Exploring the Early Americas

The Jay I. Kislak Collection

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Both a manuscript and a printed book, George Washington’s 1762 almanac documents the activities at his Mount Vernon plantation.  He describes mainly planting tobacco and raising cattle and sheep, although financial matters and slaves are also mentioned. Washington kept a diary from 1747, when he was a teenaged surveyor, until his death in 1799, with the notable exception of the period during most of the Revolutionary War.  With the addition of this 1762 record, the Library of Congress now holds thirty-seven of the forty-one known original Washington diaries.