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A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL VOL. I
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK + BOSTON + CHICAGO » DALLAS ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limitrep
LONDON + BOMBAY + CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lrp. TORONTO
| Hale ial
A HISTORY #/-/
OF THE
NATIONAL CAPITAL
FROM ITS FOUNDATION THROUGH THE PERIOD OF THE ADOPTION OF THE ORGANIC ACT
BY
WILHELMUS BOGART BRYAN
———— a |
VOL. I 1790-1814
SAS
New Bork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914
All rights reserved
/
Copygricat, 1914, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, r9r4.
1+
Norwood WBress J.8. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co, Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
To MY WIFE
ST. MARY’S UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
QOaA RT ARTTSCRATTSCA “TRevand
Min ¢e% ~ ey co eee on ; ed as Te i, ' Ms wire’ 7M ‘ | : i ver
. |
CONTENTS WOT 3
CHAPTER I
CAPITAL SITE REQUIREMENTS . : 7 IMPORTANCE OF CENTRAL PLACE . . INFLUENCE OF PROVINCIALISM : . SECTIONAL JEALOUSY : r : 2 First OFFER OF A LOCATION . : - JURISDICTION AND LOCATION . : : CONGRESS THREATENED . : ‘ THE FLIGHT TO PRINCETON . : - RESIDENCE QUESTION TAKEN UP. ‘ ORIGIN OF JURISDICTION IDEA 2 : DOUBLE CAPITAL PLAN . ; : ‘ CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION . : 2 BUILDING ERECTED FOR CONGRESS : L’ENFANT AS ARCHITECT. : ‘ : SKETCH OF HIS CAREER . ; : a BEFORE THE FIRST CONGRESS . , ; SusQUEHANNA AND THE POTOMAC SITES ImporTANCE OF Potomac RIVER CENTRALITY A STRONG FACTOR ; : TEMPORARY VICTORY FOR THE NORTH AcTION OF JAMES MaApIson . :
CHAPTER II
TAKEN UP AT SECOND SESSION i ; THE OFFER OF BALTIMORE . . A VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND GRANTS . POTOMAC SITE CHOSEN. : ; : STATE LAWS CONTINUED . : : ,
PAGE
oN Pw DF
36 36 37 38 39
Vill CONTENTS
“THAT INDIAN PLACE” . P EXCLUSIVE LEGISLATIVE POWER RESULT OF A BARGAIN . :
CHAPTER
THE POTOMAC REGION... DECREASE IN THE INDIANS . First EUROPEAN VISITOR , INDIAN VILLAGE SITES. : THE COURSE OF SETTLEMENT . EARLY LAND GRANTS : THE TOBACCO TRADE ; ‘ ALEXANDRIA AND GEORGETOWN HAMBURG AND CARROLLSBURG THE EARLY HIGHWAYS
Tue BRADDOCK EXPEDITION Poromac RIvER IMPROVEMENTS
CHAPTER IV
STAMP ACT OPPOSITION . ‘ HoMESPUN AND NO TEA . THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER V
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY . ; ; ORGANIZATION OF CHURCHES . Rock CREEK PARISH ; : PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH . é CatTHoLic CHURCH . : ; LUTHERAN CHURCH . 3 : Mernopist CHurcH. 2 : THE SCHOOLS . : , ‘< GEORGETOWN COLLEGE . : NEWSPAPERS. ‘ : ‘ TRADE CONDITIONS . : : Earty GEORGETOWN RESIDENTS MASONIC LODGES FORMED
OVATION TO GENERAL WASHINGTON
.
a
100 102 104
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
LOcATION OF THE DistTRICcT .
WASHINGTON’S PERSONAL INSPECTION
RECEPTION AT HAGERSTOWN . UrrrrR POTOMAC SITE PROPOSED THREE SITES CONSIDERED 2 OPpposiTION IN PHILADELPHIA THE VIEWS OF JEFFERSON. WASHINGTON’S CHOICE . ; COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED. How THE LAND WAS SECURED A SURVEY OF THE TERRITORY PLAN OF THE CITY . ‘ : WASHINGTON’S SECRET AGENTS JEFFERSON’S PLAN OF THE MALL
WASHINGTON MEETS THE LANDOWNERS .
L’ENFANT’S PROPOSED TREATMENT.
LANDOWNERS REFUSE TO SIGN DEEDS
DISTRICT CORNER-STONE LAID. THE PROPERTY HOLDERS YIELD THE SPECULATION IN LAND L’ENFANT DESCRIBES HIS PLAN THE IDEAL AND THE PRACTICAL
.
PLAN NOT READY FOR FIRST SALE.
CHAPTER
MEAGRE RESULTS OF FIRST LOT SALE
UNUSUAL BUILDING REGULATIONS
Vil
COMMISSIONERS’ OFFICE IN GEORGETOWN
Tur CARROLL HOUSE EPISODE MARYLAND PROVIDES LAWS AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS . THE CRISIS WITH L’ENFANT . Tue L’ENFANT PLAN _ : L’ENFANT’S SUBSEQUENT CAREER
.
.
159 162 165 165 169 171 173 177 180
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
PAGE FIRST ENGRAVED PLAN . a : ‘ , - ‘ . . 184 GROUND FOR PUBLIC USES : % : ; - ‘ r . 185 SAMUEL BLODGETT’S CAREER . ‘ ‘ ‘ = 4 c cacd8i Tue Rock CREEK BRIDGE : ‘ : F 4 i : . 189 THE CITY CANAL BEGUN . : ‘ F . r i 4 5 Jt ELLICOTT’S PROPOSED CHANGES IN PLAN : - 3 A pawl 92 Hopan’s Wuitr Hovusk PLAN : : - ; : A . 194 THORNTON’S CAPITOL PLAN. F : : : ' : oe WuitrE HovusrE CORNER-STONE LAID : ; - ‘ . 204 BLODGETT’s HOTEL LOTTERY . : : - a ‘ ‘ 2 e20o ELLICOTT’S SERVICE ENDS : : 7 i ° ° . ~ 208
CHAPTER IX CAPITOL CORNER-STONE LAID . , : ‘ “ 7 é eas Tuer GREENLEAF PURCHASE . 4 ; : A - A APA! Morris, NICHOLSON AND GREENLEAF . a 0 s Z PANG Toxsras LEAR’S BUSINESS VENTURE : A 4 2 é , PPXY BANK OF COLUMBIA CHARTERED . 5 7 “ 5 , 5 PRP AUDIT OF CITY ACCOUNTS : . é , : 5 A . 224 TREES ON THE MALL A : A ; : é . A, PP) FEDERAL LoTTERY No. 2 ; : “ : - 4 é eure SEQUEL oF LotTERY No.1 . ; , F ; é - Bea) PROBLEMS OF LABOR AND MATERIAL . 3 - é 5 PH! FINANCING DIFFICULTIES . > Z A 0 A é . 234 CHANGE IN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS . ; 4 5 x a BYE OFFICE MOVED TO WASHINGTON . * ; ; 5 3 . 240 Bripce at LITTLE FAs : ; ; 5 ; 3 5 . 243 Tuomas Law’s PURCHASE 5 : 7 ‘ s : 3 . 244 QUESTION OF A WATER STREET. 3 c A ; . . 248 CHAPTER X
WASHINGTON AND A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY. i 2 " ood UsrEsS OF THE RESERVATIONS . ‘ : ‘ - c . 254 BIG SYNDICATE SHOWS WEAKNESS . : : A : : §) 6266
PROGRESS OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS . , F ‘ c : eos
CONTENTS
THE CITY POST-OFFICE . ‘ ; Z APPEAL FOR AID TO CONGRESS 3 : PEN PICTURES OF THE CITY . : ;
CHAPTER XI
SITES FOR FOREIGN LEGATIONS : ; FRAME BUILDINGS PERMITTED ; : Morris AND NICHOLSON’S BARBECUE WasHINGYON GAZETTE AND THE BLODGETT LEVY COURT AND CITY . ; e i WASHINGTON CANAL LOTTERY : E Brivce at LittLte Fairs : : A BusINESS ENTERPRISES . ‘ ‘ : FaILurRE OF Morris AND NICHOLSON . SURVEYORS OF THE CITY. : : ‘ LIBRARIES AND SCHOOLS . A 3 : FIRST DAILY NEWSPAPER . : . : A LOAN FROM CONGRESS . 2 : :
CHAPTER XII
ACTIVITY IN BUILDING . ; : : First DEPARTMENT BUILDING . : THORNTON AND HIS CAPITOL PLAN . PRESIDENT’S HOUSE AT A STANDSTILL . THE LABOR PROBLEM : . : : PuBLIC LAND NOT CONVEYED . : ; LIsT OF RESERVATIONS . ‘ - : PoLicy AS TO SMALL SPACES . : : SITES FOR LEGATION RESIDENCES . : THE NAVY YARD ‘ : : : FIRST THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE . : PUBLIC BURIAL GROUNDS F
CHAPTER XIII
WueEen GENERAL WASHINGTON DIED CONGRESS AND THE REMOVAL r ; ON THE EVE OF BECOMING THE CAPITAL
. . .
LOTTERY
xll CONTENTS
Visit oF PRESIDENT ADAMS . é : 5 WHERE THE DEPARTMENTS WERE LOCATED . IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY ‘ ; : : POPULATION OF THE DISTRICT ; : :
CHAPTER XIV
CONDITION OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. A OPENING OF A THEATRE . mA P A ; INCREASE IN STAGE LINES ‘ : , é THE NEWSPAPERS. > : ‘ : ; THE SUPREME COURT r 3 7 j é MARINE CoRPS HEADQUARTERS , : 3 PARTISAN FEELING AROUSED . F ‘ A THE COMING OF CONGRESS . A ‘ 0 THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE ; ‘ 3 P LIFE IN THE NEW CITY . : : p
FIRES IN DEPARTMENT BUILDINGS . . .
CHAPTER XV
THE PROBLEM OF A GOVERNMENT . ; 5 CouRSE OF CONGRESS 3 ‘ : E VIEWS OF CITIZENS . ‘ : A é a PROPOSED TERRITORIAL FORM ; < : THE SUFFRAGE PHASE. : , - : THE LAW oF Fes. 27, 1801 . ‘ ; ‘ THE MIDNIGHT JUDGES . F ‘ : : JEFFERSON’S INAUGURATION . : F A PROVISION FOR RELIGIOUS SERVICES . . JEFFERSON AND DISTRICT PATRONAGE . F CIRCUIT COURT ORGANIZED. 5 ; 4
CHAPTER XVI
WHAT THE CITY COST. : . x % CiTY BOARD ABOLISHED . 5 = ; PURPOSE OF STREET IMPROVEMENTS i + THE FIRST MARKET HOUSE. : 3
PAGE
347 850 853 355
357 361 362 364 370 870 372 374 378 379 384
387 388 392 396 397 400 401 404 407 409 413
415 416 418 419
CONTENTS
LEVY COURT AND THE CITY . 3 J ; AN ADMIRALTY COURT . Is £ : 3 WHIPPING-POST AND BRANDING. - : POTOMAC BRIDGE CONTROVERSY . ; P THE BANKING INTERESTS. : . - " A BUILDING ASSOCIATION 4 : . - PRINTING AND BOOK SELLING . : . 5
CHAPTER XVII
JEFFERSON’S ADMINISTRATION . : : 5 CAUSES OF THE REMOVAL AGITATION . : THE VEXED QUESTION OF GOVERNMENT ; Lack or Districr UNITY ; é . ‘ THE CITY INCORPORATED : - ‘ ; PoLicy OF CONGRESS A ’ : : : THE HOUSE CHAMBER COMPLETED . ; P IMPROVEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE . JEFFERSON’S SECOND INAUGURATION. ; CONDITION OF THE WHITE House. ; ; MADISON BECOMES PRESIDENT , . i
CHAPTER XVIII
REMOVAL AGITATION RENEWED : : : CITY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED : : ‘ THE SYSTEM OF TAXATION. : ; : THE FRANCHISE PRIVILEGE . : : ; PuBLic SCHOOL SYSTEM . : : , . FAILURE OF THE SCHOOL PLAN ; : ; THE MUNICIPALLY OWNED MARKETS
CHAPTER XIX
THE ERECTION OF BRIDGES . :
To BUILD THE WasHINGTON CiTy CANAL THE PoTOMAC BRIDGE MOVEMENT . : ; GEORGETOWN AND THE RIVER IMPROVEMENT THE BURDEN OF THE STREETS : : é EARLY USE OF THE RESERVATIONS P P
XIV CONTENTS
THE PRINCIPAL SECTION OF THE CITY A LIBRARY ESTABLISHED ‘ ; TRADE AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PROVIDING TURNPIKE ROADS . ; THE BANKS OF THE DISTRICT ‘ THE COMING OF STEAM . : :
CHAPTER
THE BURDEN OF THE POOR. : THE POLICE PROVISIONS . 2 ; WoRK HOUSE AND POOR HOUSE i CAPITAL PUNISHMENT UNUSUAL . DEBT IMPRISONMENT LAWS IN FAVOR FATE OF SOME EARLY INVESTORS . FIRE PROTECTION MEASURES . : THE SPRINGS AND STREAMS . : INSURANCE COMPANIES FORMED. ORGANIZATION OF THE MILITIA ; RESULTS OF A WAR ALARM . J SOME OF THE EARLY RESIDENTS . JEFFERSON AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS SocIAL ATTRACTIONS OF THE CITY JoEL BARLOW AND ROBERT FULTON
CHAPTER XXI
AFTERMATH OF THE BURR CONSPIRACY IsSUE OF NEWSPAPERS . : ‘ Tuer FEDERAL REPUBLICAN AFFAIR AN AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY . : ORGANIZATION OF PRINTERS . : DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCHES . GRAVEYARDS ABOUT CHURCHES. HorRsE RACING AND CONGRESS P BRITISH VESSELS CAUSE UNEASINESS DEFENCES OF THE CITY . . , BRITISH APPROACH TO THE CITY . THE MEANS OF PROTECTION . ;
.
.
586 590 596 598 599 607 609 612 616 618 621
CONTENTS
THE HAPPENINGS AT BLADENSBURG : 5 5 : PUBLIC BUILDINGS DESTROYED ; “ a 5 ‘ AFTER THE ENEMY’S DEPARTURE . Z é ; é PUBLIC BUSINESS RESUMED . : 3 ? : , REMOVAL RESOLUTION VOTED DOWN. - F A CiTIzENS ERECT THE Brick CAPITOL . A ‘ ‘
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Map. — PROPERTY LINES OF OWNERS OF CITY’S SITE . Mar. — THE VICINITY OF WASHINGTON : : ; JEFFERSON’S PLAN OF THE MALL . ; : F ‘ Map. — THE PLAN OF THE CITY . : : - é THORNTON’S DESIGN OF THE CAPITOL . : F F Map. — Route oF THE BriTIsH ARMY . : : ;
50 111 130 176 318 619
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A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
CHAPTER I ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT
A VITAL consideration in selecting the location of the seat of government of the United States was convenience of access to all portions of the country. It was to be central as to popula- tion and as to territory. Moreover, it was to be ona navigable river connecting the Atlantic on the one side with the great western country on the other. There was another element. The jurisdiction of the general government must be supreme. There must be no divided sovereignty, no state to exercise equal authority with the general government, or in fact, any authority except federal where the government was to be placed. It is not a matter of surprise that the first emphasis was placed almost at the outset of this discussion upon cen- trality. For in the year 1783, when this question first arose, and which witnessed the signing of the treaty of peace between the United States and England, and the close of the struggle of the colonies for independence, which had begun eight years before, communication between the different portions of the country was slow and difficult.
To-day the people of Philadelphia in point of time are as near the Pacific coast as the residents of that city in the year 1783 were to Boston. Then stage coaches, pursuing their lumbering way over roads that were rough and dangerous, went at the rate of about two miles an hour. As one result of the state of transportation, people travelled but little, and their isolation made them provincial and local in their feelings and
VOL. I—B 1
2 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
in theirideas. This latter condition had an influence upon prac- tically all the public questions of the day. In fact, a national spirit was still feeble and well represented by the articles of confederation which had been ratified by all the states less than two years before, and which jealously retained to the individual states all the authority and power, and left the confederacy a mere shadow of a strong and effective government.
The provincial and also sectional tendencies were so strong that for a time it seemed probable the confederacy would fly apart into a number of independent states. The New England states failed to appreciate the importance to the south and southwest of the free navigation of the Mississippi, just as the value of foreign commercial relations and the fishing rights on the Newfoundland banks were not grasped by the people out- side of that territory. Then, too, the unwillingness of the states laying claim to the crown lands in the western country to recognize that they should be made a part of the common fund, delayed for four years, or until 1781, the complete rati- fication of the articles of confederation. Each state also insisted upon its own customs duties without regard to the interests of adjoining states. Then there was the deep-seated and violently active feeling of the staple states against the commercial states, so vital a factor in American thought that it lay at the founda- tion of the two great parties that first divided politically the people of America.
“There is a fatal opposition to continental views,” writes Hamilton to Washington, March 17, 1783, in describing the sentiment in that body of which he was a member. He speaks of two classes of men in congress in a letter written a month later to Washington, “one attached to states, the other to con- tinental policies. The last have been strenuous advocates for funding the public debt upon solid securities, the former have given every opposition in their power.” !
It is only in harmony with their general attitude, which may be attributed in part at least to ignorance of conditions away from home as much as to anything else, that the members
1 Correspondence. American Revolution. Sparks, Vol. 4.
-
ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT 3
of the continental congress, as well as those of the first congress under the constitution, displayed local prejudice and narrow- ness when they came to consider the question of choosing a place which should be the seat of the general government. The jealousies of the states found expression in one of the com- promises of the constitution, which gave equal representation to large and small states in the senate of the United States. Before slavery had emerged from being merely a local issue, and before the final alignment into political parties had fully taken place, the sentiment of the country was divided on sectional lines, the south against the north. If it had not been for the fear that the advantage of the location of the national capital would be seized upon in the interests of either one or the other of the two sections, the fixing of a permanent residence site would probably have been deferred until after the machinery of the new government had been devised and set in motion, and certainly until the public revenue could be known and the financial resources of the government tested. For this reason mainly, as well as because of the promptings of local interests and ambition, the choice of a permanent seat was always “insinuating itself in all great national questions.”’ ?
The advantages to be derived as a source of local influence and revenue from such a centre as the capital of the nation were fully recognized at a time and by a people that were actively entering upon a career of land development on a scale that was only equalled by the greatness of the territory. But it can readily be understood the physical difficulties of communication gave the mere geography of the site an importance that was very real at the time, and which also served to give a sharper edge to the blade of sectional controversy.
The argument for centrality within an area confined to the narrow fringe of territory east of the Alleghanies held. the chief place in the discussions of the national body, but the
1Annals of Congress. 1st Cong., 2d Sess., May 31, 1790, p. 1622. John Bach MeMaster characterized the debate on the residence bill in the first session of the first congress as “ one of the longest and the
most acrimonious the members had yet been engaged in.’’ History of the People of the United States, Vol. 1, p. 555.
4 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
individualistic and sectional attitude of the states is aptly illustrated by the form in which this subject was first introduced.
In the spring of the year 1783 the continental congress made proclamation that the war with England was over, although actual hostilities ceased after the operations in Georgia, in the early part of 1782, and had not been resumed. But before peace was formally concluded congress was asked to fix upon a place for its permanent seat.
The subject had no doubt been in the minds of men, and had been spoken of previous to this time. As early as November, 1779, Benjamin Rush, then a member of congress, writing from Philadelphia to Colonel George Morgan of Princeton, N.J., in- formed him that “some of the members of Congress were talking of purchasing a few square miles of territory near that village, wherein to erect public offices and buildings for a permanent house.’ 4
The first recorded action was taken by the trustees of the corporation of Kingston, N.Y., on the 29th of January, 1783, nine days after the preliminary articles of peace were signed in Paris. The news, however, was not received in this country until March 23, 1783, but it had been confidently expected.”
The Kingston town authorities had then decided “to ascertain the sense of the town as to whether it would be agreeable to them to have the Honorable the Congress of the United States come and reside in their town.” ?
In the course of a few days it was ascertained that the senti- ment of the citizens was favorable, and the trustees sent a memorial to the legislature of the state of New York, praying that “their estate be erected into a separate district for the Honorable the Congress of the United States.” 4
Authority was asked to grant to congress one square mile within the limits of the town. In response to this request,
1 Princeton Collection, Library of Princeton. Quoted in The Continental Congress at Princeton, Thomas L. Collins, Princeton, 1908.
2 Critical Period of American History, p. 51. John Fiske, Boston, 1894.
’ History of Kingston, New York. By Marcus Shoonmaker, 1888. 4 The same.
ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT 5
the state legislature on the 14th of March, 1783, adopted a resolution that the inhabitants of the corporation of the town- ship of Kingston have offered to grant to congress “a sufficient quantity of land within the said township to secure to Congress a place of residence adequate to their dignity with all the privileges which are in their power to grant and to subject themselves within the bounds of the said township to such regulations for the purpose of giving an exempt jurisdiction to Congress as in the judgment of the legislature can constitu- tionally be provided, for securing and perpetuating as well such exempt jurisdiction, as any corporate rights, which the legislature may judge proper to grant to congress.’’! This appli- cation was formally granted by the legislature.
On the 22d of September, upon the suggestion of William Floyd and Alexander Hamilton, delegates of the state in con- gress, the grant was increased to two square miles. The 12th day of May, 1783, the corporation of Annapolis, Maryland, adopted a resolution which recited that “it being represented to the corporation that the welfare and interests of the United States requires that congress should have a fixed place of residence with jurisdiction and executive and judicial powers over the same and over all persons inhabiting and re- siding within the district,” it was decided that the citizens be consulted at a meeting, May 14, 1783, to ascertain whether they would agree to make an offer to congress of land, “and consent to be subject to such powers and jurisdiction.” A unanimous approval was voted.
The corporation then invoked the aid of the legislature to authorize the tender by the town of 300 acres. By resolution of May 25, 1783, the Maryland house of delegates acceded to this request, and in communicating to congress this offer mentioned among other advantages of Annapolis for such a purpose that it “is more central than any other city or
1The same. The resolution of the legislature and the action of the town authorities are preserved in the papers of the continental con- gress, in the library of congress, also the action of the Maryland, New
Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania legislatures of the same period. 2 History of Annapolis. E.S. Riley, 1887.
6 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
town in the federal states.” It was recommended that the general assembly present “the state-house and public circle in the city of Annapolis (exclusive of the schoolhouse and court- house of Ann Arundel County, and the loan office standing in the said circle) to the Honorable Congress for their use.” Also that it was the unanimous opinion of the house that the “General Assembly present to Congress the building and grounds in the said city appropriated for the residence of the governor of their state for the habitation of their President. . . . that it offers to Congress to erect at the expense of the state thirteen dwellings for the residence of the delegates of each of the thirteen confederated states, and that a sum not to exceed 30,000 pounds be applied for that purpose.” !
The next day this action was approved by the state senate, and May 30, congress was formally notified. Such an offer was referred to in the proceedings of the continental congress of June 4, 1783, and at that time it was directed to be sent with the Kingston offer to the executives of the various states with a notice that in the following October the matter would be considered by congress.
In the event congress should “make choice of any part of the state of New Jersey for the place of the permanent residence,” the New Jersey legislature on the 19th of June, 1783, declared the state “will invest them with such jurisdiction, authority and power over a district of twenty square miles as may be required by congress, as necessary for the honor, dignity, convenience and safety of that august body.” The state further agreed to grant 30,000 pounds in specie “for the purpose of procuring lands and erecting buildings thereon for the suitable accommo- dation of Congress.”
This offer was accompanied by the tender of a site by the freeholders and inhabitants of the western part of the township of Nottingham in the county of Burlington, and at the head of the navigation of the Delaware River. The resolution of the township authorities June 16, 1783, recites that “it appears consistent with the welfare and true interests of the United
? Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 46, p. 15.
-
ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE. MOVEMENT 7
States that Congress should have a fixed place of residence with jurisdiction and certain powers within the same, and, whereas, we have been informed that great offers have been made by the States of New York and Maryland to induce Congress to make their respective states the permanent residence, etc.” Further, they offer “to subject ourselves to such exempt juris- diction as they may, in their wisdom, think proper to grant.” 4
A few days later the state of Virginia sent in its tender dated June 28, 1783, when by action of its legislature it offered the town of Williamsburg to congress and to “present the palace, the capitol, and all the public buildings, and 300 acres of land adjoining the said city, together with a sum of money not exceeding 100,000 pounds this states currency, to be expended in erecting thirteen hotels for the use of the delegates in Con- gress.”
“Also,” it is stipulated, “‘ the state will cede a district con- tiguous to the said city not exceeding five miles square with such exempt jurisdiction within the said limits as the inhabitants residing therein shall consent to yield to congress.”
The legislature also offered to cede a like district at any place on the Potomac and to appropriate a sum not to exceed 100,000 pounds for erecting said hotels and will also purchase 100 acres of land for the purpose of erecting public buildings. It is further stipulated that Virginia will unite with the state of Maryland and cede land opposite to that ceded by Maryland on the Potomac, but in the event congress locates on the north side, its proportion would be 40,000 pounds, Maryland to supply the deficiency.
The prominence given to the right of jurisdiction conferred on congress in all these offers stands out in striking contrast to the omission to place any emphasis, except in the case of Annapolis, on the locations in their geographical relations to the rest of the country. In the subsequent consideration covering a period of some seven years, this relation of the two great phases of the subject, namely, jurisdiction and geography, was completely reversed and the tide of debate was almost
1 Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 46, p. 35.
8 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
entirely confined to the latter. Such a result was due to the general acquiescence in the proposition that congress should have powers of that character. On the other hand, the location of the residence stirred a variety of conflicting interests and aroused the strong feeling of distrust and jealousy that marked the attitude of the agricultural states south of the Susquehanna, and of the states to the north, where commerce and trade was a growing interest. Where the seat of government should be permanently located was finally fought out on lines that separated the northern from the southern states, and precisely about in the same latitude where nearly three quarters of a century later the line of cleavage came that arrayed on opposite sides the hostile hosts of the Civil War.
The first mention in the annals of the national legislature of the subject of a permanent residence, as the popular phrase came to be, although Madison objected to the word permanent, for he said, “our acts are not those of the Medes and Persians, unalterable,’’ is in the record of the action of congress of June 4, 1783, relative to the tenders from New York and Maryland of sites for the proposed national capital. A day in October was named when the subject would be considered, but before that time arrived, an event occurred which provided what was looked upon in that day as a forcible illustration of the im- portance and necessity of making congress at the seat of govern- ment independent of any other authority. The aptness of this experience as an illustration is shown by the emphasis placed upon it in the subsequent discussions, but as will be brought out as the narrative proceeds, the jurisdiction question was not at any time one of the contested issues in contemporary thought, nor did it evoke any serious opposition.
The event in question was the gathering of soldiers of the Pennsylvania line about the state house in Philadelphia when congress was in session for the purpose of enforcing their claims for pay long overdue. The discontent in the army, which had been for a year and a half inactive following the armed truce which practically began after the battle of York- town, was general.
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The disbandment of the army by furloughs had begun, al- though the British had not evacuated New York. But there was no money to pay the men, and it was imperative that further demands upon the slender resources of the government should be cut off as rapidly as possible. The situation of the army was desperate, officers and men alike saw only the dismal prospect of leaving the service without the pay due them and in debt, and they felt their services were deserving of at least the pay to which they were justly entitled. There were other creditors besides the soldiers, those who furnished supplies to the army and had in other ways exchanged their commodities for the promises of the government or rather of congress. The latter body went to the extent of its powers to procure the means to satisfy the public creditors by calling on the states to pay their quota. But this appeal had not been heeded.
The Pennsylvania troops in the barracks in Philadelphia had, early in June, 1783, expressed their discontent by presenting a petition to congress to which that body made no response. The feeling was quieted down by the influence of some of the members of congress, who personally went to the barracks and conferred with the soldiers. This had hardly been accom- plished when a number of soldiers of the Pennsylvania line in barracks at Lancaster, mutinied, and in spite of the commands and the entreaties of their officers, started for Philadelphia to demand from congress the money that was due them. The assertion was freely made at the time that the outbreaks both at Philadelphia and Lancaster were encouraged by the creditor class, generally, with the view of bringing such pressure to bear upon the national legislature as would result in forcing some provision for the payment of all claims against the government.
The mutineers left Lancaster, June 17, 1783, in command of a sergeant. Forty men dropped out while en route and eighty men were in the ranks when Philadelphia was reached. They were welcomed by their comrades of the Pennsylvania 20th Infantry, who shared with them their barracks.
The news of this movement had been brought to the city and to congress, and it was announced that the soldiers intended
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to demand justice of congress, and it was also intimated they had designs upon the bank. On the day before the arrival of the soldiers in Philadelphia, congress appointed a committee to confer with the executive council of the state of Pennsyl- vania in session in the same building. The result was disap- pointing, as the council refused to provide any protection against this threatened attack on the ground that the militia of Phila- delphia would probably not be willing to take up arms “before their resentment should be provoked by some actual outrage.”’
The committee, as Madison reports, was much displeased, and intimated that if the city would not support congress, it was high time to remove to some other place.'
On the 21st of June, the day after their arrival, the Lancaster contingent, reénforced by the men stationed at the barracks, the total strength being between 250 and 300 men, fully armed, proceeded to the state-house and surrounded that building where both congress and executive council of the state were in session. Another appeal for protection was made on behalf of congress to the state authorities, but without avail.
As it turned out, however, the soldiers attempted no violence, occasionally an individual among them used offensive words and pointed a musket at the windows of the halls of congress. In the language of a committee of congress they made “a disorderly and menacing appearance.” When night came the soldiers went away, and congress, after having endeavored to preserve such remnants of its dignity as were left by remaining in session, decided, when it adjourned, to meet in Princeton, N.J., which it did some eight days later.
The president of congress, Elias Boundinot, in writing to his brother, said the council lacked backbone to call out the militia. He also adds that the politicial manceuvres in connection with the question of federal residence which was to be settled the coming fall were “unhinging grounds.” ? It was also said that the citizens considered the soldiers objects of pity rather
1 Madison’s Reports of Debates in the Congress of the Confederation, Vol. 2, p. 92. 2 Continental Congress at Princeton. Thomas L. Collins.
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT iy
than chastisement, and hence the doubt of the disposition of the militia.
Three days after the occurrence, congress left the city to meet in Princeton the 26th of June, and then apparently the full results of the spirit of indifference or hostility on the part of citizens of Philadelphia and the authorities of the state began to be realized, for it was quite evident that whatever else might happen, neither the city nor the state wished to lose congress. Independent of advantage of proximity to the seat of govern- ment of the United States, its presence meant a revenue esti- mated at $100,000 per annum.
As early as July 2, 1783, less than a week after congress convened in Princeton, an effort was made to induce it to return to Philadelphia, but that body declined on the ground that it had been grossly insulted by armed soldiers, and that repeated applications without avail had been made to the execu- tive council of Pennsylvania for protection. At that time the executive council took the place of a state legislature.”
General Washington characterized the mutineers as “recruits and soldiers of a day who have not borne the heat and burden of the war, and who can have in reality very few hardships to complain of.’’ 3
The day after congress left the city, the executive council decided to call out a guard. The leaders of the mutiny vanished, and the Lancaster contingent yielded and marched back to Lancaster. As the result of a court-martial, held by direction of General Washington to try those charged with complicity in this affair, two men were sentenced to death and four to receive corporal punishment, but all the convicted men were pardoned by congress.
The first and immediate result of the Philadelphia affair was to change the seat of government, or rather the meeting place of congress, as owing to the lack of sufficient buildings
1 Ezra L. Hommedieu, member of congress from New York state
to Governor Clinton, Aug. 15, 1783. Quoted by Collins. 2 Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 36, Vol. 2, pp. 163 and
165. ? Washington Letters. June 24, 1783. Sparks, Vol. 8, p. 545.
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the offices of the government and its records did not follow congress in its flight. But the executive offices and the public archives were at that time a mere detail in comparison with congress, for the presence of that body and those who had business before it, constituted what was locally the important element in the seat of government. This shifting of the meeting place was the more marked, as with the exception of periods covering about two years, Philadelphia had been the capital city of the confederacy from the first session of congress in 1774 down to this time, a period of some nine years. Had it not been for the exigencies of the war, which made Philadelphia unsafe, it is not likely congress would have met in Baltimore, Lancaster and York, as it did at intervals during those two years.
The rest of the session of that year was completed in Prince- ton, and at the date of the next session in November, 1783, congress assembled at Annapolis, and in November, 1784, con- vened in Trenton, N.J. and two months later met in New York City, where it remained until it was succeeded by the congress of the constitution that held its first session there in the spring of 1789.
In the year and a half after leaving Philadelphia, congress sat in three places, but this moving about, which can in part be attributed to the lack of accommodations and to the consequent discomfort and inconvenience to the members, and which ex- tended over a comparatively short space of time, was regarded as evidence of weakness in the government.
In the course of the debate in the convention which framed the constitution, it was declared by one of the speakers that “muteability of place had dishonored the Federal government.” In fact, later on in the consideration of the residence site the effect on the government of having no established centre was used as an argument for a prompt determination of a question that was, from this point of view alone, regarded as of supreme consequence.
In Philadelphia, congress occupied the building now known as Independence Hall, and then used both by the municipal and
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT 13
state authorities, for Philadelphia, like New York, was at that time the capital of the state. A room in Nassau Hall, Princeton College was used during the stay of congress in Princeton and was ample for the deliberations of a body with an average attendance of twenty-two. But there were deficiencies in other respects. Madison records that at Princeton the mem- bers were crowded too much either for comfort or to carry on the public business with advantage. “We were extremely put to, to get any quarters at all,” he writes. “Dr. Jones and I are put into one bed in a room not more than ten feet square.”’ !
“Without a single accommodation for writing,’ he stated to Jefferson, “save in a position that scarcely admits the use of my limbs.”’ He calls attention to another inconvenience, which was no doubt experienced by more members of congress than the lack of facilities for writing. ‘‘ In any small place,’’ he confides to Randolph, ‘‘Congress is too dependent on cour- tesy and favor to be exempt either in their persons or their sensibility from degrading impositions.’’ The influence on such a place as Princeton by the meeting there of congress is clearly brought out in a letter by J. A. Alexander, who says, ‘‘instead of the silence of a country hamlet, now nothing is to be heard but the passing and rattle of wagons, coaches and chaises.”’ The streets echo, he adds, with unfamiliar “ crying about of pineapples, oranges, Jemons and every luxurious article, both foreign and domestic.’’ ?
Upon the invitation of congress, which wished to consult him, General Washington came from the army headquarters at Newburg and established himself at Rocky Hill, four or five miles from Princeton. Inwriting from there September 11, 1783, to Governor Clinton, he expresses doubt whether there will be any improvement in the attendance of members while congress remains at Princeton. “The want of accommodation,” he says, “added to a disinclination of the southern delegates to be further removed than they formerly were from the centre of
1 James Madison to Edmund Randolph, Aug. 30, 1783. 2 Life of J. A. Alexander. Vol. 1, p. 16, by H. C. Alexander. Quoted by Collins.
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the empire and an aversion in the others to give up what they conceived to be a point gained by the late retreat to this place keeps matters in an awkward situation to the very great inter- ruption of national affairs. Seven states, it is said, will never agree’’ [to a plan for a federal seat].
The affair at Philadelphia was not merely one of a day to be lost in the current of other transactions. It helped in per- manently shaping the policy of the government towards the army, and such policy of course reflected the sentiment of the day, which strangely enough, as it now appears, was distrust of the men who had endured the privations and the perils of military duties in the service of a government that was both weak and poor.
This attitude of the public at the close of the revolutionary war was confirmed by what appeared to be a tendency in military circles to the assertion of authority. The tone of the Newburg address in the spring of 1783, the Philadelphia affair and the formation of the Society of Cincinnati with the hereditary feature, subsequently done away with, ex- plains in part the unreasonable public opinion hostile to the army and the strong feeling against a standing army, which was potent in keeping the permanent organization down to a mere handful.
While a day in October had been agreed upon for considering the matter of choosing a place for the permanent seat, yet such was the interest taken in the subject of the abiding place for congress, whether temporary or permanent, that efforts began early in the session at Princeton to agree as to when the next session should be held. But in the midst of the discussion of this phase, the question was raised as to the jurisdiction proper for congress to exercise over the place of the permanent residence. A committee was appointed to report upon this subject, of which Mr. Madison was a member. A report was submitted, September 18, 1783, which gave conclusions upon two points. First, the extent of the district necessary; second, the powers to be exercised by congress in that district. As to the first, the committee reported that a district ceded and
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accepted ought not to exceed six or be less than three miles square, and second, that congress ought to have exclusive jurisdiction.}
This report was referred to the committee of the whole, but there is no record that any further action was taken. In the papers of the continental congress there are two documents evidently intended as amendments, but their place and purpose are not indicated in any way. In one of the papers the principle is laid down that such a district “ought to be entirely exempted from the authority of the state ceding the same and, the or- ganization and administration of the powers of government within the said district concentrated between Congress and the inhabitants thereof.” The other paper prescribes that the state or states ceding the territory “should give up all jurisdic- tion whatsoever ... that the appointment of judges and the executive power within the said territory shall vest in Congress ; . . . that the citizens should enjoy the privilege of trial by jury and of being governed by laws made by representatives of their own election.”
Madison, in commenting on the situation, speaks of “the puzzling question as to the precise jurisdiction of Congress over the permanent seat.” ”
The origin of the idea of jurisdiction is purely a matter of conjecture. The first recorded mention is, as stated, in the tender of a location at Kingston by the New York state legis- lature, March 14, 1783, and the same authority is conferred in the offers made by Maryland of Annapolis, by New Jersey of a location in any portion of the state and by Virginia of Williams- burg. It is also found in the subsequent offer from the state of Pennsylvania’ of Germantown, and of the several sites pro- posed in New Jersey.
It is possible, as Alexander Hamilton evidently advised with the promoters of the Kingston location, that the suggestion of conferring such territorial powers upon the general government
1 Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 23, p. 149.
2 Madison Papers. Vol. 1. Letter to Edmund Randolph, Aug. 30, 1783.
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came from him, and it certainly is in harmony with his concep- tion of what the new government should be.
The three tenders, first mentioned, were made prior to the affair at Philadelphia, which resulted in the hasty adjournment of that body to Princeton, and while there is no doubt that the occurrence supplied a convincing argument in support of con- ferring such powers upon congress, it did not originate the idea. When the actual discussion of the permanent residence question began in congress in October, 1783, it is quite evident from the accounts of the debate which are available, meagre as they are, that the jurisdiction phase of the matter was not the important one. The utility and wisdom of such a provision appears to have been generally conceded. As this first debate on the residence site went on in congress during the October days of 1783, it was soon manifest that the southern members favored the Potomac. A location on that river, they asserted, would be geographically the centre of the United States, at least as far south as Georgetown. They claimed for their section in this matter the consideration of justice and equality.
A further argument advanced was that the trade of Europe must be drawn to that part where congress resides. Hence by moving southward the progress of population must increase in these states.!
According to Madison, “the competition for the permanent seat lay between the falls of the Potomac and those of the Delaware.” He had hoped from the views of the eastern delegates that they would have given a preference to the Po- tomac, but he said they joined with Pennsylvania and the intermediate states, in favor of the Delaware.”
The hopes of the southern states were not realized, and on the 7th of October congress decided to fix the permanent seat on the Delaware near the falls above Trenton. A committee was named to visit the proposed location and make a report, and this duty was performed. Two weeks later congress decided that in addition to a location on the Delaware, there should also be a
1 North Carolina State Records. Vol. 16, p. 908. 2 Madison to Edmund Randolph, Oct. 13, 1783.
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national capital at or near the lower falls of the Potomac at Georgetown, and this resolution, presented October 17, 1783, is the first mention on record of the location where the capital was finally placed. It was explained by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who offered the resolution, that congress had no prospect of a general assent to any one place and that there is every reason to expect that providing buildings for the alternate residence of congress in two places will be productive of the most salutary effects by securing the mutual confidence and affection of the states and preserving the federal balance of power.!
At the same time the geographical balance was adhered to in the further provision that until the buildings at the two places are ready the sessions of congress should be held alternately at Annapolis and at Trenton.
An interesting light is thrown upon the hidden causes of this curious turn in the comments of Elias Boudinot, the presi- dent of congress, who wrote to Robert Livingston, October 23, 1783, that the southern members were notified of the choice of the falls of the Delaware. “They have manceuvred in such a manner as to take in the eastern members so completely as to get them (Mr. Gerry at their head) to conform entirely to their views, taking advantage of the absence of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, hastily passed a vote for two places of residence and fixed the other at or near Georgetown on the Potomac and the temporary residence alternately year about at Annapolis and Trenton till their buildings are erected.” ”
The date of October 17, 1783, is not only that of the first re- corded mention of the place ultimately selected, unless the general description of a site on the Potomac in the Maryland tender, a few months previously, can be considered as having the Georgetown location in view, but itis also the date of the first enactment by congress requiring the surrender by the states of territorial jurisdiction over the federal site.
1 Journals of Congress, Oct. 17, 1783. Vol. 8. 2 Lenox Library, Livingston papers, 1777-1799, p. 945. Quoted by Collins. VoL. I—c
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The provision made for two capitals, one at Georgetown near the falls of the Potomac and the other just below the falls of the Delaware, proved to be only a temporary advantage for the southern minority and the allies they had secured from the New England states. The law was carried out only so far as the temporary residence was concerned. Congress held the next session in Annapolis, and about two months of the following session in Trenton, New Jersey. The plan of having two capi- tals was not well received, and the spirit of some of the criticisms of the day has been preserved in the satirical effusions of Francis Hopkinson. In one of these the suggestion was made that there should be only one federal town but two places of resi- dence, and that the former was to be on a platform supported on wheels which could be moved from place to place. He expanded this whimsical idea in the statement that the statue of Washington, which was authorized at the same session, was to be placed on wheels, so that it could go where congress went.
The double capital idea was abandoned by the legislation of December 23, 1784, which was enacted during the session held in Annapolis. While no definite result was reached during the time spent in Annapolis, which followed the meeting at Prince- ton, still it was declared in a resolution offered, April 26, 1784, at that session, that the act providing for a federal site on the Potomac had been virtually repealed.
From the tone of the same resolution it is evident that the committee appointed to visit the Potomac had been notified to take no steps in the matter until further instructed by con- gress. Buta report was made, as there is a record in the pro- ceedings of the house of July 6, 1790, that a report “of a com- mittee appointed by the old congress to view the banks of the Potomac”’ was presented. This report has not been preserved, as is the case with that of the committee authorized to inspect the Delaware site.?
1 At this session Mr. Jefferson endeavored without success to secure consent to a resolution providing that the following session be held at Alexandria, Va.
2 Papers of the Continental Congress.
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As stated by Mr. Boudinot, advantage was taken of the absence of members to push the double residence plan through. Only seven states were represented, but all voted for the meas- ure, in furtherance of an agreement the nature of which is not known.
The law of December 23, 1784, passed at the next session in Trenton, providing for a capital city of a nation that had won its independence but which had not shown its ability to frame an effective and strong system of government, can only be re- garded as an instance of supreme confidence that the nation was to be enduring, for the convention which drafted the con- stitution was still three years off and the vital weakness of the confederacy was each day growing more apparent. Still, the delegates of the states, possessing no power to raise revenue or to enforce their will upon the individual states and hardly able to secure a quorum, enacted a measure to erect buildings for the use of congress, and with that in view provided for the appointment of three commissioners to lay out a district of not less than two and not more than three miles square on the banks of the Delaware near the falls for a federal town. Authority was given to purchase as much land as might be necessary to erect “in an elegant manner” a house for the accommodation of congress, and houses for the residences of the president of congress, and for the heads of departments; and to secure the means to do this, the commissioners were empowered to draw on the treasury of the United States for a sum not exceeding $100,000. No attempt was made to carry out this law, except the appointment of commissioners.
Congress did not again resume consideration of this subject until some two years later, when an effort was made which failed, to substitute the falls of the Potomac for the proposed site on the Delaware. By that time the movement towards the coming together of the delegates that were to form the con- vention which framed the constitution was well under way. On the 21st of February, 1787, a resolution was adopted by congress calling such a convention, and on the 17th of September of the same year, the constitution was transmitted to congress
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by the convention, and the former body submitted it to the states for their action.
Upon the ratification of that instrument, the duty devolved upon congress of selecting a place where the new body should meet for the purpose of putting the government into operation. A provision for a district under the exclusive legislation of con- gress, and ten miles square, which should be the seat of the government, was made a part of the constitution and appears among the enumerated powers of congress. The jurisdiction phase had apparently been accepted from the beginning of the consideration of the subject as essential and desirable, but as has been pointed out, the grounds for such a conclusion can only be inferred.
The precise area of the proposed federal district had not previously been determined, and the reasons for the conclusion reached in that particular, as well as those in general, for forming such a district with exclusive powers over it vested in congress were apparently not largely considered during the deliberation of the constitutional convention. But what has been preserved of the discussions in that body on the federal district shows clearly that the affront received by congress at Philadelphia was looked upon as sufficient to demonstrate that the dignity and safety of the national body could not be left to the discre- tion of state legislatures.
The first mention of the section relating to the district in the constitution is in the draft submitted by Charles Pinckney of Maryland on the 29th of May, 1787, three months after the convention began its session, and when it had nearly half com- pleted the seven months of its existence. The wording of the clause as it appears in the Pinckney draft is the same as that which forms a part of the constitution. Congress shall have power, it runs, “To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession by particular states and the acceptance by Congress, become the seat of government of the United States and to exercise like authority over all places purchased, by the consent of the legislature in which the same shall be, for
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT pA
the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards and other needful buildings, and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the fore- going power vested by this constitution in the government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof.” Three months after this clause had been brought to the atten- tion of the convention it was adopted, and so recorded without debate.
As is well known, the Pinckney draft of the constitution that has been preserved is not the original document, but as it came from the committee with all amendments and alterations. It is therefore impossible to trace the authorship of the clause relating to the district, as slight attention was given to this section by the various state conventions that ratified it or by the body from which that instrument emanated. In only four out of the thirteen state conventions was the subject of the federal district discussed, and these were North Carolina, Virginia, New York and Massachusetts.
The strict adherents of the sovereign powers of the states or rather those most fearful of creating a government capable of exercising despotic power and who were delegates to the con- ventions of North Carolina and Virginia, rather balked at the idea of a territory where congress was the only and the supreme lawmaker. In such a district, they asserted, the state laws could be set aside, and there violators of state authority could find asanctuary. There, exclaimed one of the speakers, tyranny can get a foothold, and there special privileges of trade might be enjoyed by resident merchants, tending to centre commerce there and discriminating against those engaged in trade outside of such favored district.
But the emphasis was placed by the advocates of this clause on the vital need of having the federal city in a territory where the general government would be sovereign and the few objections raised to the creation of such a district were apparently looked upon as highly theoretical. It may also be noted that the argu- ment for independent jurisdiction was largely based upon the affair in Philadelphia. In fact, it was asserted by one of the
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Virginia convention delegates, that the idea of exclusive legis- lation had its origin in that insult to congress.
Nor was this grant of power considered of sufficient conse- quence to claim the attention of any one of the three expositors of the constitution whose papers were brought together under the title of The Federalist, with the solitary exception of Madi- son. In No. XLIII, he devoted a page to this clause which he justifies on the ground of “The indispensable necessity of com- plete authority at the seat of government,’’ and adds as to the effect upon the political rights of the citizens of the district “as it is to be appropriated to their use, with the consent of the State ceding it, as the State will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights and the consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient inducement of interest to become willing partners to this cession; as they will have had their voice in the election of the government which is to exercise authority over them; as a municipal legislature for local pur- poses, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them; . . . every imaginable objection seems to be obviated.”
The last four years of the existence of the continental con- gress were spent in New York City. The members had an opportunity of witnessing the recovery of the city from the effects of the war and its rapid growth, as they had come there in the opening month of 1785, just a little more than a year after the evacuation by the British army, bringing to a close an occupation that had lasted seven years and had left the city partly in ruins. More than half of the 25,000 souls that comprised the population in 1776 had disappeared.
But when the continental congress decided to meet there, the city hall, which had been used by the British as a prison and was in a dilapidated condition, was restored and fitted up for the use of that body. When the news came of the adoption of the constitution, and with the hope that New York was to be the place where the new government was to be set in motion, the city hall building was torn down and on its site now occupied by the subtreasury building in Wall Street, the city fathers resolved to provide a building worthy of the occasion.
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The motives for this civic spirit may not have been entirely unmixed, for had not the population grown to 30,000, and had not the city prospered? All this prosperity was not attributed to the presence of congress, but still merely as a business propo- sition it was recognized that the national body was a valuable asset ; at any rate, a building was proposed that was to exceed in beauty and impressiveness anything of the sort to be found in the country.
To Pierre Charles L’Enfant, late a major in the engineer corps of the revolutionary army, was intrusted the designing and construction of the building, and when in the following spring of 1789 the members of the first congress assembled in New York, they found themselves amidst surroundings which for elegance and beauty had never before been experienced by the assembled representatives of the people. There were arches and classic columns, marble pavements and painted ceilings, crimson damask canopies and hangings, while a portico with its arcaded front and a highly decorated pediment were the features of an exterior that was pronounced to be really magnificent. But owing to the speed with which the building was erected and the quarrels between the architect and con- tractors, bad.work resulted, and in a few years the building was torn down.
As this is the first appearance in the story of the rise and development of a nation’s capital city of one whose name is inseparably connected with it, and as it was his first employ- ment of consequence after leaving the continental army, it may be well to give the sequel of his relations with the New York City authorities. The characteristics of this gifted but eccentric man were exhibited in that affair in much the same fashion as in all the engagements of like nature in subsequent years.
As a remuneration for his services in connection with the building, the city authorities offered L’Enfant $750 or a grant of city lots and the freedom of the city. Claiming that this was entirely inadequate, he declined the offer."
1The Story of a Street. Frederick T. Hill. Harper’s, July and September, 1908.
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At that time L’Enfant had been in this country twelve years. He shared in the enthusiasm which the struggle for liberty aroused in the ardent minds of so many of his gallant country- men, especially those in the French army. He was born, August 2, 1754, in Paris, the son of Pierre L’Enfant, “ Painter in ordinary to the King in his manufacture of Gobelins,” and member of the Academy of Fine Arts.!
At the age of twenty-three he was serving as brevet lieutenant of French colonial troops. Then in company with eight of his compatriots he came to America and offered his services to the colonies. He arrived in this country in the summer of 1777, several months before Lafayette reached these shores, and land- ing at Charleston, went to Philadelphia.’
He joined the continental army as a volunteer and at his own expense, and then on April 30, 1779, was made captain, corps of engineers, to rank from the 18th of February.?
He was wounded in a gallant forward movement at the as- sault on Savannah and was made a prisoner, May 12, 1780, at the siege of Charleston and was exchanged in November of that year. He served in the army to the close of the war. On the 25th of May, 1783, he was made brevet major of engineers by congress, evidently through the good offices of General Washington, as indicated in a letter of March 4, 1782, from Washington to Captain L’Enfant, in which the former stated he had been “favored with a letter from you on the 13th of February. I am sensible how disagreeable it is to have an inferior officer promoted over your head and am sorry it is not in my power to remedy it. The promotion of Major Roche- fontaine was a matter in which I had not the least interference. It took place solely on the recommendation of General Du-
1 Address of J. J. Jusserand, April 28, 1909, on occasion of the reinterment of L’Enfant’s remains. Also letter of Jusserand to the commissioners of the district (Evening Star, March 13, 1912) in which he states the elder L’Enfant was ‘‘a painter of fame in his day’’ and some of his pictures of French battles of the time of Louis XV had recently been placed on exhibition in the palace at Versailles.
2 Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 78, Vol. 7, p. 115.
* Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army. Heitman.
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portail, who, I believe, represented to Congress that it was the practice of all nations after a successful siege to promote the engineer who had contributed to the success.”’
“Your zeal and action are such as to reflect the highest honor on yourself and are extremely pleasing to me and I have no doubt they will have their due weight with Congress in any future promotion in your Corps.’’!
A month after he had been thus honored by the American congress, the French government, in consideration of the use- fulness of his services during the war in America, granted him a pension of 300 livres.
At the close of the war L’Enfant made a visit to his home in France. While there, he organized a branch of the Society of the Cincinnati and had executed the design for the emblem of the order which he had drawn. He returned to America in the course of a few months, as he had decided to join his for- tunes with that of the new country, “having been persuaded,” he stated in a letter to the president of congress, dated Phila- delphia, December 15, 1784, in which he urged the necessity of the establishment of a corps of engineers, ‘“‘under the expec- tation of rendering my services once more acceptable to the United States.”” He adds, “Having been led to expect that such an establishment would take place, I should now be doubly disappointed if it should not, as by remaining here | have lost the opportunity of getting employment in my own country, from which I have been the more encouraged to ab- sent myself as Brigadier-General Rosseinaska at leaving this continent gave me the flattering expectation of being at the head of a department in which, if successful, I shall endeavor to render service agreeable to the United States and make it a duty to seize every opportunity of giving testimony of the faithfulness with which I shall exert myself to contribute to her happiness and prosperity.” ?
The memorial accompanying this letter consists of ten closely written folio pages, and is a characteristic L’Enfant production,
1 Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 78, Vol. 14, p. 535. 2The same. No. 78, Vol. 14, p. 579.
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prolix as well as confused in expression, due no doubt in part to the author’s using a foreign language. He presents a plan for the organization of an engineer corps and points out the de- fenceless condition of the coasts, the need of a navy to protect the commerce and of a permanent military establishment.
At the outset L’Enfant refers to “The hardships I have under- gone while in the field and in captivity.” Appended are ob- servations upon the qualifications and duties of an engineer and the details for the formation of a battalion of sappers and miners. This voluminous communication reveals the man as he is shown in his later relations with practical affairs, his head in the clouds, unconscious as to whether or not his feet rested on the solid ground. There is the same disparity between means and ends in this project of army organization, as in his later management of city affairs, a total ignoring of the hostile public sentiment of the day towards the army as well as of the uncertain and meagre resources of the government.
A glimpse of his associates at this time may be had from a letter written by L’Enfant, dated New York, November 7, 1785, to Charles Thomson, secretary of congress. It was in behalf of the artist Houdon, and in reply to some inquiry made as to the cost of the intended equestrian statue of General Washington.?
The next record in his career is his employment as architect of the city hall building in New York City. In addition to provision for the accommodation of congress, the city authori- ties also began the erection down by the Battery of a residence for the president of the United States. But after a stay of a year and a half in New York, the seat of government was re- moved to Philadelphia, and the house intended for the president was never occupied by that official. The outcome of the re- newed discussion in the old congress, as the continental body came to be known after the adoption of the constitution, of the residence question, which took the wide range of the choice of a permanentas well asa temporary location, was the naming of New York City as the meeting-place of the new congress.
1 Papers of the Continental Congress. No. 78, Vol. 14, p. 677.
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT raf
The other phase of the question was left as a heritage to the new body.
From the tenor of the resolutions offered during this closing period of the discussion, it is evident that while the delegates were not united on any one place, yet the sentiment in favor of centrality was strong enough practically to restrict the area of selection considered to the section bounded on the north and the south by the Delaware and the Potomac rivers.
There was another consideration which had weight; namely, that changes in the meeting-place of congress, pending the solution of a permanent seat, should be avoided, for as it was expressed later on, after congress had been for some time fixed in New York, changes are “an indication of instability in the national councils, and therefore highly injurious to the interests as well as derogatory to the dignity of the United States.” }
With many new and perplexing problems confronting it in connection with the task of setting in operation the balanced machinery of the new form of government, the first congress under the constitution, which began its deliberations in New York City in April, 1789, gave long and careful consideration to the residence subject. But first a tariff bill was framed to provide revenues for the support of the government and also to give protection to the infant industries of the country. Executive departments were created, and amendments to the newly made constitution were agreed upon. Plans for the funding of the public debt and the assumption of state debts, for the disposal of the public lands and for a judicial system were yet to be finally acted upon, and in some cases even to be con- sidered.
In the midst of this important work and at the opening of the last month of the session, the residence matter was brought up. At once protests were heard, and it was urged that ques- tions of more consequence were pressing for attention. Be- sides, it was pointed out, the revenues of the government were as yet unknown, and it was unwise to undertake at that time
1 Journals of Congress. Aug. 5, 1788.
28 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
an expense that was not absolutely necessary. Were not members comfortable in their present quarters? it was asked. Were there any intimations that they were not welcome and desired by the citizens of New York?
One of the members who saw no reason for taking up the sub- ject at that time observed in a sarcastic vein that many parts of the country appear extremely anxious to have congress with them. “Trenton, Germantown, Carlisle, Lancaster, York and Reading,” he said, “have sent us an abundance of petitions setting forth various advantages. We wish the in- habitants may enjoy the benefits of them, and if they are pleas- antly situated and have plenty of fish, we are glad to hear it, and if it should ever suit Congress to remove to any of them, why Congress will enjoy the benefit of them also.” ?
But the southern members, led by Richard Bland Lee and James Madison, delegates from Virginia, were insistent for present consideration. They argued there was no question more important, one in which all the people of the country were as deeply interested and upon the proper settlement of which rested the tranquillity and peace of the country and the very existence of the government.
There is another reason given for the eagerness of the southern members to settle the residence site at that time, and that was their conviction that the decision was sure to be as they desired. For an agreement had been made with some of the delegates from Pennsylvania by which in consideration of their voting for the Potomac, the temporary seat of government would be at Philadelphia for fifteen years. But as it proved, this scheme was overturned; a new combination was made. The eastern men, by promising to let New York have the temporary capital, secured the support of the delegates from that state and won over the Pennsylvania men from their southern allies by agree- ing to vote for the Susquehanna as the permanent seat !?
The advocates of immediate consideration, ignorant of this change, had their way, and the subject was taken up. But
1 Annals of Congress. Ist Cong., Ist Sess., Aug. 26, 1789, p. 789. ? Works of Fisher Ames. Vol. 1. Boston, 1856.
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT 29
before the debate had been long under way the discovery was made that their coalition had fallen to pieces. They sought delay as eagerly as they had hitherto urged action. But it was in vain, and the debate went on. Under these circum- stances even the calm and philosophic Madison was led to exclaim in his place in the house “if a prophet had arisen in the Virginia convention that ratified the constitution and brought the proceedings of this day into view, that I as firmly believe Virginia might not have been a part of the Union at this moment.” !
There is no record of the course of sentiment in the senate, but it is quite clear from the debate in the house that the Susquehanna and the Potomac were the chief rivals. The exact localities in view were Georgetown, near the lower falls of the Potomac, and Wrights Ferry, Pa., near the falls of the Susquehanna and thirty-five miles from tide-water. It was conceded that the former was considerably south of the centre of population, but then that was a defect, it was urged, which would be cured as the population increased.
Great stress was laid upon the importance of a location on a navigable river far enough from the sea to be safe from hostile attacks. But it was upon the means of communication with the western country supplied by the rivers named that the respective advocates of the rival localities chiefly relied for argu- ments to win support. This phase of the question was one peculiar to a time when in a country of vast distances the rivers furnished the principal means of carrying on trade.
Some four years before, the Potomac Company, with General Washington as its president, had been chartered by the joint action of the states of Maryland and Virginia to overcome the natural obstacles in the form of falls and rapids in the Potomac by constructing canals. A company had been formed in the year 1784 to perform a similar service in the case of the Susquehanna River, but it never attained the importance of the Potomac enterprise.
The movement for the improvement of the Potomac in its
1 Annals of Congress. Ist Cong., Ist Sess., p. 857.
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effects had a much wider significance, for it was due to the coming together of the delegates of the states of Virginia and Maryland and the subsequent decision to bring into the con- ference delegates from the state of Pennsylvania to unite in the Potomac improvement that led to the conception of a conven- tion of the states to take up the entire subject of trade between the states with the view of getting rid of the harrassing and injurious commercial regulations framed only in the interests of individual states.
Then birth was given to the pregnant thought that if the states met to consider trade relations, why should not the vital and recognized defects of the articles of confederation be also taken up. From this germ came the recommendation of the Annapolis trade convention that congress call together delegates from all the states to consider the subject of providing a government adequate to the needs of the country. Such a call was issued by congress in the spring of 1787, and a few weeks later the convention that framed the constitution began its great work in Philadelphia.
On the general topic of centrality, Madison in the course of the debate on the residence bill in the house drew an argument from the experience of the states. He said that in every instance where the seat of government has been placed in an uncentral portion, the spectacle has been witnessed of the people struggling to place it where it ought to be. In many instances, he added, they have gained their point, and in proof cited the cases of the capitals of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Similar movements have been begun, he said, in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and Massachusetts.
No more marked change in conditions has occurred than that which has deprived completely of all force an argument advanced by Madison based on the advantages derived from merely being near to the seat of government. To those thus situated, he said, will come an earlier knowledge of the laws, a greater influence in enacting them and better opportunities for anticipating them. “If it were possible,” he added, “to promulgate laws, by some instantaneous operation, it would
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT Si
be of less consequence in that point of view where the govern- ment might be placed.”
The pecuniary advantages to the locality chosen were also touched upon, and on this phase Madison presumed that the expenditures by those immediately connected in the adminis- tration of the government and by others who may come there will not be less than half a million a year.
The division in sentiment among the Maryland delegates, as shown by the votes, was due mainly to the influence of Baltimore, where it was realized that the improvement of the Susquehanna River, so as to make it available for commerce, would bring to its port on the Chesapeake Bay, thirty-seven miles from the mouth of the river, much of the trade. It was largely owing to the apprehension of the diversion of trade away from Philadelphia and down the Susquehanna, that the representatives of the state of Pennsylvania were not a unit, some favoring the Delaware location and others the one on the Susquehanna.
Robert Morris, who had large influence, favored the Delaware, and especially a site near the falls of that river opposite Trenton, where he had extensive property interests. He was willing, however, to accept a place near Philadelphia, and his attitude, no doubt, largely accounts for the course taken by the senate in substituting the suburbs of that city for the location on the Susquehanna.
One of the arguments advanced in favor of selecting a place on the Susquehanna on the Pennsylvania side was that in the event of a withdrawal from the union of the western country, which was a matter of current talk, as the southern states would also go with it, that the new capital city would be within the territory of the northern section well away from its frontiers.
It was apparent almost from the start that the opposition against such a southern location as that proposed on the Po- tomac was not only united but numerically stronger than the other side. Hence the trading recorded by Fisher Ames. Much was said in the course of this first discussion in regard to the possibilities of the navigation of the Potomac and the
32 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
Susquehanna rivers and the proximity of their head waters to the streams that emptied into the Monongahela and the Allegheny rivers, forming a connection with the then means of communication with the western country by the Ohio River.
The forwardness of the work accomplished up to that time by the Potomac Company was brought out by one of the speakers, who said a vessel carrying twenty-four hogsheads of tobacco had descended that river within thirteen miles of Georgetown. Owing to the lack of knowledge of the immense territory through which these rivers passed and also the lack of a census, the statements made in regard to those regions, as well as those relating to population, are defective.
It was quite evident that the feeling displayed by the southern states on the residence question from the very outset was so determined and intense that it had a decisive influence in limit- ing the area of choice to a locality at or about what was then regarded as the centre of the territory along the Atlantic sea- board. The New England and the Middle states, with the exception of Pennsylvania, were therefore eliminated on geo- graphical grounds and the field of choice was recognized as being within the bounds of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Another limitation was the general acquiescence in the importance of selecting a site on a navigable river. As has been pointed out, both Pennsylvania and Maryland were divided in sentiment, as in each instance there were two locali- ties within the bounds of the respective states which had advocates.
While Virginia had in the beginning made an offer of Wil- liamsburg with also a tentative suggestion of some site on the Potomac, Alexandria having been proposed several years before by Jefferson, yet it was apparently realized very early that the first-named place was too far south, and then the state stood unitedly and unwaveringly for the Potomac loca- tion. In the preamble of the act of cession of a district on the Potomac, enacted by the legislature of that state, December 3, 1789, the main arguments as subsequently advanced by the ad-
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT 33
vocates of a southern residence site were stated. These were a central situation “having regard as well for population, extent of territory and a free navigation to the Atlantic as to the most direct and ready communication with our fellow-citizens in the western frontier.” These principles, which in the opinion of the delegates from Virginia ought to govern in making a choice in the location, were again set forth in a resolution introduced in congress by Richard Bland Lee when the sub- ject first came up.
It was further declared in this resolution that the banks of the Potomac above tide-water would be a desirable site for the capital. “Where,” it was added, “the states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia may participate in such a locality.” In this provision is the germ of one clause of the law enacted at the next session which named a section of the country some sixty-six miles in length as the crow flies, where a location might be selected. By making the proposed district tribu- tary, as it were, to three states, but still on the Potomac, the circle of interest in the general locality would be extended and friends would be gained.!
Both houses of congress entered upon the consideration of the residence question about the same time. The house reached a decision first, after four full days of debate, and on the 22d day of September, 1789, sent to the senate a bill naming a site near the falls of the Susquehanna in the state of Pennsyl- vania as the permanent place and New York City as the tem- porary location.
This measure was amended in the senate by substituting the town of Germantown and part of the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia for the site on the Susquehanna and naming New York City as the temporary location. In addition to striking from the house bill the Susquehanna site, the senate rejected an amendment naming a location on the northern
1It is apparent that proximity to the borders of Pennsylvania was contemplated rather than locating any part of the new district within the state lines, as the furthest northern limit of the region of choice was some nineteen miles south of the Pennsylvania state line. VOL. I—D
34 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
bank of the Potomac. The vote in the senate on German- town was a tie, the vice-president, John Adams, by his vote, determining the question in the affirmative.
The bill thus radically changed was returned to the house less than three days before the date fixed upon for the adjourn- ment of the session. It was found another change of im- portance had been made in the house bill by the provision that the state of Pennsylvania should furnish $100,000 to be used in the erection of the public buildings. It is asserted by William Maclay, that this provision was based upon such a proposition made in the senate by his colleague, Robert Morris, on his own responsibility, without having first secured the sanc- tion of the state. Mr. Morris was then considered the wealth- iest man in the country, and his personal guarantee that the money would be provided was no doubt looked upon as ample security.!
The state of Pennsylvania had formerly offered to the new congress for use as a residence site any district in the state, and similar offers had been made by Delaware, Virginia and later on by Maryland. In the course of the debate in the house on the bill, as it came back from the senate, it was pointed out that the senate had proceeded on an entirely different principle as to the location, ignoring both the Potomac and the Susquehanna sites, yet satisfaction was expressed over the proposed financial arrangement as being better suited to the state of the treasury.
However, a stronger feeling would no doubt have been dis- played had it not been that it was realized that legislation was practically impossible owing to the brief time remaining of the session. It was Madison, the constant and able ad- vocate of the Potomac site, who proposed an amendment pro- viding for the continuance of the laws of Pennsylvania over the district until congress should otherwise direct, an im- provement in the measure to which there could be no objec- tion, except that making any change in the bill involved its
1Sketches of Debates in the First Senate of the United States. William Maclay, Harrisburg, 1880.
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ORIGIN OF THE RESIDENCE MOVEMENT 30
return to the senate, which at that stage in the session would be fatal to its enactment into law. However, the amendment was adopted by the house, the bill was sent to the senate, where it was taken up in the hurry of the closing hours only to be postponed until the next meeting of congress.
CHAPTER II RESIDENCE BILL BECOMES A LAW
NEARLY six months of the second session of the first con- gress, which convened in January, 1790, passed before the residence subject was again taken up. Then it was proposed in the house to divide the question and only decide at that time upon the temporary location. So, on the last day of May, a resolution was adopted by the house to hold the next session in Philadelphia, but a week later the senate by a majority of two votes refused to concur. At once the senate began the consideration of a report from a committee which favored the Potomac as the site of the permanent residence, but after striking out the site named, further consideration was not re- sumed until another resolve of the house, dated June 11, was received, which provided for holding the next session in Balti- more.
At the time the house took this course one of the delegates from Maryland stated that the inhabitants of Baltimore had raised a subscription of between twenty and thirty thousand pounds, Maryland currency (equal to $53,000 or $69,000), for the purpose of providing for the accommodation for congress, in the event that place was selected. The facilities of Balti- more as a meeting-place had been tested somewhat in the winter of 1776, when on account of the occupation of Philadelphia by the British, the continental congress adjourned to Balti- more, where a session lasting two months was held. At the next meeting congress was back again in Philadelphia.
During the thirteen years that had elapsed since the chief town of Maryland had been the temporary capital, great changes had taken place. The population had nearly doubled, so that in 1790 the census returns showed a total of thirteen
36
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RESIDENCE BILL BECOMES A LAW 37
thousand souls. Since the close of the war, its trade had greatly increased, especially from the western country, to the loss of the Potomac towns and it had become one of the shipping ports of the country. The wealth and enterprise of its citizens is repre- sented somewhat in the liberality of the offer made to congress.1
The senate, however, laid aside the house amendment naming Baltimore, and proceeded to consider a bill naming a Potomac site between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and Conococheague, as reported favorably by a committee. This bill, with its provisions practically unchanged, was adopted, July 1, 1790, the vote being twelve to fourteen. The only change in the bill was the omission of a clause authorizing the president of the United States to borrow a sum not ex- ceeding $100,000 to be repaid from the duties on imports and tonnage, thus leaving as the only suggestion of means of financ- ing the undertaking and of exercising the authority conferred on the commissioners “to purchase or accept” land in such quantities as the president may deem necessary, and in order that suitable buildings might be provided, the president was authorized “to accept grants of money.”
Such grants of money were practically assured before the bill was finally completed by the senate. For, on the 10th of December, 1789, some seven months previous to this date, Virginia had made a grant of $120,000, or, as it was phrased in the act, “an advance,” conditional upon the selection by con- gress of a Potomac site. The codperation of Maryland was asked, and also “an advance” by that state of a sum equal to at least two thirds of the amount named by Virginia. It was not until the session of the Maryland legislature in Novem-
1 At the time action was postponed by the senate on the house re- solve to adjourn to Baltimore, in order to take up the residence bill as reported from its committee, memorials both from citizens of Balti- more and from Robert Peter in behalf of himself and other inhabitants of Georgetown were read, inviting congress to locate in their towns. The date was June 28, 1790. At the first session a petition was pre- sented from the inhabitants of Georgetown, ‘‘ offering to put themselves and their fortunes under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress in case
that town should be selected as the permanent seat of government.” The petition was presented in the house, September 8, 1789.
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ber, 1790, the concurrence of the state was given, and the sum of $72,000 was authorized to be “advanced towards the expense of erecting the public buildings.” The next month the Vir- ginia legislature appropriated $120,000 for the same purpose.’
The bill as adopted by the senate reached the house early in July, was discussed for three days and on the 9th of July was passed by a vote of twenty-two to twenty-nine. In both houses numerous amendments were offered, and in both were found those who preferred Baltimore or Wilmington, Del., and in the house, Philadelphia, while an effort was made to continue congress temporarily at New York. In the senate a proposition was made to fix the residence “within thirty miles of Hancock Town,” which was not agreed to.?
According to the provisions of the residence bill which became a law, July 16, 1790, the next session, to begin the following December, was tobe held in Philadelphia, where it was stipulated “prior to the first Monday in December next all offices at-
1 Some sixty years ago an effort was made, and renewed at various times down to a quite recent period, to have the United States repay to Virginia and Maryland these sums of money on the ground that, as the laws of both states show, they were described as ‘‘advances.”’ But these applications have been without avail. It is quite evident that the act of July 16, 1790, gave no authority for the acceptance of loans of money but only ‘‘to accept grants of money.’’ House Report, No. 512, 50th Cong., 1st. Sess.
2 This was one of several amendments which were disposed of with- out debate, but the location proposed gives a significance and impor- tance it would not otherwise possess, as it undoubtedly furnishes an- other indication of the tendency away from a southern location, as well as a purpose to gratify the three states of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. It is also interesting as being the most advanced western point that was voted upon during the entire discussion. For Hancock Town or Hancock of to-day lies in the narrow strip of Mary- land between the Pennsylvania and the Virginia state lines. It is about thirty-five miles to the west and north of the extreme northern limit of the region of choice named in the residence bill, and forty miles east of Cumberland, the latter being 'a hundred and forty-six miles from the city of Washington. ‘‘Within thirty miles of Hancock,” the new federal district could have been wholly located within the state lines of Pennsylvania at about the same latitude as that of Chambersburg and Bedford. Or, it could have been placed within the territory of the three states or in either Maryland or Virginia.
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RESIDENCE BILL BECOMES A LAW 39
tached to the seat of government shall be removed to and until the said first Monday in December in the year 1800 shall remain at the city of Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania, at which place the sessions of Congress next ensuing the present shall be held. . . . That on the said first Monday in December, 1800, the seat of government of the United States shall, by virtue of this act, be transferred to the district and place afore- said.”
A district not exceeding ten miles square was to be located on the river Potomac “at some place between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and the Connogocheague . . . and the same is hereby accepted for the permanent seat of the government of the United States.” The president was author- ized to appoint three commissioners “who shall under the direction of the President survey and define said district” and have power “to purchase or accept such quantity of land on the eastern side of the said river [Maryland] as the President shall deem proper.” In this district prior to the first Monday in December, 1800, the commissioners were “to provide suitable buildings for the accommodation of Congress and of the Presi- dent and for the public offices of the United States.”
“For defraying the expense of such purchases and buildings,” the law provided “the President of the United States be author- ized to accept grants of money.”
The necessity of providing some government for the district pending action by congress was met by directing 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.” ‘This provision was also in ac- cordance with the Virginia cession law of December 3, 1789, and of the Maryland law of December 19, 1791, ratifying the cession.
The bill contained the first reference made in the consider- ation of the residence question to “That Indian place,” as the stream named as the northern limit of the region of choice was sarcastically termed in the course of the debate. It was also
40 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
the occasion of the sneer about “‘ building a palace in the woods.” In point of fact, the Conococheague is a tributary of the Potomac, entering that river near the town of Wilhamsport, Md., some twenty miles south of the Pennsylvania state line, and some seventy-eight miles north of Washington, and nearly the same distance east of Cumberland. But the sarcasm lost much of its force with men of that day who witnessed the progress made in subduing the wilderness and foresaw the wonderful possibilities in the way of growth of population and the development of the material resources of the country."
It can readily be understood, however, that such an expansion of the region of selection to the north of Georgetown was de- signed to meet the criticism based upon the southern latitude of the place. As Richard Bland Lee of Virginia stated to the house in the final discussion, “We are not confined to a par- ticular spot on the Potomac, we may fix on a place as far north as the gentleman from Connecticut wishes.”
Lee also asserted that the states of Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia which, he said, contributed more than one half to the public revenue, and which have the only rival claim to the seat of government are satisfied with the bill.
With this exception, and of course the final determination of the temporary and permanent sites, the residence bill as it was placed on the statute book contained no features that had not been a part of various propositions made since the subject was first considered. The omission of any direct appropriation was unusual, but then it will be recalled that the Virginia legislature had voted a grant of money, in the event a Potomac site was chosen, to defray the expense of the public buildings — a larger amount than had been hitherto mentioned, while it was doubtless understood that Maryland would provide, as it did, a sum equal to about two thirds of the $120,000 offered by Virginia, as stipulated in the Virginia act.
1 Thirty years before, the locality of Hagerstown formed the then western frontier. To the west were the almost unbroken forests with searcely a settlement to Fort Cumberland, which stood on what be-
came the site of the town of Cumberland. The latter was the outlying outpost to ward off from the settlers the Indian forays.
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RESIDENCE BILL BECOMES A LAW 41
It is significant that the measure became a law in the precise form it was reported from the committee of the senate to that body. The debates in the house, which are the only ones that were reported, show that prior to the final enactment there was considerable discussion, which however covered practically the same ground as that of the first session. It is also worthy to be noted that the power of exclusive legislation in the district conferred by the constitution on congress did not enter at all in the discussion, nor was any attempt made to take away or to modify, as was done with other clauses of that instrument by constitutional amendment the authority thus conveyed.
It is quite clear from the accounts of contemporaries, as well as by at least one reference in the final debate in the house, and the same conclusion might be drawn from the legislative history of the bill, more especially in the second session of the first congress, that the residence bill was the result of what was then described as “a bargain,’ but which as a familiar feature of legislative procedure, is more commonly spoken of as a com- promise.
The southern states from the outset had stood unitedly for a southern location. The Pennsylvanians had a similar ambi- tion for their own state, which was in population and in wealth a leader in the new republic. The large delegation from New York state desired the nation’s capital to remain in the chief city of their state as long as possible; as they were well aware it was hopeless to expect to have it permanently that far north of the centre of population of the thirteen states. In fact, at no time was serious consideration given to the selection of a location for the permanent seat farther north than Philadelphia.
The eastern members naturally were disposed to keep the residence site as far north as possible. But the burning ques- tion at that time was the funding of the public debt and the assumption of the state debts. Alexander Hamilton, as the secretary of the treasury, at the first session of the new congress made a report recommending the funding of both forms of in- debtedness in obligations of the United States. On this there
42 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
was a division of opinion and the general line of cleavage was to be found in the latitude which separated Maryland from Penn- sylvania and what was then looked upon as the boundary be- tween the northern and the southern states. It was recog- nized that the creditor class was largely to be found in the north where trade was a leading occupation, and not agricul- ture, as in the south.
The debate on the funding bill had continued through the second session of congress, and the anti-assumptionists were re- joicing in their triumph in the house where the measure had been defeated. This was the situation when, about the middle of June, 1790, Alexander Hamilton devised a plan for securing legislation on both the funding and the residence bills. In a word, he proposed in consideration of locating the capital on the Potomac to get enough votes to assure the enactment of the funding measure.
Maclay records in his journal, June 14, 1790, that Morris told him of meeting Hamilton by appointment early one morning in the Battery ; and walking about in that rural retreat, Hamilton said that one vote was wanted in the senate and five in the house to carry the funding bill. Hamilton then proposed, as Maclay asserts, an agreement about the residence bill.
Jefferson in his “Anas” also tells of an interview at this time with Hamilton. The scene was the sidewalk in front of the president’s residence, and as a result a dinner was given by Jefferson, on which occasion an agreement was reached to give votes for the funding bill, in consideration of the residence being placed at Philadelphia for ten years, and then permanently on the Potomac.
Fisher Ames, a member of the house from Massachusetts, also records in his letters the political situation of the two measures. At the first session of congress, he states, the New England men with New York had defeated what he calls an intrigue of the Pennsylvania men with the south for Philadelphia as the temporary seat and the Potomac as the permanent seat, by voting for New York as the temporary location and the Susquehanna as the permanent place. The Pennsylvanians,
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RESIDENCE BILL BECOMES A LAW 43
he said, abandoned their southern allies and joined with the adherents of the Susquehanna location, and hence the change of front in the first session, on the part of the southerners, and their pleas for delay on a measure that before they had been urgent for immediate action.
On June 11, 1790, Ames writes, “we are sold by the Pennsyl- vanians and the assumption bill with it,” and on July 1, he adds, “Last week the removal bill passed in favor of Philadel- phia and the Potomac. That embarrassment out of the way, it is not to be doubted we can carry out the long-contested point — the assumption.”
Three days after the residence bill became a law, the house agreed to the funding bill, and on the 9th of August, 1790, that measure was placed on the statute books. Jefferson records that as the result of the argument reached at his dinner two of the Virginia members, Alexander White and Richard Bland Lee, changed their votes in favor of the funding bill, “but White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive.”
Fisher Ames in disgust writes “this despicable grog-shop contest, whether the taverns of New York or Philadelphia should get the custom of congress,’ and the same thought as to the weight of what he termed business consideration was expressed in the assertion made during the final debate, that congress would never leave Philadelphia, as the influences to keep it there would be too potent to be overcome.
It may be added in passing that such a view was entertained largely by the Philadelphians, and during the years of preparing the new residence place the city of Brotherly Love was looked upon as the active centre of opposition to the execution of a portion at least of the residence bill. As will be shown, Washing- ton realized the attitude of Philadelphia. It was also asserted that it was unjust, nay even dishonest, to remove from New York before that city had an opportunity to secure reimburse- ment for the expenses it had incurred in preparing suitable accommodations for congress. Reference of course was here in part to the fine new building in Wall Street which the city had built in the fall of 1789 for the use of the new congress.
CHAPTER III DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION
Tue section of country named in the act of 1790 where the federal capital was to be located derived its chief importance from the Potomac River. Along its banks and those of its tribu- taries were found only a few small centres of population, the product of the economic influences of large individual holdings and of a purely agricultural community. Conditions were shaped by the needs of plantation life in a region where the chief staple, tobacco, could be brought to navigable waters and shipped to the markets that were mainly in Europe. While the first permanent settlement of Virginia at Jamestown on the James River was made in 1607, and that in Maryland at St. Mary’s on the Chesapeake Bay in 1637, yet it was not until near the close of the century and through the opening years of the eighteenth, that the growth of the population led to the settlement of lands not merely along the upper portions of such a river as the Potomac, but throughout what might be termed the back country.
With the Potomac on one side and the broad Chesapeake Bay separating Maryland into two parts, and both having numerous tributaries, and Virginia sharing with Maryland in the use of the Potomac, and with the Rappahannock, the York and James rivers penetrating long distances into the interior and giving access in the readiest manner known to that time with the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic, it is not surprising that the tide-water country held for such a length of time the supremacy in point of population and settlement, as compared with the interior.
The process as well as the progress of occupation may be traced roughly in the course of the creation of the counties on
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 45
both sides of the river. Up to the year 1742 Prince William County, Va., comprised all the country along the Potomac from its southern boundary down by Dumfries on Quantico Creek to the north, which ended only at the indefinite region where the frontier line of the Ohio Valley began. In the year 1742 the northern portion was set off as Fairfax County, with Alexandria as the county seat, and thirteen years later Loudoun County was detached.
On the Maryland side of the river Charles County, which was created in 1658, included the entire stretch of country bordering on the Potomac from the Wicomico, near Blackistone Island, to the Blue Ridge and to the “terra incognita” of the frontier. Thirty-seven years later the upper limit of Charles County was fixed at Mattawaman Creek, near Glymont, and the balance of the upper territory constituted Prince George County. Not until 1748 was it found necessary to reduce in size this great territory comprising the whole of western Maryland.
Frederick County was founded, the line separating it from Prince George County being drawn from the mouth of Rock Creek northeast to the Patuxent River near the present town of Laurel, Maryland. But the closeness of the locality that became sixteen years later the District of Columbia to the existing western frontier is shown by the circumstance that in what was known as Lord Dunmore’s war in 1774, the inhab- itants of Alexandria were so much alarmed by rumors of the approach of their savage foes that they had their property carted away to what was regarded as a more secure place.!
The process of settlement was not merely from the tide-water region to the north and west, but there was also a movement of the population to the southward from Pennsylvania.
Along this route came German and Quaker settlers who were the pioneers in the upper portions of Frederick County and also Montgomery County, and a portion of this stream flowed into Loudoun County, Va. They were a sturdy folk, industrious and careful, and were good farmers, and unlike the tide-water
1 Maryland Archives, Journal Council of Safety. Jan. 30, 1776.
46 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
settlers did not devote their entire energies to raising tobacco. They formed the advance guard of the general tide of settlers that made the Shenandoah Valley a place of abundant crops and of the movement which carried the settlements still farther south ready for the advance across the Alleghanies, and where just prior to the revolutionary war those hardy pioneers were mustered who headed the first parties that began the settlement of the fertile lands of Kentucky and Tennessee.
As the seventeenth century closed, and during the early years of the eighteenth century much of the emigration from England, Scotland and Ireland passed up the Chesapeake Bay and along the Potomac, establishing in the case of the Scotch such a settlement as Dumfries, and leaving a trace of their influence in the name New Scotland Hundred, one of the political divisions of Charles County created in 1696 and including within its limits the present territory of the District of Columbia.
The religious and political disturbances in Great Britain served to send forth to the new country representatives of the best families and men of standing and ability in their home communities. In addition to these causes, the growing trade with the colonies of Maryland and Virginia led to the opening of trading centres in charge of representatives of great English commercial houses, and thus helped along the growth of such towns as Bladensburg, Alexandria and Georgetown.!
By this time, too, the settlers were free from the dangers which were inevitable while the Indians continued to occupy the same region with the whites. For, as Thomas Jefferson records in his notes on the state of Virginia, written in the years
1JIn addition, the tide of settlement towards the great western country, which became one of the most potent influences in shaping the destiny of the United States, used the thoroughfare across the Alleghany range where subsequently the first and only federal turn- pike was built, the old National Pike extending west from Cumber- land to Wheeling, one hundred and twenty-six miles, and in the vicinity of which, later on, the rails of that early railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, were laid. North of Cumberland some thirty miles, and in Pennsylvania, was the other great highway across the mountains form- ing an early connection between Philadelphia and the settlements about Fort Pitt, or Pittsburg, as it came to be called.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 47
1781 and 1782, in a period of sixty-two years after the James- town settlement, two thirds of the Indians constituting the forty tribes that then occupied the country between the sea and the falls of the Potomac had disappeared. This great decrease he attributed to the use of spirituous liquors, to smallpox and to the abridgment of their territory.
The Powhatans, as Captain John Smith records, formed the most powerful tribe, and allied with them were several smaller bands. This indefatigable traveller explored the Potomac River, but according to the best judgment based on his rather vague accounts, it is concluded that he did not get farther up the river than Indian Head, which is some ten miles distant from the city of Washington. In 1631, however, Henry Fleete, an Englishman who had some years previously been held as a captive by the Anacostan Indians living in and around the vicinity of the District, returned to this country on a trading expedition organized in the interests of some English merchants. His account of the ascent of the Potomac, and his description of the vicinity of the Indian village, or town, as he calls it, of Tohogae, leaves no question in the minds of modern scholars that this place occupied the site where George- town was built. Fleete is therefore accorded the honor of being the first European to visit the locality of the District.
There is a question whether Smith has a right to the dis- tinction generally accorded him of being the first European to visit the lower Potomac.”
The Indian occupation of the District and its vicinity is commemorated in the name Anacostia, which the tributary of the Potomac also known as the Eastern Branch, bears, and
1 Old Georgetown. By Hugh T. Taggart. Coll. Hist. Soc., Vol. XI.
2The author of the History of the Catholic Church in the United States, John G. Shea, states the Spanish archives contain the record of a visit of a Spanish vessel to the Potomac about the middle of the sixteenth century, half a century before the coming to these shores of Smith. He also states that about the year 1570 a mission station was established by the Jesuits on the Occoquan, but in neither case was a permanent settlement made. A settlement was attempted by the Spanish in 1526 on the site where Jamestown was subsequently located, which was soon abandoned.
48 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
which was originally directed to be the southern boundary of the city. This name was also given to an island lying near the Virginia shore and opposite to Georgetown. In the land records of Virginia this island is referred to under the name of My Lord’s Island, and later in the Maryland land records of 1682 as Barbadoes, and also by the name of Analostian Island, and also Anacostian Island. When it came into the posses- sion of George Mason in 1777, it began to be known as Mason’s Island.
There are other traces of the Indian inhabitants in the sites of their villages marked by stone implements and fragments of pottery. According to the careful and scientific survey made of this region for Indian remains, a line of Indian village sites has been traced along the southern bank of the Eastern Branch from the Potomac as far east as Bladensburg. One such site is indicated in what became the large reservation south of the capitol at the intersection of New Jersey and Virginia avenues, while there are others along the gorge of Piney Branch west of 14th Street, a tributary of Rock Creek, and quite a number on the southern shore of the Potomac, and also in the vicinity of the Little Falls.
Another name besides those derived from the aboriginal in- habitants is found in the map of Augustine Herrman, published in 1673, where the title Turkey Buzzard is applied to the point near the mouth of the Eastern Branch, just east of what was later known as Greenleaf and Arsenal Point. The “ Anacostian Islands” also appear on this map, one of which is identified as the one known in modern times as Analostan Island, and the other as the one formerly near the Virginia end of the old Long Bridge, and known as Holmes Island, and also as Alexander’s Island.”
From all accounts that have come down in regard to this locality, and some of the circumstances are borne out by later
1 A collection of stone implements from the District of Columbia by S. V. Proudfit. Map of Indian Village Sites, Proceedings U. S. Nat. Museum, Vol. 13, p. 187.
2 Old Georgetown. Taggart, p. 130.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 49
testimony, the region was specially favored, owing to the abun- dance of game of all kinds, especially the fish with which the waters teemed, and the birds which fed along the banks of the streams. The soil was rich and fertile, in striking contrast to its condition after a few years of the wasteful, one-crop system of the early settlers to which they adhered with a persistence which at the outset at least was due to ignorance rather than obstinacy.
The astonishing fertility of this virgin soil, which continued to yield its yearly crops for a long period without receiving from the tiller anything in return, does not alone account for the con- tinuance of such a method of cultivation. The vast area of the land made it possible for the planter after exhausting one field to abandon it and clear another for the tobacco crop, and hence the abundance of so-called “old fields.” The extent of the individual holdings was large.
As the tide of settlement pushed its way up along the tribu- taries of the river and the land along the Patuxent was taken, then the settlers advancing still farther to the north found their way along the upper Potomac and Rock Creek. The movement along Rock Creek began, it is estimated, in 1688, and the general tendency in this locality is indicated broadly by the dates of the patents granted by the lord proprietor.!
For example, a tract called Blue Plains on the south side of the Eastern Branch and within the District was conveyed to George Thompson by Lord Baltimere in 1662; also the adjoining tracts of St. Elizabeth and Giesborough in 1663, while on the north side of the Eastern Branch and comprising a broad belt of land extending from that stream northward including the present site of the capitol building and the land for some distance to the north was Duddington’s pasture, a tract of some fourteen hundred acres. In 1663 this tract was also conveyed by Lord Baltimore to George Thompson.
1 A copy of the original patent for Duddington pasture and a record of subsequent deeds of some of the land within the site of the city are to be found in United States vs. M. F. Morris, et al., Potomac Flats Case. Record, Vol. 6, p. 367.
VOL. I—B
50 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
The next year John Langworthacquired a tract of six hundred acres known as the Widow’s Mite, and occupying that portion of the site of Washington which lies to the northward from the Naval Medical School Hospital at 24th and E streets, N. W. A part of this tract, together with a portion of the Vineyard patented to William Hutchinson in 1696, with portions of other tracts, was merged in a tract called Mexico, owned by Robert Peter, a leading merchant of Georgetown, whose holdings ex- tended along Rock Creek and the Potomac.
Beall’s Levels, containing two hundred and twenty-five acres, was patented in 1703 to Ninian Beall, a Scotchman who lived at Upper Marlboro, and who also acquired the tract, Rock of Dum- barton, upon a portion of which Georgetown was located.
The lord proprietor to whom the entire territory of Maryland had been given did not depend upon the sale of the lands for the profits of his government, as he had from the colony other sources of income. This is shown in the consideration named in the patent of Duddington pasture which for the fourteen hundred acres is stated to be one pound, sixteen shillings sterling “or in commodities.” George Thompson held the land for seven years, and when he deeded it to Thomas Notley the latter paid him forty thousand pounds of tobacco.
An incident in the history of one of the tracts referred to as lying to the south of the Eastern Branch is related by Edward D. Neill in his account of Maryland in the book entitled “‘ Terra Marie.” He states that shortly after the middle of the seven- teenth century, James Pancoast, a watchmaker apprenticed in London, was kidnapped and sold to a man in Maryland. By his industry he obtained a tract of land that came to be known as Giesborough. Having been drowned, and as he was never married, his estate was unclaimed for a long time and reverted to the proprietary. In the year 1770 two brothers of the deceased, early settlers in Burlington County, New Jersey, brought suit to recover the property.
There is also a record of a tract of land called Scotland Yard, belonging to Captain Robert Troope, and lying to the north of where the capitol building now stands. Duddington Manor, or
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 51
pasture, with itsfourteen hundred acres, as determined by a more exact survey in 1721, was left by the will of Thomas Notley dated 1679 to his godson Notley Rozier. The latter married Jane Diggs, and their only child, Eleanor Rozier, married Daniel Carroll. The title to the property then vested in the only son of the latter, Charles Carroll, Jr. The eldest son of the latter, Daniel Carroll of Duddington, was the owner of the main por- tion of this tract when the city was laid out. For in the year 1758 a section of Duddington Manor was conveyed by Charles Carroll, Jr., of Prince George County, to his stepmother Ann Young, the second wife of the first Daniel Carroll. This holding comprised four hundred acres, which extended along the river from its junction with the Eastern Branch north to a point above the railroad bridge at the south end of Maryland Avenue.
Ann Young’s first husband, Benjamin Young, the father of Notley Young, died in 1754. He came from England and served for a number of years as land commissioner under Lord Balti- more. A tract of land belonging to him and lying near the northern original limits of the city was inherited by his son, Notley Young, and became a part of the Youngsboro tract previously owned by Notley Young. The latter married Mary Diggs, and by deed dated March 21, 1762, his mother, Ann Young, conveyed to him the tract of land in the southern sec- tion of the city then known as Duddington pasture land, where according to the deed in 1758 from Charles Carroll, Jr., to Ann Young, “the dwelling house of the said Ann Young stands.”
It is supposed this was the house which subsequently became the home of Notley Young, where he was living when the city was laid out. It was built of brick, two stories and an attic, fifty by forty feet, and stood in what became G Street between 9th and 10th streets,S. W.!. The first Daniel Carroll of Duddington was the great-uncle of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. His son, Charles Carroll, Jr., of Duddington or Carrollsburg, the latter being the name of the town site which he laid off on a portion of his property
1Coll. Hist. Soe., Vol. 16, p. 3.
52 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
to the east of Greenleaf’s Point, was born Sept. 12, 1729. He came from Ireland, as did his brother Daniel Carroll, the latter settling at Upper Marlboro on a branch of the Patuxent about fourteen miles southeast of Washington, where he engaged in business as a merchant. He married Eleanor Darnall, the daughter of Henry Darnall, who owned an estate called Wood- yard a few miles southwest of Upper Marlboro."
In the year 1668 Henry Darnall received a patent for a tract of land containing some six thousand acres, which lay on both sides of Rock Creek, and extended from within the bounds of the District northward, including a portion of what is now Rock Creek Park, Takoma, Forest Glen and Silver Spring. Nine miles north of the centre of the city of Washington and near what is now known as Forest Glen, the Carrolls, probably some years prior to the revolution, made their home. Here the son was living, who was known as Daniel Carroll of Upper Marl- boro and also of Rock Creek, when he was appointed one of the commissioners of the city of Washington. At that time his nephew, Daniel Carroll of Duddington, was living in his farm- house near Greenleaf’s Point, but when the first work of the survey of the site of the city was begun in the spring of 1791, he started the erection of a large brick house on Square 736, between Ist, 2d, E and F streets, S. E.?
A portion of the tract called Beall’s Levels surveyed for Ninian Beall in 1703 was resurveyed for James Burnes, a Scotchman, in 1769.*
He died before he had obtained a patent, but had occupied the land for a number of years. His eldest son, David Burnes, secured a patent for the land in 1774. This tract, irregular in shape, lay east of 19th Street, and just south of New York Ave- nue, and extended eastward quite to Ist Street, W., and with the southern boundary at the Mall, thus including the whole of
‘ Biographical Sketch of the Most Rev. John Carroll. John Carroll Brent, Baltimore, 1843.
2 Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Kate M. Rowland, N.Y., 1898.
3 Old Georgetown. Taggart, p. 139; also list of early patents of land within the bounds of the city.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 53
what became the central portion of the city lying on each side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
An unusual combination of names in a certificate of survey recorded in the land records of Maryland, has perhaps made it the best known of all the ancient records of this locality. On June 5, 1663, a tract of four hundred acres of land called Rome was surveyed for Thomas Pope, and subsequently owned by Francis Pope. It is described in part as “lying on the east side of the Annacostone river,” and one line of which extended to “a bounded oak standing at the north of a bay or indent called Tiber.” 4
While it is impossible to determine from the description of the instrument. the exact location, yet it is held by competent authority that it was included within the original bounds of the city of Washington. In the year 1818, John Brewer, at that time register of the Maryland land office, in a letter writ- ten on this subject to Thomas Law, stated “that Mr. Callahan, the former register with whom I wrote twenty-five years ago, has often mentioned to me the circumstance of the city of Wash- ington being located on the same land.” ?
A tract of land best known as Widow’s Mite and lying just beyond the original boundary of the city north of Florida Ave- nue, and extending from about 17th Street, W., extended to Rock Creek, came at an early period into the possession of Anthony Holmead, an Englishman. As he died childless, his property passed to his nephew, also named Anthony Holmead. The tract of land included a portion that fell within the bounds of the city, and Anthony Holmead’s name appears in the agreement made in 1791 between the commissioners of the city
1 Liber 6, folio 318, Land Records of Maryland.
2 National Intelligencer, May 29, 1818. Among the Bozeman family papers in the manuscript division of the library of congress, is an opinion dated 1763 of C. N. Goldsborough, a Maryland lawyer, construing the will of one John Pope. In the course of this opinion, it is stated that John Pope made his will in the year 1702. A refer- ence is made to his property, a tract called Rome. Also to his brother Robert Pope, of Bristol, England, all of which, though indefinite, serves
to give some form to the shadowy Francis Pope as he appears in the early history of the federal city.
54 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
and the original proprietors. In the year 1795 he sold a portion of his property where his house was located to Gustavus Scott, one of the commissioners of the city, and this subsequently passed into the possession of Joel Barlow, who gave it the name of Kalorama. On the brow of the hill adjoining his old home- stead on the east, Anthony Holmead, the same year he sold to Scott, built a two-story brick house, which now fronts on the north side of S Street, between 22d and 23d streets. It re- mained in possession of the family for one hundred and seven years, and is still well preserved.
Benjamin Stoddert and James M. Lingan, merchants of Georgetown, acquired a portion of the Widow’s Mite as early as the year 1784,' and the names of both appear in the list of original proprietors. Lingan’s holding comprised land in the vicinity of Dupont Circle.
In a receipt given for the sale of certain lots in Hamburg in the year 1768 by Jacob Funk, more than a century after the survey certificate of Thomas Pope, the property is described as lying “between Rock Grick and Goos Grick,” showing that the latter name was also an early designation of that stream. The name Tiber appears in the first map of the city, which was made by L’Enfant in the year 1791, and it was applied to this stream, which had its origin in two branches that flowed from the heights encircling the north of the original city and uniting at a point at M Street just east of North Capitol Street, passed along Second Street, N. W., at the base of the elevation where the capitol building is located, and thence to the westward, where it emptied into the Potomac. At that time it also bore the name of Goose Creek.’
The rather lofty name of Tiber in contrast with the humbler appellation gave point to one of the stanzas in the satirical verses on the city written by Tom Moore, the Irish poet who visited Washington in 1804.
1Cranch Circuit Court Reports, Vol. 1, p. 69.
2 “Where the road crosses Goose Creek in going from Georgetown to the Eastern Branch.” Washington to Deakins and Stoddert,
Philadelphia, Feb. 3, 1791. Washington’s Letter Book, 1790-1793, Vol. XI.
DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 55
Two brothers, William and Abraham Young, and their sister, Ann Young, who married Aquilla Wheeler, owned tracts of farm lands bordering the extreme eastern edge of the city. It was from the lands of Aquilla Wheeler at the foot of 14th Street E., at its juncture with Virginia Avenue and a short distance south of the present Pennsylvania Avenue bridge, the ferry started, operated by Wheeler, which later became known as the Upper Ferry. The date of the establishment of this ferry is unknown, but as three roads led to it through the site of the city, it was much in use as a means of communication between southern Maryland and not only Georgetown but the country to the north and the highways to Bladensburg and Frederick.
It may be concluded that the prospects of the site of the federal city, as also its vicinity, presented attractions over other locali- ties in the domain of Lord Baltimore, for there several of the men who held office under the lord proprietor acquired large tracts of land, and in some cases established homes. One of these was Benjamin Young, the father of Notley Young, and a land commissioner under Lord Baltimore.
Then there was Thomas Notley, an early owner of Dudding- ton Manor, who was prominent officially in colonial Maryland. His godson, Notley Rozier, to whom the property was left by will, intermarried in the Carroll family, which was strongly represented in the locality.
Another colonial official was Thomas Darnall, the father-in- law of Daniel Carroll of Rock Creek.
The rise of towns both in Maryland and Virginia was slow in spite of the encouragement given by the state authorities, especially of Maryland, to promote such centres.?
1 After the city was laid out, Abraham Young built a residence of brick just beyond the limits on 15th Street, opposite D Street, which was torn down in 1912, and where he made his home. This house, and the one erected about the same time by Anthony Holmead, are the only homes of original proprietors that survived to so late a period the changes of the years. Abraham Young Mansion, Allen C. Clark. Coll. Hist. Soe., Vol. 12.
2 Maryland Local Institutions. L. W. Whelan. J. H. U. Studies, 3d Series, Vols. VI and VII.
56 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
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It was early recognized that the material interests of the community suffered because of the lack of convenience of trade and access to needed supplies, which are to be found in all communities where are collected those who are engaged in other lines of activity than agriculture. Under the existing system there could be but two classes, the planters and the laborers. The intermediate class of merchants and artisans of all the various trades were in the earlier years lacking, and in consequence the community which produced nothing but agricultural products and that, too, mainly the one staple of tobacco, was expending practically its entire income away from home. It did not have the use of the proceeds of its own industry and was rapidly becoming a debtor class. The plan- tation system showed this vital economic defect in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in precisely the same manner as in the cotton states of the south a century and more later.
Towns both in Maryland and Virginia had their beginnings in the various shipping ports where tobacco was brought to be loaded on vessels. Here were located the custom-houses, where a portion of the public revenue was collected, and here were also the warehouses or tobacco inspection houses established by laws regulating the quality and the grade of tobacco sent abroad. For, tobacco was not only the staple of trade but was the principal medium of exchange, and was used to pay state taxes and church tithes. Practically all obligations were payable in tobacco.
The inspection houses were also called “rolling houses,”’ and the roads leading to them were termed rolling roads. As wheeled vehicles were not of practical use, the tobacco was placed in hogsheads weighing nine hundred and fifty to eighteen hundred pounds, and saplings were fastened at each end of a pole serving as an axle. Horses or men were attached to these rude shafts and the hogshead was rolled along to the port of shipment.1
A species of warehouse certificate was early introduced as
1 History of Western Maryland. J. Thomas Scharf, Philadelphia, 1882.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 57
a medium of facilitating dealing in tobacco. Under the Vir- ginia law of 1730 the justices of the peace constituting the court in each county of Virginia, each year appointed inspectors at the tobacco warehouses, located on the Virginia bays and rivers at a distance of about twelve or fourteen miles apart. Such officials were appointed under the Maryland law of 1748 by the church vestries.
The duty of the inspectors was to receive the good and mer- chantable tobacco, and not only rejecting but burning what was pronounced to be bad and defective. “Crop notes’? were given to the planters for such of the tobacco as passed inspec- tion, and as they conveyed absolutely the title, they passed freely from hand to hand. In this way it was possible for the planter to sell his tobacco in the most convenient market.!
It was not until 1680 the site of the town of Norfolk was surveyed. It was made an incorporated borough in 1736. Williamsburg, Va., was built in 1705, and created a borough or market town in 1722. Annapolis, Md., was incorporated in 1696 and received a charter in 1708. Baltimore, Md., was
1 Description of Virginia Commerce, Muir’s Bookkeeping Modern- ized, 3d ed., 1784. A list is given of the location of inspection houses in that state, and of the twelve on the Potomac are mentioned Acquia, Quantico, Occoquan, Hunting Creek and Falls.
Hunting Creek was also known as Belle Haven, and later on as Alexandria, while Falls presumably refers to some point in the vicinity of the Little Falls above Georgetown.
The letter bock of Robert Carter. of Nomini, Westmoreland Co., Va., of the probable date of 1770 or 1771, gives the names of four mer- chants and factors residing at Colchester on the Occoquan, and of eight at Dumfries on the Quantico River. The merchants and factors residing at Alexandria are given as follows: Hooe and Harrison, Stewart and Hubbard, Fitzgerald and Piers, Harper and Hartshorn (dissolved), John Allison, Wm. Sadler, Robt. Adams & Co., Henby and Culder, Wm. Hayburne, wheat purchasers; George Gilpin and Thomas Kilpatrick, inspectors of flour; MceCawley and Mayer import British goods, which they sell by wholesale ; Wm. Wilson, seller of British goods, who buys tobacco, and also John Locke and John Muir, Brown and Finley, they import goods for Philadelphia and purchase wheat and tobacco, as also does Josiah Wilson; Robert Dove & Co., distil- lers; Carlyle and Dalton sells rum and sugar. William and Mary College Quarterly, Vol. II, p. 245.
58 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
created in 1729 by the assembly as a market and port of entry. At Garrison’s Landing at the head of navigation of the Eastern Branch, the town of Bladensburg, Md., was laid out in 1742. It soon became quite a centre of trade and was the headquarters of several of the large English concerns trading in this country. About the time of the revolution its business began to decline. William Wirt, who was born there, in his reminiscences of his boyhood days mentions several of the merchants of those days, Christopher Lowndes, Robert Dick and others.
Authority was given by the Virginia assembly to lay out a town at Hunting Creek Warehouse in 1743, although the name Alexandria was applied to the place by an act of the previous year, when provision was made for holding fairs there. The site of Georgetown was laid out in building lots by authority of the Maryland law of 1751, and on land “adjacent to the inspection house called George Gordon’s Rolling House.” !
The sixty acres selected for the town included land owned by George Gordon and George Beall. The former acquired his holding, comprising some three hundred acres, in the year 1734, when it received the name of Rock Creek Plantation, and it is conjectured about that time the inspection house which stood on his land and on the south side of M Street just west of Wisconsin Avenue was erected.
Gordon was a member of the county court when Frederick County was created, and also served as sheriff of the county.”
George Beall, the other original proprietor, inherited from his father, Ninian Beall, a tract called the Rock of Dumbarton, and there according to tradition preserved in the reminiscences of his great grandson he set up his tent in the “ground occupied by Miss English’s Seminary,” the northeast corner of 30th and N streets.’
It is conjectured George Beall was the first settler. He was not disposed to part with his property, and so the value of the
1 History of Western Maryland. J. Thomas Scharf, Philadelphia, 1882. 2 Old Georgetown. Taggart.
* Reminiscences of Georgetown, D.C. Rev. T. B. Balch, Washing- ton, 1859.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 59
land was fixed by the jury, which his refusal to sell made neces- sary to summon. Under the law he had the right of the first choice of lots, and in reluctantly exercising that right he sturdily or surlily gave notice that his acceptance of the course pursued, which was due to favor, “shall not debar me from future re- dress from the commissioners or others. I have the right of a British subject. I ask no more, God save King George !”’ !
The jury appointed to condemn the land returned its value at 280 pounds currency, or $744.66, or $12.44 per acre.”
The town as thus laid out was bounded on the east by 30th Street and on the north by M Street, with the Potomac on the two other sides. “As early as 1703,” it is stated by Hugh T. Taggart in the paper on Old Georgetown, referred to above, “there was a landing on the Georgetown side of Rock Creek, where it entered the Potomac, called Saw Pit Landing; this landing shows that the place had then some importance as a trading post.”
Jacob Funk, a German resident, near Frederick, Md., owned a tract of land that subsequently lay within the limits of the city of Washington, which he divided into building lots in the year 1768, making a town site called Hamburg, and also known as Funkstown. This tract extended from a short distance west of what is now 19th Street, N. W., to west of 23d Street, and from H Street, S., to the river. The lots had a frontage of some one hundred feet and a depth of about two hundred, and there were two hundred and eighty-seven of them.
Two years later Charles Carroli, Jr., of Duddington, also made a subdivision, occupying the neck of land east of James Creek, or Greenleaf’s Point, or from Third Street, S. W., to Ist Street, S. E., and from N Street, S., to the Eastern Branch. ‘The lots were similar in size to those in the Hamburg subdivision, and were two hundred and sixty-seven in number. In both instances the streets were narrow as compared with
1 Reminiscences of George Watterston. Daily National Intelligen- eer, Feb. 27, 1852. It is supposed the name of the town perpetuates that of this early but evidently independent property owner.
2 The same.
60 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
those in the plan of the city of Washington. The Carrolls- burgh lots were disposed of through a lottery.
It is probable the proposed settlement of Hamburg was suggested by the promise of the locality on the east side of Rock Creek becoming a point for the river trade, as well as Georgetown on the west side. Carrollsburgh did, in fact, become such a centre, although not in a large way.’
Neither of the proposed settlements of Hamburg and Carrollsburgh attracted many people, and but few houses were located in either place.
The Maryland town, before it reached the corporate stage, had no separate existence from the county in which it was located. There was no local government. The commissioners named in the act to lay out the town were a self-perpetuating body with powers limited to the disposition of the lots and the adjustment of disputes between lot owners. ‘Taxes were laid by the county court, and the county justices or parish vestry exercised their functions in the town as in the county, or parish.®
In line with the policy of promoting trade centres was the encouragement given to holding fairs which were familiar events to those who had been brought up in Europe. By the law of 1742 the Virginia assembly, and by the act author- izing the laying out of the town of Georgetown in 1751, the Maryland assembly gave their sanction to holding fairs semi- annually in the spring and the fall both at Alexandria and Georgetown. As the Maryland law expressed it, such events “may prove an encouragement to the back inhabitants and others to bring commodities there to sell and vend,’ while the Virginia enactment expressed the conclusion that it would
1 Advertisement in the Georgetown Weekly Ledger, Nov. 26, 1791, to holders of certain tickets to whom conveyances of lots have not been made.
2 “For Glasgow, the ships Thetis and Willin are now receiving their cargoes at the port of Carrollsburg.’”’ Times and Potomac Packet, Oct. 27, 1790.
3 The Financial History of Baltimore. J. H. Hollander, Baltimore, 1899.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 61
afford an opportunity for “the sale and vending of all manner of cattle, victuals, provisions, goods, wares, and merchandise.”
In both instances all persons coming and going to the fair, together with their goods, were exempt from all arrests and attachments except for capital offences and breaches of the peace. While the primary purpose of these gatherings was trade and providing a market for not merely the products of the earth, but for merchandise, they also served to satisfy that social instinct which delights in the mere contact with one’s fellows.
At such centres as Williamsburg and Annapolis, especially when the state legislatures were in session, large numbers of the planters had establishments where they lived gay and hospitable lives. They had fine equipages and the “drawing rooms,” as the more pretentious social occasions were termed, were attended by a company that in dress, manners and wit were said to rival similar functions held at the first capitals of Europe.
The houses that remain confirm the accounts that have come down of the elegance and the profuseness of life at such centres. But for the most part the towns did not grow, and they re- mained for a long period mainly distinguished by the location there of the custom-house, and in some cases, of the court- house. In the entire state of Maryland in 1756 the white population numbered 107,963, while there were 46,225 blacks. Twenty-three years after Baltimore was laid out it contained only twenty-five houses and two hundred inhabitants."
At that time the surveyors were marking out the streets of Georgetown. Public highways were unknown. Rolling roads made by tobacco hogsheads and bridle paths used by pack horses were the chief means of communication. The main road through the District was what was known as the George- town-Bladensburg Road, and from the earliest time until steam came into use it was an artery of travel between the north and the south. Two sections of this road still exist.
1 Griffith’s Annals of Baltimore.
62 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
One is Florida Avenue from the ford at the present P Street bridge to 7th Street. From 7th Street the road trended to the northeast and mounted the encircling rim of hills. A spur ran to the south, the course of which is preserved in part in the lines of the modern Bladensburg Road which comes to the original bounds of the city at Maryland Avenue and 15th Street, N. E. Inthe early daysit passed on to the south, paralleling the Eastern Branch, to the ferry at the foot of 14th Street, S. E. On the east side of the Eastern Branch was also a road from Bla- densburg that led to a point on the Potomac nearly opposite Alexandria, where there was a ferry at a very early day. It crossed the Marlboro Road near the Eastern Branch ferry.’ The western section of the post road beyond Rock Creek passed through Georgetown to near the foot of Wisconsin Av- enue. At that time the section of Wisconsin Avenue south of M Street was knownas WaterStreet, and led to the ferry across the Potomac to the Virginia shore. While the post road crossed Rock Creek by a ford, yet the rising importance of Georgetown was indicated by the erection of a bridge — the first in the District — over the creek about on the line of M Street two years before the residence bill became a law.” From this point a road passed through the city and by a ford in the Tiber Creek just north of the present site of the capitol to the Eastern Branch * which indicates in a general way the course of the old thoroughfare between Georgetown and the Eastern Branch that was wiped out by the city plan.4 It was probably a spur from this road that trended to the north and west of the capitol site, thence to the east of Mas- sachusetts Avenue and 4th Street, N. W., and on to the north,
1 Ferries did not fall under the regulation of the Maryland law until quite late in the eighteenth century, and hence there is no record of the early ones.
? Old Georgetown. Taggart. The bridge was built in 1788. eee of the City. George{Watterston, Intelligencer, Aug. 26,
‘The only reference to this highway is found in a letter of Wash- ington to Messrs. Deakins and Stoddert. Philadelphia, Feb. 3, 1791. Washington’s Letter Book. 1790-1793, Vol. XI.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 63
probably connecting with the Rock Creek Church Road.!_ By means of the Rock Creek Church Road, the southern section of which, ending at the original bounds of the city at Connecti- cut Avenue, and Florida Avenue, is now known in part as Columbia Road, and the portion east of New Hampshire Avenue bears the old name; the course of travel flowed north through Montgomery County to Rockville and still north to the Baltimore-Frederick Road. In addition to the Bladens- burg, Marlboro and Alexandria roads which centred in Georgetown, there was also a thoroughfare from that place to Frederick, the southern portion of which it is supposed coincides with what came to be called the Rockville Road. It is also conjectured that this section of the road, in the early years, followed more closely the banks of the Potomac and that which is known as Wisconsin Avenue came into use at a later period, perhaps about the time of the war of the revolution.2, But while the main portion of the population clung to the waterways, roads were of minor consequence.
The prime need for the development of the Potomac as a factor not only in promoting trade but in binding the interests of the growing population west of the Alleghanies to those of the eastern section was early recognized, and especially by such a leading spirit as Washington, who, on his hunting and sur- veying trips, and then in 1753, when he went to Fort Pitt as the official representative of the English government, through the governor of Virginia, to protest against the erection there of a fort by the French, had an opportunity to become ac- quainted with the character of the country.
He foresaw the general as well as the local advantages of making the Potomac the centre for the trade of the western
1In an advertisement of lots for sale at Massachusetts Avenue and 4th Street, N. W., the property is described as ‘‘ bounded on the east by the turnpike road from the capitol to Montgomery Court House.” In- telligencer, Oct. 1, 1811.
2 The first topographic map of the District as well as the first attempt in its cartography is the one prepared by Andrew Ellicott and published in 1792. It has special value because it shows the roads
leading into the city, but unfortunately an outline plan of the city is inserted, so that all these thoroughfares stop at the boundaries.
64 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
country, that was sure to grow with increasing volume. But he perceived also the dangers in the separating tendencies in the east and in the west, and especially in the event the com- merce of the Ohio Valley should find an outlet down the Missis- sippi, which was then in control of the French.
At the same time, but more especially in the later period of the river improvement movement, and even after the Potomac Company had been formed, opposition to the scheme came from central Virginia, where it was desired that the James River should be made a trade centre, while also in the later period regard for the growing trade of Baltimore arrayed a large and influential element in Maryland against the project of a George- town centre of commerce.!
In the year 1748, the Ohio Company was formed to promote the settlement of the Ohio as well as to carry on trade with the Indians, which was another recognition of the availability of the Potomac.? The boats of that company began in the year 1749 to ply between the Great Falls and a trading post on the present site of the city of Cumberland, where in 1754 Fort Cumberland was built. At that time there was only an Indian trail west of Fort Cumberland, while for eighty miles east of that post there was scarcely a settlement.®
England’s struggle with the French for the possession of the Mississippi Valley was closed with General Wolfe’s victory in 1759 over the French at Quebec. But five years before that the aggressive policy of the French to keep the English out of the country west of the Alleghanies led to numerous forays by their Indian allies on the frontiers of Maryland and Vir- ginia. These colonies were compelled to defensive measures, although what was done was greatly weakened by the con- test then going on between the colonists and the royal
1A New Chapter in the Early Life of Washington. John Pickell, New York, 1856.
? History of Cumberland, Maryland. W. H. Lowdermilk, Wash- ington, 1879.
3 Karly Development of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Project. George W. Ward. Johns Hopkins University Studies Series, Vol. VII, Nos. 9, 10, 11.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 65
government of Virginia, and the proprietary government of Maryland.
The seriousness of the situation led England in 1755 to send General Edward Braddock to the scene of hostilities with two regiments. In the spring of that year these forces landed at Alexandria, Va., and there Braddock had a conference with the governors of the colonies. As the result of the advice given at that time Braddock decided upon his route to Fort Duquesne, where the French had established a military post in defiance of English protests. The Potomac route, following the course of that river to its head waters and thence north to the head waters of the Ohio, was decided upon, although west of Frederick there were no roads. The desired point might have been reached by marching north from Frederick into Pennsylvania, where were the advantages of a settled country and roads, but Braddock’s advisers were influenced more by economic than by military considerations, as the people of Virginia and Mary- land desired to have a road opened to the head of the naviga~ tion of the Potomac.!
The delays caused by the necessity of building a road as the troops advanced gave the enemy ample time to concentrate their forces and to learn of Braddock’s movements, and this circumstance, together with the English general’s refusal to change his military tactics so as to enable him to meet his savage opponents on a more equal footing, led to the bloody defeat.”
Braddock’s forces left Alexandria in two detachments. One passed north through Virginia to the meeting-place at Fort Cumberland, while the other marched along the Potomac to the ferry and then crossed over to Georgetown, whence they proceeded by the Frederick Road.
According to tradition, the English commander landed at a large rock, a portion of which is still to be seen in Potomac Park, although it is now below the existing level to the south
1 Montealm and Wolfe. Francis Parkman. Narrative and Critical History of America. Justin Winsor, Vol. V.
Voi. I—=F
66 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
of the grounds of the Naval Medical School Hospital. This rock has long borne the name of Braddock’s Rock, but in the early records of this locality it was known as the Key of Keys or Quay of all Quays.
At that time it was a part of a large formation on the banks of the river, now separated from it by nearly a quarter of a mile of filled ground. It afforded a good landing-place. It was from this quarry-like formation that stone was taken that was used in the foundations of the capitol and the White House. As to Braddock’s using that landing for his troops on their way from Alexandria, it seems a reasonable conjecture that he would rather have chosen the regular ferry landing at Georgetown, a short distance farther up the river. In this way the soldiers would have been on the same side of Rock Creek as the Frederick Road, which was the point of destina- tion, instead of landing on the east side of the Creek and then fording that stream.
The residents of Georgetown were represented in the Mary- land Provincials equipped for service in the war, and a company under the command of Alexander Beall, the surveyor of the town, with Samuel Wade Magruder as lieutenant, went to the front.”
To raise a revenue to meet the expenses of the war, the Maryland assembly in 1765 placed a tax on the estates of bachelors, and among those who fell in that class were the following living in and near the present District of Columbia. Hugh Riley, Rock Creek, Nathaniel Magruder, Inspector Rock Creek, Robert Peter, in Georgetown, Anthony Holmead, near the mouth of Rock Creek, Walter Eavins, on the Eastern Branch, Baston Lucas, near the Eastern Branch, William Needham, Bladensburg, Robert Mundell, Georgetown, and Archibald Orme, north of Rock Creek.’
1 The records of Braddock’s expedition and contemporary accounts afford no clew of the exact spot where the landing was made. The case of the upholders of the east and of the west side of Rock Creek is to be found in Braddock’s Rock, by Marcus Benjamin, Washington, 1899, and in Old Georgetown, by Hugh T. Taggart.
2 Old Georgetown. Taggart, p. 165.
>The Rise of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the District of Columbia. Arthur S. Brown, Coll. Hist. Soc., Vol. 9.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 67
Trade considerations appearing as an influence in a con- ference on a purely military question such as the one that took place between the commander of the English forces and the governors of the colonies of Maryland and Virginia serves to illustrate their vital place in the lives and thoughts of the people. As pointed out in a previous chapter, an event of such significance as the calling of a convention of the repre- sentatives of all the states to devise a better form of govern- ment, and the beginning of the movement which resulted in the framing of the constitution of the United States had its inception in the proposal to bring together representatives of the two states of Maryland and Virginia to consider trade regulation for the Potomac River. But long before the year 1785 the need of providing facilities for carrying on the com- merce of the Potomac region had led to serious and repeated efforts to make that river navigable. The first examination of the river, to ascertain its navigability from Fort Cumber- land to Alexandria, was made in January, 1755, by Governor Sharpe, of Maryland, and Sir John St. Clair, and the conclusion was then reached that the river could be made free for the passage of boats by the removal of the rocks at the Great Falls. But nothing was done.!
During the years 1770-1772 and 1774 Washington visited the sources of the Potomac and made careful studies of the country lying to the west between that point and the navigable waters of the western rivers. Surveys were also made by others. Portions of Washington’s Journals giving accounts of these trips were published in the newspapers of the day.”
In 1770 Washington pointed out in a letter to the governor of Maryland the advantages to that state and to Virginia of making the Potomac “a channel of commerce between Great Britain and that immense territory.” The response to this and other efforts was the passage by the Virginia assembly in
1 History of Cumberland, Md. W. H. Lowdermilk, Washington,
1877. 2A New Chapter in the Early Life of Washington. John Pickell,
New York, 1856.
68 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
the year 1772 of an act creating a company with authority to render the Potomac navigable from Fort Cumberland to tide-water. In the same year John Ballandine, the owner of a tract of land at Little Falls, endeavored to enlist interest in the colony and among English merchants in a plan for improving the navigation of the river, and among his subscribers are en- rolled the names of George Washington, Thomas Johnson, Jr., Thomas Ringgold, William Deakins, Jr., Francis Deakins and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. But these efforts resulted in nothing.!
Again in 1774 a bill for the Potomac improvement was brought by Washington before the Virginia assembly, of which he was a member, but the divergence of interests, and more particularly the absorption of the public mind in the issues involved in the opening of the great contest with Great Britain for independence, served to prevent final action. Shortly after the close of the revolutionary war Washington in his retirement at Mt. Vernon resumed the advocacy of his favorite project and engaged in an extensive correspondence on the subject.
Jefferson shared his views in this particular, and with him as well as with Washington at this time the general welfare of the people by this binding together two great sections of the country was the prime consideration. In the year 1784 the Potomac Company was chartered by Virginia, and in the following year by Maryland. This action by the two states was taken in furtherance of a report made by a commission composed of representatives both from Maryland and Virginia favoring the improvement of the Potomac. Washington was one of the representatives of Virginia, while a member of the Maryland delegation was Gustavus Scott, afterwards one of the commissioners of the city of Washington.
Thomas Johnson of Frederick, Md., who had in congress in 1775 nominated Washington as commander-in-chief of the army, was a member of the board of directors. In after years Washington selected Johnson to serve on the first board of
1OQOld Georgetown. Taggart, p. 177.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE POTOMAC REGION 69
commissioners for the city of Washington. As president of the Potomac Company, which was organized in 1785, Wash- ington was the active spirit in the enterprise. He terminated his official connection with the company only when he became the head of the new government of the country.
The plan adopted by the Potomac Company, and which it attempted to carry out, was what was termed “sluice naviga- tion” in the improvement of the bed of the river by the removal of rocks, and forming a channel, which was the usual mode of securing inland navigation in England. At that period there was in that country but one example of the type of an indepen- dent canal with locks and the utility of that method had not at that time been satisfactorily demonstrated. In addition, the sluice method was cheaper, an important consideration in promoting an enterprise in a country that had just engaged in an exhausting war. In fact, it was with difficulty the stock of the company was placed and the instalments paid.!
Besides removing obstacles from the bed of the river, the company built canals around the Little Falls, the Great Falls, Seneca Falls, Shenandoah and House Falls. The works on the Virginia side of Great Falls may still be seen for a good part of the course. The passage was cut through the solid rock. After expending nearly three quarters of a million of dollars, and after the lapse of about thirty-five years, the object of the company had only been partially accomplished, and it was succeeded by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company in 1828, and the independent canal plan was then adopted.
During the period of the existence of the Potomac Company, although a considerable sum of money was collected for tolls which were first levied in 1799, yet the only navigation possible was during the time of floods and freshets, as a joint commis- sion of Maryland and Virginia appointed to examine the affairs of the company declared in the year 1823. According to the same authority “The whole time when goods and produce
1 Report to the stockholders on the completion of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company to Cumberland with a sketch of the Potomac Company, Frederick, 1851.
70 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
.
could be stream borne on the Potomac in the course of an entire year did not exceed forty-five days.”
Boats of slight draught were used in the descent of the river, and after discharging their cargoes were broken up. The more pretentious vessels made the return trip, but that was done by the laborious process of “poling.” Even under such conditions quite a volume of trade passed down the Potomac, thus making Georgetown a centre for a good deal of the com- merce from the lakes and the west.!
1TIn a paper signed by a number of business men of Georgetown, Oct. 13, 1790, offering their lands in the vicinity of Georgetown as a site for the federal town, it is enumerated among the advantages of the place that ‘‘There is seldom any swell at Georgetown, never one quarter of a mile above it. The vessels, therefore, which bring the produce down the river, can empty at Georgetown, which from their construction and the swell in the river, it is thought they can never do much below.’”’ U.S. vs. M. F. Morris, et al., Potomac Flats Case. Record, Vol. VII, p. 2160. From war department manuscript.
CHAPTER IV DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
THE spirit of resistance to the assertion of the claim on the part of England of the right of taxing the colonies as a source of revenue to that government found early expression in the colonies of Virginia and Maryland. The stamp act was the first of these measures to become a law by the approval of George III in February, 1765, and in May the Virginia as- sembly, fired by the eloquence of Patrick Henry, adopted resolutions which “started the fire.” George Johnston of Alexandria was one of the supporters of these resolutions.
The law requiring the affixing of stamps on all papers was to go into effect in November of that year, but when George Mercer, distributor of stamps for Virginia, arrived in Hampton in October, 1765, he was given a hostile reception, and the attitude of the people was such that he engaged not to under- take the execution of the stamp act.
Zachariah Hood, the stamp distributor for Maryland, was burned in effigy upon his arrival in Annapolis, and the stamps were not landed in the state but taken to New York, where General Gage, the commander of the English forces in this country, was stationed. The courts of Maryland and Virginia held that business could be transacted without the use of stamps, and so instructed the court officers.
Both Maryland and Virginia indorsed the plan for a meeting of delegates from all the colonies, and while the former sent representatives to the so-called stamp congress that met in New York in October, 1765, Virginia only failed because pre- vented by its royalist governor.
William Murdock, one of Maryland’s deputies, was the son
of Rey. George Murdock, the first rector of Rock Creek 71
72 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
parish, and married the daughter of Colonel Thomas Addison, who built and occupied a fine house on Oxen Run opposite Alexandria. From Colonel Addison he received a portion of a tract of land known as Friendship and occupied a house which stood on the present site of the American University.!
The stamp act was repealed in March, 1767, and another revenue measure was devised which was finally limited to a duty on tea; but true to the principle advocated of no taxation without representation both Virginia and Maryland stood with the other colonies against receiving the tea in this country. Virginia was the first colony to adopt the plan of an inter- colonial committee of correspondence, and thus led the way, as Bancroft pointed out, to a confederation of the colonies. In Maryland the convention formed of representatives of the people was active in opposition to the measures of England and finally became the government of the colony. When the people of Boston were punished by England by the act closing the port of that city, Virginia expressed her sentiments in regard to that measure by declaring a day of fasting and prayer, and in consequence the assembly was promptly dissolved by the governor. Everywhere in both colonies the use of foreign goods was discouraged and home manufactures advocated, while it became the fashion to wear homespun and to go with- out tea.”
There was also material support given to the common cause. In August, 1774, the inhabitants of Alexandria in a few hours subscribed 350 pounds for the relief of the distressed towns of Boston and Charleston, while shiploads of provisions were sent from both colonies. Committees of correspondence were formed in the various counties to see that the non-importation agreement was carried out. Such action was indorsed in
1 University Courier, Vol. III, p. 7.
2 The son of Rev. Stephen B. Balch, the Presbyterian minister of Georgetown, relates in Reminiscences of Georgetown, first lecture, p. 15, “‘My father has repeatedly told me that the ladies of George- town positively refused to drink tea during the progress of the Revolu-
tion. Even the cups used at his wedding in the year 1782 were not much larger than a thimble.”’
DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR 73
Frederick County at a public meeting held, June 14, 1774, at Charles Hungerford’s tavern, where the town of Rockville was subsequently established.
During that summer the committees of Charles County and Frederick County considered the case of a ship arrived in St. Mary’s River with a consignment of two chests of tea to Robert Findlay, a merchant in Bladensburg, one to John Ferguson, a factor for Messrs. Findlay & Co., and one chest to Robert Peter, a merchant in Georgetown. These gentlemen were called before the committee, and as the narrative of the affair states, their attention was*called to the passing of the Boston port bill, and also to the sense of America respecting the consequences of receiving such consignments, and they all agreed not to receive the tea, and in case it should be de- livered they would place it in the custody of Messrs. Thomas Johns, William Deakins and Bernard O’Neal to wait the further direction of the committee.!
Thomas Richardson, also a Georgetown merchant, was before the committee on a similar mission and the same disposition was made as was done in the other case and the merchants were thanked for their disinterested behavior. When a vessel arrived in October, 1774, at Annapolis with over 2000 pounds of tea on board, the committee of Ann Arundel County called the consigners before it, and one of them voluntarily offered to burn the ship with its cargo, which was accordingly done. In the meantime the first continental congress had assembled in Philadelphia, Frederick County, being represented by Thomas Johnson, while George Washington was the delegate of the upper Potomac section of Virginia. In the fall of 1774 among the members of the Frederick County committee were Jacob Funk, William Deakins, Bernard O’Neal, Francis Deakins, Brooke Beall, Joseph Threlkeld, Walter Smith and Thomas Beall, all of Georgetown or its vicinity except the first named.
The readiness with which those who had brought tea into the colonies complied with the directions of these committees even at a great pecuniary sacrifice is a sufficient indication of
1 American Archives. 4th Series, Vol. 1, p. 704.
74 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
the state of the public mind, for there is no question that public sentiment, and that too of an aroused and dangerous character, made effective and to a large extent shaped the action of these bodies. A rather unique form of punishment was devised by the committee for the upper portion of Frederick County that met at Elizabethtown, now Hagerstown, Nov. 28, 1774. The case was that of a man who had deceived the committee about the location of a chest of tea sent to him. In view of this latter circumstance the committee decided that he “should go with his hat off and with lighted torches in his hand and set fire to the tea, which he accordingly did. ... The committee was also of the opinion that no further intercourse should be held with him.” ?
As the result of the recommendations of the continental congress, a meeting was held in Upper Marlboro in November, 1774, and a committee was appointed to carry into execution in the county the association of congress. In the list of members of this committee appear the names of William Dea- kins, Sr., John Addison and Thomas Gant, Jr. ?
Towards the close of the year at Annapolis a convention of deputies for the entire state urged an increase in the flocks of sheep in order to promote woollen manufacture; also to use every effort to promote the manufacture of linen and cotton. Further it was resolved “that if the assumed power of parlia- ment to tax the colonies shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force in the Massachusetts colony or in any other colony that the province of Maryland will support such colony to the utmost of its power.”
The resolutions recommended that militia companies be formed. Of the 10,000 pounds to be raised in the state for arms and ammunition the proportion allotted to Prince George County
1 American Archives. 4th Series, Vol. 1, and for much revolution- ary war matter following.
? William Deakins, Sr., was the son of John Deakins, an English- man who came to this country the early part of the seventeenth cen- tury and settled in Maryland. He was a resident of Prince George County. He had three sons, William, Jr., Francis and Leonard, all of whom became residents of Georgetown some time before the revolution.
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DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR 75
was 833 pounds, to Frederick County, 1333 pounds, to Charles County, 800 pounds and to St. Mary’s County, 600 pounds.‘
On the 18th of July, 1774, a meeting of freeholders was held at Alexandria, George Washington presiding. Resolutions were adopted, giving assurance of support to the other colonies in opposition to the duties and making provision for receiving no more taxed goods. At a meeting held the following January, action relative to the formation of a militia was taken similar to that of the Prince George County convention of Maryland. The committee of the latter county had already announced a plan for raising ten companies of sixty-eight men each in the county, and of this number two companies were to be formed at Bladensburg and its neighborhood, one at Broad Creek and one at Upper Marlboro. Notley Young was a member of this committee. It was directed by the Frederick County com- mittee that subscriptions to the quota of the county of the state fund for arms would be raised in Georgetown by William Deakins, Thomas Johns and Walter Smith.
The committee on June 21, 1775, decided to raise two com- panies of expert riflemen to represent Frederick County in the contest with the mother country, which the events at Concord and Lexington a few weeks before had demonstrated was to be submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. One of these companies had as its captain, Michael Cresap, while the other was led by Thomas Price.
Captain Cresap was a frontiersman, and like his father had hunted through the unbroken wilderness of the section of western Maryland that was the gateway to the vaster wilder- ness of the Ohio Valley. In this border-land he had spent his life, and his name had come to be associated in the current talk of the day with the murder of the family of the Indian chief Logan. Jefferson repeated this popular version of the trans- action in his Notes on Virginia, but since then the responsibility for that frontier tragedy has been shown to belong to another.
Captain Cresap’s company left Frederick, July 18, 1775, and marched to Cambridge, where, after travelling five hundred and fifty miles, they arrived August 8. The one hundred and
76 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
.
thirty men forming the company were, like their leader, from the backwoods. The men were painted like Indians, as was the practice of many of the hunters of those days. They were armed with tomahawks and rifles, wore hunting shirts and moccasins and as an eyewitness of their departure from Frederick records, “though some of them had travelled near eight hundred miles from the banks of the Ohio, they seem to walk light and easy.”
“They need nothing,” he adds with pride, “except water from the spring, with a little parched corn, with what they easily procure in hunting.” ?
The battle of Bunker Hill occurred June 17, 1775, and Washington chosen commander-in-chief by congress two days be- fore on the nomination of Thomas Johnson of Frederick County, was in command of the army and welcomed this early reénforce- ment of the Massachusetts militia that then constituted the young army of the new republic.
Scharf, in his History of Western Maryland, says Cresap’s company was the first from the south to reach Cambridge. A company of Virginia riflemen under the command of Captain Daniel Morgan arrived in Cambridge some days later. One of the battalions of Frederick County raised in 1776 was officered largely by residents in and about Georgetown. The colonel was John Murdock, the lieutenant colonel, Thomas Johns, the first major, William Brooke, and the second major, Wil- liam Deakins, Jr. Another local company was commanded by Thomas Richardson, with Alexander McFadden as first lieutenant and John Peter the second lieutenant. One of the companies in the regiment that took part in the defence of Fort Washington and in other engagements around New York City was commanded by Thomas Beall, who subsequently reached the rank of colonel. It was composed of Georgetown men.”
1 American Archives. 4th Series, Vol. 3. Extract of a letter to a gentleman in Philadelphia, dated Frederickstown, Md., Aug. 1, 1775.
?In Vol. 12, Maryland Archives, Md. Council of Safety, p. 352,
is recorded under date of Oct. 15, 1776, the formation of a Georgetown company under command of Richard Smith, Capt., Lieuts. Walter
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DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR a7.
Leonard M. Deakins and his brother Francis Deakins marched from Georgetown in the summer of 1776 at the head of com- panies recruited in and about Georgetown. Uriah Forrest and James M. Lingan, both identified with Georgetown and the city of Washington in later years, served in the revolutionary army. One writer describes the “famous Maryland line”’ as “the backbone of the army.” !
Thomas Johnson of Frederick was elected brigadier-general of the Maryland militia in June, 1776, but owing to his duties as delegate to the continental congress did not serve. He was chosen the first governor of Maryland under the constitution adopted in 1776. The skill of John Yoast of Georgetown was utilized by the Maryland authorities, and a large number of muskets made at his shop were used by the troops. During the summer of 1776 much apprehension was created by the movements of the British war vessels in the lower Potomac, and two actually did ascend the river as far as Quantico, where the troops landed and burned the house of William Brent, and having done “all the mischief in our power,” as Lord Dunmore in command states in an official despatch, the enemy retired.
The growth of the population throughout Frederick County had for some time made the government of such an extended territory too great a strain upon the machinery of a Maryland county and was also a source of inconvenience to the inhab- itants. As soon as the outbreak of the war made it necessary for frequent codperation on the part of its citizens, Frederick County was practically divided to meet the emergency for prompt action. A committee was appointed for the upper portion of the county and one for the lower portion. The central meeting-place for the former was Frederick, while that for the latter was Hungerford’s Tavern, where the town of Rockville was subsequently laid out.
In 1776, when a state constitution was adopted, Frederick White and Thomas Hayes, Ensign, Thomas Sprigg. Some additional
army appointments are in Vol. 16, pp. 296 ana 373. See also Old
Georgetown. Taggart, p. 186. 1 Maryland, proprietary, province and state. Bernard C. Steiner
in Men of Mark of Maryland, Washington, 1907.
78 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
County was divided into three portions, the lower part being erected into the county of Montgomery in honor of General Montgomery, who lost his life in 1775 at Quebec. The central portion was designated as Frederick County, and the upper as Washington County. Rockville was chosen as the county seat, and seven years later notice was given of a petition of the inhabitants of Montgomery County to the assembly, asking for the removal of the court-house from Rockville to George- town, but that petition was not granted.1 As one of the justices of the peace, William Deakins was a member of the first
county court. 1 Maryland Journal, Feb. 26, 1783.
CHAPTER V
RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL, COMMERCIAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
A LITTLE more than a year after the battle of Lexington, Maryland and Virginia organized state governments and adopted constitutions. In both instances a notable feature was the provision for religious liberty, although in the case of Virginia, the declaration of rights drafted by Jefferson, and which fully enunciated the rights of the individual conscience in religious matters, was not adopted until ten years later. In Maryland, the laws providing for the support of the clergy of the Protes- tant Episcopal Church by taxes levied on the entire com- munity were done away with, and the form of church establish- ment in existence in that colony since 1692 came to an end. The struggle in Virginia over the question of the public support of the ministry, where it had the sanction of law from the early days of the colony, was pretracted for three years, until finally in 1779 the system of tithes was abolished, the existing law on the subject having been suspended from year to year since the beginning of the movement towards disestablishment.’
In Virginia the rigor of the laws against protestant dissenters had been modified in 1699 in harmony with the English law passed ten years previously, and which conceded to those taking the oath of allegiance and supremacy and subscribing to a declaration against the real presence the right to worship in their own meeting houses provided such places were regularly registered and the ministers were licensed. But there was no recognition of the rights of Catholics, and Quakers were also outlawed. As a consequence of the legal restrictions, there were but few dissenters in Virginia. It was not until nearly the close
1 Religious Toleration in Virginia. Henry R. Mellvane, J. H. U.
Historical and Political Studies. 12th Series. 79
80 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
.
of the seventeenth century that a Presbyterian church was or- ganized in the colony, and the first dissenting minister legally authorized to preach in Virginia was Rey. Francis Make- mie, who qualified under the toleration act in 1699, and was pastor of a Presbyterian church on the Elizabeth River.?
In Maryland, where toleration in religion had been adopted by Lord Baltimore, the founder of the colony, as it wasin Penn- sylvania under William Penn, the policy had changed, in- fluenced largely no doubt by the bitter and violent contentions and conflicts that marked the reign of the house of Stuart. The rigors of religious intoleration and persecution as ex- pressed in the laws were severe and complete. But it is a pleasant reflection even at this distance of time, that for some years prior tothe revolution, while the laws remained unchanged, their enforcement gradually became less vigorous, owing in part to the common danger felt in communities close to the frontier, as was the case both with Virginia and Maryland during the French and Indian war, and the need of united action with the mother country, so, as one writer declares, “before the adoption of the constitution religious toleration was practically secured.” But the people favored religious liberty, and not merely toleration, and the declaration of that principle was a distinctive feature of the new state governments set up in Maryland and Virginia; so that in these states the penal laws against Catholics were removed from the statute books, as was also done in Pennsylvania and Delaware. The restrictions laid on the freedom of action of the dissenters were removed.
1In an account of the country which Mr. Makemie published in London in 1705, he makes a statement about brick in the new country which gives support to the contention of those who are sceptical on the subject of the importation of this building material into the coun- try from Europe. He says, ‘‘Here are in most places bricks to be made at every man’s door for building.’”” Quoted in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IV, in an account of a book written by Makemie and entitled A Plain and Friendly Persuasive to the Inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland for Promoting Towns and Cohabitations.
2 Religious Toleration in Virginia. Henry R. Mcllvane.
RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 81
The increase in the population of the country along the upper Potomac can be traced to some extent in the develop- ment of the Episcopal Church, which continued to be the es- tablished church in both colonies down to the separation from the mother country. One of the four parishes created in Charles County upon the establishment of the Episcopal Church in Maryland in the year 1692 was Piscataway Parish. It is recorded that the first parish meeting was held at the residence of John Addison at Oxen Run, opposite Alexandria, and a short distance south of the bounds of the District of Columbia.
A church edifice was built three years later near the mouth of Broad Creek, which flows into the Potomac below Fort Foote. It was not until 1712 that the first service was held within the bounds of the District and at that time the rector of Broad Creek Church or St. John’s Church, as it was officially known, was directed to preach in the Eastern Branch Hundred, on Sundays, once a month.!
Seven years later Colonel John Bradford, a member of the vestry of St. John’s, presented for church uses at a meeting of the inhabitants of the Eastern Branch and Rock Creek Hundred one hundred acres of land, which now form the glebe and cemetery of Rock Creek or St. Paul’s Parish. With the Eastern Branch as a dividing line, the country to the north was set off in the year 1726 as Prince George’s Parish. A frame structure was erected on the Bradford tract, but was replaced by the brick structure still standing with the exception of some changes, and which was completed in 1775. In the year 1738 a chapel was built about one mile east of Rockville, which was served by the rector of Rock Creek. About half a mile from the eastern corner of the District on the road from Bladensburg, in the year 1748, a brick chapel was erected called Addison’s Chapel and also St. Matthew’s Chapel.’
1The old English territorial division of one hundred settlers, of whom ten families constituted a tithing. 2 Rise of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the District of Colum- bia. Arthur S. Browne, Coll. Hist. Soc., Vol. 9. VoL. I—@G
82 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
On the south side of the Potomac, where the spread of the population was slower than was the case on the Maryland side, the parish of Fairfax was erected in 1765, when a vestry was chosen, George Washington being of the number. He did not serve, however, as he was elected the same year a vestryman of Pohick Church, which was near his home at Mt. Vernon.
The parish church of Fairfax was known as Falls Church, and was located some six miles to the west of the site of Wash- ington and so named from the proximity of the Little Falls of the Potomac. Here was located a tobacco inspection house, as well as one at Alexandria, but it may be concluded from the placing of the principal church of the parish at the Falls, as it was called, although several miles from the banks of the river, that it was then regarded as more central to the members of the parish than Alexandria, where what was known as a minor church or chapel of ease was located.
Brick structures were erected at both places, the one at Alexandria being completed in 1773. In the latter church a pew was purchased by George Washington, and he was accus- tomed to attend services there, so that the edifice of Christ Church, Alexandria, associated with the first president has always been one of the historic spots in that Virginia town. It stands to-day changed, but much the same as when built. It has escaped the indignity which befell both the Pohick and the Falls churches, in being deserted and left to the mercy of the elements. Both of these latter structures in later years were restored, and are again used asthe pious founders intended.!
The Presbyterian Church gained an early foothold in this locality, due no doubt to the adherents of that denomination from Scotland and Ireland and England that formed a goodly pro- portion of the settlers, as planters, or as factors and merchants.2
As far as the influence of any one man can be traced in the history of the development of the Presbyterian Church in this
? Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia. Bishop Meade, Vol. 2, p. 256, Philadelphia, 1857.
2 Notice of a meeting of The St. Andrew’s Society, Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette, Nov. 28, 1792.
RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 83
region it is recognized that Ninian Beall of Upper Marlboro, as it was then called, or Marlboro, as it is to-day, was a potent fac- tor. A native of Fife, Scotland, he came to this country about 1669 and settled at Marlboro. He lived to the advanced age of one hundred and seven “and was buried probably at Fife Large, one of his farms on the Eastern Branch just beyond Bennings.”’ 4
A man of large business interests and of extensive property holdings, occupying a position of influence in the community, due in part to his services in the struggle of the colony with the Indians, he was able to contribute in means and in ability to advancing the interests of the church with which he was identi- fied. As early as the year 1704 he gave ground at Marlboro where a church building was erected, thus making that church among the earliest of such organizations even in Maryland, where the Presbyterian Church in America had its origin.
Bladensburg, located at the head of the navigation of the Eastern Branch, followed Marlboro, that lay on the parallel stream of the Patuxent in contributing to the growth of the church. An organization was formed there in 1719, nearly a quarter of a century before Bladensburg had become of sufficient importance to be laid out as a town, and while it was still only the tobacco port of Garrison Landing. ‘The minister serving at Bladensburg probably as early as 1787 also held services at Cabin John, some six miles north of Georgetown, which were no doubt attended by the adherents of that denomination living in Georgetown.
A Presbyterian church was erected at the southeast corner of M and 30th streets, Georgetown, in 1782. Rev. Thomas Bloomer Balch served as pastor for the first fifty years of its existence. Dr. Balch married the great-granddaughter of Ninian Beall and granddaughter of George Beall, the owner of the land where the town was located.
1 Reminiscences of Georgetown, D.C. Rev. T. B. Balch, Wash- ington, 1859.
2The Beginnings of the Presbyterian Church in the District of Columbia. Coll. His. Soc., Vol. 8.
84 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
Presbyterian worship began in Alexandria as early as 1764, and a church building was erected there in 1774, which indicates the progress in the relaxation in the enforcement of laws against dissenters in Virginia.
As Catholic worship was forbidden in Maryland, except in private families, or in chapels connected with houses of priests, and was not permitted at all in Virginia, the church prior to the close of the revolutionary war had an uncertain existence.!
Maryland had been from the beginning a mission field for the Jesuit Fathers, and two of them accompanied the first of Lord Baltimore’s settlers to this country. Subsequently, owing to differences of opinion between Lord Baltimore and the Jesuits over the assertion of the latter of the independence of ecclesias- tical law to secular law, he requested that they be recalled and secular clergy sent in their places. The controversy was settled by the Jesuits conceding the position taken by Lord Baltimore.”
The Jesuits continued their missionary labors in Maryland, and among other centres had an establishment at Port Tobacco, some thirty miles south of Washington, and it is supposed that priests from that place visited the Catholic families in and about the District and in private houses performed the offices of the church. The house of Ann Young, and when afterwards oc- cupied by her son, Notley Young, on G Street, S. W., according to tradition was often the scene of religious services, as was that of Richard Queen, erected about 1722, in the northeastern section of the District, where Langdon is situated and where afterwards Queen’s Chapel was built.
Two years before the war for independence broke out, a young priest arrived in this country from Europe. This was Rey. John Carroll, who subsequently rose to the dignity of the head of the Catholic Church in this country and was the first Catholic bishop in America. The brother of Daniel Carroll
1 At the close of the war Bishop Carroll states there were but nine- teen priests in Maryland and five in Pennsylvania. Life and Times of the Most Rev. John Carroll. John G. Shea, New York, 1888.
? Church and State in Early Maryland. By George Petrie. J. H. U. Historical and Political Studies, Series IV.
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RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 85
of Rock Creek, he was born in Upper Marlboro, and when quite a youth went abroad to be educated and subsequently entered the Jesuit order.
Soon after the suppression of that order by the pope, the young priest returned to this country, arriving here in the summer of 1774. He went at once to his mother’s home near Forest Glen, Maryland. Here he gathered a congregation, and soon a church building was erected at Forest Glen known as St. John’s Church. Near the site of the original structure is the present church edifice of St. John, and in the nearby cemetery lie the remains of the bishop’s mother.!
The missionary services of Rev. Mr. Carroll were at this time extended to the locality about Acquia Creek, where his two sisters lived. One had married William Brent, whose home was in Richland, Stafford County, Virginia, and a relative, Robert Brent, who lived at Acquia, was the husband of another sister.2 St. John’s Church was a frame building thirty feet square, and it remained standing as late as the year 1844.3
The first building of which there is authentic record, erected within the bounds of the District for Catholic worship, was built on a lot that was deeded in 1787 by John Threlkeld to Rev. John Carroll, the latter ten years later being created bishop. The site was on the north side of N Street, between 35th and 36th streets, and within a block of the ground that was about the same time acquired by the Jesuits for the loca- tion of what became Georgetown College. The building on N Street was begun in 1788 and completed in 1792, and was used
1The probable date of the erection of the first church building is 1775. ‘‘A room in the manor at Rock Creek was the first church. Soon the erection of St. John’s Church was begun about half a mile from his residence. It was, from all we know, the first church under secular clergy established in Maryland, and the first after St. Peter’s, Baltimore, raised by a congregation which supported a pastor.” Biographical Sketch of the Most Rev. John Carroll. John Carroll Brent, Baltimore, 1848.
2 The same.
3 Life and Times of Bishop Carroll. U.S. Catholic Magazine, III, p. 365.
86 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
.
by the congregation of Trinity Parish, the first pastor of which was Rey. Francis O’Neal. Trinity parochial school now oc- cupies the site of the building.
The first church building erected in Georgetown and the second within the present bounds of the District was located on the site now occupied by the edifice of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at the northwest corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Volta Place. It was then known as a Lutheran church. The lot was a donation from Charles Beatty and George Fraser Hawkins, as expressed in a deed dated May 17, 1770, placing on record their addition to Georgetown of 208 acres of “a part of a tract of land called Knaves Disappointment lying and being in Frederick County, in the province aforesaid and ad- joining Georgetown, formerly the property of Mr. George Gordon, late of Frederick County, deceased.”’ 4
The Maryland act of Dec. 31, 1796, states that the streets and lots of this addition were originally laid out in 1769, and one of the purposes of the deed made in 1770 was to give legal effect to a disposition of the lots through a lottery. A church building of logs was at once erected, and services were held there, but irregularly, as the congregation was too feeble to support a permanent pastor. The building, which had about it a graveyard, fell into decay, and some forty years after its erection was in ruins. A second building was not erected until the year 1835.
Two lots in the town site of Hamburg were assigned by the proprietor, Jacob Funk, in the year 1768 “tothe Dutch Germans in said town of Hamburg,” but this gift was not. utilized until the latter part of the early half of the nineteenth century, when the Concordia German Evangelical Church was or- ganized, and succeeded, after considerable litigation, in mak- ing use of both lots for church purposes, selling one and erecting in 1833 on the other an edifice at the southeast corner
1 Land Record W. folio 254, records of the county clerk’s office of Frederick County, Md. The deed is given in full in the History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Georgetown. Luther Hess Waring
(Washington, 1909], from which other facts of the history of the church are taken.
RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 87
of 20th and G streets, N. W., where is still located the church home.! h .
The Baptist denomination did not begin to get a foothold in this section of the country until after the revolutionary war. As late as the year 1790 only one church of that denomination was found in Maryland, and that had a membership of thirty- two. It was located at Seneca in Montgomery County. At that period there were three Baptist churches in Fairfax County and five in Loudoun County, Va.?
Methodist preachers visited this section of the country as early as 1772, when Francis Asbury, the first bishop of the church in the United States, was among the preachers who found their way to Georgetown. But the society had no place of worship in that place until 1795, when a church edifice was erected in the middle of the block on the east side of 28th Street between N and Olive streets. Taking its new name from its present location, it is now known as the Dumbarton Avenue Church. There is a record also of the visits of early itinerants, both at Alexandria and at Bladensburg.?
While there are no official statistics of the population of the various places in and about the District prior to the first United States Census of 1790, still it is apparent there was a steady growth in the number of the inhabitants, which was especially
1 These provisions for a German population in the vicinity of George- town shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century are curious, and undoubtedly point to an expectation of the direction of the tide of German settlement from the region of the upper Potomac to tide- water. Such expectations were not realized, as the tendency proved to be through the Shenandoah Valley rather than along the shores of the Potomac, although a number of German farmers settled in Loudoun
County, Va., and in the lower part of Frederick County.
2 Annual Register of the Baptist Denomination in North America. John Asplund, 1791.
’'The year 1795 is only a probable date, as it is inferred that ‘the new chapel” in Georgetown mentioned by Bishop Asbury under date of Nov. 2, 1795, refers to a building on this site. The lot, which was No. 17 in Holmead’s addition, was not deeded to the trustees of the church until April 17, 1800. Deed of Anthony Holmead to Lloyd Beall, Richard Parrott, Samuel Williams, Isaac Owens, Richard Beck, George Collard and Peter Miller, trustees. Lib. E. f. 238. Centen- nial Sketch of Methodism in Georgetown. Washington, 1884.
88 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL
marked during the years succeeding the war of the revolution. Evidence of this is found in the establishment of churches. While the needs of the Catholics were supplied by the chapels attached to private houses and one such place of worship served a wide area, the building of Trinity Catholic Church in George- town shows the creation of a new centre.
Up to the year 1794, when Rev. Walter Dulaney Addison, who lived at Oxen Run, opposite Alexandria, began holding services in Georgetown, making use of the Presbyterian Church of that place in the afternoons, Rock Creek Church was evi- dently attended by the residents of Georgetown belonging to that denomination, as their names appear in the list of mem- bers of the early vestries. In 1789, when a lottery was devised for raising the sum of $1500 for the erection of a new building, the names of the following Georgetown citizens appeared in the list of managers: Colonel William Deakins, Robert Peter, Benjamin Stoddert, John Peter, Bernard O’Neil, John Threl- keld and Colonel George Beall, as did that of Anthony Hol- mead, who lived on the east side of Rock Creek. The drawing was announced to be held at John Suter’s Tavern, George- town.
Of that other institution, the school, that shared with the church in raising the standard of life, it did not receive in the states outside of New England the support from public taxa- tion which in later years came to be such a marked feature of public polity in this country. Virginia had an admirable law in its intent which was framed by Thomas Jefferson in 1779 but not adopted by the legislature until 1796. Then the execu- tion of the law was intrusted to the county courts and was not put into effective operation.
The purpose of this measure was to provide free schools in every hamlet or township where the elements of education should be taught. The Maryland act of 1696 provided a free school in each county to be supported by the export duties on furs and skins, while later legislation placed the support of the schools as a charge on the general tax fund. But the
1 Times and Patowmack Packet, Noy. 25, 1789.
RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 89
funds were inadequate, and the schools either sank into decay or else were closed. ’
The condition is illustrated by the course pursued in 1774, when the county schools of St. Mary’s, Charles and Prince George counties were united and the one school became Char- lotte Hall in St. Mary’s County, Md. Such legislation was either in advance of public opinion or of the resources of the community. At any rate, money from public taxation was not provided for the schools, so that the colonial free school was free merely in the sense of teaching the liberal arts and was not the free school as the term was understood in later years in this country. They were the Latin schools or classical academy.!
Scanty and irregular provision was made for the education of the children of the poor by private subscription. General Washington is recorded as an annual subscriber of 50 pounds for the instruction of poor children in Alexandria. Private schools were the only means of securing elementary education in Maryland and Virginia except in the case of those opulent enough to pay for the services of a tutor. A glimpse of the situation is given in a sermon by Rev. Thomas Bacon, rector of St. Peter’s Parish, Talbot County, Md., printed in London in 1751, in which he observes, “Education is hardly to be at- tained at any rate by the children of the poor.”
William and Mary College was established in Williamsburg, Va., in 1693, and in 1782 Washington College was chartered at Charlestown, on the western shore of the Chesapeake, and three years later St. John’s College came into existence at Annapolis. Clergymen commonly combined the duties of teaching with their ministerial work, and at the same time provided a welcome addition to their income. Some of these men rose to eminence in the community. Rev. Samuel Finlay, who in 1761 was chosen president of Princeton College, conducted a famous school at Nottingham, Cecil County, Va. Shortly before 1773 Rev. James Hunt, the Presbyterian minister at Bladens-
1The College of William and Mary. Herbert B. Adams, U. S. Bureau of Education, Contributions to American Educational History.
90 A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL .
burg, opened a school at that place which he subsequently removed to his farm near Rockville. A picture of this school and its teacher has been given us in the fragment of autobi- ography left by William Wirt, famous as a lawyer and writer.
In the year 1797 the prize offered by the American Philo- sophical Society for the best essay on a system of education and also a plan for public schools was divided between Rev. Samuel Knox, a Presbyterian minister at Bladensburg, and Samuel H. Smith of Philadelphia. The latter three years later established the National Intelligencer in the city of Washington.
Rev. Stephen B. Balch conducted the Columbian Academy in Georgetown on the site of 3241 N Street. A graduate of Maris- chal College, Aberdeen, Scotland, Rev. Mr. Allen located in Georgetown about the year 1785, where he taught for years. He followed closely in the wake of the group of seven Scotch families that came to Georgetown about the year 1785 and built their homes on 33d Street, south of M Street, which in after years came to be known as Scotch Row.!
Rey. Walter Dulany Addison, the founder of St. John’s, the first Episcopal church in Georgetown, set up a school at Oxen Run, while he was rector of Broad Creek Church.
Through the initiative of Rev. John Carroll action was taken as early as 1786 for the establishment of a college at Georgetown. At a meeting of the general chapter of the Jesuits in that year, it was decided to provide for the erection of such a school, and a sum of money was appropriated to be raised by the sale of land in Maryland belonging to the order.
In accordance with this action a tract of 115 acres on Deer Creek, Hartford County, was sold and applied to this pur- pose. On this tract a priest’s house and a chapel had been built in 1747. From this source came almost all the funds used in starting the institution, although efforts were made to raise money in England where Rev. Mr. Carroll sent a circular dated March 30, 1787, inviting subscriptions. The progress
1 Reminiscences of Georgetown, D.C. Rev. T. B. Balch, Washing- ton, 1859.
RELIGIOUS, EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS 91
made in the erection of the first building is noted in letters of Rev. Mr. Carroll, who wrote in 1788 that the erection of the college building had been started, and he hoped to see it covered that year. In 1791 he writes, “I trust Georgetown academy will be opened in a few months, Congress has decided to make that neighborhood and perhaps that town their seat.”
The direct tide of the war of the revolution did not reach the locality where the District of Columbia was subsequently fixed. One of the main highways between the north and the south at that time was from Philadelphia and Chester, along the east side of the Chesapeake, crossing the latter at Kent Island opposite Annapolis, and thence to a ferry on the Potomac, a few miles south of Alexandria. This route was followed mainly by the army as it went south to encounter the British in that locality.”
1 Life and Times of the Most Rev. John Carroll. Also The Catholic Church in Colonial Days. John G. Shea. New York, 1885. Rev. Mr. Carroll was one of the clergymen on the board of St. John’s Col- lege that organized that institution. In a letter written in 1790 and quoted in the “‘Life,’’ he says,