THE HISTORY OF THE ASSASSINATION AND DEATH OF PRESIDENT JAMES A.
GARFIELD—THE GREAT TRAGEDY OF THE AGE.
Inauguration of President Garfield—Kissing His Venerable
Mother—Chief Magistrate of Fifty Million People—Illness of Mrs.
President Garfield—Tender Solicitude of the President for the
Welfare of His Wife—She Goes to Long Branch—The President’s
Plans to Meet Her—His Arrival at the Depot of the Baltimore and
Potomac R. R. at Washington—His Buoyant Spirits—Joyous
Anticipation of Meeting His Wife—The Assassin Lying in Wait—The
Fatal Shot—Tremendous Excitement—The Wounded President—His
Assassin, Charles J. Guiteau—Who He is—His Infamous Appearance
and Character—His Cool Deliberation—His Capture and
Imprisonment—A Thrill of Horror Throughout the Country—Removal
of the President to the White House—Arrival of Mrs.
Garfield—Her Courage and Devotion—The Fight for Life—Anxious
Days—Removal of the Wounded President to Long Branch—A
Remarkable Ride—Great Anxiety Throughout the Country—Fighting
Death—Slowly Sinking—After Eighty Days of Unparalleled
Suffering the President Breathes His Last—Grief and Gloom
throughout the Land—The Whole Civilized World in
Tears—Unprecedented Funeral and Memorial Honors—His Burial at
Cleveland—Attendance of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand
People—His Life and Character Reviewed, 606
Ten Years in Washington.
----------
CHAPTER I.
FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.
The Young Surveyor’s Dream—Humboldt’s View of Washington—A Vision
of the Future Capital—The United States Government on
Wheels—Ambitious Offers—The Rival Rivers—Potomac Wins—Battles in
Congress—Patriotic Offers of Territory—Temporary Lodgings for Eleven
Years—Old-Fashioned Simplicity—He Couldn’t Afford Furniture—A Great
Man’s Modesty—Conflicting Claims—Smith Backs Baltimore—A Convincing
Fact—The Dreadful Quakers—A Condescending Party—A Slight
Amendment—An Old Bill Brought to Light Again—The Indian Place with
the Long Name—Secession Threatened—The Future Strangely
Foreshadowed—A Dinner of Some Consequence—How it was Done—Really a
Stranger—A Nice Proposal—Sweetening the Pill—A “Revulsion of
Stomach”—Fixed on the Banks of the Potomac.
More than a century ago a young surveyor, Captain of the Virginia
troops, camped with Braddock’s forces upon the hill now occupied by the
Washington Observatory, looked down as Moses looked from Nebo upon the
promised land, until he saw growing before his prophetic sight the city
of the future, the Capital of a vast and free people then unborn. This
youth was George Washington. The land upon which he gazed was the
undreamed of site of the undreamed of city of the Republic, then to be.
This youth, ordained of God to be the Father of the Republic, was the
prophet of its Capital. He foresaw it, he chose it, he served it, he
loved it; but as a Capital he never entered it.
Gazing from the green promontory of Camp Hill, what was the sight of
land and water upon which the youthful surveyor looked down? It was fair
to see, so fair that Humboldt declared after traveling around the earth,
that for the site of a city the entire globe does not hold its equal. On
his left rose the wooded hights of Georgetown. On his right, the hills
of Virginia stretched outward toward the ocean. From the luxurious
meadows which zoned these hills, the Potomac River—named by the Indians
Cohonguroton, River of Swans—from its source in the Alleghany Mountains,
flowing from north-west to south-west, here expanded more than the width
of a mile, and then in concentrated majesty rolled on to meet Chesapeake
Bay, the river James, and the ocean. South and east, flowing to meet it,
came the beautiful Anacostin, now called Eastern Branch, and on the
west, winding through its picturesque bluffs, ran the lovely Rock Creek,
pouring its bright waters into the Potomac, under the Hights of
Georgetown. At the confluence of these two rivers, girdled by this
bright stream, and encompassed by hills, the young surveyor looked
across a broad amphitheatre of rolling plain, still covered with native
oaks and undergrowth. It was not these he saw. His prescient sight
forecast the future. He saw the two majestic rivers bearing upon their
waters ships bringing to these green shores the commerce of many
nations. He saw the gently climbing hills crowned with villas, and in
the stead of oaks and undergrowth, broad streets, a populous city,
magnificent buildings, outrivaling the temples of antiquity—the Federal
City, the Capital of the vast Republic yet to be! The dreary camp, the
weary march, privation, cold, hunger, bloodshed, revolution, patient
victory at last, all these were to be endured, outlived, before the
beautiful Capital of his future was reached. Did the youth foresee
these, also? Many toiling, struggling, suffering years bridged the dream
of the young surveyor and the first faint dawn of its fulfillment.
After the Declaration of Independence, before the adoption of the
Constitution of the United States, its government moved slowly and
painfully about on wheels. As the exigencies of war demanded, Congress
met at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Lancaster, York, Princeton, Annapolis,
Trenton, and New York. During these troubled years it was the ambition
of every infant State to claim the seat of government. For this purpose
New York offered Kingston; Rhode Island, Newport; Maryland, Annapolis;
Virginia, Williamsburg.
June 21, 1783, Congress was insulted at Philadelphia by a band of
mutineers, which the State authorities could not subdue. The body
adjourned to Princeton; and the troubles and trials of its itinerancy
caused the subject of a permanent national seat of government to be
taken up and discussed with great vehemence from that time till the
formation of the Constitution. The resolutions offered, and the votes
taken in these debates, indicate that the favored site for the future
Capital lay somewhere between the banks of the Delaware and the
Potomac—“near Georgetown,” says the most oft-repeated sentence. October
30, 1784, the subject was discussed by Congress, at Trenton. A long
debate resulted in the appointment of three commissioners, with full
power to lay out a district not exceeding three, nor less than two miles
square, on the banks of either side of the Delaware, for a Federal town,
with power to buy soil and to enter into contracts for the building of a
Federal House, President’s house, house for Secretaries, etc.
Notwithstanding the adoption of this resolution, these Commissioners
never entered upon their duties. Probably the lack of necessary
appropriations did not hinder them more than the incessant attempts made
to repeal the act appointing the Commissioners, and to substitute the
Potomac for the Delaware, as the site of the anticipated Capital.
Although the name of President Washington does not appear in these
controversies, even then the dream of the young surveyor was taking on
in the President’s mind the tangible shape of reality. First, after the
war for human freedom and the declaration of national independence, was
the desire in the heart of George Washington that the Capital of the new
Nation whose armies he had led to triumph, should rise above the soil of
his native Dominion, upon the banks of the great river where he had
foreseen it in his early dream. That he used undue influence with the
successive Congresses which debated and voted on many sites, not the
slightest evidence remains, and the nobility of his character forbids
the supposition. But the final decision attests to the prevailing
potency of his preferences and wishes, and the immense pile of
correspondence which he has left behind on the subject, proves that next
to the establishment of its independence, was the Capital of the
Republic dear to the heart of George Washington. May 10, 1787,
Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Georgia voted for, and New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland against the proposition of Mr. Lee
of Virginia, that the Board of Treasury should take measures for
erecting the necessary public buildings for the accommodation of
Congress, at Georgetown, on the Potomac River, as soon as the soil and
jurisdiction of said town could be obtained.
Many and futile were the battles fought by the old Congress, for the
site of the future Capital. These battles doubtless had much to do with
Section 8, Article 1, of the Constitution of the United States, which
declares that Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive
legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding
ten miles square,) as may, by cession of particular States and the
acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United
States. This article was assented to by the convention which framed the
Constitution, without debate. The adoption of the Constitution was
followed spontaneously by most munificent acts on the part of several
States. New York appropriated its public buildings to the use of the new
government, and Congress met in that city April 6, 1789. On May 15,
following, Mr. White from Virginia, presented to the House of
Representatives a resolve of the Legislature of that State, offering to
the Federal government ten miles square of its territory, in any part of
that State, which Congress might choose as the seat of the Federal
government. The day following, Mr. Seney presented a similar act from
the State of Maryland. Memorials and petitions followed in quick
succession from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The resolution of
the Virginia Legislature begged for the co-operation of Maryland,
offering to advance the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
to the use of the general government toward erecting public buildings,
if the Assembly of Maryland would advance two-fifths of a like sum.
Whereupon the Assembly of Virginia immediately voted to cede the
necessary soil, and to provide seventy-two thousand dollars toward the
erection of public buildings. “New York and Pennsylvania gratuitously
furnished elegant and convenient accommodations for the government”
during the eleven years which Congress passed in their midst, and
offered to continue to do the same. The Legislature of Pennsylvania went
further in lavish generosity, and voted a sum of money to build a house
for the President. The house which it built was lately the University of
Pennsylvania. The present White House is considered much too
old-fashioned and shabby to be the suitable abode of the President of
the United States. A love of ornate display has taken the place of early
Republican simplicity. When George Washington saw the dimensions of the
house which the Pennsylvanians were building for the President’s
Mansion, he informed them at once that he would never occupy it, much
less incur the expense of buying suitable furniture for it. In those
Spartan days it never entered into the head of the State to buy
furniture for the “Executive Mansion.” Thus the Chief Citizen, instead
of going into a palace like a satrap, rented and furnished a modest
house belonging to Mr. Robert Morris, in Market street. Meanwhile the
great battle for the permanent seat of government went on unceasingly
among the representatives of conflicting States. No modern debate, in
length and bitterness, has equalled this of the first Congress under the
Constitution. Nearly all agreed that New York was not sufficiently
central. There was an intense conflict concerning the relative merits of
Philadelphia and Germantown; Havre de Grace and a place called Wright’s
Ferry, on the Susquehanna; Baltimore on the Patapsco, and Connogocheague
on the Potomac. Mr. Smith proclaimed Baltimore, and the fact that its
citizens had subscribed forty thousand dollars for public buildings. The
South Carolinians cried out against Philadelphia because of its majority
of Quakers who, they said, were eternally dogging the Southern members
with their schemes of emancipation. Many others ridiculed the project of
building palaces in the woods. Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts declared that
it was the hight of unreasonableness to establish the seat of government
so far south that it would place nine States out of the thirteen so far
north of the National Capital; while Mr. Page protested that New York
was superior to any place that he knew for the orderly and decent
behavior of its inhabitants, an assertion, sad to say, no longer
applicable to the city of New York.
September 5, 1789, a resolution passed the House of Representatives
“that the permanent seat of the government of the United States ought to
be at some convenient place on the banks of the Susquehanna, in the
State of Pennsylvania.” The passage of this bill awoke the deepest ire
in the members from the South. Mr. Madison declared that if the
proceedings of that day could have been foreseen by Virginia, that State
would never have _condescended to become a party to the Constitution_.
Mr. Scott remarked truly: “The future tranquillity and well being of the
United States depended as much on this as on any question that ever had
or ever could come before Congress;” while Fisher Ames declared that
every principle of pride and honor, and even of patriotism, was engaged
in the debate.
The bill passed the House by a vote of thirty-one to nineteen. The
Senate amended it by striking out “Susquehanna,” and inserting a clause
making the permanent seat of government Germantown, Pennsylvania,
provided the State of Pennsylvania should give security to pay one
hundred thousand dollars for the erection of public buildings. The House
agreed to these amendments. Both Houses of Congress agreed upon
Germantown as the Capital of the Republic, and yet the final passage of
the bill was hindered by a slight amendment.
June 28, another old bill was dragged forth and amended by inserting “on
the River Potomac, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern
Branch and the Connogocheague.” This was finally passed, July 16, 1790,
entitled “An Act establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the
government of the United States.” The word temporary applied to
Philadelphia, whose disappointment in not becoming the final Capital was
to be appeased by Congress holding their sessions there till 1800, when,
as a member expressed it, “they were to go to the Indian place with the
long name, on the Potomac.”
Human bitterness and dissension were even then rife in both Houses of
Congress. The bond which bound the new Union of States together was
scarcely welded, and yet secession already was an openly uttered threat.
An amendment had been offered to the funding act, providing for the
assumption of the State debts to the amount of twenty-one millions,
which was rejected by the House. The North favored assumption and the
South opposed it. Just then reconciliation and amity were brought about
between the combatants precisely as they often are in our own time, over
a well-laid dinner table, and a bottle of rare old wine. Jefferson was
then Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the
Treasury. Hamilton thought that the North would yield and consent to the
establishment of the Capital on the Potomac, if the South would agree to
the amendment to assume the State debts. Jefferson and Hamilton met
accidentally in the street, and the result of their half an hour’s walk
“backward and forward before the President’s door” was the next day’s
dinner party, and the final, irrevocable fixing of the National Capital
on the banks of the Potomac. How it was done, as an illustration of
early legislation, which has its perfect parallel in the legislation of
the present day, can best be told in Jefferson’s own words, quoted from
one of his letters. He says: “Hamilton was in despair. As I was going to
the President’s one day I met him in the street. He walked me backward
and forward before the President’s door for half an hour. He painted
pathetically the temper into which the legislature had been wrought; the
disgust of those who were called the creditor States; the danger of the
secession of their members, and the separation of the States. He
observed that the members of the administration ought to act in concert
... that the President was the centre on which all administrative
questions finally rested; that all of us should rally around him and
support by joint efforts measures approved by him, ... that an appeal
from me to the judgment and discretion of some of my friends might
effect a change in the vote, and the machine of government now
suspended, might be again set in motion. I told him that I was really a
stranger to the whole subject, not having yet informed myself of the
system of finance adopted ... that if its rejection endangered a
dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, I should deem that the
most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all partial and
temporary evils should be yielded.
“I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and I would
invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together and I
thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly,
could fail by _some mutual sacrifices of opinion to form a compromise
which was to save the Union_. The discussion took place.... It was
finally agreed to, that whatever importance had been attached to the
rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of
concord among the States was more important, and that therefore it would
be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded to effect which
some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this
pill would be _peculiarly bitter to Southern States, and that some
concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them_.
There had before been a proposition to fix the seat of government either
at Philadelphia or Georgetown on the Potomac, and it was thought that by
giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently
afterward, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment
which might be excited by the other measure alone. So two of the Potomac
members, [White and Lee,] but White with a revulsion of stomach almost
convulsive, agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton agreed to carry
the other point ... and so the assumption was passed,” and the permanent
Capital fixed on the banks of the Potomac.
CHAPTER II.
CROSS PURPOSES AND QUEER SPECULATIONS.
Born of Much Bother—Long Debates and Pamphlets—Undefined
Apprehensions—Debates on the Coming City—Old World Examples—Sir
James Expresses an Opinion—A Dream of the Distant West—An Old-time
Want—A Curious Statement of Fact—“Going West”—Where is the Centre of
Population—An Important Proclamation—Original Land Owners—Well-worn
Patents—Getting on with Pugnacious Planters—Obstinate David Burns—A
“Widow’s Mite” of Some Magnitude—How the Scotchman was
Subjugated—“If You Hadn’t Married the Widow Custis”—A Rather
“Forcible Argument”—His Excellency “Chooses”—The First Record in
Washington—Old Homes and Haunts—Purchase of Land—Extent of the City.
As we have seen, the Federal City was the object of George Washington’s
devoted love long before its birth. It was born through much
tribulation. First came the long debates and pamphlets of 1790, as to
whether the seat of the American government should be a commercial
capital. Madison and his party argued that the only way to insure the
power of exclusive legislation to Congress as accorded by the
Constitution, was to remove the Capital as far from commercial interests
as possible. They declared that the exercise of this authority over a
large mixed commercial community would be impossible. Conflicting
mercantile interests would cause constant political disturbances, and
when party feelings ran high, or business was stagnant, the commercial
capital would swarm with an irritable mob brim full of wrongs and
grievances. This would involve the necessity of an army standing in
perpetual defense of the capital. London and Westminster were cited as
examples where the commercial importance of a single city had more
influence on the measures of government than the whole empire outside.
Sir James Macintosh was quoted, wherein he said “that a great metropolis
was to be considered as the heart of a political body—as the focus of
its powers and talents—as the direction of public opinion, and,
therefore, as a strong bulwark in the cause of freedom, or as a powerful
engine in the hands of an oppressor.” To prevent the Capital of the
Republic becoming the latter the Constitution deprived it of the
elective franchise. The majority in Congress opposed the idea of a great
commercial city as the future Capital of the country. Nevertheless when
a plan for the city was adopted it was one of exceptional magnificence.
It was a dream of the founders of the Capital to build a city expressly
for its purpose and to build it for centuries to come. In view of the
vast territory now comprehended in the United States their provision for
the future may seem meagre and limited. But when we remember that there
were then but thirteen States, that railroads and telegraphs were
undreamed of as human possibilities—that nearly all the empire west of
the Potomac was an unpenetrated wilderness, we may wonder at their
prescience and wisdom, rather than smile at their lack of foresight.
Even in that early and clouded morning there were statesmen who foresaw
the later glory of the West fore-ordained to shine on far off
generations. Says Mr. Madison: “If the calculation be just that we
double in fifty years we shall speedily behold an astonishing mass of
people on the western waters.... The swarm does not come from the
southern but from the northern and eastern hives. I take it that the
centre of population will rapidly advance in a south-westerly direction.
It must then travel from the Susquehanna if it is now found there—_it
may even extend beyond the Potomac_!”
Said Mr. Vining to the House, “I confess I am in favor of the Potomac. I
wish the seat of government to be fixed there because I think the
interest, the honor, and the greatness of the country require it. From
thence, it appears to me, that the rays of government will naturally
diverge to the extremities of the Union. I declare that I look upon the
western territories from an awful and striking point of view. To that
region the unpolished sons of the earth are flowing from all
quarters—men to whom the protection of the laws and the controlling
force of the government are equally necessary.”
In the course of the debate Mr. Calhoun called attention to the fact
that very few seats of government in the world occupied central
positions in their respective countries. London was on a frontier, Paris
far from central, the capital of Russia near its border. Even at that
early date comparatively small importance was attached to a geographical
centre of territory as indispensable to the location of its capital. The
only possible objection to a capital near the sea-board was then noted
by Mr. Madison who said, “If it were possible to promulgate our laws by
some instantaneous operation, it would be of less consequence where the
government might be placed,” a possibility now fulfilled by the daily
news from the Capital which speeds to the remotest corner of the great
land not only with the swiftness of lightning but by lightning itself.
Although the States have more than doubled since the days of this first
discussion on where the Capital of the United States should be, it is a
curious fact that the centre of population has not traveled westward in
any proportionate ratio. According to a table calculated by Dr.
Patterson of the United States mint, in 1840 the centre of population
was then in Harrison County, Virginia, one hundred and seventy-five
miles west of the city of Washington. At that time the average progress
westward since 1790 had been, each ten years, thirty-four miles. “This
average has since increased, but if it be set down at fifty miles, it
will require a century to carry this centre five hundred miles west of
Washington, or as far as the city of Nashville, Tennessee.” I state this
fact for the benefit of crazy capital-movers who are in such haste to
set the Capital of the Nation in the centre of the Continent.
I have given but a few of the questions which were discussed in the
great debates which preceded the final locating of the Capital on the
banks of the Potomac. They are a portion of its history, and deeply
interesting in their bearing on the present and future of the Capital
city.
The long strife ended in the amendatory proclamation of President
Washington, done at Georgetown the 30th day of March, in the year of our
Lord 1791, and of the independence of the United States the fifteenth,
which concluded with these words: “I do accordingly direct the
Commissioners named under the authority of the said first mentioned act
of Congress to proceed forthwith to have the said four lines run, and by
proper metes and bounds defined and limited, and thereof to make due
report under their hands and seals; and the territory so to be located,
defined and limited shall be the whole territory accepted by the said
act of Congress as the district for the permanent seat of the government
of the United States.” Maryland had ceded of her land ten miles square
for the future Capital. Nothing seemed easier than for these three
august commissioners, backed by the powerful Congress, to go and take
it. But it was not so easy to be done. In addition to the State of
Maryland the land belonged to land-holders, each one of whom was a lord
on his own domain. Some of these held land patents still extant, dating
back to 1663, and 1681. These lords of the manor were not willing to be
disturbed even for the sake of a future Capital, and displayed all the
irascibility and tenacity regarding price which characterize
land-holders of the present day. If we may judge from results and the
voluminous correspondence concerning it, left by George Washington, the
three commissioners who were to act for the government did not “get on”
very well with the pugnacious planters who were ready to fight for their
acres—and that the greater part of the negotiating for the new city
finally fell to the lot of the great Executive. One of the richest and
most famous of these land-owners was David Burns. He owned an immense
tract of land south of where the president’s house now stands, extending
as far as the Patent Office called in the land patent of 1681 which
granted it, “the Widow’s Mite, lyeing on the east side of the Anacostin
River, on the north side of a branch or inlett in the said river, called
Tyber.” This “Widow’s Mite” contained six hundred acres or more, and
David Burns was in no wise willing to part with any portion of it.
Although it laid within the territory of Columbia, ceded by the act of
Maryland for the future Capital, no less a personage than the President
of the United States could move one whit David Burns, and even the
President found it to be no easy matter to bring the Scotchman to terms.
More than once in his letters he alludes to him as “the obstinate Mr.
Burns,” and it is told that upon one occasion when the President was
dwelling upon the advantage that the sale of his lands would bring, the
planter, testy Davy, exclaimed: “I suppose you think people here are
going to take every grist that comes from you as pure grain, _but_ what
would _you_ have _been if you hadn’t married the widow Custis_.”
After many interviews and arguments even the patience of Washington
finally gave out and he said: “Mr. Burns, I have been authorized to
select the location of the National Capital. I have selected your farm
as a part of it, and the government will take it at all events. I trust
you will, under these circumstances, enter into an amicable
arrangement.”
Seeing that further resistance was useless, the shrewd Scotchman thought
that by a final graceful surrender he might secure more favorable terms,
thus, when the President once more asked: “On what terms will you
surrender your plantation?” Said humble Davy: “_Any_ that your
Excellency may choose to name.” The deed conveying the land of David
Burns to the commissioners in trust, is the first on record in the city
of Washington. This sale secured to David Burns and his descendants an
immense fortune. The deed provided that the streets of the new city
should be so laid out as not to interfere with the cottage of David
Burns. That cottage still stands in famous “Mansion Square,” and the
reader will find its story further on in the chapter devoted to the Old
Homes and Haunts of Washington. The other original owners of the soil on
which the city of Washington was built were Notley Young, who owned a
fine old brick mansion near the present steamboat landing, and Daniel
Carroll, whose spacious abode known as the Duddington House, still
stands on New Jersey Avenue, a little south-east of the Capitol. On the
31st of May, Washington wrote to Jefferson from Mount Vernon, announcing
the conclusion of his negotiations in this wise—the owners conveyed all
their interest to the United States on consideration that when the whole
should be surveyed and laid off as a city the original proprietors
should retain every other lot. The remaining lots to be sold by the
government from time to time and the proceeds to be applied toward the
improvement of the place. The land comprised within this agreement
contains over seventy-one hundred acres. The city extends from
north-west to south-east about four miles and a half, and from east to
south-west about two miles and a half. Its circumference is fourteen
miles, the aggregate length of the streets is one hundred and
ninety-nine miles, and of the avenues sixty-five miles. The avenues,
streets and open spaces contain three thousand six hundred and four
acres, and the public reservations exclusive of reservations since
disposed of for private purposes, five hundred and thirteen acres. The
whole area of the squares of the city amounts to one hundred and
thirty-one million, six hundred and eighty-four thousand, one hundred
and seventy-six square feet, or three thousand and sixteen acres.
Fifteen hundred and eight acres were reserved for the use of the United
States.
CHAPTER III.
THE WORK BEGUN IN EARNEST.
Washington’s Faith in the Future—Mr. Sparks is “inclined to think”—A
Slight Miscalculation—Theoretical Spartans—Clinging to Old World
Glories—Jefferson Acts the Critic—He Communicates Some Ideas—Models
of Antiquity—Babylon Revived—Difficulty in Satisfying a Frenchman’s
Soul—The Man who Planned the Capital—Who was L’Enfant?—His
Troubles—His Dismissal—His Personal Appearance, Old Age, Death and
Burial-Place—His Successor—The French Genius “Proceeded”—The New
City of Washington—A Magnificent Plan—All About the City—The Major
not Appreciated—“Getting on Badly”—L’Enfant Worries Washington—A
Record which Can Never Perish—An Overpaid Quaker—Jefferson Expresses
his Sentiments—A Sable Franklin—The Negro Engineer, Benjamin
Bancker—A Chance for a Monument.
The majority of Congress were opposed to a commercial Capital, yet there
are many proofs extant that to the hour of his death George Washington
cherished the hope that the new city of his love would be not only the
capital of the nation, but a great commercial metropolis of the world.
Mr. Jared Sparks, the historian, in a private letter says: “I am
inclined to think that Washington’s anticipations were more sanguine
than events have justified. He early entertained very large and just
ideas of the vast resources of the West, and of the commercial
intercourse that must spring up between that region and the Atlantic
coast, and he was wont to regard the central position of the Potomac as
affording the most direct and easy channel of communication. Steamboats
and railroads have since changed the face of the world, and have set at
defiance all the calculations founded on the old order of things; and
especially have they operated on the destiny of the West and our entire
system of internal commerce, in a manner that could not possibly have
been foreseen in the life-time of Washington.” Throughout the
correspondence of Washington are scattered constant allusions to the
future magnificence of the Federal City, the name by which he loved to
call the city of his heart, allusions which show that his faith in its
great destiny never faltered. In a letter to his neighbor, Mrs. Fairfax,
then in England, he said: “A century hence, if this country keeps
united, it will produce a city, though not as large as London, yet of a
magnitude inferior to few others in Europe.” At that time, after a
growth of centuries, London contained eight hundred thousand
inhabitants. Three-fourths of Washington’s predicted century have
expired, and the city of Washington now numbers one hundred and fifty
thousand people.
The founders of the Capital were all very republican in theory, and all
very aristocratic in practice. In speech they proposed to build a sort
of Spartan capital, fit for a Spartan republic; in fact, they proceeded
to build one modeled after the most magnificent cities of Europe.
European by descent and education, many of them allied to the oldest and
proudest families of the Old World, every idea of culture, of art, and
magnificence had come to them as part of their European inheritance, and
we see its result in every thing that they did or proposed to do for the
new Capital which they so zealously began to build in the woods. The
art-connoisseur of the day was Jefferson. He knew Europe, not only by
family tradition but by sight. Next to Washington he took the deepest
personal interest in the projected Capital. Of this interest we find
continual proof in his letters, also of the fact that his taste had much
to do with the plan and architecture of the coming city. In a letter to
Major L’Enfant, the first engineer of the Capital, dated Philadelphia,
April 10, 1791, he wrote: “In compliance with your request, I have
examined my papers and found the plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main,
Carlsruhe, Amsterdam, Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons,
Montpelier, Marseilles, Turin, and Milan, which I send in a roll by
post. They are on large and accurate scales, having been procured by me
while in those respective cities myself.... Having communicated to the
President before he went away, such general ideas on the subject of the
town as occurred to me, I have no doubt in explaining himself to you on
the subject, he has interwoven with his own ideas such of mine as he
approved.... Whenever it is proposed to present plans for the Capital, I
should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity, which
have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the president’s
house I should prefer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which
have already received the approbation of good judges. Such are Galerie
du Louise, the Gardes Meubles, and two fronts of the Hotel de Salm.” On
the same day he writes to Washington: “I received last night from Major
L’Enfant a request to furnish any plans of towns I could for
examination. I accordingly send him by this post, plans of
Frankfort-on-the-Main, etc., which I procured while in those towns
respectively. They are none of them, however, comparable to the old
Babylon revived in Philadelphia and exemplified.” But these two fathers
of their country, as time proved, “did not know their man.” Had they
done so, they would have known in advance that a mercurial Frenchman
would never attempt to satisfy his soul with acute angles of old Babylon
revived through the arid and level lengths of Philadelphia.
The man who planned the Capital of the United States not for the present
but for all time, was Peter Charles L’Enfant, born in France in 1755. He
was a lieutenant in the French provincial forces, and with others of his
countrymen was early drawn to these shores by the magnetism of a new
people, and the promise of a new land. He offered his services to the
revolutionary army as an engineer, in 1777, and was appointed captain of
engineers February 18, 1778. After being wounded at the siege of
Savannah, he was promoted to major of engineers, and served near the
person of Washington. Probably at that time there was no man in America
who possessed so much genius and art-culture in the same directions as
Major L’Enfant. In a crude land, where nearly every artisan had to be
imported from foreign shores, the chief designer and architect surely
would have to be. Thus we may conclude at the beginning, it seemed a
lucky circumstance to find an engineer for the new city on the spot.
The first public communication extant concerning the laying out of the
city of Washington is from the pen of General Washington, dated March
11, 1791. In a letter dated April 30, 1791, he first called it the
Federal City. Four months later, without his knowledge, it received its
present name in a letter from the first commissioners, Messrs. Johnson,
Stuart, and Carroll, which bears the date of Georgetown, September 9,
1791, to Major L’Enfant, which informs that gentleman that they have
agreed that the federal district shall be called The Territory of
Columbia, (its present title,) and the federal city the city of
Washington, directing him to entitle his map accordingly.
In March, 1791, we find Jefferson addressing Major L’Enfant in these
words: “You are desired to proceed to Georgetown, where you will find
Mr. Ellicott employed in making a survey and map of the federal
territory. The special object of asking your aid is to have the drawings
of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the
federal grounds and buildings.”
The French genius “proceeded,” and behold the result, the city of
“magnificent distances,” and from the beginning of magnificent
intentions,—intentions which almost to the present hour, have called
forth only ridicule—because in the slow mills of time their fulfillment
has been so long delayed. As Thomas Jefferson wanted the chessboard
squares and angles of Philadelphia, L’Enfant used them for the base of
the new city, but his genius avenged itself for this outrage on its
taste by transversing them with sixteen magnificent avenues, which from
that day to this have proved the confusion and the glory of the city.
French instinct diamonded the squares of Philadelphia with the broad
corsos of Versailles, as Major L’Enfant’s map said, “to preserve through
the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same time.”
A copy of the Gazette of the United States, published in Philadelphia,
January 4, 1792, gives us the original magnificent intentions of the
first draughtsman of the new city of Washington.
The following description is annexed to the plan of the city of
Washington, in the District of Columbia, as sent to Congress by the
President some days ago:
PLAN OF THE CITY INTENDED AS THE PERMANENT SEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES, PROJECTED AGREEABLY TO THE DIRECTION OF THE
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN PURSUANCE OF AN ACT OF CONGRESS,
PASSED ON THE 16TH OF JULY, 1790, “ESTABLISHING A PERMANENT SEAT
ON THE BANKS OF THE POTOMACK.”
BY PETER CHARLES L’ENFANT.
OBSERVATIONS EXPLANATORY OF THE PLAN.
I. The positions of the different grand edifices, and for the several
grand squares or areas of different shapes as they are laid down, were
first determined on the most advantageous ground, commanding the most
extensive prospects, and the better susceptible of such improvements
as the various interests of the several objects may require.
II. Lines or avenues of direct communication have been devised to
connect the separate and most distant objects with the principals, and
to preserve throughout the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same
time. Attention has been paid to the passing of those leading avenues
over the most favorable ground for prospect and convenience.
III. North and south lines, intersected by others running due east and
west, make the distribution of the city into streets, squares, &c.,
and those lines have been so combined as to meet at certain points
with those diverging avenues so as to form on the spaces “first
determined,” the different squares or areas which are all proportioned
in magnitude to the number of avenues leading to them.
MR. ELLICOTT “DOES BUSINESS.”
Every grand transverse avenue, and every principal divergent one, such
as the communication from the President’s house to the Congress house,
&c., are 160 feet in breadth and thus divided:
Ten feet for pavement on each side, is 20 feet
Thirty feet of gravel walk, planted with trees on each 60 feet
side,
——
160 feet
The other streets are of the following dimensions, viz.:
Those leading to the public buildings or markets, 130
Others, 110-90
In order to execute the above plan, Mr. Ellicott drew a true meridian
line by celestial observation, which passes through area intended for
the Congress house. This line he crossed by another due east and west,
and which passes through the same area. The lines were accurately
measured, and made the basis on which the whole plan was executed. He
ran all the lines by a transit instrument, and determined the acute
angles by actual measurement, and left nothing to the uncertainty of
the compass.
REFERENCES.
A. The equestrian figure of George Washington, a monument voted in
1783 by the late Continental Congress.
B. An historic column—also intended for a mile or itinerary column,
from whose station, (at a mile from the Federal House,) all distances
and places through the Continent are to be calculated.
C. A Naval itinerary column proposed to be erected to celebrate the
first rise of a navy, and to stand a ready monument to perpetuate its
progress and achievements.
D. A church intended for national purposes, such as public prayers,
thanksgivings, funeral orations, &c., and assigned to the special use
of no particular sect or denomination, but equally open to all. It
will likewise be a proper shelter for such monuments as were voted by
the late Continental Congress for those heroes who fell in the cause
of liberty, and for such others as may hereafter be decreed by the
voice of a grateful nation.
E. E. E. E. E. Five grand fountains intended with a constant spout of
water.
N. B. There are within the limits of the springs twenty-five good
springs of excellent water abundantly supplied in the driest seasons
of the year.
F. A grand cascade formed of the waters of the sources of the Tiber.
G. G. Public walk, being a square of 1,200 feet, through which
carriages may ascend to the upper square of the Federal House.
H. A grand avenue, 400 feet in breadth and about a mile in length,
bordered with gardens ending in a slope from the house on each side;
this avenue leads to the monument A, and connects the Congress garden
with the
I. President’s park and the
K. Well improved field, being a part of the walk from the President’s
House of about 1,800 feet in breadth and three-fourths of a mile in
length. Every lot deep colored red, with green plats, designating some
of the situations which command the most agreeable prospects, and
which are best calculated for spacious houses and gardens, such as may
accommodate foreign ministers, &c.
L. Around this square and along the
M. Avenue from the two bridges to the Federal House, the pavements on
each side will pass under an arched way, under whose cover shops will
be most conveniently and agreeably situated. This street is 106 feet
in breadth, and a mile long.
The fifteen squares colored yellow are proposed to be divided among
the several States of the Union, for each of them to improve, or
subscribe a sum additional to the value of the land for that purpose,
and the improvements around the squares to be completed in a limited
time. The centre of each square will admit of statues, columns,
obelisks, or any other ornaments, such as the different States may
choose to erect, to perpetuate not only the memory of such individuals
whose councils or military achievements were conspicuous in giving
liberty and independence to this country, but those whose usefulness
hath rendered them worthy of imitation, to invite the youth of
succeeding generations to tread in the paths of those sages or heroes
whom their country have thought proper to celebrate.
The situation of those squares is such that they are most
advantageously seen from each other, and as equally distributed over
the whole city district, and connected by spacious avenues round the
grand federal improvements and as contiguous to them, and at the same
time as equally distant from each other as circumstances would admit.
The settlements round these squares must soon become connected. The
mode of taking possession of and improving the whole district at first
must leave to posterity a grand idea of the patriotic interest which
promoted it.
Two months after the publication of those magnificent designs for
posterity, Major L’Enfant was dismissed from his exalted place. He was a
Frenchman and a genius. The patrons of the new Capital were _not_
geniuses, and not Frenchmen, reasons sufficient why they should not and
did not “get on” long in peace together. Without doubt the Commissioners
were provincial, and limited in their ideas of art and of expenditure;
with their colonial experience they could scarcely be otherwise; while
L’Enfant was metropolitan, splendid, and willful, in his ways as well as
in his designs. Hampered, held back, he yet “builded better than he
knew,” builded for posterity. The executor and the designer seldom
counterpart each other. L’Enfant worried Washington, as a letter from
the latter, written in the autumn of 1791, plainly shows. He says: “It
is much to be regretted that men who possess talents which fit them for
peculiar purposes should almost invariably be under the influence of an
untoward disposition.... I have thought that for such employment as he
is now engaged in for prosecuting public works and carrying them into
effect, Major L’Enfant was better qualified than any one who has come
within my knowledge in this country, or indeed in any other. I had no
doubt at the same time that this was the light in which he considered
himself.” At least, L’Enfant was so fond of his new “plan” that he would
not give it up to the Commissioners to be used as an inducement for
buying city lots, even at the command of the President, giving as a
reason that if it was open to buyers, speculators would build up his
beloved avenues (which he intended, in time, should outrival Versailles)
with squatter’s huts—just as they afterwards did. Then Duddington House,
the abode of Daniel Carroll, was in the way of one of his triumphal
avenues, and he ordered it torn down without leave or license, to the
rage of its owner and the indignation of the Commissioners. Duddington
House was rebuilt by order of the government in another place, and
stands to-day a relic of the past amid its old forest trees on Capitol
Hill. Nevertheless its first demolition was held as one of the sins of
the uncontrollable L’Enfant, who was summarily discharged March 6, 1792.
His dismissal was thus announced by Jefferson in a letter to one of the
Commissioners: “It having been found impracticable to employ Major
L’Enfant about the Federal City in that degree of subordination which
was lawful and proper, he has been notified that his services are at an
end. It is now proper that he should receive the reward of his past
services, and the wish that he should have no just cause of discontent
suggests that it should be liberal. The President thinks of $2,500, or
$3,000, but leaves the determination to you.” Jefferson wrote in the
same letter: “The enemies of the enterprise will take the advantage of
the retirement of L’Enfant to trumpet the whole as an abortion.” But
L’Enfant lived and died within sight of the dawning city of his love
which he had himself created—and never wrought it, or its projectors any
harm through all the days of his life. He was loyal to his adopted
government, but to his last breath clung to every atom of his personal
claim upon it, as pugnaciously as he did to his maps, when commanded to
give them up. He lived without honor, and died without fame. Time will
vindicate one and perpetuate the other in one of the most magnificent
capitals of earth. His living picture lingers still with more than one
old inhabitant. One tells of him in an unchangeable “green surtout,
walking across the commons and fields, followed by half-a-dozen hunting
dogs.” Also, of reporting to him at Port Washington in 1814 to do duty,
and of first receiving a glass of wine from the old soldier-architect
and engineer before he told him what to do. Mr. Corcoran, the banker,
tells how L’Enfant looked in his latter days: “a rather seedy, stylish
old man, with a long blue or green coat buttoned up to his throat, and a
bell-crowned hat; a little moody and lonely, like one wronged.”
[Illustration: COLUMBIA SLAVE PEN. FREEDMAN’S SAVINGS BANK.]
[Illustration: SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE.]
[Illustration: MAJOR L’ENFANT’S RESTING PLACE.]
He lived for many years on the Digges’ farm, the estate now owned by
George Riggs, the banker, situated about eight miles from Washington. He
was buried in the family burial-ground, in the Digges’ garden. When the
Digges family were disinterred, his dust was left nearly alone. There it
lies to-day, and the perpetually growing splendor of the ruling city
which he planned, is his only monument.
He was succeeded by Andrew Ellicott, a practical engineer, born in
Buck’s County, Pennsylvania. He was called a man of “uncommon talent”
and “placid temper.” Neither saved him from conflicts, (though of a
milder type than L’Enfant’s,) with the Commissioners. A Quaker, he yet
commanded a battalion of militia in the Revolution, and “was
thirty-seven years of age when he rode out with Washington to survey the
embryo city.” He finished, (with certain modifications,) the work which
L’Enfant began. For this he received the stupendous sum of $5.00 per day
which, with “expenses,” Jefferson thought to be altogether too much. In
his letter to the Commissioners dismissing L’Enfant, he says: “Ellicott
is to go on to finish laying off the plan on the ground, and surveying
and plotting the district. I have remonstrated with him on the excess of
five dollars a day and his expenses, and he has proposed striking off
the latter.”
After Ellicott concluded laying out the Capital, he became
Surveyor-General of the United States; laid out the towns of Erie,
Warren and Franklin, in Pennsylvania, and built Fort Erie. He defined
the boundary dividing the Republic from the Spanish Possessions; became
Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office, and in 1812 Professor of
Mathematics at West Point, where he died August, 1820, aged 66.
Ellicott’s most remarkable assistant was Benjamin Bancker, a negro. He
was, I believe, the first of his race to distinguish himself in the new
Republic. He was born with a genius for mathematics and the exact
sciences, and at an early age was the author of an Almanac, which
attracted the attention and commanded the praise of Thomas Jefferson.
When he came to “run the lines” of the future Capital, he was sixty
years of age. The caste of color could not have grown to its hight at
that day, for the Commissioners invited him to an official seat with
themselves, an honor which he declined. The picture given us of him is
that of a sable Franklin, large, noble, and venerable, with a dusky
face, white hair, a drab coat of superfine broadcloth, and a Quaker hat.
He was born and buried at Ellicott’s Mills, where his grave is now
unmarked. Here is a chance for the rising race to erect a monument to
one of their own sons, who in the face of ignorance and bondage proved
himself “every inch a man,” in intellectual gifts equal to the best.
CHAPTER IV.
OLD WASHINGTON.
How the City was Built—“A Matter of Moonshine”—Calls for Paper—Besieging
Congressmen—How they Raised the Money—The Government Requires
Sponsors—Birth of the Nation’s Capital—Seventy Years Ago in
Washington—Graphic Picture of Early Times—A Much-Marrying
City—Unwashed Virginian Belles—Stuck in the Mud—Extraordinary
Religious Services.
Nothing in the architecture of the city of Washington calls forth more
comment from strangers than the distance between the Capitol and the
Executive Departments. John Randolph early called it “the city of
magnificent distances,” and it is still a chronic and fashionable
complaint to decry the time and distance it takes to get any where. In
the days of a single stage line on Pennsylvania Avenue, these were
somewhat lamentable. But five-minute cars abridge distances, and make
them less in reality than even in the city of New York. It is a mile and
a half from the northern end of the Navy-yard bridge to the Capitol, a
mile and a half from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion, and a mile
and a half from the Executive Mansion to the corner of Bridge and High
Streets, Georgetown. We are constantly hearing exclamations of what a
beautiful city Washington would be with the Capitol for the centre of a
square formed by a chain of magnificent public buildings. John Adams
wanted the Departments around the Capitol. George Washington but a short
time before his death, gave in a letter the reasons for their present
position. In going through his correspondence one finds that there is
nothing, scarcely, in the past, present or future of its Capital, for
which the Father of his Country has not left on record a wise,
far-reaching reason. In this letter, he says: “Where or how the houses
for the President, and the public offices may be fixed is to me, as an
individual, a matter of moonshine. But the reverse of the President’s
motive for placing the latter near the Capitol was my motive for fixing
them by the former. The daily intercourse which the secretaries of
departments must have with the President would render a distant
situation extremely inconvenient to them, and not much less so would one
be close to the Capitol; for it was the universal complaint of them all,
_that while the Legislature was in session, they could do little or no
business, so much were they interrupted by the individual visits of
members in office hours, and by calls for paper_. Many of them have
disclosed to me that they have been obliged often to go home and deny
themselves in order to transact the current business.” The denizen of
the present time, who knows the Secretaries’ dread of the average
besieging Congressman, will smile to find that the dread was as potent
in the era of George Washington as it is to-day. A more conclusive
reason could not be given why Capitol and Departments should be a mile
apart. The newspapers of that day were filled with long articles on the
laying out of the Capital city. We find in a copy of _The Philadelphia
Herald_ of January 4, 1795, after a discussion of the Mall—the yet-to-be
garden extending from the Capitol to the President’s house—the following
far-sighted remarks on the creation of the Capital. It says: “To found a
city, for the purpose of making it the depository of the acts of the
Union, and the sanctuary of the laws which must one day rule all North
America, is a grand and comprehensive idea, which, has already become,
with propriety, the object of public respect. The city of Washington,
considered under such important points of view, could not be calculated
on a small scale; its extent, the disposition of its avenues and public
squares should all correspond with the magnitude of the objects for
which it was intended. And we need only cast our eyes upon the situation
and plan of the city to recognize in them the comprehensive genius of
the President, to whom the direction of the business has been committed
by Congress.”
The letters of Washington are full of allusions to the annoyance and
difficulty attending the raising of sufficient money to make the Capitol
and other public buildings tenantable by the time specified, 1800. He
seemed to regard the prompt completion of the Capitol as an event
identical with the perpetual establishment of the government at
Washington. Virginia had made a donation of $120,000, and Maryland one
of $72,000; these were now exhausted. After various efforts to raise
money by the forced sales of public lots, and after abortive attempts to
borrow money, at home and abroad, on the credit of these lots, amidst
general embarrassments, while Congress withheld any aid whatever, the
urgency appeared to the President so great as to induce him to make a
personal application to the State of Maryland for a loan, which was
successful, and the deplorable credit of the government at that time is
exhibited in the fact that the State called upon the credit of the
Commissioners as an additional guarantee for the re-payment of the
amount, $100,000, to which Washington alludes as follows: “The necessity
of the case justified the obtaining it on almost any terms; and the zeal
of the Commissioners in making themselves liable for the amount, as it
could not be had without, cannot fail of approbation. At the same time I
must confess the application has a very singular appearance, and will
not, I should suppose, be very grateful to the feelings of Congress.”
I have cited but a few of the tribulations through which the Capital of
the nation was born. Not only was the growth of the public buildings
hindered through lack of money, but also through the “jealousies and
bickerings” of those who should have helped to build them. Human nature,
in the aggregate, was just as inharmonious and hard to manage then as
now. The Commissioners did not always agree. Artisans, imported from
foreign lands, made alone an element of discord, one which Washington
dreaded and deprecated. He went down with his beloved Capital into the
Egypt of its building. He led with a patience and wisdom undreamed of
and unappreciated in this generation, the straggling and discordant
forces of the Republic from oppression to freedom, from chaos to
achievement—he came in sight of the promised land of fruition and
prosperity, but he did not enter it, this father and prophet of the
people! George Washington died in December, 1799.
The city of Washington was officially occupied in June, 1800.
The only adequate impression of what the Capital was at the time of its
first occupancy, we must receive from those who beheld it with living
eyes. Fortunately several have left graphic pictures of the appearance
which the city presented at that time. President John Adams took
possession of the unfinished Executive Mansion in November, 1800. During
the month Mrs. Adams wrote to her daughter, Mrs. Smith, as follows: “I
arrived here on Sunday last, and without meeting with any accident worth
noticing, except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore, and going
eight or nine miles on the Frederic road, by which means we were obliged
to go the other eight through the woods, where we wandered for two hours
without finding guide or path.... But woods are all you see from
Baltimore till you reach _the city_, which is only so in name. Here and
there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed amongst the
forests, through which you travel miles without seeing any human being.
In the city there are buildings enough, if they were compact and
finished, to accommodate Congress and those attached to it; but as they
are, and scattered as they are, I see no great comfort for them.... If
the twelve years in which this place has been considered as the future
seat of government had been improved as they would have been in New
England, very many of the present inconveniences would have been
removed. It is a beautiful spot, capable of any improvement, and the
more I view it the more I am delighted with it.”
Hon. John Cotton Smith, of Connecticut, a distinguished member of
Congress, of the Federal school of politics, also gives his picture of
Washington in 1800: “Our approach to the city was accompanied with
sensations not easily described. One wing of the Capitol only had been
erected, which, with the President’s house, a mile distant from it, both
constructed with white sandstone, were shining objects in dismal
contrast with the scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues
and streets portrayed on the plan of the city, not one was visible,
unless we except a road, with two buildings on each side of it, called
the New Jersey Avenue. The Pennsylvania, leading, as laid down on paper,
from the Capitol to the presidential mansion, was then nearly the whole
distance a deep morass, covered with alder bushes which were cut through
the width of the intended avenue during the then ensuing winter. Between
the President’s house and Georgetown a block of houses had been erected,
which then bore and may still bear, the name of the _six buildings_.
There were also other blocks, consisting of two or three
dwelling-houses, in different directions, and now and then an insulated
wooden habitation, the intervening spaces, and indeed the surface of the
city generally, being covered with shrub-oak bushes on the higher
grounds, and on the marshy soil either trees or some sort of shrubbery.
Nor was the desolate aspect of the place a little augmented by a number
of unfinished edifices at Greenleaf’s Point, and on an eminence a short
distance from it, commenced by an individual whose name they bore, but
the state of whose funds compelled him to abandon them, not only
unfinished, but in a ruinous condition. There appeared to be but two
really comfortable habitations in all respects, within the bounds of the
city, one of which belonged to Dudley Carroll, Esq., and the other to
Notley Young, who were the former proprietors of a large proportion of
the land appropriated to the city, but who reserved for their own
accommodation ground sufficient for gardens and other useful
appurtenances. The roads in every direction were muddy and unimproved. A
sidewalk was attempted in one instance by a covering formed of the chips
of the stones which had been hewn for the Capitol. It extended but a
little way and was of little value, for in dry weather the sharp
fragments cut our shoes, and in wet weather covered them with white
mortar, in short, it was a “new settlement.” The houses, with one or two
exceptions, had been very recently erected, and the operation greatly
hurried in view of the approaching transfer of the national government.
A laudable desire was manifested by what few citizens and residents
there were, to render our condition as pleasant as circumstances would
permit. One of the blocks of buildings already mentioned was situated on
the east side of what was intended for the Capitol square, and being
chiefly occupied by an extensive and well-kept hotel, accommodated a
goodly number of the members. Our little party took lodgings with a Mr.
Peacock, in one of the houses on New Jersey Avenue, with the addition of
Senators Tracy of Connecticut, and Chipman and Paine of Vermont, and
Representatives Thomas of Maryland, and Dana, Edmond and Griswold of
Connecticut. Speaker Sedgwick was allowed a room to himself—the rest of
us in pairs. To my excellent friend Davenport, and myself, was allotted
a spacious and decently furnished apartment with separate beds, on the
lower floor. Our diet was varied, but always substantial, and we were
attended by active and faithful servants. A large proportion of the
Southern members took lodgings at Georgetown, which, though of a
superior order, were three miles distant from the Capitol, and of course
rendered the daily employment of hackney coaches indispensable.
Notwithstanding the unfavorable aspect which Washington presented on our
arrival, I can not sufficiently express my admiration of its local
position. From the Capitol you have a distinct view of its fine
undulating surface, situated at the confluence of the Potomac and its
Eastern Branch, the wide expanse of that majestic river to the bend at
Mount Vernon, the cities of Alexandria and Georgetown, and the
cultivated fields and blue hills of Maryland and Virginia on either side
of the river, the whole constituting a prospect of surpassing beauty and
grandeur. The city has also the inestimable advantage of delightful
water, in many instances flowing from copious springs, and always
attainable by digging to a moderate depth, to which may be added the
singular fact that such is the due admixture of loam and clay in the
soil of a great portion of the city that a house may be built of brick
made of the earth dug from the cellar, hence it was not unusual to see
the remains of a brick-kiln near the newly-erected dwelling-house or
other edifice. In short, when we consider not only these advantages, but
what, in a national point of view is of superior importance, the
location on a fine navigable river, accessible to the whole maritime
frontier of the United States, and yet easily rendered defensible
against foreign invasion,—and that by the facilities of inter-population
of the Western States, and indeed of the whole nation, with less
inconvenience than any other conceivable situation,—we must acknowledge
that its selection by Washington as the permanent seat of the federal
government, affords a striking exhibition of the discernment, wisdom and
forecast which characterized that illustrious man. Under this
impression, whenever, during the six years of my connection with
Congress, the question of removing the seat of government to some other
place was agitated—and the proposition was frequently made—I stood
almost alone, as a northern man, in giving my vote in the negative.”
Sir Augustus Foster, secretary of legation to the British minister at
Washington, during the years 1804-6, has left an amusing account on
record both of the appearance of the Capital and the state of its
society during the administration of President Jefferson: “The Spanish
envoy, De Caso Yrujo, told Sir Augustus it was difficult to procure a
decent dinner in the new Capital without sending the distance of sixty
miles for its materials. Things had mended somewhat before the arrival
of Sir Augustus, but he still found enough to surprise and bewilder him
in the desolate vastness and mean accommodations of the unshaped
metropolis.”
Of private citizens Sir Augustus says: “Very few private gentlemen have
their houses in Washington. I only recollect three, Mr. Brent, Mr.
Tayloe, and Mr. Carroll.”... Most of the members of Congress, it is
true, keep to their lodgings, but still there are a sufficient number of
them who are sociable, or whose families come to the city for a season,
and there is no want of handsome ladies for the balls, especially at
Georgetown; indeed, I never saw prettier girls anywhere. As there are
but few of them, however, in proportion to the great number of men who
frequent the places of amusement in the federal city, it is one of the
most marrying places on the whole continent.... Meagre the march of
intellect so much vaunted in the present century; the literary education
of these ladies is far from being worthy of the age of knowledge, and
conversation is apt to flag, though a seat by the ladies is always much
coveted. Dancing and music serve to eke out the time, but one got tired
of hearing the same song everywhere, even when it was:
“Just like love is yonder rose.”
“No matter how this was sung, the words alone were the man-traps; the
belle of the evening was declared to be just like both, and the people
looked around as if the listener was expected to become on the instant
very tender, and to propose.... Between the young ladies, who generally
not only good looking, but good tempered, and if not well informed,
capable of becoming so, and the ladies of a certain time of life, there
is usually a wide gap in society, young married women being but seldom
seen in the world; as they approach, however, to middle age, they are
apt to become romantic, those in particular who live in the country and
have read novels fancying all manner of romantic things, and returning
to the Capital determined to have an adventure before they again retire;
or on doing some wondrous act which shall make them be talked about in
all after time. Others I have known to contract an aversion to water,
and as a substitute, cover their faces and bosoms with hair powder, in
order to render the skin pure and delicate. This was peculiarly the case
with some Virginia damsels, who came to the halls at Washington, and who
in consequence were hardly less tolerable than negroes. There were but
few cases of this I must confess, though as regards the use of the
powder, they were not so uncommon, and at my balls I thought it
advisable to put on the tables of the toilette room not only rouge, but
hair powder, as well as blue powder, which had some customers....
“In going to assemblies one had sometimes to drive three or four miles
within the city bounds, and very often at the great risk of an
overthrow, or of being what is termed ‘stalled,’ or stuck in the mud....
Cards were a great resource during the evening, and gaming was all the
fashion, at brag especially, for the men who frequented society were
chiefly from Virginia or the Western States, and were very fond of this
the worst gambling of all games, as being one of countenance as well as
of cards. Loo was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they
looed pronounced the word in a very mincing manner....
“Church service can certainly never be called an amusement; but from the
variety of persons who are allowed to preach in the House of
Representatives, there was doubtless some alloy of curiosity in the
motives which led one to go there. Though the regular Chaplain was a
Presbyterian, sometimes a Methodist, a minister of the Church of
England, or a Quaker, or sometimes even a woman took the speaker’s
chair; and I don’t think that there was much devotion among the
majority. The New Englanders, generally speaking, are very religious;
though there are many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the
Marylanders, and still less for the Virginians.”
Notwithstanding the incongruous and somewhat disgraceful picture which
Sir Augustus paints of the Capital City of the new Republic, he goes on
to say: “In spite of its inconveniences and desolate aspect, it was I
think the most agreeable town to reside in for any length of time,”
which if true insures our pity for what the remainder of our native land
must have been.
CHAPTER V.
THE CAPITAL OF THE NATION.
A Ward of Congress—Expectations Disappointed—Funds Low and People
Few—Slow Progress of the City—First Idea of a National University—A
Question of Importance Discussed—Generous Proposition of George
Washington—Faith Under Difficulties—Transplanting an Entire
College—An Old Proposition in a New Shape—What Washington “Society”
Lacks—The Lombardy Poplars Refuse to Grow—Perils of the Way—A Long
Plain of Mud—“The Forlornest City in Christendom”—Egyptian
Dreariness—Incomplete and Desolate State of Affairs—The End of an
Expensive Canal—The Water of Tiber Creek—American “Boys” on the
March—Divided Allegiance of Old—The Stirring of a Nation’s
Heart—Ready to March to her Defense—A Personal Interest—Patriotism
Aroused—The First-born City of the Republic—Truly the Capital of the
Nation.
Washington was incorporated as a city by act of Congress, passed May 3,
1802. The city, planned solely as the National Capital, was laid out on
a scale so grand and extensive that scanty municipal funds alone would
never have been sufficient for its proper improvement. From the
beginning it was the ward of Congress. Its magnificent avenues, squares
and public buildings, could receive due decoration from no fund more
scanty than a national appropriation. At first Congress appropriated
funds with much spirit and some liberality, but there were many reasons
why its zeal and munificence waned together. At this day it has not
fulfilled the most sanguine expectations of its founders. In Jefferson’s
time its population numbered but five thousand persons, and for forty
years its increase of population only averaged about five hundred and
fifty per annum. Many stately vessels sail down the Potomac to the
Chesapeake and the James and out to the ocean; but the Potomac is far
from being the highway of commerce. The wharves of Washington and
Georgetown are empty compared with those of New York, or even of
Baltimore. For generations there was neither commerce nor manufacture to
induce men of capital to remove from large cities of active business to
the new city in the wilderness, whose very life depended on the will of
a majority of Congress. Washington’s idea of the National Capital far
outleaped his century. His vision of its future greatness comprehended
all that the capital of a great nation should be. He foresaw it, not
only as the seat of national commerce, but the seat of national
learning. One of the dearest projects of his last days was the founding
of a National University at the city of Washington. The following
references to this subject in a letter from him to the commissioners of
the Federal districts, with an extract from his last will, but faintly
express the intense interest which he manifested in the National
University, both in his daily life, and familiar correspondence:—
WASHINGTON TO COMMISSIONERS OF FEDERAL DISTRICTS.
“The Federal city, from its centrality and the advantages which in
other respects it must have over any other place in the United States,
ought to be preferred as a proper site for such a University. And if a
plan can be adopted upon a scale as extensive as I have described, and
the execution of it should commence under favorable auspices in a
reasonable time, with a fair prospect of success, I will grant in
perpetuity fifty shares in the navigation of the Potomac River toward
the endowment of it.”
FROM WASHINGTON’S WILL.
“I give and bequeath in perpetuity the fifty shares which I hold in
the Potomac Company (under the aforesaid acts of the legislature of
Virginia) toward the endowment of a University to be established
within the limits of the District of Columbia, under the auspices of
the general government, if that government should incline to extend a
fostering hand toward it. And until such Seminary is established and
the funds arising from these shares shall be needed for its support,
my further will and desire is, that the profits arising therefrom
whenever the dividends are made be laid out in purchasing stock in the
Bank of Columbia, or some other bank at the discretion of my
executors, or by the Treasurer of the United States for the time
being, under the direction of Congress, providing that honorable body
should patronize the measure; and the dividends proceeding from the
purchase of such stock are to be vested in more stock, and so on, till
a sum adequate to the accomplishment of the object be obtained, _of
which I have not the smallest doubt before many years pass away_, even
if no aid and encouragement is given by legislative authority, or from
any other source.”
The correspondence of Washington and Jefferson abound with consultations
concerning this great National University. During his stay in Europe,
Jefferson had become personally conversant with its ancient seats of
learning, and longed to see somewhat of the splendor of their culture
transferred to his own native land. So great was his zeal on this
subject, both he and John Adams favored the plan at one time of
transferring to this city the entire college of Geneva, professors,
students, all. But George Washington opposed the transplanting of an
entire body of foreign scholars to the new Republic, almost as earnestly
as he did that of a horde of foreign laborers to build the Capitol, he
believing both to be inimical to the growth of republican principles and
feelings in a newly created republic.
Three-fourths of a century have passed since Washington, Jefferson and
Adams consulted together concerning the National University of the
future. Alas! it is still of the future. The dream of its fulfillment
was dearer to the father of his country, probably, than to any other
mortal. The explicit provision made for it in his will proves this. That
bequest went finally, I believe, to a college in Virginia. Columbia
College, feeble, small and old, is the nearest approach to the National
University of which the National Capital can boast to-day. Strange after
the lapse of nearly a century, the other evening the friends of this
feeble and stunted college, including the President of the United
Stales, high officials, learned professors, foreign ministers, and
gentlemen of the press, assembled in Wormley’s comfortable dining-room,
and over an “epicurean banquet” discussed what Jefferson and Washington
did in their letters—a National University for the National Capital. The
desire of Washington although not yet fulfilled, must in time become a
reality. The National Capital, already the centre of fashion, and
rapidly becoming the seat of National Science as well as of National
Politics and Government, is the natural seat of National Learning. The
educational element, the high-toned culture which always marks the
mental and moral atmosphere surrounding a university is to-day the
marked lack of what is termed “society in Washington.” The United States
Government is doing much for science. There is a greater number of
persons actively devoted to scientific pursuits in the National Capital
than in any other city of the Union. Washington is already the seat of
more purely intellectual activity than any other American city. The
scientific library of the Smithsonian Institute is one of the best in
the world. New departments of the Government devoted to Science are
continually being established on sure and ever-spreading foundations.
All these facts point to the final and crowning one—the University of
the Nation at the National Capital.
For a time, after the incorporation of the city, its founders and
patrons zealously pursued plans for its improvement. But failing funds,
a weak municipality, and indifferent Congresses, did their work, and for
many years “the city of magnificent distances” had little but those
distances of which to boast. Jefferson had Pennsylvania avenue planted
with double rows of Lombardy poplars from Executive Mansion to Capitol,
in imitation of the walk and drive in Berlin known as _Unter den
Linden_. But the tops of the poplars did not flourish, and the roots
were troublesome, and in 1832 the hoped for arcade came to naught. In
truth Pennsylvania avenue was one long plain of mud, punched with
dangerous holes and seamed with deep ravines. The interlacing roots of
the poplars made these holes and ravines the more dangerous, till an
appropriation, during the administration of Jackson, caused them to be
dug up and the entire avenue to be macadamized, notwithstanding a large
minority in Congress could find no authority in the Constitution for
such an unprecedented provision for the public safety. Every Congress
was packed with strict constructionists and economists, who opposed
every effort to improve the National Capital. Many, narrow, sectional
and provincial, had no comprehension of the plan of a city founded to
meet the wants of a great nation, rather than to suit the convenience of
a meagre population. A city planned to become the magnificent Capital of
a vast people could not fail through its very dimensions to be
oppressive to its citizens, if the chief weight of its improvement was
laid upon their scanty resources. A National Capital could only be fitly
built by the Nation. For many years the Congress of the United States
refused to do this to any fit degree, and the result for more than one
generation was the most forlorn city in Christendom. At a recent meeting
of the friends of Columbia College Attorney General Williams stated that
when he first visited Washington, in 1853, the “Egypt” of Indiana could
not compare in dreariness and discomfort with the Capital of the Nation.
In 1862 Washington was a third rate Southern city. Even its mansions
were without modern improvements or conveniences, while the mass of its
buildings were low, small and shabby in the extreme. The avenues, superb
in length and breadth, in their proportions afforded a painful contrast
to the hovels and sheds which often lined them on either side for miles.
Scarcely a public building was finished. No goddess of liberty held
tablary guard over the dome of the Capitol. Scaffolds, engines and
pulleys everywhere defaced its vast surfaces of gleaming marble. The
northern wing of the Treasury building was not even begun. Where it now
stands then stood the State departments, crowded, dingy and old. Even
the southern wing of the Treasury was not completed as it was begun.
Iron spikes and saucers on its western side had been used to conclude
the beautiful Greek ornamentation begun with the building. All public
offices, magnificent in conception, seemed to be in a state of crude
incompleteness. Everything worth looking at seemed unfinished.
Everything finished looked as if it should have been destroyed
generations before. Even Pennsylvania avenue, the grand thoroughfare of
the Capital, was lined with little two and three story shops, which in
architectural comeliness have no comparison with their ilk of the
Bowery, New York. Not a street car ran in the city. A few straggling
omnibuses and helter-skelter hacks were the only public conveyances to
bear members of Congress to and fro between the Capitol and their remote
lodgings. In spring and autumn the entire west end of the city was one
vast slough of impassible mud. One would have to walk many blocks before
he found it possible to cross a single street, and that often one of the
most fashionable of the city. “The water of Tiber Creek,” which in the
magnificent intentions of the founders of the city were “to be carried
to the top of Congress House, to fall in a cascade of twenty feet in
height and fifty in breadth, and thence to run in three falls through
the gardens into the grand canal,” instead stretched in ignominious
stagnation across the city, oozing at last through green scum and slime
into the still more ignominious canal, which stood an open sewer and
cess-pool, the receptacle of all abominations, the pest-breeder and
disgrace of the city. Toward the construction of this canal the city of
Washington gave $1,000,000 and Georgetown and Alexandria $250,000 each.
Its entire cost was $12,000,000. It was intended to be another artery to
bring the commerce of the world to Washington, and yet the Washington
end of it had come to this!
Capitol Hill, dreary, desolate and dirty, stretched away into an
uninhabited desert, high above the mud of the West End. Arid hill, and
sodden plain showed alike the horrid trail of war. Forts bristled above
every hill-top. Soldiers were entrenched at every gate-way. Shed
hospitals covered acres on acres in every suburb. Churches, art-halls
and private mansions were filled with the wounded and dying of the
American armies. The endless roll of the army wagon seemed never still.
The rattle of the anguish-laden ambulance, the piercing cries of the
sufferers whom it carried, made morning, noon and night too dreadful to
be borne. The streets were filled with marching troops, with new
regiments, their hearts strong and eager, their virgin banners all
untarnished as they marched up Pennsylvania avenue, playing “The girl I
left behind me,” as if they had come to holiday glory—to easy victory.
But the streets were filled no less with soldiers foot-sore, sun-burned,
and weary, their clothes begrimed, their banners torn, their hearts sick
with hope deferred, ready to die with the anguish of long defeat. Every
moment had its drum-beat, every hour was alive with the tramp of troops
going, coming. How many an American “boy,” marching to its defence,
beholding for the first time the great dome of the Capitol rising before
his eyes, comprehended in one deep gaze, as he never had in his whole
life before, _all_ that that Capitol meant to him, and to every free
man. Never, till the Capital had cost the life of the beautiful and
brave of our land, did it become to the heart of the American citizen of
the nineteenth century the object of personal love that it was to George
Washington. To that hour the intense loyalty to country, the pride in
the National Capital which amounts to a passion in the European, in the
American had been diffused, weakened and broken. In ten thousand
instances State allegiance had taken the place of love of country.
Washington was nothing but a place in which Congress could meet and
politicians carry on their games at high stakes for power and place. New
York was the Capital to the New Yorker, Boston to the New Englander, New
Orleans to the Southerner, Chicago to the man of the West. There was no
one central rallying point of patriots to the universal nation. The
unfinished Washington monument stood the monument of the nation’s
neglect and shame. What Westminster Abbey and Hall were to the
Englishman, what Notre Dame and the Tuileries were to the Frenchman, the
unfinished and desecrated Capitol had never been to the average
American. Anarchy threatened it. In an hour the heart of the nation was
centered in the Capital. The nation was ready to march to its defence.
Every public building, every warehouse was full of troops. Washington
city was no longer only a name to the mother waiting and praying in the
distant hamlet; _her boy_ was camped on the floor of the Rotunda. No
longer a far off myth to the lonely wife; _her_ husband held guard upon
the heights which defended the Capital. No longer a place good for
nothing but political schemes to the village sage; _his boy_, wrapped in
his blanket, slept on the stone steps under the shadow of the great
Treasury. The Capital, it was sacred at last to tens of thousands, whose
beloved languished in the wards of its hospitals or slept the sleep of
the brave in the dust of its cemeteries. Thus from the holocaust of war,
from the ashes of our sires and sons arose new-born the holy love of
country, and veneration for its Capital. The zeal of nationality, the
passion of patriotism awoke above the bodies of our slain. National
songs, the inspiration of patriots, soared toward heaven. National
monuments began to rise consecrated forever to the martyrs of Liberty.
Never, till that hour, did the Federal city—the city of George
Washington, the first-born child of the Union, born to live or to perish
with it,—become to the heart of the American people that which it had so
long been in the eyes of the world—truly the CAPITAL OF THE NATION.
CHAPTER VI.
THE WASHINGTON OF THE PRESENT DAY.
Hopes Realized—A Truly National City—Washington in 1873—Major L’Enfant’s
Dream—Old and New—“Modern Improvements”—A City of Palaces—The
Capital in All Its Glory—Traces of the War—Flowers on the
Ramparts—Under the Oaks of Arlington—Ten Years Ago—The Birth of a
Century—The Reign of Peace—The Capital of the Future.
And now! The citizen of the year of our Lord 1881 sees the dawn of that
perfect day of which the founders of the Capital so fondly and
fruitlessly dreamed. The old provincial Southern city is no more. From
its foundations has risen another city, neither Southern nor Northern,
but national, cosmopolitan.
[Illustration:
THE NATIONAL CAPITOL.—WASHINGTON.
It covers more than three and a half acres. Over thirteen million
dollars have thus far been expended in its erection.
]
Where the “Slough of Despond” spread its waxen mud across the acres of
the West End, where pedestrians were “slumped,” and horses “stalled,”
and discomfort and disgust prevailed, we now see broad carriage drives,
level as floors, over which grand equipages and pony phaetons glide with
a smoothness that is a luxury, and an ease of motion which is rest.
Where ravines and holes made the highway dangerous, now the concrete and
Nicholson pavements stretch over miles on miles of inviting road. Where
streets and avenues crossed and re-crossed their long vistas of
shadeless dust, now plat on plat of restful grass “park” the city from
end to end. Double rows of young trees line these parks far as the sight
can reach. In these June days they fill the air with tender bloom.
Gazing far on through their green arcades the sight rests at last where
poor Major L’Enfant dreamed and planned that it one day would,—on the
restful river, with its white flecks of sails, upon distant meadows and
the Virginia hills. Old Washington was full of small Saharas. Where the
great avenues intersected acres of white sand were caught up and carried
through the air by counter winds. It blistered at white heat beneath
your feet, it flickered like a fiery veil before your eyes, it
penetrated your lungs and begrimed your clothes. Now where streets and
avenues cross, emerald “circles” with central fountains, pervading the
air with cooling spray, with belts of flowers and troops of children,
and restful seats for the old or the weary take the place of the old
Saharas. In every direction tiny parks are blooming with verdurous life.
Concrete walks have taken the place of their old gravel-stone paths.
Seats—thanks to General Babcock—everywhere invite to sit down and rest
beneath trees which every summer cast a deeper and more protecting
shadow. The green pools which used to distill malaria beneath your
windows are now all sucked into the great sewers, planted at last in the
foundations of the city. The entire city has been drained. Every street
has been newly graded. The Tiber, inglorious stream, arched and covered
forever from sight, creeps in darkness to its final gulf in the river.
The canal, drained and filled up, no longer breeds pestilence.
Pennsylvania avenue has outlived its mud and its poplars, to be all and
more than Jefferson dreamed it would be,—the most magnificent street on
the continent. Its lining palaces are not yet built, but more than one
superb building like that of the Daily National Republican soars high
above the lowly shops of the past, a forerunner of the architectural
splendor of the buildings of the future. Cars running every five minutes
have taken the place of the solitary stage, plodding its slow way
between Georgetown and the Capital. Capitol Hill, which had been
retrograding for more than forty years, has taken on the look of a
suddenly growing city. Its dusty ways and empty spaces are beginning to
fill with handsome blocks of metropolitan houses. Even the old Capital
prison is transformed into a handsome and fashionable block of private
dwellings. The improvements at the West End are more striking. Solid
blocks of city houses are rising in every direction, taking the place of
the little, old, isolated house of the past, with its stiff porch, high
steps, and open basement doorway. Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut
avenues are already lined with splendid mansions, the permanent winter
homes of Senators and other high official and military officers. The
French, Spanish, English and other foreign governments have bought on
and near these avenues for the purpose of building on them handsome
houses for their separate legations. The grounds of the Executive
Mansion are being enlarged, extending to the Potomac with a carriage
drive encircling, running along the shore of the river, extending
through the Agricultural Smithsonian and Botanical garden grounds, thus
fulfilling the original intent of connecting the White House with the
Capitol by a splendid drive. The same transformation is going on in the
Capitol grounds. Blocks of old houses have been torn down and
demolished, to make room for a park fit to encircle the Capitol, which
can never be complete till it takes in all the rolling slopes which lie
between it and the Potomac. No scaffolding and pulleys now deface the
snowy surfaces of the Capitol. Unimpeded the dome soars into mid-air,
till the goddess of liberty on its top seems caught into the embrace of
the clouds. The beautiful Treasury building is completed, and a block
further on, the click of ceaseless hammers and the rising buttresses of
solid stone tell of the new war and navy departments which are swiftly
growing beside the historic walls of the old. Even the Washington
monument has been taken into hand by General Babcock, to whom personally
the Capital owes so much, and by a fresh appeal to the States he hopes
to re-arouse their patriotism and insure its grand completion. Flowers
blossom on the ramparts of the old forts, so alert with warlike life ten
years ago. The army roads, so deeply grooved then, are grass-grown now.
The long shed-hospitals have vanished, and stately dwellings stand on
their already forgotten sites. The “boys” who languished in their wards,
the boys who marched these streets, who guarded this city, how many of
them lie on yonder hill-top under the oaks of Arlington, and amid the
roses of the Soldier’s Home. Peace, prosperity and luxury have taken the
place of war, of knightly days and of heroic men.
The mills of time grind slowly. What a tiny stroke in its cycles is a
single century. One hundred years! The year nineteen hundred! Then if
the father of his country can look down from any star upon the city of
his love he will behold in the new Washington that which even he did not
foresee in his earthly life—one of the most magnificent cities of the
whole earth.
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT MADE NEW WASHINGTON.
Municipal Changes—Necessity of Reform—Committee of One Hundred
Constituted—Mr. M. G. Emery Appointed Mayor—The “Organic Act”
Passed—Contest for the Governorship of Columbia District—Mr. Henry
D. Cooke Appointed—Board of Public Works Constituted—Great
Improvements Made—Opposition—The Board and its Work—Sketch of
Alexander R. Shepherd—His Efforts During the War—Patriotic Example.
A sketch of the territorial government which now rules the District of
Columbia, will account for new Washington and the many beneficent
changes which have renovated the city.
As early as the winter of 1868, efforts were made to secure a united
government for the entire District, instead of the triple affair then in
operation, viz.: municipal corporations for Washington and Georgetown,
and the Levy court for the County. Under that _regime_ no system of
general improvements could be established. The District was under the
exclusive jurisdiction of Congress and was obliged to beg and plead with
that body for permission to begin and for appropriations to pay for each
improvement, as its increasing business and population imperatively
demanded. Again, the extension of the right of suffrage and the
consequent increase of the number of ignorant voters, made it apparent
that something must be done to prevent the control of the cities falling
into the power of a class of petty ward politicians of the very worst
order, who had sprung up just after the war, and who had already caused
considerable uneasiness in the minds of the solid and thinking portion
of the community, by the rapid manner in which they had managed to
increase the public debt without showing any corresponding public
benefits.
It was at first proposed to have the District governed by commissioners
to be appointed by the President, and I believe bills to that effect
were introduced into Congress by Senator Hamlin, and Mr. Morrill, of
Maine, but were defeated. Of course the proposed change was very
unpopular, and the Washington Common Council passed a series of
resolutions protesting against any interference with the government then
existing. The extravagance and venality of the administration of 1868-9,
however, awakened the sober and thoughtful minded citizens to the
absolute necessity of a radical and vigorous reform, and during the
winter of 1869-70 a committee of one hundred was constituted, to whom
was given the task of perfecting a bill granting a territorial
government to the District, and of the urging of its passage by
Congress. This bill failed to pass that Session, and there next came a
bitter political contest, resulting in the election of Hon. M. G. Emery
as Mayor of Washington.
The evils which it was supposed Mr. Emery would correct, did not seem to
lessen during his administration, and in the following winter the
project of a new government was revived and urged with so much vigor
that Congress, on the 21st of January, 1871, passed what is now known as
the “Organic Act,” establishing and defining the powers of the
territorial government of the District of Columbia. Immediately
following the passage of this act there appeared four prominent
candidates for the governorship of the young territory, viz: Messrs. M.
G. Emery, Sayles J. Bowen, Jas. A. Magruder, and Alex. R. Shepherd.
Messrs. Emery and Bowen soon subsided, and the contest narrowed to
between Messrs. Shepherd and Magruder.
It was unmistakably the popular desire that the appointment should be
given to Mr. Shepherd. He had been more prominent than any other
individual named in securing the change effected; the nucleus of the
Organic Act is said to have been drafted by him, and the energy and
sagacity he had shown in his public life pointed him out as peculiarly
fit for the position. Besides, he had gained the popular confidence by
his unvarying integrity and fearless independence, and by a quality too
rarely observed in a public man—positive manliness. Colonel Magruder,
the Georgetown candidate, was quite popular in that city, where he had
for a number of years been the collector of customs. Though at that time
he was not extensively known in Washington, those who were his friends
were ardent and untiring in their support. It soon became evident that
the appointment of either of these gentlemen would cause extreme
dissatisfaction to the supporters of his competitors, and as it was
especially desirable that the new government should commence its
operations with perfect good feeling pervading all the different
parties, a governor was sought who should harmonize all differences, and
Henry D. Cooke, of the firm of Jay Cooke & Co., a gentleman of
unimpeachable integrity, who had kept aloof from all factions and who,
in fact, was one of Mr. Shepherd’s warmest supporters, was at length
selected.
Then came the appointment of that body of men, against whom so much
abuse has been hurled, but to whose energies the existence of the new
Washington I have portrayed is wholly attributable, viz: the Board of
Public Works. This Board was at first composed of Messrs. A. R.
Shepherd, A. B. Mullett, S. P. Brown, and James A. Magruder, with the
Governor as president _ex-officio_. Since then Messrs. Mullett and Brown
have resigned, and their places have been filled by Messrs. Adolf Cluss,
and Henry A. Willard.
I may state also that the first Secretary of the District was N. P.
Chipman, and that when he was elected as the delegate to Congress, the
position was given to E. L. Stanton, the son of the late Secretary
Stanton, by whom it is now filled.
All the gentlemen I have named are men of clear intelligence, excellent
business capacity, and positive energy.
The amount of labor performed by the Board of Public Works can scarcely
be imagined by one who has not lived right here in the District, and
observed the complete and almost magical changes that have taken place.
Embarrassed at the very commencement of their career by the slipshod
manner in which improvements had been carried on under the old
corporations, they soon encountered a violent opposition from many
citizens who should have heartily supported their efforts. This
opposition was organized and persistent, leaving no artifice untried to
hinder and check the efforts of the Board, seeking injunction after
injunction in the courts, and finally appealing to Congress and
effecting an investigation which lasted for four months, and was as
searching and minute as any ever attempted by that body, but which ended
not only in the absolute acquittal of the Board of every charge alleged,
but in a cordial commendation of their acts by the committee which
conducted the inquiry.
I wish to give this Board of Public Works the credit to which they are
justly entitled. When I read the slanders that are cast upon them, I
want to ask the authors if they would prefer the dingy, straggling,
muddy, dusty Washington of two years ago to the bright, compact, clean
and beautiful city of to-day?
The “head and front” of this Board, the man who has infused a portion of
his own enthusiasm into his fellow members, the man to whose
comprehensive mind and untiring energy the success of the Board is
almost entirely due, who was made vice-president and executive officer
by his colleagues because they recognized his great abilities, and were
content to follow where he should lead, is Alexander R. Shepherd of
Washington.
He is a native of Washington, was born in 1885, and is consequently now
but thirty-eight years old. His father died when he was quite a boy, and
at the early age of ten years he began the rough struggle of life. He at
first started to learn the carpenter’s trade, but finding that
unsuitable to his tastes he entered a store, as errand boy. At seventeen
he was taken into the plumbing establishment of Mr. J. W. Thompson, as
clerk. By industry, fidelity and ability, he at length attained a
partnership in that house, and upon Mr. Thompson’s retirement, succeeded
to the full control of the business, which under his skillful management
has so rapidly grown that it now defies competition with any similar
establishment south of New York.
When the war of the Rebellion broke out, Mr. Shepherd was mainly
instrumental in forming the Union party in Washington, proving loyal
amidst the bitter hostility of many of his best friends. As early as the
15th of April, 1861, he enlisted as a private soldier, and for three
months shouldered his musket in defense of the National Capital. In the
same year he was elected a member of the Common Council, and again in
1862, when he was made president of that body. In 1867 he was appointed
a member of the Levy court, and in that capacity first developed his
ability and energy as a public man. He was president of the Citizens’
Reform Association during the Emery campaign, and was, I believe, the
prime mover of Mr. Emery’s nomination, and contributed by his efforts
largely to that gentleman’s success. At that election Mr. Shepherd was
chosen to the Board of Aldermen, which position he held when appointed
to the Board of Public Works.
In person Mr. Shepherd is a tall, noble looking man, with a large,
well-formed head, sharply-defined features, massive under jaw and square
chin, indicative of the indomitable perseverance and firmness which are
the most prominent traits in his character. Although a self-made man, he
has acquired a fund of information which many a collegian might envy.
His mind is thoroughly disciplined, his perceptions keen, his decisions
rapid, and his language vigorous and terse. In private life he is
universally respected and esteemed. His benevolence is unbounded, and
beside subscribing liberally to every public appeal, he performs
innumerable acts of private charity, which few know save the grateful
recipients.
It was believed by the majority of people that Governor Cooke would
retain his position only until the fusion of the irritated factions was
effected, and that in the event of his resignation Mr. Shepherd would be
appointed his successor. Whether Governor Cooke retires before the end
of his term or not, it is the universal belief that Mr. Shepherd will be
the second governor of the District of Columbia.
He is a representative man, embodying in his history and character more
emphatically, perhaps, than any other man, the new life of the new city
of Washington.
CHAPTER VIII.
BUILDING THE CAPITOL.
George Washington’s Anxiety about it—His View of it Politically—Various
Plans for the Building—Jefferson Writes to the Commissioners—His
Letter to Mr. Carroll—“Poor Hallet” and His Plan—Wanton Destruction
by the British, A. D. 1814—Foundation of the Main Building Laid—The
Site Chosen by Washington Himself—Imposing Ceremonies at the
Foundation—Dedicatory Inscription on the Silver Plate—Interesting
Festivities—The Birth of a Nation’s Capital—Extension of the
Building—Daniel Webster’s Inscription—His Eloquent and Patriotic
Speech—Mistaken Calculations—First Session of Representatives
Sitting in “the Oven”—Old Capital Prison—Immense Outlay upon the
Wings and Dome—Compared with St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s—The Goddess
of Liberty—The Congressional Library—Proposed Alterations—What Ought
to be Done.
George Washington believed the building of the Capitol to be identical
with the establishment of a permanent seat of government. To the
consummation of this crowning building, the deepest anxiety and devotion
of his later years were dedicated. Next to determining a final site for
the city was the difficulty of deciding on a plan for its Capitol.
Poor human nature had to contend awhile over this as it seems to have to
about almost everything else. A Mr. S. Hallet had a plan: Dr. Thornton
had one, also. Jefferson wrote “to Dr. Stewart, or to all the gentlemen”
Commissioners, January 31, 1793:
“I have, under consideration, Mr. Hallet’s plans for the Capitol,
which undoubtedly have a great deal of merit. Doctor Thornton has also
given me a view of his. The grandeur, simplicity and beauty of the
exterior, the propriety with which the departments are distributed,
and economy in the mass of the whole structure, will, I doubt not give
it a preference in your eyes as it has done in mine and those of
several others whom I have consulted. I have, therefore, thought it
better to give the Doctor time to finish his plan, and for this
purpose to delay until your meeting a final decision. Some difficulty
arises with respect to Mr. Hallet, who, you know, was in some degree
led into his plan by ideas which we all expressed to him. This ought
not to induce us to prefer it to a better; but while he is liberally
rewarded for the time and labor he has expended on it, his feelings
should be saved and soothed as much as possible. I leave it to
yourselves how best to prepare him for the possibility that the
Doctor’s plans may be preferred to his.”
February 1, 1793, Jefferson writes from Philadelphia to Mr. Carroll—
“DEAR SIR:—Doctor Thornton’s plan for a Capitol has been produced and
has so captivated the eyes and judgments of all as to leave no doubt
you will prefer it when it shall be exhibited to you; as no doubt
exists here of its preference over all which have been produced, and
among its admirers no one is more decided than him, whose decision is
most important. It is simple, noble, beautiful, excellently
distributed and moderate in size. A just respect for the right of
approbation in the Commissioners will prevent any formal decision in
the President, till the plan shall be laid before you and approved by
you. In the meantime the interval of _apparent_ doubt may be improved
for settling the mind of poor Hallet whose merits and distresses
interests every one for his tranquillity and pecuniary relief.”
These quotations are chiefly interesting in connection with the fact
that poor, pushed-to-the-wall Hallet rebounded afterwards,
notwithstanding Jefferson’s enthusiasm over Thornton’s plan, and
Washington’s declaration that it combined “grandeur, simplicity and
convenience.” The architects preferred the design of Hallet and in
building retained but two or three of the features of Doctor Thornton’s
plan.
After the burning of the Capitol wings by the British, August, 1814, Mr.
B. H. Latrobe, of Maryland, began to rebuild the Capitol on Stephen
Hallet’s plan. The foundations of the main building were laid March 24,
1818, under the superintendence of Charles Bulfinch, and the original
design was completed in 1825. The site of the Capitol was chosen by
George Washington, on a hill ninety feet above tide-water, commanding a
view of the great plateau below, the circling rivers, and girdling
hills—a hill in 1663 named “Room,” later Rome, and owned by a gentleman
named “Pope.”
September 18, 1793, the south-east corner of the Capitol was laid by
Washington with imposing ceremonies. A copy of _The Maryland Gazette_,
published in Annapolis, September 26, 1793, gives a minute account of
the grand Masonic ceremonial, which attended the laying of that august
stone. It tells us that “there appeared on the southern bank of the
river Potomac one of the finest companies of artillery that hath been
lately seen parading to receive the President of the U. S.” Also, that
the Commissioners delivered to the President, who deposited in the stone
a silver plate with the following inscription:
“This south-east corner of the Capitol of the United States of
America, in the city of Washington, was laid on the 18th day of
September, 1792, in the thirteenth year of American Independence; in
the first year, second term of the Presidency of George Washington,
whose virtues in the civil administration of his country have been as
conspicuous and beneficial, as his military valor and prudence have
been useful, in establishing her liberties, and in the year of
Masonry, 5793, by the President of the United States, in concert with
the Grand Lodge of Maryland, several lodges under its jurisdiction and
Lodge No. 22 from Alexandria, Virginia.
[Signed] THOMAS JOHNSON, }
DAVID STEWART, } _Commissioners, etc._”
DANIEL CARROLL, }
The _Gazette_ continues:—
“The whole company retired to an extensive booth, where an ox of 500
lbs. weight was barbecued, of which the company generally partook with
every abundance of other recreation. The festival concluded with
fifteen successive volleys from the artillery, whose military
discipline and manœuvres merit every commendation.”
“Before dark the whole company departed with joyful hopes of the
production of their labors.”
Fifty-eight years later, near this spot another corner-stone was
deposited bearing the following inscription in the writing of Daniel
Webster:—
“On the morning of the first day of the seventy-sixth year of the
Independence of the United States of America, in the city of
Washington, being the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and
fifty-one, this stone designed as the corner-stone of the extension of
the Capitol, according to a plan approved by the President in
pursuance of an act of Congress was laid by
MILLARD FILMORE,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,
Assisted by the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges, in the presence of
many Members of Congress, of officers of the Executive and Judiciary
departments, National, State and Districts, of officers of the Army
and Navy, the Corporate authorities of this and neighboring cities,
many associations, civil and military and Masonic, officers of the
Smithsonian Institution, and National Institute, professors of
colleges and teachers of schools of the Districts, with their students
and pupils, and a vast concourse of people from places near and remote
including a few surviving gentlemen who witnessed the laying of the
corner-stone of the Capitol by President Washington, on the 18th day
of September, 1793. If, therefore, it shall hereafter be the will of
God that this structure shall fall from its base, that its foundation
be upturned, and this deposit brought to the eyes of men; be it then
known that on this day the Union of the United States of America
stands firm, that their constitution still exists unimpaired, and with
all its original usefulness and glory growing every day stronger and
stronger in the affections of the great body of the American people,
and attracting more and more the admiration of the world. And all here
assembled, whether belonging to public life or to private life, with
hearts devoutly thankful to Almighty God for the preservation of the
liberty and happiness of the country, unite in sincere and fervent
prayer, that this deposit, and the walls and arches, the domes and
towers, the columns and entablatures, now to be erected over it may
endure forever.
“God Save the United States of America.
DANIEL WEBSTER,
_Secretary of State of the United States_.”
In the speech made by Mr. Webster on this occasion he uttered the
following words:—
“Fellow citizens, what contemplations are awakened in our minds as we
assemble to re-enact a scene like that performed by Washington!
Methinks I see his venerable form now before me as presented in the
glorious statue by Houdon, now in the Capitol of Virginia.... We
perceive that mighty thoughts mingled with fears as well as with
hopes, are struggling with him. He heads a short procession over these
then naked fields; he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree; he
ascends on the top of this eminence, whose original oaks of the forest
stand as thick around him as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical
worship and here he performs the appointed duty of the day.”