A corps of workmen—some negroes, some indentured servants, and some hired laborers—were kept on the estate. A blacksmith-shop occupied some, doing not merely the work of the plantation, but whatever business was brought to them from outside; and a wood-burner kept them and the mansion-house supplied with charcoal. A gang of carpenters were kept busy, and their spare time was utilized in framing houses to be put up in Alexandria, or in the “Federal city,” as Washington was called before the death of its namesake. A brick-maker, too, was kept constantly employed, and masons utilized the product of his labor. The gardener’s gang had charge of the kitchen-garden, and set out thousands of grape-vines, fruit-trees, and hedge-plants. A water-mill, with its staff, not merely ground meal for the hands, but produced a fine flour that commanded extra price in the market In 1786 Washington asserted that his flour was “equal, I believe, in quality to any made in this country,” and the Mount Vernon brand was of such value that some money was made by buying outside wheat and grinding it into flour. The coopers of the estate made the barrels in which it was packed, and Washington’s schooner carried it to market. The estate had its own shoemaker, and in time a staff of weavers was trained. Before this was obtained, in 1760, though with only a modicum of the force he presently had, Washington ordered from London “450 ells of Osnabrig, 4 pieces of Brown Wools, 350 yards of Kendall Cotton, and 100 yards of Dutch blanket.” By 1768 he was manufacturing the chief part of his requirements, for in that year his weavers produced eight hundred and fifteen and three-quarter yards of linen, three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter yards of woollen, one hundred and forty-four yards of linsey, and forty yards of cotton, or a total of thirteen hundred and sixty-five and one-half yards, one man and five negro girls having been employed. When once the looms were well organized an infinite variety of cloths was produced, the accounts mentioning “striped woollen, woolen plaided, cotton striped, linen, wool-birdseye, cotton filled with wool, linsey, M.’s & O.’s, cotton-India dimity, cotton jump stripe, linen filled with tow, cotton striped with silk, Roman M., Janes twilled, huccabac, broadcloth, counterpain, birdseye diaper, Kirsey wool, barragon, fustian, bed-ticking, herring-box, and shalloon.”