The most famous of all these cities of the Chesapeake region is
Washington, upon the Potomac, and we will therefore begin this story
at the American National Capital. The striking thing about Washington
is that, unlike other capitals of great nations, it was created for
the sole purpose of a seat of government, apart from any question of
commercial rank or population. It has neither manufactures nor
commerce to speak of. After the adoption of the Federal Constitution
there was a protracted conflict in Congress over the claims of rival
localities for the seat of government, and this developed so much
jealousy that it almost disrupted the Union at its inception. General
Washington, then the President, used his strong influence and wise
judgment to compromise the dispute, and it was finally decided that
Philadelphia should remain the capital for ten years, while after the
year 1800 it should be located on the Potomac River, on a site
selected by Washington, within a district of one hundred square
miles, ceded by Maryland and Virginia, and which, to avoid any
question of sovereignty or control, should be under the exclusive
jurisdiction of Congress. The location was at the time nearly in the
geographical centre of the then thirteen original States. As the city
was designed entirely on the Maryland side of the Potomac, the
Virginia portion of the "Federal District of Columbia," as it was
called, was retroceded in 1826, so that the District now contains
about sixty-five square miles. The capital was originally called the
"Federal City," but this was changed by law in 1791 to the "City of
Washington." The ground plan of the place was ambitious, and laid out
upon an extensive undulating plateau bordered by rolling hills to the
northward and westward, and sloping gently towards the Potomac River,
between the main stream and the eastern branch, or Anacostia River.
This plan has been well described as "a wheel laid upon a gridiron,"
the rectangular arrangement of the ordinary streets having
superimposed upon it a system of broad radiating avenues, with the
Capitol on its hill, ninety feet high, for the centre. The Indians
called the place Conococheague, or the "roaring water," from a rapid
brook running through it, which washed the base of the Capitol Hill,
and was afterwards very properly named the Tiber, but has since
degenerated into a sewer. A distinguished French engineer of the time,
Major L'Enfant, prepared the topographical plan of the city, under
the direction of Washington and Jefferson, who was Secretary of State;
and Andrew Ellicott, a prominent local surveyor, laid it out upon the
ground. The basis of the design was the topography of Versailles, but
with large modifications; and thus was laid out the Capital of the
United States, which a writer in the _London Times_, some years ago,
called "the city of Philadelphia griddled across the city of
Versailles."
The original designers planned a city five miles long and three miles
broad, and confidently expected that a vast metropolis would soon be
created, though in practice only a comparatively limited portion was
built upon, and this is not where they intended the chief part of the
new city to be. Of late years, however, the newer portions have been
rapidly extending. No man's name was used for any of the streets or
avenues, as this might cause jealousy, so the streets were numbered or
lettered and the avenues named after the States. The corner-stone of
the Capitol was laid in 1793, its front facing east upon the elevated
plateau of the hill, and the town was to have been mainly built upon
this plateau in front of it. Behind the Capitol, on its western side,
the brow of the hill descended rather sharply, and here they laid out
a wide and open Mall, westward over the lower ground to the bank of
the Potomac River, more than a mile away. Off towards the northwest,
at the end of one of the diagonal avenues, they placed the Executive
Mansion, with its extensive park and gardens stretching southward to
the river, and almost joining the Mall there at a right angle. The
design was to have the city in an elevated and salubrious location,
with the President secluded in a comfortable retreat amid ample
grounds, but nearly a mile and a half distant in the rural region. But
few plans eventuate as expected; and such is the perversity of human
nature that the people, when they came to the new settlement, would
not build the town on Capitol Hill as had been intended, but persisted
in settling upon the lower ground along and adjacent to the broad
avenue leading from the Capitol to the Executive Mansion; and there,
and for a long distance beyond the latter to the northward and
westward, is the city of Washington of to-day. Pennsylvania Avenue,
one hundred and sixty feet wide, joining these two widely-separated
Government establishments and extending far to the northwest, thus
became the chief street of the modern city. To Washington the Federal
Government was removed, as directed by law, in 1800, the actual
removal being conducted by Tobias Lear, who had been President
Washington's private secretary, and was then serving in similar
capacity for President John Adams. He packed the whole archives and
belongings of the then United States Government at Philadelphia in
twenty-eight wooden boxes, loaded them on a sloop, sailed down the
Delaware, around to the Chesapeake, and up the Potomac to the new
capital, and took possession. The original Capitol and Executive
Mansion were burnt by the British during their invasion in 1814, when
Washington had about ten thousand population; it now contains over
three hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand are army and navy
officers and civil servants and their families, and about eighty
thousand are colored people.