On page 288 is printed part of a letter from Washington to Henry Lee, written in Philadelphia in October, 1793, concerning a new threshing machine, in which he complained of the difficulties he had experienced in trying to teach overseers and servants new ways of farm management and labor. "As a proof in point," he said, "of the almost impossibility of putting the overseers of this country out of the track they have been accustomed to walk in, I have one of the most convenient barns in this, or perhaps any other country, where thirty hands may with great ease be employed in thrashing. Half of the wheat of the farm was actually stowed in this barn, in the straw, by my order, for thrashing; notwithstanding, when I came home about the middle of September, I found a treading-yard not thirty feet from the barn door, the wheat again brought out of the barn, and horses treading it out in a open exposure, liable to the vicissitudes of weather."

The great barn here mentioned was circular in form, and the lower half of the wall was built of bricks. It was three or four miles from the Mount Vernon Mansion. It was yet

standing in the sadly dilapidated state seen in the engrav ing when the writer visited Mount Vernon just before the late Civil War. It was taken down and rebuilt a few years ago by the present owner of the land.

POSTHUMOUS HONORS.

On page 346, we have noticed the funeral services in honor of Washington, held in Philadelphia by direction of Congress which was in session at the time of his death. It is mentioned that General Lee's oration, prepared at the request of Congress, was pronounced in the Lutheran Church in that city. It is yet used as a place of worship by the same denomination of Christians. I here give a correct picture of the edifice, copied from one in Lossings' Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812, in which also appears the accompanying delineation of a silver medal in my possession, struck in commemoration of Washington, immediately after his death. It

was designed by Dudley A. Tyng, then collector of customs at Newburyport, Massachusetts, and the die was cut and the medal published by Jacob Perkins, the eminent Mechanican and Engraver.

The medal is a little larger and thicker than a Spanish quarter of a dollar. On one side is a profile of Washington, inclosed in a wreath of laurel, and surrounded

by the words, "HE IS IN GLORY, THE WORLD IN

TEARS." On the reverse is a Memorial Urn, and

INGLORY

WASHINGTON MEDAL

15.R.83.P.U.

around it, forming two circles, are abbreviations seen in the engraving, signifying, "Born, February 11, 1732; General

of the American Army 1775; resigned, 1783; President of the United States of America, 1789; retired in 1796; General of the Armies of the United States, 1798; died December, 14, 1799."

It is mentioned on page 350 that Bonaparte ordered crape to be suspended from all the flags and standards in the French service, for ten days. He did more. He directed a funeral oration to be pronounced before him and the civil and military authorities. This was done by Louis Fontaine in the Temple of Mars, at Paris, on the 8th of February, in the year 1800.

WASHINGTON'S WILL.

Washington wrote his Will at Mount Vernon, and signed it on the ninth of July, 1799, a few months before his death. The document, without the schedule of property mentioned in it, and attached to it, occupied several pages of manuscript, at the bottom of each of which he wrote his name. I will give here only such portions of his Will as may have an interest for the general reader.

After the usual form, and bequeathing to his wife the use, for the term of her natural life, almost his whole estate, he wrote, as the first object of his solicitude

"Item.-Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all the slaves whom I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom. To emancipate them during her life would, though eminently wished by me, be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their intermixture by marriage with the dower negroes, as to excite the most painful sensations, if not disagreeable consequences to the

latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same proprietor, it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the dower negroes are held, to manumit them. And whereas, among those who will receive freedom according to this devise, there may be some, who, from old age or bodily infirmities, and others, who, on account of their infancy, will be unable to support themselves, it is my will and desire, that all, who come under the first and second description, shall be comfortably clothed and fed by my heirs while they live; and that such of the latter description as have no parents living, or, if living, are unable or unwilling to provide for them, shall be bound by the court until they shall arrive at the age of twenty-five years; and in cases where no record can be produced, whereby their ages can be ascertained, the judgment of the court, upon its own view of the subject, shall be adequate and final. The negroes thus bound, are (by their masters or mistresses,) to be taught to read and write, and to be brought up to some useful occupation, agreeably to the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia providing for the support of orphan and other poor children. And I do hereby expressly forbid the sale or transportation out of the Commonwealth, of any slave I may die possessed of, under any pretense whatsoever. And I do moreover, most pointedly and most solemnly enjoin it upon my executors hereafter named, or the survivors of them, to see that this clause respecting slaves, and every part thereof, be religiously fulfilled at the epoch at which it is directed to take place, without evasion, neglect or delay, after the crops, which may then be on the ground, are harvested, particularly as it respects the aged and infirm; seeing that a regular and permanent fund be estab