Please see the [Transcriber’s Notes] at the end of this text.

Courtesy of Fairchild Aerial Surveys (Inc.).

THE HEART OF THE NATION’S CAPITAL

75TH CONGRESS, 3D SESSION · SENATE DOCUMENT NO. 178

A MANUAL ON THE
ORIGIN AND
DEVELOPMENT OF
WASHINGTON

By H. PAUL CAEMMERER, Ph. D.

“The City of Washington—the central star of the constellation
which enlightens the whole world.”

General Lafayette, as Guest of the Nation, October 12, 1824.

UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON: 1939

SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 280
Submitted by Mr. Hayden

In the Senate of the United States,

April 20 (calendar day, May 18), 1938.

Resolved, That the manuscript entitled “A Manual of the Plan of Washington,” prepared by H. P. Caemmerer, be printed in such style and manner as may be directed by the Joint Committee on Printing, as a Senate Document.

Attest:

Edwin A. Halsey,
Secretary.

PREFACE

This Manual on the Origin and Development of Washington is published for the use of students, particularly in high schools, desiring to make a study of the National Capital a part of their course in civics.

The 25 chapters composing the book are of such interest and importance that an hour a week may profitably be devoted to each, but the chapters on public buildings and monuments require each two or three periods for effective presentation. In this manner the Manual may serve as a textbook for a year’s work; it will also be found helpful by the general reader interested in Washington.

The Manual deals historically with the founding and development of the National Capital. Beginning with the twentieth century we find a new impetus given to the development of the city by the McMillan Park Commission of 1901. Its work has been carried forward by the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, in cooperation with the Government of the District of Columbia, including the Zoning Commission; also, of course, in cooperation with the President of the United States, officials of the Government, and the Congress of the United States, which by virtue of the Federal Constitution exercises “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” over the District of Columbia.

It should be kept in mind that in the study of the National Capital we are studying the seat of government of the greatest nation in the world, a city that was laid on a broad, firm foundation, and although neglected for decades during the last century, the twentieth century has seen Washington transformed into a city in keeping with the dignity, power, and wealth of this great Nation.

The Plan of Washington is at the basis of city planning in the United States. The organization of the National Conference on City Planning in 1907 was inspired by the work of the McMillan Park Commission of 1901. Many of the leading artists of the country—architects, sculptors, painters, and landscape architects—have served in the work of beautifying the city. Washington is a city that is ever growing and it is destined to be the most beautiful city in the world.

The writer wishes to express his grateful appreciation to Senator Carl Hayden for having introduced the legislation to print this volume.

H. Paul Caemmerer.

THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE PURCHASED FROM THE
SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS, U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON, D. C. AT $2.00 A COPY (BUCKRAM)

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Chapter I
THE FEDERAL CITY
STORY OF THE MOVEMENT WHICH ESTABLISHED THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT NEAR THE POTOMAC

The problem of establishing a permanent seat of government for the United States was most perplexing. The Continental Congress was obliged for its own protection to travel from place to place to conduct its sessions. By the treaty of Paris, in 1783, the independence of the Colonies had been recognized, but they were then united simply as a confederation, and there was lacking Federal authority through which the needs of the Government could be asserted and provided for. This was felt keenly in the matter of obtaining the necessary revenue to maintain the Government, for the Continental Congress did not have the power of taxation and had to depend upon the good will of the Colonies.

The demands upon the Continental Congress were many. The War of Independence had impoverished the Colonies. There were the debts of war incurred by the Continental Congress and also the debts of the Colonies themselves—in all, $20,000,000, a huge sum in those days, and a factor which, as we shall see, figured in the location of the Federal City south of the Mason and Dixon line. Then, too, there was an army of soldiers being discharged, with no funds at hand to pay them for their services.

Prior to the establishment of the Federal City on the banks of the Potomac, the Continental Congress met in eight different cities and towns, viz:

Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, to December 12, 1776.

Baltimore, December 20, 1776, to February 27, 1777.

Philadelphia, March 4 to September 18, 1777.

Lancaster, Pa., September 27, 1777.

York, Pa., September 30, 1777, to June 27, 1778.

Philadelphia, July 2, 1778, to June 21, 1783.

Princeton, N. J., June 26, 1783, to November 4, 1783.

Annapolis, Md., November 26, 1783, to June 3, 1784.

Trenton, N. J., November, 1784, to December 24, 1784.

New York City, January 11, 1785, to March 4, 1789.

From March 2, 1781, the Continental Congress was also called by some the Congress of the Confederation. The first Congress under the Constitution met on March 4, 1789, and adjourned September 29, 1789. On December 6, 1790, the third session of the First Congress began in Philadelphia, which was the temporary seat of government until November, 1800.

The Continental Congress was seriously inconvenienced by this moving from place to place. They could not take with them their records and files, were required to seek protection, and there was lack of adequate accommodations in some of the towns where they met. In Princeton the sessions were held in the college building, Nassau Hall, where the average attendance was only 22 Members.

The suggestion had been made in November, 1779, by some Members that the Congress purchase a few square miles near Princeton village, whereon to erect public offices and buildings for a permanent home for Congress.

The two leading factors that entered into the question of establishment of a seat of government of the United States were jurisdiction and geographical location. It was deemed very important to give to the National Capital a central location along the Atlantic coast. Debates on this question continued until 1790.

On January 29, 1783, the trustees of the corporation of Kingston, N. Y., took the first recorded action by sending a memorial to the New York State Legislature that “their estate be erected into a separate district for the Honorable Congress of the United States.” It was proposed to grant to Congress 1 square mile within the limits of the town of Kingston, and the New York Legislature consented to this by the adoption of a resolution on March 14, 1783. Upon the suggestion of Alexander Hamilton and William Floyd this area was, in September, increased to 2 square miles.

On May 12, 1783, the corporation of Annapolis adopted a resolution calling upon the Maryland Legislature to allow the establishment of the seat of government at Annapolis, because of its central location along the Atlantic coast. The Continental Congress took note of this on June 4, 1783. New Jersey, on June 19, 1783, offered a site anywhere in the State. On June 28, 1783, the Legislature of Virginia offered to Congress the town of Williamsburg and agreed to present the capitol, the palace, and all the public buildings, together with 300 acres of land adjoining the city, and a sum of money not to exceed £100,000. This money was to be expended in erecting 13 hotels for the Delegates to Congress. Also the town would cede a district contiguous to it not exceeding 5 miles square. The legislature also offered to cede a like district on the banks of the Potomac and to assure a sum not exceeding £100,000 for the erection of hotels, and would also purchase 100 acres of land for the erection of public buildings. Virginia offered to cede land along the banks of the Potomac if Maryland would unite and offer a similar tract on the opposite bank of the river; but should Congress build on the Maryland side only the sum of £40,000 would be appropriated and the State would be expected to supply the deficiency.

The offers of New York and Maryland, as recorded in the proceedings of Congress of June 4, 1783, having emphasized the importance of the subject to establish a permanent seat of government, we are told in the annals of Madison that a day in October was named when the subject would be considered. However, during that very month a mutiny of dissatisfied soldiers took place. A band of soldiers started from Lancaster, Pa., on June 17, 1783, for Philadelphia, to demand from the Continental Congress the money then due. Congress appointed a committee to appeal to the executive council of the State of Pennsylvania, in session in the same building, for protection against the threatened attack by the soldiers, but the council refused, saying that the militia would doubtless not be willing to take up arms “before their resentment should be provoked by some actual outrages.” The soldiers, about 300 in number, proceeded to the state-house—Independence Hall—where Congress and the executive council were in session, surrounded that building, but attempted no violence. Occasionally some soldier would use offensive language and point his musket at the windows of the Halls of Congress, but at night the soldiers departed. Congress thereupon adjourned hastily to meet in Princeton eight days later. General Washington ordered a court-martial, in which two of the mutineers were sentenced to death and four to receive corporal punishment; but the convicted men were all pardoned by Congress. General Washington regarded the mutineers as “recruits and soldiers of a day who have not borne the heat and burden of war, and who can have in reality very few hardships to complain of.” The legislators were invited to return to Philadelphia, but the offer was refused, for the reason that the armed soldiers had grossly insulted Congress and it seemed useless to apply to the executive council for protection. This led to the appointment of a committee, of which James Madison was chairman, on the subject of a permanent seat of government. They submitted a report on September 18, 1783.

The committee reported on two questions: First, the extent of the district necessary; second, the power to be exercised by Congress in that district. As to the first question, it was reported that a district should not be less than 3 miles or more than 6 miles square; and second, that Congress ought to have exclusive jurisdiction. The report was referred to a committee as a whole, but there is no record that further action was taken.

When the question of a permanent seat of government was again taken up by the Continental Congress, it was the question of location that predominated; the question of exclusive jurisdiction had generally been conceded. The discussion was finally limited to two sites: First, a location on the banks of the Potomac at least as far south as Georgetown, which was favored particularly by the southern Members of Congress as being the geographical center of the United States; second, a site on the Delaware River near the falls above Trenton, which Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the other States near by favored.

On October 7, 1783, Congress decided that a permanent seat of government should be established on the Delaware River site, and a committee was appointed to visit the location. Ten days later, on October 17, 1783, Congress decided that there should be a National Capital at the lower falls of the Potomac, at Georgetown. This is the first mention of the present location of the National Capital. Pending the completion of necessary buildings, it was decided that the Continental Congress would meet at Trenton and Annapolis. But the idea of having two capitals was ridiculed by such men as Francis Hopkinson, who suggested that there be one Federal town to be placed on a platform supported by wheels and two places of residence. As to a statue of George Washington that had been authorized by Congress at the same session, he suggested it be placed on wheels and be taken to wherever Congress met. The idea of having two capitals was abandoned by legislation adopted at Trenton on December 23, 1784.

Two years elapsed before Congress took up the subject again. In the meantime a movement began, under the leadership of George Washington, to promote trade relations between Virginia and Maryland, and to establish trade with the western frontier by the construction of a canal along the banks of the Potomac. Washington became president of the Potomac Company at the time of its organization in 1785, and was its guiding spirit for a period of four years, until 1789, when he resigned from that office to take up his duties as first President of the United States.

A trade convention, held at Annapolis, led to the call for the Constitutional Convention, February 21, 1787, to meet in Philadelphia in May of that year.

On May 29,1787, the draft of the Constitution submitted by Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, first mentions the section relating to the Federal district in the form in which it became a part of the Constitution of the United States (Art. I, sec. 8, par. 17), under the powers of Congress—

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceeding 10 miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings.

There was objection on the part of some lest such a provision in the Federal Constitution would create a government that would become despotic and tyrannical and result in unjust discrimination in matters of trade and commerce between the merchants within and outside of the district. But on the other hand the advocates for a Federal City over which Congress would have exclusive jurisdiction called attention to the great importance for the Government to have a permanent residence for the Congress and the executive departments, with their files and records properly housed, and cited the mutiny in Philadelphia as an illustration as to what might happen to the Government again in the absence of such Federal authority. On September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States was adopted and soon after was ratified by a majority of the States.

When the time came for the inauguration of President Washington, on April 30, 1789, in New York City, the Continental Congress was completing its sessions, having resided in that city from 1785, a period of four years. Of a population of 25,000 in 1776, the city in 1789 had a population of only half that number, due to the continuous occupation by the British Army for a period of seven years. During the evacuation the city was partly ruined. But a new era began; trade increased, and the city began to grow rapidly. The Continental Congress was meeting in the old city hall, which had been used by the British as a prison and was in a dilapidated condition. As Washington was to be inaugurated in New York, the people thought that city would become the seat of government, so the city hall was torn down and a new building erected on the site where the subtreasury building on Wall Street now stands.

It was recognized that the presence of that national body was a valuable asset to the city. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who late in 1791 made the plan for the Federal City, was selected to design and construct the building. When the Members of Congress assembled for the First Congress under the Federal Constitution, they met in a building constructed with classical arches and columns, painted ceilings and marble pavements, and furnished in a magnificent manner with crimson damask canopies and hangings. The exterior was marked by a portico with arcaded front and highly decorated pediments. But the building had been erected too rapidly to endure permanently; poor work had been done, and in a few years it was demolished.

The building was called Federal Hall. Here on April 30, 1789, a date never to be forgotten in the annals of American history, George Washington was inaugurated first President of the United States of America. The spot where General Washington stood is now marked, as nearly as possible, by the J. Q. A. Ward statue of the first President, which stands in front of the subtreasury building on Wall Street. Just inside the door, preserved under glass, is a brownstone slab on which is inscribed:

STANDING ON THIS STONE, IN THE BALCONY OF FEDERAL HALL, APRIL 30, 1789, GEORGE WASHINGTON TOOK THE OATH AS THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

During the sessions of this Congress long and careful consideration was given to the question of a permanent seat of government. It had its place with great problems before Congress at the time—as the revenue bill, which would provide money for the newly established Republic, creating executive departments, plans for the funding of the public debt and the assumption of State debts, disposal of public lands, and establishing a judicial system. At the opening of the last month of the session the question of a residence for the United States Government was brought up. Protest was made against consideration of the subject in view of the other important questions pending before Congress that seemed to some to be more urgent, also because, they said, Congress was properly housed, and that other towns like Trenton, Germantown, Carlisle, Lancaster, York, and Reading would be glad to have Congress locate with them.

However, the southern Members, led by Richard Bland Lee and James Madison, Representatives from Virginia, argued for present consideration of the subject. They favored the Potomac River site at least as far south as Georgetown, which they asserted would be geographically the center of the United States. They claimed for their section of the country in this matter the consideration of justice and equality. They argued that there was no question more important—one in which the people of the country were so deeply interested and one on the settlement of which the peace and the permanent existence of the country so much depended. The question of location finally resolved itself into the consideration of two localities: First, a site near the falls of the Susquehanna, at Wrights Ferry, Pa., 35 miles from tidewater; and second, a site at Georgetown, Md., near the lower falls of the Potomac.

Great stress was laid on the importance of a site that would place the seat of government on a navigable stream far enough from the sea to be safe from hostile attacks. But it was also deemed very important to select a place that would offer means of communication with the western country, which was a subject, as we have seen, in which George Washington was interested for years previously. This argument was effective, as it offered advantages for carrying on trade with the vast western country for which the Potomac Company had been established.

The subject received the consideration of both the House and Senate in September, 1789, but its final consideration was deferred until the following year, in June, 1790. The southern Members, especially the Representatives of Maryland and Virginia, were particularly active, believing a decision on the Potomac River site was in their favor. In December, 1789, Virginia had made a grant of $120,000, and a sum equal to two-thirds of that amount had been voted by the Legislature of the State of Maryland for the construction of buildings, in addition to their willingness to cede the portion of the 10-mile square in their respective States along the Potomac River desired for the Federal district.

The final disposition of this question was settled by compromise.

At the time Hamilton had the funding bill before Congress, and lacked one vote in the Senate and five in the House to secure its passage, he came to an agreement with Robert Morris, financier of the Revolution, on the question of location of the seat of government. Also, Thomas Jefferson tells us, in his “Anas,” of a dinner given by him at which the residence question was discussed and an agreement reached whereby the southern Members agreed to the funding bill in consideration of the designation of Philadelphia as the seat of government for a 10-year period and thereafter along the Potomac.

Chapter II
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TEMPORARY AND PERMANENT SEATS OF GOVERNMENT

The House of Representatives had proposed a bill naming Baltimore as the site, but the Senate struck out this provision, and on July 1, 1790, voted 14 to 12 for the Potomac River site between the mouth of the Eastern Branch and the Connogochegue, a tributary of the Potomac, 20 miles south of the Pennsylvania State line. The bill which became a law July 16, 1790, reads as follows:

An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a district of territory, not exceeding ten miles square, to be located as hereafter directed on the river Potomac, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and Connogochegue, be, and the same is hereby, accepted for the permanent seat of the government of the United States. Provided nevertheless, That the operation of the laws of the state within such district shall not be affected by this acceptance, until the time fixed for the removal of the government thereto, and until Congress shall otherwise by law provide.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States be authorized to appoint, and by supplying vacancies happening from refusals to act or other causes, to keep in appointment as long as may be necessary, three commissioners, who, or any two of whom, shall, under the direction of the President, survey, and by proper metes and bounds define and limit a district of territory, under the limitations above mentioned; and the district so defined, limited and located, shall be deemed the district accepted by this act, for the permanent seat of the government of the United States.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the said commissioners, or any two of them, shall have power to purchase or accept such quantity of land on the eastern side of the said river, within the said district, as the President shall deem proper for the use of the United States, and according to such plans as the President shall approve, the said commissioners, or any two of them, shall, prior to the first Monday in December, in the year one thousand eight hundred, provide suitable buildings for the accommodation of Congress, and of the President, and for the public offices of the government of the United States.

Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That for defraying the expense of such purchases and buildings, the President of the United States be authorized and requested to accept grants of money.

Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That prior to the first Monday in December next, all offices attached to the seat of the government of the United States, shall be removed to, and until the said first Monday in December, in the year one thousand eight hundred, shall remain at the city of Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania, at which place the session of Congress next ensuing the present shall be held.

Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That on the said first Monday in December, in the year one thousand eight hundred, the seat of the government of the United States, shall, by virtue of this act, be transferred to the district and place aforesaid. And all offices attached to the said seat of government, shall accordingly be removed thereto by their respective holders, and shall, after the said day, cease to be exercised elsewhere; and that the necessary expense of such removal shall be defrayed out of the duties on imposts and tonnage, of which a sufficient sum is hereby appropriated.

It is said that the loftiest minds of Congress were swayed by the judgment of George Washington in this matter. They agreed with him that America should establish the precedent of a nation locating and founding a city for its permanent capital by legislative enactment. Furthermore, they wished to honor that first President and great general and counselor, who had made their independence possible, by conferring upon him the power to select for this Federal City the locality he had in prophetic vision chosen as a suitable site for the capital of the Republic. By this act Congress expressed its faith in President Washington by permitting him to establish the capital anywhere along the Potomac between the Eastern Branch and the Connogochegue, a distance of 80 miles. The boundaries of no other city were ever fixed with more certainty. It is recorded that George Washington was harassed by the importunities of anxious residents and aggressive speculators, but that he never wavered in his purpose to select for the site of the Federal City that which in former years he had chosen for the Federal home upon the establishment of the Republic.

By proclamation of January 24, 1791, President Washington directed that a preliminary survey be made, or, in the President’s words, “lines of experiment” were to be run. This survey was substantially in accord with the lines subsequently adopted, moving the southern boundary point of the “ten miles square” farther south so as to include a convenient part of the Eastern Branch and also the town of Alexandria.

The act of July 16, 1790, was thereupon amended accordingly by act approved March 3, 1791, as follows:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That so much of the act, entitled “An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the government of the United States,” as requires that the whole of the district of territory, not exceeding ten miles square, to be located on the river Potomac, for the permanent seat of the government of the United States, shall be located above the mouth of the Eastern Branch be and is hereby repealed, and that it shall be lawful for the President to make any part of the territory below the said limit, and above the mouth of Hunting Creek, a part of the said district, so as to include a convenient part of the Eastern Branch, and of the lands lying on the lower side thereof and also the town of Alexandria, and the territory so to be included, shall form a part of the district not exceeding ten miles square, for the permanent seat of the government of the United States, in like manner and to all intents and purposes, as if the same had been within the purview of the above recited act: Provided, That nothing herein contained, shall authorize the erection of public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac, as required by the aforesaid act.

Thus within a period of nine months the limits of the Federal territory were established. The corner stone was set with appropriate ceremonies at Jones Point, Alexandria, Va., April 15, 1791. Not a cent was advanced by Congress for buildings or grounds. In fact, the Treasury was empty, and without credit Congress was unable to give financial assistance. Washington himself drew up the original agreement by which the owners were to convey the land to the Government which the Cincinnatus of the West bought from the landholders at £25 per acre.

Of George Washington, Daniel Webster said, at the ceremonies for enlarging the Capitol to its present size, on July 4, 1851:

He heads a short procession over naked fields, he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree, he ascends to the top of this eminence, where original oaks of the forest stood as thick around as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical worship, and here he performed the appointed duty of the day.

In earlier years Washington had noted the beauty of the broad eminence on which the Capitol was destined to be reared, and had marked the breadth of the picture and the strong colors of the landscape with its environing wall of wooded heights, which rolled back against the sky as if to inclose a beautiful area fit for the supreme deliberation of the governmental affairs of a great Republic in the New World, founded on the truths “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” These truths, as set forth in the unanimous declaration of the thirteen original colonies of the United States of America adopted July 4, 1776, formed the basis of the Magna Charta of American liberty, known to us as the Declaration of Independence.

HISTORY OF EARLY SETTLEMENTS ALONG THE POTOMAC

Somewhat more than a century and a half before (in 1608) Capt. John Smith and his men sailed up the Patawomeck and visited the site of the future Federal City. The famous adventurer only partially explored the country, the principal item in the log book of his voyage being that they found the river full of luscious fish and its shores lined with ferocious savages. They met with opposition from Chief Powhatan and were subject to continual attacks. Nevertheless the exploration was continued up the Potomac as far as Little Falls, about 5 miles above the city of Washington. At the time of this exploration there were about 30 tribes, principal and subordinate, living along the shores of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia. The chief of these principal tribes were the Powhatans, the Manahoacs, and the Monacans. The Powhatans lived along the shores of the Chesapeake as far north as the Patuxent in Maryland, and the other two lived in the territory contiguous to the York and Potomac Rivers. The Manahoacs and the Monacans, who were continuously at war with the Powhatans in Virginia, inhabited the present District of Columbia. The Manahoacs were almost exterminated by war, pestilence, and spirituous liquors, and about 1712 migrated to the west, joining the Iroquois and the Tuscaroras. Among the smaller tribes were the Nacotchants and the Toags, who were friendly to Capt. John Smith. The Toags lived near Mount Vernon, as is shown by the name Tauxement on Capt. John Smith’s map. The Moyaones lived directly opposite Mount Vernon, in Maryland, at the mouth of the Piscataway. The Nacotchants lived just below the Eastern Branch, within the District of Columbia.

There is a tradition of the early settlers of Maryland that the valley at the foot of Capitol Hill, drained by Tiber Creek, was a popular fishing ground of the Indians, and that they gathered not far from there, at Greenleaf’s Point, for their councils. The Indians of Maryland and Virginia closely resembled each other. Those of Maryland were descendants of the same race as the Powhatans and spoke dialects of the great Algonquin language. Powhatan claimed jurisdiction over the Patuxent, but it is doubtful whether he ever enforced the claim.

The Indians lived along the banks of the rivers in this part of the country, and thus many Indian names, suggested by the suffixes “annock” and “any,” have come down to us, as the Susquehanna, Rappahannock, Allegheny, and Chickahominy. The name Chesapeake is said to have come from the Algonquin language, and Potomac comes from the Indian name Patawomeck. The Powhatans were won over to the English by the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe, but the marriage, though notable in history, offered no advantages to the settlers. The original inhabitants were finally driven out by the relentless Iroquois. Among the early fighters against the Indians was Col. John Washington, who came to America in 1657 and settled at Bridges Creek, Va., later called Wakefield. He led 1,000 men against the Susquehannas. The Maryland tribes were gradually consolidated with the Piscataways, and about 1700 they moved to a new settlement on the lower Susquehanna, near Bainbridge, Pa. Here, in 1765, they numbered about 150 persons and were under the jurisdiction of the Iroquois. Thereafter they moved to the Ohio Valley and joined the Delawares.

To-day the name Anacostia, derived from the name of the small Indian tribe of Nacotchants, reminds us of the occupation of the District of Columbia by Indians. As has been said, they lived just below the Eastern Branch, in a suburb of Washington known as Anacostia. The great Anacostia Park, in the immediate vicinity, is named after them. They were a tribe of peaceful Indians, about 80 in number, and were kind and well disposed to Capt. John Smith and his explorers. The name of Anacostia was also given to an island near the shores of Virginia, at Georgetown. Later it took the name Analostian and also Anacostian Island. When George Mason, prominent delegate to the Virginia Legislature, purchased it in 1777, it came to be known as Masons Island. Later it was called Analostan Island. Stone implements and fragments of pottery and traces of Indian villages have been found in these locations, which give evidence of habitations of the Indians in the District of Columbia in those days. It was a region favored by the Indians for its game of all kinds, as well as fish. The soil was rich and fertile and crops were plentiful. Then, too, the climate was agreeable; that is, it did not have the extreme cold of the North, nor did the inhabitants suffer from the continued heat of a tropical sun. The latitude of Washington is 38° 52′ 37″ N. and the longitude 76° 55′ 30.54″ W.

Weather reports of a hundred years ago give 97° for the average of maximum in summer and 24° above zero for the winter. This mild climate has had its consequent effect on the flora of the District of Columbia. A report of the Botanical Society of Washington, made in 1825, gives us the names of 860 distinct species and varieties of plants in the District of Columbia. To-day grow here the oak, walnut, hickory, elm, maple, and other hardy trees; pine trees in all their varieties, and magnolia, also the rhododendron, laurel, box bushes, privet hedges, holly; and roses bloom in Washington almost the entire year. In spring the beautiful Japanese cherry trees add charm to the city.

WASHINGTON, 1792

Chapter III
DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL THE PLAN OF THE CITY

SITE OF THE FEDERAL CITY

The first mention of the upper Potomac and adjacent regions to Indianhead, about 35 miles south of Washington, is made by Capt. John Smith, who explored this region from the Jamestown settlement in Virginia in 1608. In 1634 Henry Fleet, who was taken captive by Indians, visited the falls of the Potomac. In 1635 a tract of land (400 acres) called Rome was laid out for Francis Pope, gentleman. The Capitol is said to be on this land. In 1790 the region in which the city of Washington has been built was in the form of 17 large farm tracts, as is shown on the following page. They were covered with woods and streams; the arable portions were tilled and produced wheat, maize, and tobacco. Two hamlets, Carrollsburg (where the War College now stands), and Hamburg (about where the Naval Hospital is located), which was then southeast of the thriving port of Georgetown, were within the limits of the early survey.

On April 30, 1783, 19 days after the proclamation of peace between the American Colonies and England, the subject of a permanent capital for the General Government of the States was brought up in Congress. The act of July 16, 1790, heretofore cited, provided for the selection of a permanent site on the upper Potomac River for the National Capital—

according to such plans as the President shall approve and prior to the first Monday in December, 1800, and suitable buildings for the accommodation of Congress, and of the President, and for the public offices of the Government of the United States.

On January 22, 1791, President Washington appointed three commissioners—Daniel Carroll and Thomas Johnson, of Maryland, and David Stuart, of Virginia.

By proclamation of January 24, 1791, President Washington directed that the three commissioners appointed pursuant to the act approved July 16, 1790, “proceed forthwith to run the said lines of experiment and, the same being run, to survey and by proper metes and bounds to define and limit the part within the same,” which were substantially in accord with the lines subsequently adopted, moving the southern boundary point of the 10 miles square farther south, so as to include a convenient part of the Eastern Branch and also the town of Alexandria.

[Transcriptions]

WASHINGTON IN EMBRYO

When President Washington arrived in the future National Capital he found the great task before him was to bring into harmony the rival interests of the Eastern Branch, or Carrollsburg, and of Georgetown. The property holders of Carrollsburg appeared to be anxious that the new public buildings be located in their town. David Burnes, who owned much of the land that now lies between the White House and the Capitol, was keen to have, on condition that he give up part of his property, the public buildings located there. Thus from the beginning of the history of the city there has been rivalry between various sections of the city while the Government was planning for its development.

The controversy between the landholders led Thomas Jefferson to make a rough outline plan for a city one-fourth less in size than that which George Washington had in mind, to be built in the vicinity of Georgetown. This sketch showed the Capitol building at the site of the town called Hamburg, about where the Naval Hospital is now located; from there eastward public walks or a Mall was planned, with the location of the President’s House at about the present Nineteenth Street, south of Pennsylvania Avenue. Jefferson also proposed a rectangular system of streets, in contrast with the open spaces and radiating avenues planned by L’Enfant, who also reversed the position of the Capitol by placing that to the east of the President’s House on Jenkin’s Hill.

TERMS OF ORIGINAL AGREEMENT

The terms of the sale of land to the Government were agreed to on March 30, 1791, under which the original owners agreed to convey to the United States Government, free of cost, such portions of their farms as were needed for streets, parks, and other public reservations; and to sell such land as was needed for Government buildings and public improvements at £25 per acre (about $67). The remaining land was to be laid out in building lots and apportioned equally between the Federal Government and the original owners. Rufus R. Wilson, in Washington, the Capital City, says:

In this way, without advancing a dollar and at a total cost of $36,000, the Government acquired a tract of 600 acres in the heart of the city. The 10,136 building lots assigned to it ultimately proved to be worth $850,000, and now represent a value of $70,000,000. Shrewd financier as he was, it is doubtful if Washington ever made another so good a bargain as that with Burnes and his neighbors.

The following is a copy of the agreement:

THE AGREEMENT OF PRESIDENT WASHINGTON WITH THE ORIGINAL PROPRIETORS

We, the subscribers, in consideration of the great benefits we expect to derive from having the Federal City laid off upon our Lands, do hereby agree and bind ourselves, heirs, executors, and administrators, to convey, in Trust, to the President of the United States, or Commissioners, or such person or persons as he shall appoint, by good and sufficient deeds, in Fee simple, the whole of our respective Lands which he may think proper to include within the lines of the Federal City, for the purposes and on the conditions following:

The President shall have the sole power of directing the Federal City to be laid off in what manner he pleases. He may retain any number of Squares he may think proper for public Improvements, or other public Uses, and the lots only which shall be laid off shall be a joint property between the Trustees on behalf of the public, and each present proprietor, and the same shall be fairly and equally divided between the public and the Individuals, as soon as may be, after the City shall be laid off.

For the streets the proprietors shall receive no compensation; but for the squares or Lands in any form, which shall be taken for public buildings, or any kind of public improvements, or uses, the proprietors, whose lands shall be so taken, shall receive at the rate of twenty-five pounds per acre, to be paid by the public.

The whole wood on the Lands shall be the property of the proprietors.

But should any be desired by the president to be reserved or left standing, the same shall be paid for by the public at a just and reasonable valuation, exclusive of the twenty-five pounds per acre to be paid for the land, on which the same shall remain.

Each proprietor shall retain the full possession and use of his land, until the same shall be sold and occupied by the purchasers of the Lots laid out thereupon, and in all cases where the public arrangements as to streets, lotts, &c., will admit of it, each proprietor shall possess his buildings and other improvements, and graveyards, paying to the public only one-half the present estimated value of the Lands, on which the same shall be, or twelve pounds ten shillings per acre. But in cases where the arrangements of the streets, lotts, squares, &c., will not admit of this, and it shall become necessary to remove such buildings, Improvements, &c., the proprietors of the same shall be paid the reasonable value thereof, by the public.

Nothing herein contained shall affect the Lotts which any of the parties to this Agreement may hold in the Towns of Carrollsburgh or Hamburgh.

In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and Seals, this thirtieth day of March, 1791.

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MAP OF BOUNDARY STONES OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

THREE OF THE BOUNDARY STONES

The land which was being considered for the city proper consisted of about 6,000 acres. In laying out the streets 3,606 acres were taken, and about 540 acres were bought by the United States as sites for the public buildings and grounds. The lots laid out numbered 20,272. Of these the United States took half and the property owners were given back the remainder. The United States sold its share of the lots and from the proceeds paid for the 540 acres on which it was to put the public buildings.

The United States also took a fee-simple title to the streets and avenues.

BOUNDARY STONES OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

A survey of an outline of the District of Columbia was made by Andrew Ellicott. From the initial point at Jones Point, on Hunting Creek, at the Potomac (just south of Alexandria), a line was run due northwest 10 miles; thence (into Maryland) due northeast 10 miles to a northern boundary point (now called Sixteenth Street Heights); thence due southeast 10 miles; thence due southwest 10 miles, or back to Jones Point.

BOUNDARY STONE NEAR SIXTEENTH STREET, NORTHWEST

This survey was approved by Congress with the amendment that all public buildings should be erected on the Maryland side of the Potomac River.

On March 29, 1791, President Washington arrived on a visit to the Potomac and stayed at Suter’s Tavern in Georgetown. The next day, accompanied by the three commissioners and Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant and Andrew Ellicott, he rode over the ground. Washington met the owners of the land the same night, and the general terms were then agreed upon and signed by the 19 “original proprietors.” The area of 100 square miles embraced about 64 square miles of Maryland soil (ceded previously in 1788) and about 36 square miles of Virginia soil (ceded in 1789).

Thereupon the three city commissioners were ordered to have the boundary lines permanently marked by monuments placed 1 mile apart. One of these boundary stones can be seen to-day near the north corner of the District of Columbia. Each stone was quite large, and this particular one is well preserved.

PRELIMINARY STUDIES

When the city of Washington was planned under the direct and minute supervision of President Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson, the relations that should exist between the Capitol and the President’s House were closely studied. On August 7, 1791, L’Enfant sent a sketch to President Washington, with a note, “the plan altered agreeable to your suggestion.” Indeed, the whole city was planned with a view to the reciprocal relations that should be maintained among public buildings. Vistas and axes; sites for monuments and museums; parks and pleasure gardens; fountains and canals—in a word, all that goes to make a city a magnificent and consistent work of art were regarded as essential. Thus, aside from the pleasure and the positive benefits to health that the people derive from public parks in a capital city like Washington, there is a distinct use of public spaces as the indispensable means of giving dignity to Government buildings and of making suitable connections between the great departments.

The original plans were prepared after due study of great models. The stately art of landscape architecture had been brought oversea by royal governors and wealthy planters, and both Washington and Jefferson were familiar with the practice of that art.

On September 8, 1791, it was decided by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, and James Madison, in conference with the Commissioners of the District of Columbia—

to name the streets of the Federal City alphabetically one way and numerically the other from the Capitol and that the name of the City and Territory shall be the City of Washington and the Territory of Columbia.

The city had also been divided into four sections—namely, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest—with the Capitol as the center and North and South Capitol Streets dividing the east and west sections and East Capitol Street and the Mall the north and south sections.

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BUILDING REGULATIONS ISSUED BY PRESIDENT WASHINGTON

SKETCH OF THE L’ENFANT PLAN

Chapter IV
MAJ. PIERRE CHARLES L’ENFANT

Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant was born in Paris August 2, 1754, the son of an academician, who was “Painter in ordinary to the King in his Manufacture of the Gobelins,” with a turn for landscape and especially for battles, as is shown by the collections at Versailles and Tours. Trained as a French military engineer, young L’Enfant at the age of 23 obtained a commission as a volunteer lieutenant in the French colonial troops, serving at his own expense.

MAJ. PIERRE CHARLES L’ENFANT

L’Enfant preceded Lafayette to America by a month. Arriving in 1777, he entered the Continental Army at his own expense. In February 1778 he was made a captain of engineers and as such proved his valor in battles about Charleston, where he was wounded and was included in the capitulation and exchanged. He was made a major in 1783.

He was “artist extraordinary” to the Army, drawing likenesses (including one of Washington at Valley Forge), decorating ballrooms, and building banquet halls. Then by turn he became a drillmaster, like Von Steuben. When peace was declared he made a brief visit to France to see his father and, incidentally, to establish the Society of the Cincinnati in France and procure the gold eagles he had designed as insignia of the organization. Then he returned to remodel the New York City Hall for the reception of the first Congress of the United States, a building of such beauty never before having been seen by the assembled representatives of the people. L’Enfant was an artist, and this Washington knew when he selected him to design the Federal City. He was imbued with the artistic development of Paris, with its fine central composition from the Tuileries to the Arch of Triumph, the beauty of the Champs Elysees, the Place de la Concorde and adjacent great buildings as the Louvre; and with Versailles, built by Louis XIV, with its fountains, terraces, gardens, and parks, which still thrill thousands of visitors each year. He understood the art of city planning.

L’Enfant was long maturing in his mind the plan he so quickly put on paper. In September, 1789, while yet the idea of creating a capital city was still in the air, he wrote to President Washington asking to be employed to design “the Capital of this vast Empire.” The nations of Europe wondered at the probable future of the new Republic. Visualizing the future, L’Enfant wrote:

No nation ever before had the opportunity offered them of deliberately deciding upon the spot where their capital city should be fixed, or of considering every necessary consideration in the choice of situation; and although the means now within the power of the country are not such as to pursue the design to any great extent, it will be obvious that the plan should be drawn on such a scale as to leave room for that aggrandizement and embellishment which the increase of the wealth of the Nation will permit it to pursue to any period, however remote.

Major L’Enfant, a man of position and education and an engineer of ability, was also familiar with those great works of the master Le Nôtre, which are still the admiration of the traveler and the constant pleasure of the French people. Moreover, from his well-stocked library Jefferson sent to L’Enfant plans “on a large and accurate scale” of Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Carlsruhe, Strasburg, Orleans, Turin, Milan, and other European cities, at the same time felicitating himself that the President had “left the planning of the town in such good hands.”

Thereupon the name of L’Enfant became, and has since remained, inseparably associated with the plan and development of the Nation’s Capital. He was gifted but eccentric, a characteristic that got him into many and serious difficulties.

President Washington had high regard for him and wrote of him as follows:

Since my first knowledge of the gentleman’s abilities in the line of his profession, I have viewed him not only as a scientific man, but one who added considerable taste to professional knowledge, and that, for such employment as he is now engaged in—for projecting public works and carrying them into effect—he was better qualified than anyone who had come within my knowledge in this country, or indeed in any other, the probability of obtaining whom could be counted upon. I had no doubt at the same time that this was the light in which he considered himself; and of course he would be tenacious of his plans as to conceive they would be marred if they underwent any change or alteration. * * * Should his services be lost, I know not how to replace them.

Chapter V
THE L’ENFANT PLAN

The L’Enfant plan, as before stated, was prepared for the Federal City under the direction of President Washington and Thomas Jefferson in 1791 by Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant, and applied to the 10 miles square set apart as Federal territory and called the District of Columbia. This was the first and most comprehensive plan ever designed for any city. It was a masterpiece of civic design. As originally drawn it extended only to Florida Avenue NW. and was designed for a city of 800,000, the size of Paris at the time. It was submitted to Congress by President Washington on December 13, 1791.

The original plan shows explanatory notes and references by Major L’Enfant, among which he calls attention to the position of the main buildings and squares, the leading avenues, and the plan of intersection of the streets and their width. The avenues were to be 160 feet in width. No city designed merely for commercial purposes would have avenues of such width; hence the whole plan indicates that it was especially designed for the seat of government of the Nation.

There are two great focal points in the L’Enfant plan—the Capitol and the White House—each with its intersecting avenues, that add beauty and charm to the city and at the same time make distant parts of the city easy of access.

The methods and features of L’Enfant’s plan, which included the reports and correspondence between L’Enfant and President Washington, in 1930 were given intensive study by William T. Partridge, consulting architect of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Mr. Partridge’s findings and his review of the features of the plan, which are still possible of attainment, constitute a notable contribution to the research in this field, and we quote at length:

A study of L’Enfant’s plan, as well as a careful reading of his descriptions, shows the effort made to model his design to the existing topography. No mention can be found of Versailles or London as an inspiration. He reiterates again and again in his letters that this plan of his was “original” and “unique.” In a letter to Jefferson requesting some Old World city maps he deprecates any copying and asks for this information only as a means for comparison or to aid in refining and strengthening his judgment.

In order to investigate how far the existing conditions of the site for the Federal City dictated the plan of present Washington, a topographical map of the terrain, as existing at that period, has been carefully prepared from old maps and descriptions and an attempt made with an open mind to follow L’Enfant’s procedure. Much was assumed, only to be corroborated by later study of the original manuscripts and reports. All printed transcriptions of L’Enfant’s reports have been altered by their editors in the effort to interpret L’Enfant’s strange English, a fact leading to misinterpretation on the part of trained architectural commentators dependent solely on these printed transcriptions.

THE L’ENFANT PLAN

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TRANSCRIPTION OF NOTES INSCRIBED ON L’ENFANT PLAN

At the convention of the American Institute of Architects held in Washington in 1929, the history and development of the National Capital was the principal topic of discussion. The merits of the plan of L’Enfant were duly acknowledged by all, though emphasis was laid upon the progress of those modern projects sponsored and carried through largely by the efforts of the institute or its individual members. The work of the McMillan Commission and the admirable recommendations of that trained and experienced body, that the “central area” be restored with some resemblance to L’Enfant’s original plan were generally acknowledged. There was no comparison, however, attempted between the proposed plan of L’Enfant and the much-altered modern plan, nor was there discussion in detail of the “public walk” of the original design. The real merit of the original L’Enfant plan was sensed only by one speaker at the convention mentioned, Mr. Medary, when he spoke of the early structures maintaining their places as dominating elements in the original design and confirmed the judgment of L’Enfant “in fitting the plan of the proposed city to the topography of the site.”

There has come down to us only a single manuscript plan which students have accepted as the original design and on which they have based all their comments. This drawing depicts only an intermediate stage of the plan. The first plan was much altered by L’Enfant himself at the request of President Washington, but by a careful study of internal evidence of the later drawing the designer’s masterly original may be restored. Existing documents tell us that not only were considerable changes made in the plan by order of President Washington, but alterations in the layout were also made by L’Enfant’s successors, all of which disturbed considerably its skillful symmetrical fitting to the irregular topography. If this submitted restoration proves correct, there is no ground left for further accusation of his indebtedness to both Versailles and the London plan for minor details. It is the writer’s conclusion that L’Enfant did exactly what he claimed—devised an original plan, entirely unique. He arrived at his parti only after a careful study on the spot of the best sites for the principal buildings, allocated in the order of their importance, and located with consideration of both prominence and outlook. He tied these sites together by means of a rectangular system of streets and again connected them by means of diagonal avenues. The principal avenues followed closely the existing roads. Additional avenues were extended to the “outroads” or city entrances and were laid out primarily for the purpose of shortening communication—an engineering consideration. L’Enfant mentions that the diagonal avenues would afford a “reciprocity of sight” and “a variety of pleasant ride and being combined to insure a rapide Intercourse with all the part of the City to which they will serve as does the main vains in the animal body to diffuse life through smaller vessels in quickening the active motion to the heart.”

The similarity of the angles of the two principal avenues (Pennsylvania east, from Eastern Branch Ferry to the Capitol, and Maryland east, from the Bladensburg Road entrance to the Capitol) which followed closely for some distance the existing roads, doubtless suggested the radial pair-avenue idea. This was entirely accidental and the outgrowth of existing conditions. The system of a rectangular-street plan with radial avenues is not only borne out by the mention he makes himself in his descriptions but was followed by Ellicott in his redrafting of the plan for the engraver.

Our artistic, hasty-tempered genius refused to give Ellicott any documents or any information. Ellicott states in his letters on the subject that, although he was refused the original plan, he was familiar with L’Enfant’s system and had many notes of the surveys he had made of the site himself, so it is possible that the plan was recreated by Ellicott.

Space and time do not permit an excursion into the squabble over this engraved plan. Changes were made in reduction to the proper size of the plate. These changes led to violent protests on the part of L’Enfant, although in later years his memorial states that the changes were not so very damaging. To an architectural mind the alterations in question destroyed the unity and symmetry of the whole, and L’Enfant’s later softened protest can be explained by his desire for payment by Congress. He could not afford at that time to imperil his chances.

In the attempt to find the method by means of which L’Enfant arrived at the system underlying his plan for the city, we are handicapped at the very start by lack of sufficient data for identification of the various plans mentioned in the old records. There was made in Washington, as the work progressed, a large map with numbered squares. Many references are made to this “large plan” in the old correspondence, but it must not be confused with the layout of the original design under discussion. A letter from the commissioners states it was in L’Enfant’s hands some time after his dismissal.

As far as we now know, there is but one original drawing in existence, which, after 100 years of neglect and careless handling, is now sacredly preserved in the Library of Congress. The elaborateness and care shown in the carefully lettered notes and profuse marginal references marks this a presentation copy. This plan included “the alterations ordered by Washington and sent to Philadelphia on August 19, 1791, for transmission to Congress.”

THE ELLICOTT PLAN—THE L’ENFANT PLAN ENLARGED

The executed plan of the Federal City as redrawn by Andrew Ellicott departs but little from the modified L’Enfant plan. The changes are perhaps an improvement on the layout as modified by President Washington.

Discussion recently has arisen in reference to the credit Ellicott should be given for the executed plan of Washington. In 1802 a congressional committee found—

that the plan of the city was originally designed by Major L’Enfant, but that in many respects it was rejected by the President, and a plan drawn up by Mr. Ellicott, purporting to have been made from actual survey, was engraved and published by order of General Washington in the year 1792.

The chief alteration shown in Ellicott’s engraved plan is the straightening of what is now Massachusetts Avenue. The suppression of the eastern portion leading to the upper bridgehead made it end at what is now known as Lincoln Square, the drawbridge over Eastern Branch being reached by what is now Kentucky Avenue.

By moving the marine hospital site north some distance and ignoring the Rock Creek Ford at the other end, Ellicott was enabled to run Massachusetts Avenue in nearly a direct line; the western end reached the road to Frederick, as it did in L’Enfant’s plan.

The settlement of this section of the city was at that date problematical, and no serious attention was given to the change in plan. The area was marshy and was a popular place for hunting snipe. This fact explains the meandering of Florida Avenue to the northwestern boundary line of the old city.

THE ELLICOTT PLAN

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TRANSCRIPTION OF NOTES INSCRIBED ON ELLICOTT PLAN

In an overlay of the two plans of L’Enfant and Ellicott, prepared with great accuracy by the hydrographic section of the Navy, only the main east-west and north-south axes of the Capitol and White House coincide. An examination of this drawing shows that the art of surveying had not at that period reached present-day accuracy.

THE DERMOTT OR TIN CASE MAP OF THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, 1797-98

Several suppressed sections of the L’Enfant plan were restored in the engraved plan. Maryland Avenue was carried through to the “Grand Avenue,” and South Carolina Avenue extended to New Jersey Avenue and the “Town House” site.

The plan of James R. Dermott, the officially approved plan, had many more city squares, and consequently more lots for sale. It is known as the Tin Case Map, because about 50 years later it was thus found preserved. The cry of grasping owners and voracious speculators was for more lots; and L’Enfant’s letter of warning to President Washington dated August 19, 1791, against this evil proved more than justified. This city plan also indicated the names of the avenues.

What is known as the King Map was made by Robert King, a surveyor in the office of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and published in 1818.

THE KING MAP

The map is of interest in that we note in it the word Judiciary in what is known as Judiciary Square. We learn from L’Enfant’s Memorial addressed to Congress on December 7, 1800, that L’Enfant intended the third coordinate branch of the Government, the Judiciary, be located there. To-day the Square is largely occupied by court buildings.

VIEW OF EARLY WASHINGTON

Chapter VI
EARLY WASHINGTON

While Major L’Enfant drew the plan of the Federal City, it was Andrew Ellicott who afterward carried it out. The building of the city attracted many speculators, who invested heavily. Robert Morris, James Greenleaf, Thomas Law, John Nicholson, and Samuel Blodgett were among those who lost thereby.

When Washington became the seat of government in 1800 there were 109 brick and 263 frame houses, sheltering a total population of about 3,000. The early years of the city’s development were difficult and too much praise cannot be given the men who carried the burden. The departments of the government that existed then were State, Treasury, War, Navy, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Postal Service. They employed a total of 137 clerks.

We have brief accounts of the appearance of Washington written by travelers who visited the United States during the period from 1790 to 1800. There is an interesting description by Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who wrote an account of his “Voyage dans les États-Unis d’Amerique fait en 1795-97.” The accounts of several inhabitants in Washington of the period is well summed up by Albert J. Beveridge in his Life of John Marshall (vol. III, pp. 1-4):

A strange sight met the eye of the traveler who, aboard one of the little river sailboats of the time, reached the stretches of the sleepy Potomac separating Alexandria and Georgetown. A wide swamp extended inland from a modest hill on the east to a still lower elevation of land about a mile to the west. Between the river and morass a long flat tract bore clumps of great trees, mostly tulip poplars, giving, when seen from a distance, the appearance of a fine park.

Upon the hill stood a partly constructed white stone building, mammoth in plan. The slight elevation north of the wide slough was the site of an apparently finished edifice of the same material, noble in its dimensions and with beautiful, simple lines, but “surrounded with a rough rail fence 5 or 6 feet high unfit for a decent barnyard.” From the river nothing could be seen beyond the groves near the banks of the stream except the two great buildings and the splendid trees which thickened into a seemingly dense forest upon the higher ground to the northward.

On landing and making one’s way through the underbrush to the foot of the eastern hill, and up the gullies that seamed its sides thick with trees and tangled wild grapevines, one finally reached the immense unfinished structure that attracted attention from the river. Upon its walls laborers were languidly at work.

Clustered around it were fifteen or sixteen wooden houses. Seven or eight of these were boarding-houses, each having as many as ten or a dozen rooms all told. The others were little affairs of rough lumber, some of them hardly better than shanties. One was a tailor shop; in another a shoemaker plied his trade; a third contained a printer with his hand press and types, while a washerwoman occupied another; and in the others were a grocery shop, a pamphlets-and-stationery shop, a little dry-goods shop, and an oyster shop. No other human habitation of any kind appeared for three-quarters of a mile.

Courtesy of National Photo Co.

THE SIX BUILDINGS

A broad and perfectly straight clearing had been made across the swamp between the eastern hill and the big white house more than a mile away to the westward. In the middle of this long opening ran a roadway, full of stumps, broken by deep mud holes in the rainy season, and almost equally deep with dust when the days were dry. On either border was a path or “walk” made firm at places by pieces of stone; though even this “extended but a little way.” Alder bushes grew in the unused spaces of this thoroughfare [the present notable Pennsylvania Avenue], and in the depressions stagnant water stood in malarial pools, breeding myriads of mosquitoes. A sluggish stream meandered across this avenue and broadened into the marsh.

A few small houses, some of brick and some of wood, stood on the edge of this long, broad street. Near the large stone building at its western end were four or five structures of red brick looking much like ungainly warehouses. Farther westward on the Potomac hills was a small but pretentious town with its many capacious brick and stone residences, some of them excellent in their architecture and erected solidly by skilled workmen.

Other openings in the forest had been cut at various places in the wide area east of the main highway that connected the two principal structures already described. Along these forest avenues were scattered houses of various materials * * *. Such was the City of Washington, with Georgetown nearby, when Thomas Jefferson became President and John Marshall Chief Justice of the United States—the Capitol, Pennsylvania Avenue, the “Executive Mansion” or “President’s Palace,” the department buildings near it, the residences, shops, hostelries, and streets.

The south lines of the 10-mile square—the Federal district in which the new Capital lay—were to run from the intersection of the Potomac River and the Eastern Branch, but, as has been related, by the act of March 3, 1791, these boundary lines were moved south to include Alexandria and part of Virginia within the Federal territory. The land lying within the bounds of the proposed city was given by the proprietors to trustees appointed by the Government under an agreement by which the Nation received the land necessary for streets without charge, purchasing the areas for parks and building sites at the rate of £25 per acre. The remaining land was divided equally with the original proprietors. The first settlements were made on grants given chiefly to retired naval officers who named their holdings after their camps—Mexico, Jamaica, and Port Royal. There were two settlements on the site—Carrollsburg, named after its founder, and Hamburg, an early real-estate development near and south of Georgetown. A stream of considerable size known originally as Goose Creek ran through the city. It later became known as Tiber Creek, because a resident named Pope, whose estate he facetiously called Rome, contended that if there was a Pope in Rome, his residence should be situated on the Tiber.

As is noticed by reference to the plans, a canal extended from the point about where the Lincoln Memorial is located, along B Street, now Constitution Avenue, east to the Capitol; thence along James Creek, known to-day as Canal Street. In those days Pennsylvania Avenue was a dusty road, lined with poplar trees, and often so flooded that it was not an uncommon sight to see boats floating on it. For a long time an isolated group of buildings known as the Six Buildings at Twenty-first Street and Pennsylvania Avenue stood halfway between the Capitol and Georgetown.

EARLY WASHINGTON, SHOWING THE JEFFERSON POPLARS

THE ELLICOTT MAP

Washington as the infant city appeared in 1800 is best described by John Cotton Smith, Member of Congress from Connecticut, in a letter written by him at the time, as follows:

Our approach to the city was accompanied with sensations not easily described. One wing of the Capitol only had been erected, which with the President’s House, 1 mile distant from it, both constructed with white sandstone, were shining objects in dismal contrast with the scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues and streets, portrayed on the plan of the city, not one was visible, unless we except a road, with two buildings on each side of it, called the New Jersey Avenue. The Pennsylvania Avenue, leading, as laid down on paper, from the Capitol to the Presidential Mansion, was nearly the whole distance a deep morass covered with alder bushes, which were cut through to the President’s House; and near Georgetown a block of houses had been erected which bore the name of the “six buildings” * * *. The desolate aspect of the place was not a little augmented by a number of unfinished edifices at Greenleaf’s Point.

There appeared to be but two really comfortable habitations, in all respects, within the bounds of the city, one of which belonged to Dudley Carroll and the other to Notley Young. The roads in every direction were muddy and unimproved. A sidewalk was attempted, in one instance, by a covering formed of the chips hewed for the Capitol. It extended but a little way and was of little value; for in dry weather the sharp fragments cut our shoes, and in wet weather covered them with white mortar. In short, it was a new settlement.

Newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, and New England and satirists everywhere cracked many amusing jokes at the expense of the embryonic city. The Capitol was called “the palace in the wilderness” and Pennsylvania Avenue “the great Serbonian Bog.” Georgetown was declared “a city of houses without streets” and Washington “a city of streets without houses.”

The Abbe Correa de Serra, the witty minister from Portugal, bestowed upon Washington the famous title of “the city of magnificent distances,” referring to the great spaces between the scattered houses; while Thomas Moore, just then coming into prominence as a poet, visited the city in 1804, and contributed to the general fund of humor by the composition of this satire:

In fancy now beneath the twilight gloom,

Come, let me lead thee o’er this second Rome,

Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,

And what was Goose Creek once is Tiber now.

This fam’d metropolis, where fancy sees

Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;

Which second sighted seers e’en now adorn

With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn.

During the administrations of Adams and Jefferson the city improved considerably. Jefferson secured money from Congress for public buildings. In 1803 he appointed Benjamin Latrobe as the Architect of the Capitol, and by him the construction of the Capitol was carried on so energetically that he gave form to the old portion of the Capitol that Thornton had simply planned.

Thomas Jefferson also secured money from Congress for the improvement of Pennsylvania Avenue, which was then a dusty highway in the summer and swampy place in winter; planted poplar trees and did what he could to redeem that thoroughfare from its lamentable condition. He applied his artistic taste and skill to the work of beautifying the city.

Chapter VII
WASHINGTON, 1810-1815

An interesting account of Washington during this period is given by David Baillie Warden in his book entitled “A Description of the District of Columbia,” published in Paris in 1816, and dedicated to Mrs. George Washington Parke Custis. He states:

It is scarcely possible to imagine a situation more beautiful, healthy and convenient than of Washington. The gentle undulated surface throws the water into such various directions, as affords the most agreeable assemblage. The rising hills, on each side of the Potomac, are truly picturesque; and as the river admits the largest frigates, their sails, gliding through the majestic trees which adorn its banks, complete the scenery.

The city extends from northwest to southeast about four miles and a half, and from northeast to southwest about two miles and a half. The public buildings occupy the most elevated and convenient situations, to which the waters of the Tiber Creek may be easily conducted, as well as to every other part of the city, not already watered by springs.

The streets run from north to south, and from east to west, crossing each other at right angles, with the exception of fifteen, that point to the State of which each bears the name. The capitol commands the streets called the Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania avenues; the President’s House, those of Vermont, New York, and Connecticut; and all these different intersections form eleven hundred and fifty squares. The Pennsylvania Street, or avenue, which stretches in a direct line from the President’s house to the capitol, is a mile in length, and a hundred and sixty feet in breadth. That of the narrowest streets is from ninety to a hundred feet, which will give a fine appearance to the city; but in a region where the summer sun is so intensely hot, and the winter winds so severely cold, narrow streets, affording shade and shelter, would be of great utility.

The plan of the city of which we have prefixed an engraving (There is a plan by Major L’Enfant, engraved at the expence of the Government, on the scale of a hundred poles to an inch), is universally admired. The most eligible places have been selected for public squares and public buildings. The capitol is situated on a rising ground, which is elevated about eighty feet above the tide-water of the Potomac. This edifice will present a front of six hundred and fifty feet, with a colonade of two hundred and sixty feet, and sixteen Corinthian columns thirty-one feet and a half in height. The elevation of the dome is a hundred and fifty feet * * *.

The President’s house consists of two stories, and is a hundred and seventy feet in length, and eighty-five feet in breadth. It resembles Leinster-House in Dublin. * * * The view from the windows fronting the river is extremely beautiful.

The Public Offices, the Treasury, Department of State, and of War, are situated in a line with, and at the distance of four hundred and fifty feet from the President’s House. These buildings, of two stories, have a hundred and twenty feet in front, sixty in breadth, and sixteen feet in height, and are ornamented with a white stone basement, which rises six or seven feet above the surface. It was originally proposed to form a communication between these offices and the house of the president, a plan which was afterwards abandoned.

The Jail consists of two stories, and is a hundred by twenty-one feet.

The Infirmary is a neat building.

There are three commodious Market-places built at the expence of the corporation.

The public buildings at the Navy Yard are the barracks, a work-shop, and three large brick buildings for the reception of naval stores. The Barracks, constructed of brick, are six hundred feet in length, fifty in breadth, and twenty in height. At the head of the Barrack-yard is the Colonel’s house, which is neat and commodious. The Workshop, planned by Latrobe, is nine hundred feet in length.

The Patent Office, constructed according to the plan of J. Hoban, esquire (who gained the prize for that of the President’s house) consists of three stories, and is a hundred and twenty feet long, and sixty feet wide. It is ornamented with a pediment, and six Ionic pilasters. From the eminence (This eminence has the shape of a tortoise-shell) on which it stands, the richly-wooded hills rise on every side, and form a scenery of unequaled beauty. It was erected by Mr. Blodgett to serve as a public hotel * * *. In 1810 this edifice was purchased by the government.—Dr. Thornton, director.

In the summer of 1814 this metropolis was taken possession of by an English naval and land force, which set fire to the Capitol, President’s house, Public Offices, and Navy Yard. The loss sustained was $1,215,111.

Two of the luxuries of life, pine-apples and ice, are found at Washington at a cheap rate. The former, imported from the West Indies, are sold at twenty-five cents each. The latter article is purchased, throughout the summer, at half a dollar per bushel. * * *

It is deeply to be regretted, that the government or corporation did not employ some means for the preservation of the trees which grew on places destined for the public walks. How agreeable would have been their shade along the Pennsylvania Avenue where the dust so often annoys, and the summer sun, reflected from the sandy soil, is so oppressive. The Lombardy poplar, which now supplies their place, serves more for ornament than shelter.

Water may be distributed to any part of Washington from several fine springs, and also from the Tiber Creek, the source of which is 236 feet above the level of the tide in the same stream. * * *

The canal, which runs through the centre of the city, commencing at the mouth of Tiber Creek, and connecting the Potomac with its eastern branch, is nearly completed. Mr. Law (Brother to Lord Ellenborough) the chief promoter of this undertaking, proposes to establish packet-boats to run between the Tiber Creek and the Navy-Yard—a conveyance which may be rendered more economical and comfortable than the hackney-coach. This canal is to be navigable for boats drawing three feet of water.

The population of the territory of Columbia, in 1810, amounted to 24,023. That of the city was 8,208; of Georgetown, 4,948; of Alexandria, 7,227.

On August 24, 1814, the British arrived in Washington at about 6 o’clock in the evening. That night they burned the Capitol, the President’s House, the Treasury, State and Navy Department Buildings, and a number of private houses on Capitol Hill. The flames could be seen from the Francis Scott Key mansion at Georgetown. Several wagonloads of valuable documents had been taken a few days previously from the State Department to Leesburg, Va., 35 miles northwest of Washington, to a place of safety.

The British also intended to burn the Patent Office, but Commissioner Thornton met them boldly, saying: “Are you Englishmen or Goths and vandals? This is the Patent Office, the depository of the ingenuity of the American Nation, in which the whole civilized world is interested. Would you destroy it? If so, fire away and let the charge pass through my body.” The British allowed it to remain and withdrew.

Mrs. Dolly Madison, having secured such property from the White House as could be carried, including the Gilbert Stuart portrait of General Washington, which she cut from the frame, went through Georgetown and that night slept in a camp of soldiers with a guard about her tent. Later the President, who had taken refuge in a tavern near McLean, in Virginia, joined Mrs. Madison. The southwest end of the bridge over which they had crossed the Potomac—it was then a pile bridge 1 mile long—was burned, and they were thereupon required to make their return to Washington by boat. The residence of the President was then established at the Octagon House at Eighteenth Street and New York Avenue. In 1815 the residence of the President was removed to the “Seven Buildings,” at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Nineteenth Street, one of the early homes of the Department of State. Here it remained until the Executive Mansion was restored, March, 1817.

After the withdrawal of the British the Blodgett Hotel building, acquired for the use of the Patent Office, was for a time occupied by Congress for its sessions. Later Congress moved into a building at First and A Streets NE., known later as the Old Capitol Building and used during the Civil War as a military prison.

WASHINGTON, FROM THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE, 1830

CHRIST CHURCH BURIAL GROUND, LATER KNOWN AS “CONGRESSIONAL CEMETERY”
SHOWING CENOTAPHS ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN EARLY DAYS

Chapter VIII
WASHINGTON, 1816-1839

The administration of President Monroe, who served two terms (1817-1825) is known as the “era of good feeling,” but so far as developing the plan of Washington little was done. In 1820 the population of Washington was 13,247.

During these years the Capitol was rebuilt and was reoccupied by Congress. In 1820 the corner stone of the city hall on Judiciary Square was laid. In 1824 General Lafayette made his memorable visit to Washington.

In 1825 trees were planted on two squares of the filled lowlands south of Pennsylvania Avenue. That year, also, the eastern portico of the Capitol was completed; Pennsylvania Avenue was graded from Seventeenth to Twenty-second Streets; the grounds of the White House, as the Executive Mansion came to be known after the War of 1812, and the grounds of the city hall were also graded. At that time there were about 13 miles of brick paving, average width 13 feet.

Among churches that were built during this period was Foundry Methodist Church, founded in 1816, at Fourteenth and G Streets NW. The site was given by Henry Foxall, who operated a foundry about a mile above Georgetown, near the site of the canal, in fulfillment of a vow that if his foundry were spared during the attack on Washington he would make this gift.

On January 27, 1824, the Legislature of Virginia granted a charter to the newly organized Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Co., which was to supersede the old Potomac Co., of which George Washington had been first president, and which had developed commerce with the West. At Little Falls, on the north side of the river, a canal 2¹⁄₂ miles long, with 4 masonry locks having a total elevation of 37 feet, had been constructed. At Great Falls, on the south side, a canal 1,200 yards long, with 5 locks having a total difference of level of 76 feet 9 inches, was constructed. The two lower locks were cut in solid rock.

On July 4, 1828, President John Quincy Adams turned the first spadeful of earth for the new canal, which was completed to the first feeder at Seneca on July 4, 1831. From this place to Point of Rocks work was delayed by a legal contest with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., which extended its first 45 miles along the same course as the canal. That railroad company, organized in 1828 at Baltimore, was the beginning of one of the great railroad systems of the United States that were to revolutionize commerce and industry. To-day the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal remains the property of the United States Government, and is to be made into a great park.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ABOUT 1820
FROM PAINTING MADE BY SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, SHORTLY AFTER REBUILDING OF THE CAPITOL AFTER THE FIRE OF 1814 ORIGINAL IN THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART

Courtesy of National Photo Co.

SITE AND MATERIAL FOR DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BUILDING, 1839

Georgetown had become a great trading center. From 1815 to 1835 products to the value of $4,077,708 were exported from Georgetown to foreign markets, and from 1826 to 1835 nearly $5,000,000 worth of products to other American cities, including a million barrels of flour and 5,400 hogsheads of tobacco.

GATEHOUSE, BUILT IN 1835, ALONG THE OLD CHESAPEAKE & OHIO CANAL

In the spring of 1828, shortly before what was called the corner stone of the main line was laid, Congress enacted a law granting entrance of a railroad line into the District. Some six years passed before the Washington branch reached the District line. The first service began on Monday, July 20, 1835, with two trains each way. A great celebration, in which 1,000 passengers and 2 bands on 4 trains took part, marked the entrance of the railroad service to the National Capital. The steam cars passed through the city on their daily trips to the depot at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Second Street. October 1, 1835, it was reported that the average number of travelers per day was 200.

During this period the construction of the present Treasury Department, Patent Office, and old Post Office Department Buildings was authorized. They conformed to the Capitol and the White House in their fine style of classical architecture, and emphasized the fact that Washington is the National Capital.

Unfortunately, it was during this period that great mistakes were made—such as giving over part of the Mall to garden purposes and in letting Government areas, so much desired now, go for private purposes; also in the location of certain public buildings, as erecting the Treasury Department in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Chapter IX
WASHINGTON, 1840-1859

In 1840 Washington had a population of 23,364. The city was still in a very much undeveloped state, though the fact that it was the National Capital was not lost sight of. In 1846 the construction of the Smithsonian Institution Building was begun, and on July 4, 1848, the corner stone of the Washington Monument was laid. On July 4, 1851, the corner stone for the enlargement of the Capitol according to plans as we see it to-day, was laid.

THE CAPITOL, 1840

However, so far as city development was concerned, little was done during this period. The L’Enfant plan seemed either forgotten or entirely too large for the National Capital. In the city of Washington not a street was lighted up to 1860 excepting Pennsylvania Avenue. Pigs roamed the principal thoroughfares. Pavements, save for a few patches here and there, were altogether lacking. An open sewer carried off common refuse, and the police and fire departments might have sufficed for a small village rather than for a nation’s capital.

WASHINGTON, 1852

In 1846 the part of the District of Columbia on the west bank of the Potomac, including Alexandria, was re-ceded to Virginia. This was done pursuant to an act of Congress of July 9 of that year, and with the assent of the people of the county and town of Alexandria, at an election on the first and second days of September, 1846, by a vote of 763 for retrocession and 222 against it. On September 7, 1846, President Polk issued a proclamation giving notice that the portion derived from the State of Virginia, about 36 square miles, was re-ceded to that State. The action of Congress and the President was based upon petitions of the people of the town and county of Alexandria. The chief reasons were two: First, that the United States did not need Alexandria County for the purpose of the seat of government; the public buildings were all erected on the north side of the river, as required by law—none on the south side—and it was declared that so far as it could be foreseen the United States would never need that part of the District of Columbia for the purpose of the seat of government. Secondly, the petitioners said that the people of Alexandria had failed to derive or share in the benefits which had been enjoyed by the residents of the Maryland portion of the District of Columbia in the disbursements for public improvements, etc., while on the other hand they were deprived of those political rights incident to citizenship in a State.

Since then the United States has acquired something over 2 square miles of this territory for use as a military post, a national cemetery, a Signal Corps station, and the Department of Agriculture Experiment Farm.

The constitutionality of the retrocession has often been questioned. But Congress had expressed itself clearly on the subject, and the majority of the voters had their way in the matter. In a test case before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1875 (Phillips v. Payne), the court, while not directly ruling on the question, held that an individual is estopped from raising the question. According to an opinion rendered by an attorney general about 1900, it would now take the consent of the State of Virginia to reinclude the Virginia portion as part of the District of Columbia.

In the development of the National Capital the portion in Virginia is properly included in the metropolitan area of Washington. The National Capital Park and Planning Commission is, by authority of Congress, cooperating with similar commissions of the States of Maryland and Virginia. The great object is to secure for the remote regions of the National Capital area the same harmonious development as there is in the heart of the city. Both the States of Maryland and Virginia are cooperating to the fullest extent in this matter.

On December 16, 1852, the first issue of the Washington Evening Star, which has grown into one of the great national dailies, appeared.

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BUILDING, 1855

Chapter X
WASHINGTON 1860-1870

Washington in 1860 was still a comparatively small and undeveloped city, with a population of 61,122. But the people were soon aroused to intense excitement because of the strife between the States. When the Civil War began, the eyes of the Nation were turned on Washington. The city increased in population to over 100,000 in a few months time and was the center of great war-time activities. On April 18, 1861, 500 Pennsylvania troops, the first to answer President Lincoln’s call for volunteers, entered the city, and the day following they were joined by the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment. Soon thousands of additional men were here from all the States in the North. Washington became an armed camp. Schools, churches, and public halls were turned into hospitals to care for the sick and wounded. A chain of forts and batteries was erected about the city to protect it, and by October 1862 there were 252,000 soldiers encamped around Washington on both sides of the river. There were 70 hospitals, caring for 30,000 sick and wounded men.

OLD CAPITOL PRISON

THE CAPITOL, SHOWING UNCOMPLETED DOME, 1860