USA > Washington > Standard history of the city of Washington from a study of the original sources > Part 15
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Auditor of the Treasurer, who devoted some months to the task of examining the tickets and certifying the payment of prizes as made. While this was being attended to Blodget continued his efforts to put the second lottery before the public as a project of the Commissioners. The latter required him on May 29, 1794, to sign a written statement which recited:
"In order to remove any doubts which may have arisen or that may hereafter arise I do hereby declare that it is not now nor has it ever been considered by me that the Commissioners of the City of Washington were ever respon- sible either in their Public or their private capacities for the Lottery N 2 or the conducting thereof, I having pro- ceeded on the Sales at my own private risque under their express declaration that they would not be held responsible directly or Indirectly for this Business in any event or in any manner whatever.
Sam'l Blodget."
Even the execution of this statement failed to put a check on Blodget's attempts to publish the second lottery as sanctioned by the Commissioners, with the result that they finally published their disavowal of it in both the Philadelphia and Baltimore papers. Several open communications between them and Blodget passed through the same channels with the result that Blodget appears finally to have become discredited by the public. The hotel though partially erected was never completed by Blodget and the holder of the prize, Robert S. Bickley, was compelled to bring suit against Blodget in Pennsylvania for damages result- ing from its non-completion. Having recovered a money judg- ment in this suit he brought proceedings in the District of Columbia to collect the same out of the property conveyed by Blodget to Johnson and Peters to secure the payment of the lottery prizes. The litigation lasted as late as the year 1818. The hotel stood on the northwest corner at Seventh and E Streets, northwest, and in 1800 was partially reconstructed as the United States Theatre, the first theatre in the new city.
The practical effect of the hotel lottery upon the affairs of the city was summed up by the Commissioners in a letter to Mr. Randolph, the Secretary of State, written at the time of
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the execution by Blodget of the deed to Jolinson and Peter, wherein they say : "We feel ourselves relieved and easy on the present Lottery which though it has occasioned anxiety to us, has, we are satisfied on the whole been useful in bringing the City into general view and contemplation."
While the controversy between the Commissioners and Major L'Enfant, relative to the destruction of Mr. Carroll's house, was going on, the Maryland Act of December 19, 1791, ratifying the cession of the federal territory to the United States was passed. This act, while its primary purpose was as just indicated, was in fact of an omnibus character and dealt with a multitude of matters relating to both the federal territory and the federal city. In connection with two supplemental acts passed by the Maryland Legislature it, with the deeds in trust, constitutes for all practical purposes the foundation upon which all titles to land within the original limits of the city of Wash- ington rest. Its importance justifies more than a passing notice.
The necessity for an act ratifying the cession of the federal territory to the United States had been suggested by Mr. Jeffer- son so far back as March, 1791, in the memorandum entitled "Objects which may merit the attention of the President at George T.," which he handed the President previous to the latter's visit to Georgetown which resulted in the preliminary agreement signed by the proprietors on March 30, 1791. In the course of this memorandum Mr. Jefferson says: "That State (Maryland) will necessarily have to pass another act confirm- ing whatever location shall be made, because her former act authorized the delegates then in office to convey the land. But as they were not located, no conveyance has been made, and those persons are now out of office and dispersed." The argu- ment advanced by Mr. Jefferson explains the reasons for the portion of the act ratifying the cession, which portion reads as follows :
"Whereas in the cession of this State, heretofore made, of territory for the Government of the United States, the lines of such cession could not be particularly designated ; and it being expedient and proper that the same should be recognized in the acts of this State-
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"2. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Mary- land, That all that part of the said territory called Columbia which lies within the limits of this State shall be, and the same is hereby, acknowledged to forever ceded and relin- quished to the Congress and Government of the United States, and full and absolute right and exclusive jurisdic- tion, as well of soil as of persons residing or to reside there- on, pursuant to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution of Government of the United States: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed to vest in the United States any right of property in the soil as to affect the rights of individuals therein, otherwise than the same shall or may be transferred by such individuals to the United States: And provided also, That the jurisdiction of the laws of this State over the persons and property of individuals residing within the limits of the cession aforesaid shall not cease or determine until Congress shall, by law, provide for the government thereof, under their jurisdiction, in manner provided by the article of the Constitution before recited."
The act then proceeds to make provision for the vesting of title in the trustees Beall and Gantt and the platting and divis- ion between the proprietors and the public of such lands as had not been conveyed to the trustees by deeds. It recited the fact that most of the land in the city had been conveyed to the trustees and that on the strength of that fact the city had been designated by the President, and stated it as the sense of the Maryland Assembly that it appeared just that all the lands within the city should contribute in due proportion to the means which had already greatly enhanced the value of the whole; and provided two methods by which the Commissioners should be empowered to bring about that end. The first had reference to the lands belonging to minors, persons absent out of the State, married women, or persons non compos mentis, and lands belong- ing to the State. As to the lands of such owners within the limits of Carrollsburgh and Hamburgh the Act provided that they should be subjected to the terms and conditions contained in the deeds already executed by many of the owners of lots in those towns. As to all other lands within the limits of the city belong- ing to the several classes of owners mentioned the act provided
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that they should be subjected to the same terms and conditions as those contained in the deeds from Notley Young, Daniel Carroll of Duddington and others. As to the divisions of lots between the public and such proprietors the act went on to provide that where the proprietor was incompetent or failed to attend on three months' advertisement of notice in the Mary- land Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, the Maryland Herald, and the Georgetown and Alexandria papers, the Commissioners might allot the portion of such proprietor as near the old situa- tion as possible where his land lay in Carrollsburgh and Ham- burgh, and that as to the other lands within the city the Commissioners should make such allotment in alternate lots; provided that in cases of coverture and infancy the husband, guardian, or next friend might agree as to the allotment, and that in cases of contrary claims, where the claimants would not agree, the Commissioners might proceed as if the proprietors were absent. As an additional method of compelling the cession of the unconveyed lands the Commissioners were vested with power to condemn the lands of any who should not have executed conveyances within three months of the passage of the act, by means of a special jury of five, the lands when condemned and paid for to vest in the Commissioners in trust to be disposed of by them or otherwise employed to the use of the city of Wash- ington. This section repeals the former act of Maryland "to condemn lands for the public buildings of the United States," which had been passed in 1790 for the purpose of authorizing the condemnation of the lots in Hamburgh.
The next section of the act was designed to render incontro- vertible the titles acquired by purchasers, whether from the public or from the proprietors. It provided that purchases of lots from the United States, or purchases or leases from private persons, claiming to be proprietors who, or those under whom they claimed, had been in posession of the lands purchased or leased in their own right for five years next before the passage of the act, should be "good and effectual for the estate, and on the terms and conditions of such purchases and leases, respect- ively, without impeachment, and against any contrary title now
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existing." In the case of a conveyance by any person not hav- ing the right to make it the act provided that the true owner might recover all money received by the person making the conveyance both for land appropriated by the United States and for that sold or leased.
The next section was passed with a view to inducing wealthy foreigners to invest their money and settle in the new city. It gave to foreigners the same right to take and hold lands within that part of the federal territory lying within the State of Mary- land, and to dispose of them, as if they were citizens of the State, providing, however, that no other privileges of citizenship should be thereby conferred.
The act then provided for a recorder of deeds, and for the acknowledgment of deeds and required that no deed thereafter made or lease for more than seven years should be effectual unless recorded within six months.
Another section provided for builders' liens, and authorized the Commissioners, until Congress should exercise jurisdiction over the federal territory, to license and regulate the building of wharves, to make regulations for the discharge of ballast, for landing and laying building materials and the disposal of earth dug from cellars, wells, and foundations, for ascertaining the thickness of walls of houses, and the retailing of distilled spirits. As to the latter, it is curious to note that the act defines retail- ing as selling in quantities of less than ten gallons to the same person.
The financial needs of the Commissioners were given consid- eration in the act by a provision that the treasurer of the West- ern shore should be required to pay the seventy-two thousand dollars agreed to be advanced to the President in sums as they might come into his hands on the appointed funds without wait- ing for the day appointed in the original act for the payment thereof.
The authorship of this act is undoubtedly to be credited to Mr. Johnson, the record of the proceedings of the Commissioners for September 8, 1791, reciting that a draft of the law had been that day submitted by Mr. Johnson. It was a painstaking work,
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going into minute detail to provide for every contingency that might arise under any of the subjects to which it referred; and in its preparation, as in that of the deeds of trust, Mr. Johnson vindicated the President's selection of him as one of the Com- missioners. One provision of the act was probably the result of Mr. Jefferson's influence, viz .- the provision for workmen's liens. Justice White, in his dissenting opinion in the Potomac Flats cases,* calls attention to the fact that this provision was foreign to the English law but well known to the civil law which prevailed in France. It is more than likely that Mr. Jefferson became familiar with it during his four years' stay in the latter country. The authority for all the provisions of the act, except that ratifying the cession, is found in the clause in the Act of Congress of July 16, 1790, for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States ("the Residence Act"), which provides that "the oper- ation of the laws of the State within such district shall not be affected by this acceptance until the time fixed for the removal of the government thereto, and until Congress shall by law otherwise provide."
Under authority of this act the Commissioners on January 6, 1792, appointed John Mackall Gantt, Clerk for recording deeds of lands within the Territory of Columbia.
Two supplements to this act were later passed by the Mary- land legislature. The first arose out of a doubt as to whether it was necessary that deeds to property within that part of the Territory of Columbia ceded by Maryland should, in addition to being recorded according to the provisions of the original law, be recorded in conformity to the laws of the State as they existed prior to the passage of that law. The supplement, which was passed December 23, 1792, provided that deeds recorded agreeably to the original law should be as effective as if also recorded in the manner prescribed by the laws of the State existing prior to the passage of the original law.
The second supplement, passed December 28, 1793, was
*Morris v. U. S. 174 U. S. 196.
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designed to meet a number of exigencies which had arisen in connection with the disposition of property in the city.
The first section made it unnecessary for the Commission- ers to execute formal deeds to the purchasers of public lots in the city, by providing that the certificates of the Commissioners acknowledging the receipt of the purchase money should be effectual without a formal conveyance. The second section resulted from the difficulty experienced in collecting the deferred payments due on lots purchased from the Commissioners and authorized the Commissioners to resell at public sale on sixty days' notice lots purchased of the public where any deferred payments should not be met within thirty days from the time they became due, paying over to the original purchaser any balance of the purchase price after deducting the amount due from him with costs of sale.
The third enabled the Commissioners to make divisions between the public and the owners of all lots in Carrollsburgh and Hamburgh after three weeks' publication as if the propri- etors lived out of the state, the latter class being provided for in the original act. The fourth section authorized a seal of office for and the collection of fees by the Clerk for recording deeds within the "District of Columbia," this being, it is believed, the first legislative employment of that name.
With the exception of having some of the clay thrown up from the foundations of the Capitol and President's House in the fall of 1791, the first step looking to the erection of those buildings was taken on March 14, 1792, when an advertisement was ordered to be published in the principal towns of the United States announcing that five hundred dollars or a medal of that value at the option of the party would be given for the most approved plan submitted before July 15, next, for a President's House. It was added that it should be a recommendation of any plan if the central part of it might be detached and erected for the present with the appearance of a complete whole and be capable of admitting the additional parts in future, if they should be wanted.
A premium of a lot and five hundred dollars or a medal
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of that value was offered for the most approved plan for the Capitol and two hundred and fifty dollars or a medal for the plan deemed next in merit, the building to be of brick and to contain the following compartments :
"A conference room, a room for the representatives, suffi- cient to accommodate 300 persons each; a lobby or ante- chamber to the latter, a senate room of 1200 square feet area, an ante-chamber or lobby to the latter, these rooms to be of full elevation. 12 rooms of 600 square feet area each for committee rooms and clerk's offices to be of half the elevation of the former."
On July 16 and 17, 1792, President Washington met with the Commissioners and examined the plans which had been submitted. No decision was reached as to the plans for the Capitol as none of those submitted was regarded as satisfactory.
For the President's house the plan of James Hoban of Charleston, S. C., was given first prize, he electing to receive a gold medal of the value of eight or ten guineas and the balance in money. A second prize of one hundred and fifty dollars was awarded to John Collins. Mr. Hoban was at once employed at a salary of three hundred guineas per year to make drawings and superintend the execution of his plan of the "palace" and of such other works of that kind as might be in execution.
The day following the adoption of Hoban's design the Commissioners, in company with Mr. Hoban went to the ground intended for the site of the President's House for the purpose of laying out the plan of the foundation on the ground. Major L'Enfant had previously staked out the lines of the foundation upon considerably larger dimensions than those contemplated in Mr. Hoban's design and the Com- missioners, being at a loss how to adjust the discrepancy, awaited the return of the President who had proceeded to Mount Vernon.
On August 2nd, the President, rejoined Commissioners Car- roll and Stuart and on the following day went over the ground with them. The fixing of the exact site of the building caused the President no inconsiderable difficulty. His final conclu- sion was that instead of dividing equally on all sides the differ- ence between Hoban's and L'Enfant's ground areas, the north
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front of the building should be brought up to the point fixed therefore by Major L'Enfant, the chief reason for his decision being that in this position the building would be "most in view to the diagonals, and on E. W. Street, though not so much so, from the Capitol, as might be wished."
On October 13th, following, according to the record of their proceedings for that date "the Commissioners, accompanied by a numerous collection of free-masons, architects and inhabitants of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, went in procession and laid the first corner stone of the President's House."
At the time of the adoption of Mr. Hoban's design it was thought desirable to increase the size of the building one-fifth, and Mr. Hoban accordingly enlarged his plans as directed in this particular. The expense of the enlarged plan he estimated by comparison with the cost of the Dublin Exchange at £77,900 Sterling. Somewhat taken back by these figures, the Commis- sioners submitted to the President, along with a statement of the financial prospects for the coming year, the question of reverting to Mr. Hoban's original plan. The President's reply under date of March 3, 1793, illustrates the intensely practical turn of his mind. He said :
"It was always my idea (and if I am not mistaken Mr. Hoban coincided in the propriety and practicability of it) that the building should be so arranged that only a part of it should be erected at the present; and upon such a plan as to make the part so erected an entire building and to admit of an addition in future as circumstances might ren- der proper, without hurting but rather adding to the beauty and magnificence of the whole as an original. I was led to this idea by considering that a House which would be very proper for a President of the United States for some years to come, might not be considered as corresponding with other circumstances at a more distant period : and therefore, to avoid the inconvenience which might arise hereafter on that subject, I wished the building to be upon the plan I have mentioned."
Notwithstanding their recommendation in favor of the re- duced plan, the Commissioners upon further reflection, reversed themselves and finally determined to construct the building upon the enlarged plan. Their decision and the grounds there-
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for, were set forth in a communication to Mr. Hoban under date of March 14, 1793, wherein they say :
"On reflecting on all circumstances we believe it will be best to begin the President's House on the large plan with a present intention of dropping a story in the execution. It will according to your idea described bring it on a whole, to much about the same expense as in the smaller, length and breadth, with the addition of the story. It will certain- ly not sink the neighboring buildings so much and perhaps the beauty of the whole may be increased. Besides if the funds should serve out and opinion should lend to it in the progress of the work the large scale may be carried through."
The reference to "dropping a story" is believed to have arisen from an original purpose to make the President's House three stories high. This idea is born out by a letter from Mr. Hoban to the Commissioners dated October 15, 1793, wherein he says :
"The whole of the Stone Cutters now in employ are pre- paring Aslıler, and Architraves, calculated to suit the Pres- ident's House; either to finish with two Storys on the present basement agreeable to your Idea given me some time ago; or to finish with three Storys, so as to accord with the plan. * * * N. B. Should the President's House be found Sufficient for the purposes intended, with two Story's on the present basement, still retaining the same proportions as the Original design, I am of opinion in point of Ellegance it will have a better effect."
The selection of a design for the Capitol proved to be a much more difficult task than was the case with that of the President's House.
After the consideration and rejection by the President and the Commissioners of the plans submitted in response to the Commissioners' advertisement, Mr. Stephen Hallett, a French- man, whose plan had received much approbation, was requested to come on from Philadelphia at the expense of the city and view the ground in the expectation that this would enable him to improve upon his original design. On his arrival he made so favorable an impression that the Commissioners requested him to direct his efforts to perfecting a plan in line with certain
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notes which they furnished him, assuring him that in any event he should not suffer by reason of a loss of his time.
In the meantime Dr. William Thornton, of Philadelphia, who had been anxious to take part in the competition but had been prevented therefrom by his absence on a trip to the West Indies, finding on his return that no selection had been made, submitted his plan to the President in Philadelphia. The latter submitted the plan to the judgment of others with the result that the unanimous verdict was in favor of its adoption, and the President through Mr. Jefferson so notified the Commission- ers. The latter were naturally in a position of some delicacy by reason of their engagement with Hallett, as is evident from their reply of July 7, 1793, in which they tell Mr. Jefferson : "Though we are much pleased that we shall at length be furnished with a plan of a Capitol so highly satisfactory to the President, and all who have seen it, we feel sensibly for poor Hallett, and shall do everything in our power to sooth him. We hope he may be usefully employed notwithstanding."
The tact with which they announced the news to Hallett was exceeded only by the loyalty with which they assumed and relieved the President of the responsibility for the decision. Their letter dated March 13, 1793, which follows, is worthy of restoration from the seclusion in which it has rested.
"The plan you first offered for a Capitol appeared to us to have a great share of merit, none met with entire approba- tion, yours approaching the nearest to the leading ideas of the President and Commissioners. Your time has been engrossed in unremitted efforts under your hope and our wishes that you would have carried the prize. Our opinion has preferred Dr. Thornton's, and we expect the President will confirm our choice. Neither the Doctor nor yourself can demand the prize under the strict terms of our adver- tisement, but the public has been benefited by the emulation existed, and the end having been answered we shall give the reward of 500 dollars and a lot to Dr. Thornton. You certainly rank next, and because your application has been exited by the particular request, we have resolved to place you on the same footing as near as may be, that is to allow a compensation for everything to this time, £100 being the value of a lot and 500 dollars."
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