Descendants of Mrs. Washington's niece, Mary Dandridge Willison, carefully preserved this tiny bottle and its powdered contents, labeling it "musk [that] Gen. Washington carried in his pocket all through the Revolutionar[y] [W]ar." Musk, a glandular secretion obtained from the musk deer of Asia, was a precious commodity in the eighteenth century, used in perfumes and cosmetics as well as medicines.