USA > Washington > Standard history of the city of Washington from a study of the original sources > Part 16
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The President sent Doctor Thornton to the Commissioners with a letter of introduction, wherein referring to the Doctor's design, he said: "Grandure, simplicity and convenience, appear to be so well combined in this plan of Doctor Thornton's, that I have no doubt of its meeting with the approbation from you, which I have given it upon an attentive inspection and which it has received from all others who have seen it and are consid- ered as judges of such things."
The difficulties with regard to the plan for the Capitol were not ended with the adoption of Dr. Thornton's design. The Commissioners believing it prudent to have the design thorough- ly understood by whomsoever should be entrusted with its execu- tion, requested Mr. Hallett to make a study of it. Mr. Hallett found many features of it which he reported were incapable of practical execution; and of his own initiative prepared a revision of it so greatly simplifying and abridging the original as to reduce the estimated cost of the building approximately, one- half. This revised, or as it was afterwards termed, "reformed" plan, being favored over the original by Mr. Hoban and others, the Commissioners sent Mr. Hallett with it to Philadelphia to confer with the President who after consulting with Mr. Jeffer- son, submitted the decision on the criticisms of Dr. Thornton's plan to two builders of Philadelphia chosen by the Doctor for that purpose. The result is set forth by the President in the following letter to the Commissioners, under date of July 25, 1793:
"I enclose for your information, the copy of a letter from the Secretary of State to me, on the subject of the objection made to Doct. Thornton's plan of a capitol. By that Letter you will see that after a candid discussion it was found that the objections stated, were considered as valid, by both the persons chosen by Dr. Thornton as practical Architects and competent Judges of things of this kind. "And one of them (Mr. Carstairs) who appeared to have studied the matter with the most attention, pronounced them irremediable without an alteration of some parts of the plan :- the other (Colo. Williams) proposed Certain other methods of obviating some of the objections, but in what manner you will see, by the enclosed letter. The plan pro-
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duced by Mr. Hallet, altho' preserving the original ideas of Doct. Thornton and such as might upon the whole be considered as his plan, was free from those objections, and was pronounced by the Gentlemen on the part of Doctr. Thornton, as the one which they, as practical Architects, would chuse to execute. Besides which you will see that, in the opinion of the Gentlemen, the plan executed accord- ing to Mr. Hallet's ideas would not cost more than one-half of what it would if executed according to Doct. Thornton 's. "After these opinions, there could remain no hesitation how to decide; and Mr. Hoban was accordingly informed that the foundation would be begun upon the plan as exhibited by Mr. Hallett, leaving the recess in the East front open for further consideration. If this meets your Ideas, the work of that building will progress as fast as circumstances will permit. It seems to be the wish that the Portico of the East front, which was in Doctor Thornton's original plan-should be preserved in this of Mr. Hallet's. The recess which Mr. Hallet proposes in that front, strikes every one who has viewed the plan, unpleasantly, as the space between the two wings or projections is too contract- ed to give it the noble appearance of the buildings of which it is an imitation; and it has been intimated that the reason of his proposing the recess instead of a portice, is to make it in one essential feature different from Doct. Thornton's plan. But whether the portice or the recess should be final- ly concluded upon, will make no different in the commence- ment of the foundation of the building, except in that particular part-and Mr. Hallet is directed to make such sketches of the Portico, before the work will be affected by it, as will shew the advantage thereof. The ostensible objec- tion of Mr. Hallet to the adoption of Doctr. Thornton's East front is principally the deprivation of light and air, in a degree to the apartments designed for the Senate and representatives."
After the decision to adopt Mr. Hallett's "reformed" plan, Mr. Hallett was directed to put it in shape for use in the erection of the building. He appears, however, to have developed a disposition not unlike that of Major L'Enfant, for he had not been long engaged in the task allotted to him, before he became involved in a dispute with the Commissioners over the question of his authority in connection with the supervision of the con- struction work which had been delegated to Mr. Hoban. The
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Commissioners politely informed Mr. Hallett that he was not to interfere with Mr. Hoban. Mr. Hallett thereupon refused to allow the use of the plans, claiming them as his own, and the Commissioners retained Mr. Philip B. Key to replevin them. The matter was finally adjusted without a suit and the services of Mr. Hallett dispensed with.
The laying of the corner stone of the Capitol took place on September 18, 1793, with masonic ceremonies over which the President, as Master pro tempore of the Alexandria lodge, presid- ed. The proceedings which included a formal procession to the Capitol, were enlivened by the maneuvers and salvos of a com- pany of Virginia volunteer artillery. President Washington laid upon the corner stone which was located at the southeast corner of the building, a silver plate upon which was engraved the circumstances of the occasion; after which he made an appropriate address. The ceremony was followed by a barbecue.
The difficulties which confronted the Commissioners in connection with the erection of the public buildings was not confined to the selection of plans. For these works it was necessary to institute vigorous measures to find labor, tools and material; and the story of the efforts which the Commissioners made to obtain these essentials forms an interesting chapter in the city's history.
Immediately following the sale of lots in October, 1791, the Commissioners began to take active steps to procure both labor and materials. In October, 1791, they requested Major L'Enfant to purchase in his own name the stone quarries on Higgington's Island at Aquia Creek which had been advertised for sale by the trustees of Robert Brent, at not more than eleven pounds, Virginia currency, per acre. The Brent Trustees demanded £2,200 for the tract. Thinking this figure too high the Com- missioners obtained leases on two neighboring tracts, whereupon the price on the Brent property was reduced to £1,300, and the Commissioners purchased it at that figure, the deed being dated February 19, 1792.
On November 25, 1791, the Commissioners contracted for two thousand logs, thirty-six feet long, hewn on three sides to square twelve inches for use in building wharves.
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Earlier in the summer the Commissioners had received a letter from Francis Cabot soliciting an agency for the purchase of materials. They had declined to employ him at the time owing to the unfavorable financial outlook but had later taken the matter up with him and on November 26, 1791, they voted the sum of one thousand dollars to send Mr. Cabot into the Eastern States for the purpose of informing himself minutely of the terms on which men and materials might be obtained. Mr. Cabot was to report from time to time so that the Commission- ers might avail themselves of his information in making contracts.
The item of tools was an important one. Apparently there were no large stocks of such articles which could be purchased for immediate delivery. Every thing had to be made under special contract. Wheelbarrows being needed for getting the clay out of the foundations with which to make brick for the buildings, the Commissioners on January 10, 1792, contracted with Henry Upperman for fifty to be delivered by March 1st at fifteen shillings apiece. On the 30th of March, the Commission- ers contracted with John Mountz for ten sledge hammers, five hundred wedges of different sizes, twenty picks and ten trim- ming hammers, "of the best iron and to be well steeled" for the sum of eleven pence current money per pound. They also contracted with Mountz for ten mattocks and six axes of the best quality for ten shillings each.
On April 14, Captain Elisha Williams was directed to purchase thirty or forty thousand feet of lumber at not over one dollar per thousand and to build a lumber yard for storing it. In preparation for working the quarries at Aquia, Captain Williams was directed on March 15, to go down to the quarries and engage persons to erect four huts for the accommodation of the workmen. On April 10, an agreement was entered into with William Wright of Alexandria to act as superintendent of the stone quarry on Higginton Island, "the men to be found provisions by the Commrs., that is one pound good pork or one pound and a half of beef and one pound of flour per day all days included."
In addition to the working of the Aquia quarries, the Com-
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missioners made several private contracts. On October 21, 1791, they contracted with Philip R. Fendall and Lewis Hipkins for 4,000 perches of foundation stone. On June 6, 1792, they contracted with William Smith for four hundred perches of foundation stone, and on December 10, 1792, with John Mason for three thousand perches. On March 22, 1793, finding the deliveries from the quarry which they had purchased at Aquia Creek not sufficient for their needs, they signed leases with John Gibson for stone land adjoining the quarry. The deliver- ies of stone still continuing unsatisfactory the Commissioners on July 30, 1794, contracted with James Smith and John Dunbar for its delivery at the rate of four dollars per ton for freestone and three and two-thirds dollars per ton for Ashler. To facilitate matters John Watson, one of the foremen on the work in the city, was directed to work part of his hands at the quarry and "to increase the amount of liquor in extraordinary cases at his discretion."
In 1793, the Commissioners discovered that an extensive bed of foundation stone existed at the "Key of all Keys," and thereafter a large quantity of this material was obtained from that source.
On September 24, 1791, the Commissioners instructed Major L'Enfant to employ one hundred and fifty laborers to throw up clay at the President's House and the House of Congress in anticipation of brick-making the following summer. This order, it will be recalled, was the occasion of one of the quarrels between the Major and the Commissioners. On May 3d, 1792, the Commissioners entered into contracts with William Hill and Anthony Hoke for the manufacture of 1,100,000 bricks of statutory size near the site of the President's House, the Com- missioners to furnish the clay already dug.
The matter of lime was for a time a subject for concern to the Commissioners. Mr. Cabot and others with whom they were in communication were requested to make special inquiries in the east with reference to this commodity. A source of supply, was, however, soon discovered to exist in the vicinity of Frederick, Maryland, and on May 4, 1792, Commissioner Johnson was
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requested to arrange with the lime burners in that neighborhood for the delivery of a quantity of unslackened lime. A quantity of oyster shells were at one time purchased for making poorer grades of lime but did not prove satisfactory.
The heavy timbers of white oak and yellow poplar, twenty to thirty-five feet long and squaring fifteen inches, for use in the construction of the Capitol and President's House were acquired from the White Oak Swamp in Westmoreland County, Virginia, through the good offices of Mr. William Augustine Washington, who assisted in negotiating the purchase of the timber. It was rafted up the river from Monroe Creek.
The procuring of skilled workmen was a subject of probably even greater concern to the Commissioners than that of obtain- ing materials, though common labor was not hard to obtain, as many of the residents of both Maryland and Virginia were glad of the opportunity of hiring their slaves to the Commissioners. The chief difficulty was to find masons, stone-cutters and carpen- ters.
Major L'Enfant and Major Ellicott had been instructed on October 6, 1791, to have several huts erected for the accommoda- tion of the workmen. On April 13, 1792, the Commissioners resolved to hire good laboring negroes by the year, the masters clothing them well and finding each a blanket, the Commission- ers finding them provisions and paying them twenty-one pounds a year wages. They stipulated that if the negroes absented them- selves a week or more such time would be deducted. On Decem- ber 3, 1792, they authorized Mr. Brent to hire for work on the quarries twenty-five able bodied negro men slaves at a price not exceeding fifteen pounds, Virginia currency per year, feeding and clothing. On October 16, 1794, they advertised for a num- ber of slaves to work in the brick-yards, stone-quarries, etc., for which generous wages would be given, and on December 3, 1794, Captain Williams was requested to obtain one hundred negro men at sixty dollars a year, findings and provisions, the masters to clothe well and find each a blanket, the same provision as before with respect to deduction in pay to apply in case the negroes should absent themselves a week or more.
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To obtain such skilled labor as stone-cutters, brick-layers, masons and carpenters the Commissioners at first looked to the Eastern States. Mr. Cabot was instructed to look out for workmen of this character, particularly brick-makers in Phila- delphia. On September 4, 1792, the Commissioners gave notice that they were desirous of engaging masons who could also work in brick, and that those who cut stone would have employment immediately and during the winter, applications to be made to Mr. Colin Williamson who was Superintendent of the mason work. On December 5, 1792, they announced that they wished to employ four sets of sawyers immediately, one set to be well acquainted with the sawing of mahogany.
It had become apparent, however, before this that the supply of such labor would be hard to fill, and the question of import- ing foreign labor was taken up. Accordingly on July 5, 1792, the Commissioners published an offer to pay the passages of not exceeding one hundred Scotch stone-cutters, masons and other mechanics.
This publication proving barren of results the President wrote to the Commissioners on December 18, 1792:
"Your letter to the Secretary of State dated if I recollect rightly the 5th instant intimating among other things that you had failed in an attempt which had been made to import workmen from Scotland, equally with that for obtain- ing them from Holland, fills me with real concern; for I am very apprehensive if your next campaign in the Federal City is not marked with vigor, it will cast such a cloud over this business and will so arm the enemies of the measure, as to enable them to give it (if not its death blow) a wound from which it will not easily recover.
"The more I consider the subject, the more I am con- vinced of the expediency of importing a number of workmen from Europe to be employed in the Federal City. The measure has not only economy to recommend it, but is important by placing the quantity of labor which may be performed by such persons upon a certainty for the term for which they should be engaged.
"Upon the whole it will readily be perceived in what a serious light I consider delay in the progress of the public buildings, and how anxious I am to have them pushed
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forward. In a word, the next is the year that will give the tone to the City,-if marked with energy, individuals will be inspirited,-the sales will be enhanced-confidence diffused and emulation created. Without it I should not be surprised to find the Lots unsaleable, and everything at a stand."
In response to this urgent request from the President the Commissioners decided to make their offer more attractive, agree- ing to advance the passage money, to provide for the transporta- tion of the men's wives and to give assurances of their social standing on arrival and some idea of the steadiness of their employment and of the wages to be paid. Accordingly on January 3, 1793, they published the following "Terms for Mechanicks."
"The Commissioners will advance in Europe as far as thirty shillings Sterling each for expenses there so that they may by laying it out prudently be the more comfortably accommodated. The Commissioners will also pay them money on their arrival. In some instances, the fewer the better, it may be necessary and the Commissioners will make the ad- vance for the wife. The mechanic to be allowed the same wages as there is of the same qualifications now in the Coun- try. Their wages as in other places will fluctuate on circum- stances though not in greater degree; and from what must happen, the expenditure of 2,000,000 of Dollars in the course of eight years there's no probability of any consider- able decline of wages. At present stone-cutters and good masons have from 4/6 to 5 stirling for their actual working time by time book. There's no idea of considering mechanics in any other light than the respectable of our own Country. They will draw one-half of their wages weekly and the other half to be retained till the advance and passage money is satisfied. Stone-cutters in the different branches are most wanted, masons and brick-layers are also though not so much wanted. Those who pay their own passage will be immediately employed at the same time rate given to such workmen in the Country."
Mr. Jefferson interested himself actively in the solution of this problem. He had previously imported a number of German tenants through a firm in Amsterdam to whom on his recom- mendation the Commissioners wrote stating their needs. Through a contractor in Philadelphia, Mr. Jefferson was able to put the
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Commissioners in touch with an agent of the latter in Scotland who had sent numbers of workmen to America, and to this agent also the Commissioners applied. They further addressed a memorial to the municipality of Bordeaux through the medium- ship of a Mr. Fenwick.
The Amsterdam firm replied that they had in past experi- enced so much trouble as the result of their efforts to send immigrants to America that they were compelled to decline the undertaking. The Scotch correspondent replied that the demand for such workmen in Scotland and England was at that time so heavy that it would be impossible to send any to America. Mr. Fenwick wrote from Bordeaux that the laws against emigration, resulting from the war in which France was engaged, would make it impossible to secure any workmen from that country.
The Commissioners were, therefore, compelled to look to the American cities for their workmen, and it was from this source that the greater part were eventually procured, largely through the efforts of Mr. Colin Williamson, the Superintendent of the workmen at the Capitol.
On February 8, 1793, the Commissioners, on Mr. William- son's request, agreed with Mr. Hunter, one of the masons who was about to go to Philadelphia for his wife, to pay Mr. Hunter one day's wages for each good mason, not exceeding twenty in all, approved by Mr. Williamson, who should come on Mr. Hunter's recommendation; agreeing also that the workmen should be entitled to their wages while coming, provided they should be approved on arrival.
To accommodate the workmen, the Commissioners allowed them to build temporary frame dwellings; and later the Com- missioners themselves erected a number of temporary brick houses, two stories high, for this purpose. Evidently some of the workmen were accompanied with families, for in October, 1793, the Commissioners gave permission for the erection of a temporary school building on one of the public lots. For the accommodation of the sick, Mr. Hoban was directed on December 24, 1793, to erect a temporary hospital on some of the public squares near a good spring; and on January 10, 1794, the Com-
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missioners appointed Dr. John Crocker physician to attend the laborers, about forty-six in number, employed by them in the city, at a salary of twenty-five pounds per year. The following April, Mr. Hoban was directed to select some public grounds in the City suitable for a burying ground.
The Commissioners were not free from the troubles which attend nearly all large employers of labor. The most serious occurred as the result of some conflict of authority between Mr. Hoban and Mr. Williamson relative to the masonry work at the Capitol. The matter coming to the attention of Col. Stoddert, he on May 26, 1794, wrote to Commissioner Carroll with a view to preventing the spread of the disaffection of the workmen. In the course of his recital of the occurence he says :
"Twelve or fifteen of the masons employed in the City, have already gone off in very great disgust in consequence of some late change in the manner of conducting the work and twenty some odd more are going. These men wherever they go, spread disaffection to the City among the mechanics, and it will be found very difficult, if not impossible to get Tradesmen to carry on the business. The Tradesmen who arrived at Norfolk destined for the City, have stopped on their way, some at Alex. and some at other places-some who have come to the City have gone back. Those men who went off a few days ago, have already published in the Balt. paper a warning to Tradesmen how they came to the City, where they represent the usage as very bad."
The account of the public work undertaken by the first Commissioners would be incomplete without some reference to two other projects to which they directed their attention: viz., the Canal and the Rock Creek Bridge.
In September, 1792, a canal between tidewater on James Creek and tidewater on Goose Creek, twelve feet wide at the bottom and fifteen feet wide at the top, the bottom to be two feet below common level water, was projected to facilitate the drainage of the lower parts of the city. Its completion for purposes of navigation was not undertaken until a number of years later when it became the subject of private enterprise.
The construction of a bridge over Rock Creek near its mouth together with a causeway along the bank of the river above the
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bridge, was thought of sufficient importance to justify the Com- missioners in undertaking it as a matter relating to the interests of the city, and a contract therefor made on March 29, 1792.
In September, 1794, the bridge proved so unsafe that it became necessary to rebuild it.
Almost immediately on effecting their organization, the Commissioners took steps, looking to the realization of funds with which to carry on their operations. Congress had made no appropriation for this purpose. An attempt to include an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars in the Residence Law had been voted down in the Senate the day before the final passage of the act by that body.
The only sources to which the Commissioners could look for immediate funds were the grants which had been voted by the States of Maryland and Virginia. The Maryland legislature had by a resolution adopted on the tenth day of December, 1789, agreed to advance the sum of $72,000, payable in three annual instalments. The State of Virginia had on December 27, 1790, voted a grant of $120,000, also payable in three annual instal- ments.
When in Richmond in the course of his southern trip the President had consulted with Governor Beverly Randolph of Virginia with a view to obtaining part of the Virginia grant for immediate use. The Virginia treasury was at the time prac. tically empty, but Governor Randolph made arrangements to let the Commissioners have one thousand dollars at once on the order which the President had already drawn for the first instalment of $40,000, and wrote to Dr. Stuart on April 15, 1791, suggest- ing to the Commissioners to obtain an order from John Hopkins, the State Commissioner of Loans, upon the Collector of Alexan- dria. Accordingly, the Commissioners on May 9th, drew on the auditor of Public Accounts of Virginia for one thousand dollars in favor of their Treasurer, William Deakins-this being the first money which came into their hands. The Commissioners also promptly applied to Thomas Harwood, the Treasurer of the Western Shore of Maryland, who had the custody of the fund from which the Maryland grant was to be paid, asking him
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