James Anderson

James Anderson, his wife (born at Spencerfield Farm) and five children left the farm in Inverkeithing in 1791 and crossed the Atlantic to work in Virginia.After a year or so, he was employed by George Washington as his farm manager at his Mount Vernon farm, the farm was mainly wheat and fruit. Interestingly it had a huge gristmill to increase the production of flour for export to Europe.

James Anderson saw the other possibilities of a large grist mill, as he had grown up distilling on the farm in Scotland and convinced George Washington to build a whiskey distillery adjacent to the gristmill.Washington a great entrepreneur was not slow to develop its potential.

The distillery was hugely successful and in 1799 was the largest in America.At its peak it utilized five pot stills and a massive boiler producing 11,000 gallons of whiskey.James Anderson distilled small quantities at Spencerfield and like most farmers didn’t see the necessity to inform the excise man.At Mount Vernon they probably paid a reasonable amount of tax on the spirit!given that Washington was President at the time.

The anniversary of Washington’s death falls on the 14th of December and we thought we would commemorate the great men of Scotland and Virginia by having a few drams at the farm on Friday night.

Drop in for a swift one .