the war the dome of the Capitol was raised, and the Treasury and
Patent Office buildings were almost completed. In 1863, the statue of
Freedom was placed upon the dome with imposing ceremony, accompanied
by the salutes of guns of the surrounding forts. The enormous military
population during the war brought greatly increased responsibilities
to the city, and a better realization of its importance to the nation.
From 1860 to 1870, more noteworthy and substantial improvements were
made than had been before undertaken in the whole history of the
city, and the population in this single decade increased from seventy
thousand to 120,000.
With the return of peace the habitual slothfulness returned, and the
old do-nothing policy seemed about to be resumed. But there were a few
energetic citizens in whom the short period of progressiveness had
instilled an unquenchable desire for a better order of things, and
by their untiring energy they prevented a recurrence of the former
stagnation.
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES TREASURY.
FROM THE SOUTHWEST.]
One man in particular seems to have been inspired with a resistless
ambition for the city’s salvation. Around this person--Alexander R.
Shepherd--the little body of reformers rallied their forces.
A territorial form, with a governor, legislature and delegate to
Congress, was created for the District. A Board of Public Works,
appointed by the President with the approval of the Senate, was created
to undertake the remodelling of the city. Subsequently this Board
became the pivot around which the rest of the municipal machinery
revolved. Shepherd was appointed Governor, and under his guidance the
Board immediately began its difficult and thankless task.
The changes which the Board wrought in the city were stupendous. The
result is Washington as it is known to-day. The enormous expense
entailed by the great reconstruction created an opposition which
forced Congress to appoint committees of investigation. The extent
of the Board’s operations are best illustrated by the enlargement
of the District’s debt. The debt of the territory, which in 1871
was but three millions, had risen in 1875 to twenty millions, and of
this “astounding increase only the original loan of four millions was
submitted to the vote of the people, and this, at the time it was voted
on, was understood to include all the main improvements necessary for
remodelling the city.”
[Illustration: ROTUNDA OF THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, WASHINGTON.]
Shepherd, whose master mind had directed the whole undertaking, finally
left the city. When, a few years later, he returned on a visit from
Mexico, his advent was celebrated by the citizens of the new and
beautified capital by demonstrations of welcome so sincere and genuine
as to atone for the former lack of appreciation.
Washington to-day is richer in historic memories than any other city on
the continent. To the literary worker and historian it is a boundless
treasure-house. Standing on the hills of Anacostia, and musing on the
story of Powhatan’s vanished capital, one may read in the surrounding
spires and domes and monuments of the city the eventful story of
Anglo-Saxon triumph in the Western Hemisphere. One smiles now at the
satire of the poet Moore; for the morasses have indeed become parks,
and imposing shrines have been built to commemorate heroes that were
then unborn. In what was once the wilderness of “magnificent distances”
are the palatial houses in brick and granite of men and women
celebrated in letters, in art and in public life. In the galleries of
the Capitol will be found the portraits and memorials of America’s
illustrious dead. In the State Department is to be seen the faded
original of the Declaration of Independence.
The city that Washington founded has become one of venerable memories
and matchless triumphs.
From the “Rome” of Francis Pope the visitor looks down Pennsylvania
Avenue, the Via Sacra of the new world, whereon the men most
illustrious in the annals of the Republic have walked and ridden to
their public offices, and along whose historic thoroughfares the heroes
of great wars have enjoyed their triumphs. Here Lafayette was received
with joyous welcome when, in 1824, he returned to measure the majestic
growth of the Republic during the fifty years that had passed since he
and Washington were comrades in the fight for freedom. As, standing
on the superb terraces on the west front of the Capitol, one views
the monument, the sacred hills of Arlington, the Potomac winding
towards Alexandria, which Adams predicted would become the continent’s
metropolis and greatest export city, the imposing declivities of old
Georgetown, at whose base were once anchored merchant ships from
foreign ports, there passes before the mind a vivid panorama of the
history of the American people. Beauty and majesty have obliterated
the infant city of a hundred years ago. The achievements of science
have mocked many of the ancient prophecies. The canal, starting at
Georgetown, which was to have carried the deliberations of Congress to
the Western world, knows no such use, and the ships that were to crowd
the Potomac are content to moor at railway termini along the Atlantic
coast.
But although applied science has confounded the wisdom of a hundred
years ago, the hopes and dreams of the founder of the capital have
been realized. In 1798, before the Government moved to the new city,
Washington wrote concerning the capital:
“A century hence if this country keeps united, it will produce a city,
though not so large as London, yet of a magnitude inferior to few
others in Europe.”
Had Washington looked down the century and caught the gleam of
the gigantic shaft that attests his glory, and the golden dome of
the Congressional Library, the most superb temple ever reared to
literature, or in an illumined moment beheld the Goddess of Liberty
standing between Heaven and earth and symbolizing freedom for
seventy-five millions of people, he could not have written with loftier
faith in the destiny of the Republic.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON MONUMENT.
LOOKING ACROSS THE “FLATS.”]
Washington is no longer the city of magnificent intentions; it is
Washington the Magnificent.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
RICHMOND ON THE JAMES
BY WILLIAM WIRT HENRY
“And in regions far
Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we come,
And plant our name
Under that star
Not known to our North.”
DRAYTON.
On the 11th of April, 1606, a patent was issued by James I. of England
to Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers and others for the establishment
of a colony in Virginia. The charter prescribed that it was to be
managed by a council of thirteen persons, under the direction of a
council of thirteen in England. On December the 19th of that year, one
hundred and nine years after the discovery of North America by Cabot,
three small vessels, the _Susan Constant_, the _God Speed_ and the
_Discovery_, sailed for the New World, bearing one hundred and twelve
passengers and a crew of thirty-nine men.
They encountered many perils by sea, having bad weather and losing
their reckoning, but the 26th of April, 1607, brought them to the
shores of Chesapeake Bay, and they soon entered a noble stream called
by the natives the “Powhatan,” but renamed by them the James, in
honor of their King. On the 13th of May, they landed on a spot which
seemed suitable for a settlement, and called the place Jamestown.
The colony previously planted at Roanoke Island by Sir Walter
Raleigh having perished, this was the beginning of the permanent
Anglo-Saxon occupation of North America. From it has developed English
possession of the continent with free institutions based upon English
representative government.
In 1619, a General Assembly was held, which was the first legislative
body elected by the people to convene this side of the Atlantic. It
was an English acorn germinating in American soil, and from it has
sprung the tree of liberty which has filled the continent. Among the
colonists who landed at Jamestown, was the celebrated Captain John
Smith, who was destined later to be snatched from the jaws of death
by the lovely Indian princess, Pocahontas. From the story of his life,
told by himself, and the Rev. Samuel Purchas in his _Pilgrims_, we
learn that he had already been the hero of many adventures. He had been
robbed, had encountered pirates, and had been shipwrecked at sea. He
had slain three Turks in single combat while serving under Sigismundus
Báthori, the Prince of Transylvania. He had been beloved by the fair
Turkish lady, Tragabigzanda, besides having had many other _affaires du
cœur_--notably one with the good lady Calamata of Russia.
[Illustration: GRAVE OF POWHATAN ON THE JAMES.]
Nine days after the landing of the colony at Jamestown, and thirteen
years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Captain
Newport, with Smith and a party of men, ascended the James River,
and discovered the site of the city of Richmond. In Smith’s _True
Relation_, printed in London in 1608, he says:
“The two and twenty day of April [or rather May, 1607] Captain
Newport and myselfe with diuers others to the number of twenty-two
persons, set forward to discouer the Riuer some fiftie or sixtie
miles.... In the midway, staying to refresh ourselues in a little Ile
foure or fiue savages came vnto vs which described vnto vs the course
of the Riuer, and after, in our journey, they often met vs, trading
with vs for such provision as wee had, and arriuing at Arsatecke,
hee whom wee supposed to bee the Chiefe King of all the rest, moste
kindely entertained vs, giuing vs a guide to go with vs vp the riuer
Powhatan, of which place their Great Emperor taketh his name, where
he they honored for King used vs kindlly.
“But to finish this discouerie, we passed on further, where within
an ile [a mile] we were intercepted with great craggy stones in the
midst of the river, where the water falleth so rudely and with such
violence, as not any boat can possibly passe, and so broad disperseth
the streame as there is not past fiue or sixe foote at low water, and
to the shore scarce passage with a barge.”
This was the first view had by Englishmen of the situation where the
city of Richmond was located.
In September, 1609, when Smith was president, he set out to find a
more favorable spot for the colony than marshy Jamestown. He sailed
again to the Indian village Powhatan, at the falls of the river, and
bought of the natives some land near the present site of Richmond,
where the landscape presented such charming features that he called the
place “None Such.” On his way home he was wounded by the explosion of
a bag of gunpowder, and the next month he left the colony and sailed
for England, leaving only a small settlement to occupy the site he
had purchased. In 1645, “Fforte Charles” was built below the falls of
the James, but no permanent settlement was effected. In 1675, Colonel
William Byrd was granted 7351 acres of land beginning at the mouth
of Shockoe’s Creek, which joins the river at the falls, and again,
in 1687, he had a patent of 956 acres on the east side of the creek,
extending up and down the line of the James River. On a part of these
two tracts the present city of Richmond was founded some years later
by his son, Colonel William Evelyn Byrd, who gives this account in his
journal:
“Sept. 19th, 1733. When we got home we laid the foundation of two
large cities,--One at Schocco’s, to be called Richmond, and the other
at the Point of Appamattuck River to be nam’d Petersburgh. These
Major Mayo offered to lay out into lots without fee or reward. The
truth of it is these two places being the uppermost landing of James
and Appamattuck Rivers, are naturally intended for Marts where the
traffick of the outer inhabitants must Center. Thus we did not build
Castles only, but also citys in the air.”
He also advertised in the Virginia _Gazette_ of April, 1737, “that on
the north side of James River, near the uppermost landing and a little
below the falls, is lately built by Major Mayo a town called Richmond
with streets sixty feet wide in a pleasant and healthy situation, and
well supplied with springs of good water.”
[Illustration: COLONEL WILLIAM EVELYN BYRD.
FROM A PAINTING BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.]
The founder of Richmond was one of the worthiest and most
intellectual men in the Colony of Virginia. His portrait, by Sir
Godfrey Kneller, shows a face of remarkable beauty, framed in the curls
of a flowing peruke of the time of Queen Anne. He was noted as “the
Great Virginia wit,” and his writings are among the most valuable that
have descended to us from that era. His library was the largest that
had ever been brought over to the New World. A catalogue of it, in
folio, is now in possession of the Franklin Library in Philadelphia. He
was the father of the beautiful Evelyn Byrd, whose death of a broken
heart because her father refused to give his consent to her marriage
with her lover--said to have been Lord Peterborough--has furnished
a theme for poet and novelist. He was buried at his family estate,
Westover, and his tombstone, in the old flower garden there, not only
gives a history of his life, but tells us also of several of his noble
and illustrious friends and their good qualities.
Richmond was established as a town by the Assembly of Virginia in 1742.
Originally built on seven hills, it has been called the “Modern Rome,”
and one of Richmond’s gifted daughters once wrote:
“O Richmond! Richmond! Richmond!
Upon thy seven hills
Like one of old, we wot of well
Thy fame the wide world fills.”
In 1842, when Dickens visited Richmond, it already covered yet another
hill, and he wrote of it as
“delightfully situated on eight hills overhanging James River, a
sparkling stream studded here and there with bright islands, or
brawling over broken rocks. There are pretty villas and cheerful
houses on its streets, and nature smiles upon the country ’round.”
The oldest house in Richmond, the “Old Stone House,” situated on Main
Street, was built by Jacob Ege in 1737, and is now used as a museum
filled with relics and curiosities.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, which was built in 1740, is in a
state of excellent preservation, and religious services are held
in it as they were in the days before the Revolution. It was built
under the superintendence of Richard Randolph of Curls Neck, the
son of William Randolph of Turkey Island and Jane Bolling, the
great-great-granddaughter of Pocahontas. In its graveyard are many
quaint old tombstones--the oldest, that of the Rev. Robert Rose, is
dated 1751. The learned and accomplished George Wythe, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, and many other famous sons
of Virginia lie buried in the graveyard. The most interesting event
in the history of the Church, and one with which its name will be
forever linked, was the meeting within its walls of the famous Virginia
Convention of March 20, 1775. A few months after the adjournment of
the first Continental Congress, this convention met to hear a report
of its proceedings, and to deliberate on the political situation. The
bitter hostility to the patriots on the part of Lord Dunmore made it
unsafe for them to meet in Williamsburg, the capital of the colony, and
the importance and sacredness of the cause made it appropriate to meet
in the sanctuary of God, to whom they humbly looked for guidance on
their sea of troubles. The vestry recognized this, and offered to the
convention this, the largest building in the town. It was during the
session of this convention that Patrick Henry made his famous speech,
in which he proclaimed the folly of longer expecting peace, and the
necessity of arming for immediate war, ending with the words: “Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” The very spot
where the orator stood is pointed out.
[Illustration: OLD STONE HOUSE, BUILT IN 1737.]
Some six years later, January 6, 1781, Benedict Arnold, the traitor,
entered the city at the head of nine hundred British soldiers. That
night part of his troops were quartered in the old church, desecrating
it as far as they were able.
In 1779, the Legislature ordered the removal of the seat of government
from Williamsburg to Richmond, then only a collection of disjointed
villages placed amid the ragged ground at the falls of the James.
Virginia had been settled largely by sons of country gentlemen, who
brought from their far-off homes the love of country life. Her citizens
preferred that life, and the title “Country Gentlemen” was the most
desired. In consequence there were no large cities in the State.
In 1781, the Marquis Chastellux, who served with honor in the French
army, thus described the city:
“Though Richmond be already an old town and well situated for trade,
being built on the spot where the James River begins to be navigable,
that is, just below the rapids. It was before the war one of the
least considerable in Virginia, where they are all in general very
small, but the seat of the government being removed from Williamsburg
it is become a real capital, and is augmenting every day.”
[Illustration: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF RICHMOND.]
In 1782, Richmond was incorporated as a city, and three years later
the foundations of the Capitol were laid. Especially beautiful in the
summer months, when the grass is as green as emerald and the noble
trees give grateful shade, is the Capitol Square. Squirrels play as
if at home about the grounds, much to the delight of the children.
The square, with its area of about twelve acres, includes the lot on
which the Executive mansion stands, and is supposed to be a part of
Nathaniel Bacon’s plantation, where his overseer was murdered by the
Indians, whose punishment by him, without permission of the Governor,
Sir William Berkeley, was the beginning of the famous Bacon’s rebellion.
Of the Capitol itself, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“I was written to in 1785, being then in Paris, by Directors
appointed to superintend the building of a Capitol in Richmond, to
advise them as to a plan.
* * * * *
Thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing into the State an
example of the classic style of antiquity, and the Maison Quarrée of
Nismes, an ancient Roman Temple, being considered as the most perfect
model existing of what may be called Cubic architecture, I applied
to M. Clerissault, who had published drawings of the antiquities
at Nismes to have me a model of the building made in stucco, only
changing the order from the Corinthian to Ionic on account of the
difficulty of Corinthian Capitals.”
The model sent by Jefferson is still preserved, and looks like a
miniature of the Capitol with very slight variations. Jefferson says
of it: “Here I am gazing whole hours at the Maison Quarrée like a lover
at his mistress.”
The corner-stone was laid in 1785, and on October 19, 1789, eight years
to the day after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, the
Legislature convened in it.
The Capitol is full of memories of bygone days. Here were debated and
adopted the famous resolutions of 1798-99, drafted by James Madison as
the true interpretation of the Federal compact. Here sat the convention
of 1829-30, of which Marshall, Madison, Monroe and John Randolph of
Roanoke were members, the convention of 1851, which enlarged the right
of suffrage and, ten years later, the body which adopted the Act of
Secession. Here, in 1862, met the congress of the Confederate States
of America, which sat until April, 1865, when it adjourned--“Not _sine
die_ indeed, yet never to meet again.”
In the rotunda of the Capitol is the most valuable marble in America,
Houdon’s statue of Washington, modelled from life. Virginia had voted
this statue to him May 15, 1784, and Madison penned the inscription
which appears on the pedestal:
“The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia have caused
this statue to be erected as a monument of affection and gratitude
to George Washington, who uniting to the endowments of the hero,
the virtues of the patriot, and exercising both in establishing the
liberties of his country, has rendered his name dear to his fellow
citizens, and given to the world an immortal example of true glory.”
Mr. Jefferson, being then in Paris, engaged Houdon to come to Virginia
to make the statue, saying of him: “He is without rivalship, the first
statuary of his age, as proof of which he receives orders from every
other country for things intended to be capital.”
It is a tradition that Houdon spent several days at Mount Vernon
before he selected the attitude for the statue. One day Washington was
summoned to inspect a pair of horses offered for sale. He asked their
price, and was told “a thousand dollars.” At once he drew himself up,
with an expression of indignation at the price, and Houdon, watching
him, exclaimed, “Ah, I ’ave him, I ’ave him!” and immediately set to
work to make the pose immortal.
In the Capitol grounds stands Crawford’s famous equestrian statue of
the great hero.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON MONUMENT AND CAPITOL, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.]
Thomas Crawford, father of F. Marion Crawford, the distinguished
novelist of our day, had received an order from the State of Virginia
to make this statue of Washington and also to make effigies of Thomas
Jefferson and Patrick Henry to stand at its base. He had just completed
his work when he was afflicted with a mortal disease, and when an
order came to add the figures of Mason, Marshall, Nelson and Lewis he
was unable to fill it, and the monument was subsequently completed by
Randolph Rogers. The statue was unveiled February 22, 1858, the one
hundred and twenty-sixth anniversary of Washington’s birth, and a proud
day it was in the history of Richmond. Henry A. Wise, Governor of the
State, presided and delivered an eloquent address. Senator R. M. T.
Hunter was the orator of the occasion, and John R. Thompson and James
Barron Hope, who were then the “rose and expectancy of the State,”
recited poems prepared by them. It is considered one of the best
equestrian statues in the world.
A fine marble statue of Henry Clay, executed by Joel T. Hart and
erected by the efforts of some patriotic ladies, stands near by.
Contemporaries of Mr. Clay pronounced it lifelike. Virginia claims Mr.
Clay for a son, as he was born in Hanover County, and did not move to
Kentucky until he reached manhood.
[Illustration: HENRY CLAY.]
On the Capitol grounds is an old building known as the Bell House
which, though erected many years previous, is chiefly interesting for
its association with the Civil War. The bell had been purchased in
1790, when the Directors of Public Buildings were authorized to “fit up
a sufficient bell for the use of the Capitol.” Tradition says the bell
rang an alarm at the time of the “Nat Turner” insurrection, but it is
consecrated to the trying times of 1861 to 1865 as is no other object
connected with the Civil War. When its well-known peal rang out three
quick taps and an interval, soldiers and citizens, old men and young,
rushed with common impulse to the rendezvous, with hearts and hands
ready for the defence of the city.
There is also on the grounds a statue of the great soldier, Thomas
J. Jackson, executed by Foley, the celebrated English sculptor, and
presented to Virginia by some of his English admirers. Old soldiers say
of this, that it is the best likeness extant of their great leader.
“Look! there is Jackson, standing like a stone wall,” is inscribed on
the pedestal.
One of the most interesting sites in the city is that now occupied by
the Monumental Church, on Broad Street, on what was formerly known
as Academy Square. Here a certain Chevalier Quesnay de Beaurepaire
erected a large wooden building for an academy of fine arts. He was
full of enthusiasm, and visited Paris to present his plan to the French
Academy, which body gave their approval, but his scheme failed and the
building was turned into a theatre. Here assembled in 1788 a brilliant
coterie of statesmen--Marshall, Madison, Mason, Monroe, Randolph,
Henry, Lee, Wythe, Pendleton and others, who met to discuss and finally
ratify the Constitution of the United States as framed in Philadelphia.