asleep at his post, would rate those present on his landing, "What
you all meck such a debil of a noise for, hey? I wa'nt sleep, only
noddin'."

The establishment of Mount Vernon employed a perfect army of domestics;
yet to each one were assigned special duties, and from each one strict