July 30, 1787: Gone Fishing

Brown trout

Frontis from The Fly-fisher's Entomology, 1849 by Alfred Ronalds

"In company with Mr. Govr. Morris, and in his Phaeton with my horses; went up to one Jane Moores in the vicinity of Vally-forge to get Trout."

--George Washington in a diary entry

Monday, July 30, 1787: The Convention Today
The Convention continued to be adjouned to give the five-member Committee of Detail time to write the Constitution of the United States.

Synopsis

• The Convention was in recess.

Delegates Today

• Franklin (PA) presided as Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council met in their room on the second floor of the State House (Independence Hall).
• Madison (VA) drew a bill on Jaquelin Ambler in favor of Francis and John West of Philadelphia for $552 as an advance for one quarter's attendance on Congress. Randolph (VA) endorsed it.
• William Blount (NC) wrote from New York to his nephew Thomas Blount in London, with a copy to William’s brother John Gray Blount in Washington, N.C, regarding investment and settlement opportunities in the western territory of North Carolina (now Tennessee). He encouraged Thomas to anonymously republish his letter in English newspapers so “that it will be beneficial to himself and associates holding Lands in Davidson County,” where Nashville was located.
• Washington (VA) sent Elizabeth Powell a plucky note apologizing for not going with her that evening to see Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s popular play The School for Scandal. Alas, he was going fishing in Valley Forge with Gouverneur Morris (PA), and Robert Morris (PA) and his wife would come visit them the next day “to partake of the success.”

Philadelphia Today

• Today was uncommonly cool and overcast.
• In an era where cemeteries were provided by churches for their members only, and the only way to ship a body any distance was to seal it in a hogshead of rum, the Wardens of Philadelphia wrote the Supreme Executive Council asking for several lots on Lombard Street for use as a strangers’ cemetery.