Old Ames, of Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1767, describes a corn-husking as follows: "Possibly this leafe may last a Century and fall in the hands of some inquisitive person for whose entertainment I will inform him that now there is a custom amongst us of making an entertainment at husking of Indian corn whereto all the neighboring swains are invited, and after the corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three cheers or huzzars, but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hearty meal about ten o'clock at night they go to their pastimes." In 1687 William Fitzhugh wrote to Nicholas Hayward, then in England, as follows: "Upon finishing the first line at your corner tree on the Potomac your brother Sam, myself and some others drank your health." The diary of old Governor Spottswood confirms the custom of drinking at the completion of a survey, for in 1716 he with some other Virginia gentlemen and their retainers, a company of rangers and four Indians, fifty-four persons in all, journeyed over the Blue Ridge mountains and descended to the Shenandoah Valley. After drinking the King's health they descended the western slope to the river, which they crossed and named "Euphrates." The governor took formal possession of the region for George I., of England. Much light is thrown on the convivial habits of Virginians at that time by an entry found in the diary of the chroniclers: "We got all the men together and loaded their arms, and we drank the King's health in champagne and fired a volley, the prince's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, and all the rest of the royal family in claret and a volley; we drank the Governor's health and fired another volley. We had several sorts of liquor, viz: Virginia red wine and white wine, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two sorts of rum, champagne, canary, cherry punch, cider, etc." It was the custom when land was transferred that a libation should be poured to Bacchus, and to such an extent was this carried that when Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson, purchased four hundred acres of Virginia land from his old friend and neighbor, William Randolph, of Tuckahoe, the consideration jovially named in the deed is given as "Henry Weatherbourne's Biggest Bowl of Arrack Punch." The breaking of roads furnished another occasion for the consumption of liquor, and is well described by Whittier: