USA > Washington > Standard history of the city of Washington from a study of the original sources > Part 17
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to pay all or part of the first instalment on the grant from that State, in advance of the 1st of January, 1792, the date fixed by law for the payment. Although the Executive Council of Mary- land recommended compliance with this request, and the full amount of £9,000 or $24,000 was on hand, the Treasurer of the Western Shore declined to pay it over until the date fixed by law. In the meantime the Commissioners obtained six thousand dollars more from Virginia; and with this sum, reinforced by their personal credit and that of their Treasurer, Col. Deakins, they managed to tide over the summer, finding it necessary, how- ever, to decline entering into a number of important engagements respecting the public works. In an early communication they advised the President that on a rough estimate they expected to have to pay between five and six thousand dollars in October, not including Major L'Enfant's compensation.
The financial problem continued to be at all times a serious one with the Commissioners. Although instalments of the Mary- land donation, subsequent to the first, were paid considerably in advance of the dates originally intended, the instalments of the Virginia Donation were very tardy and only collected piece- meal and after repeated importunings from the Commissioners not only to the Executive but to the Legislature of that State. An idea of the embarrassment caused by the tardiness with which the Virginia payments were made is furnished by the following letter from the Commissioners to Governor Henry Lee of that State, which is typical of many which the Commis- sioners were compelled to send. On September 23, 1793, they said :
"It is with regret we feel ourselves under the necessity of applying to you again on the subject of the Virginia Donation. Our situation makes it proper for us to tell you frankly that we shall not be able to carry on the public buildings unless we can soon have what is behind of the last sum, the receipt of which we made ourselves certain of long before this time. We entreat Sir, that the executive may take effectual measures to throw the balance into our Hands for there's no calculating the injury to the Business should we unhappily be obliged to delay the payment of any just demand. The last sum will be wanted punctually
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and we assure ourselves that you will urge to the assembly of Virginia, the propriety of an early and adequate provis- ion."
Early in 1792, Mr. Blodget had proposed a plan for placing a half million dollar loan upon the lots in the City owned by the public; the loan to be made in instalments of $50,000 each; and the Commissioners had in April of that year gone as far as to execute five hundred notes to cover the first instalment, when their hopes were disappointed by a serious financial crash in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, resulting from the failure of a Mr. Duer. Mr. Blodget furnished $8,000, and disposed of $2,000 more, but further attempts to push the project were at first postponed until the fall and finally abandoned entirely.
The funds derived from the sales of lots did little to rein- force the Maryland and Virginia grants. The sales up to the time of entering into the Greenleaf contract on September 23, 1793, hereinafter mentioned, were not of any considerable extent, and buyers in the majority of instances were very slow in mect- ing the deferred payments on their purchases.
In October, 1793, the President, at the request of the Com- missioners for an auditing of their accounts, appointed Col. Robert Townsend Hooe of Alexandria, and David Ross of Bladensburg, for the purpose. In their report dated October 31, 1793, they state that the Commissioners were chargeable to that date with £30,000 ($80,000) from Virginia, £27,000 ($72,000) from Maryland, £6,005 ($16,000) from lots and other articles sold; that their expenditures were £50,502, leaving a nominal balance on hand of £12,503 of which £5,760 was a balance on an order made on Virginia but not yet actually received.
On April 22, 1794, shortly before Mr. Johnson and Doctor Stuart went out of office as Commissioners, Col. Deakins, the Treasurer to the Board, furnished them with the following state- ment of the financial condition and prospects of the city at a time when the only actual funds in sight consisted of the then long overdue third instalment of $40,000 of the Virginia Grant. Col. Deakins says :
"All the money that had been lodged in the Treasury
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was expended about the first of February last .- Since then I have been obliged to have recourse to the Bank of Maryland and the Office of Discount and Deposite at Balti- more. The 1st February I had my notes discounted there for 8000 Dollars at 60 days. These notes were taken up the 1st April by further discount of my notes for an equal sum at 60 days which notes will grow due and must be taken up the 1st of June next. These 8000 Dollars are now expended and I am in Advance about 2000 Dollars and must again have recourse to the Banks for immediate demands.
"I have laid before you Mr. John Hopkin's letter respect- ing the President's Order on the Executive of Virginia for 40,000 Dollars due the first of January last, from which you will find, we can have no well grounded hopes of receiv- ing any part of that Order in all the present year.
"From a Moderate Calculation, I suppose your Expendi- tures during the Summer and Fall will not be less than 10,000 Dollars P month (exclusive of your contracts for Timber, Mahogany, &c., and you can best judge what sum will be wanted for those Objects.
"The following payments if made into the Treasury, may answer the Demands for the Monthly expenditures, say "The first payment 1st May, next to pay what may then be due and for the expenditures in that month 14,000.
"2nd payment, 1st June 8000 Dollars to take up my Notes in Bank then due and the further Sum of 10,000 Dollars for the Expenditures in that Mo 18,000.
"For the Months of July, Augt., Septr., October and Novr., 10,000 P Month 50,000.
during the Winter Months the Expenditures will be reduced, and funds may then be expected from the order on the Executive of Virginia. All the Delinquents for the Lotts purchased at public sale have been Wrote to but few or none of them have yet come forward to make the payments. You will consider what had best be done to Compel pay- ment."
The Maryland Legislature on December 28, 1793, passed an act authorizing Samuel Blodget, Jr., William Deakins, Jr., Uriah Forrest, John Mason, James Maccubbin Lingan, Francis Lowndes, Marsham Warring, Peter Cassanave, William Burrell Magruder, Joseph Forrest, Thomas Peter, John Templeman and Benjamin Stoddert, to open subscriptions for ten thousand shares of stock in a bank, at one hundred dollars per share.
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Under authority of this act the Bank of Columbia was estab- lished in Georgetown, and the Commissioners under authority of the act subscribed one thousand dollars of the stock, in the expectation of being thus enabled to obtain loans of moderate amounts as need from time to time.
On September 23, 1793, the Commissioners contracted with Mr. James Greenleaf of New York, to sell him three thousand lots at the price of £25 per lot to be paid in seven annual instalments beginning May 1, 1794. By the terms of this con- tract Mr. Greenleaf was to erect ten houses two stories high each year. He was to make no sale prior to January 1, 1796, without stipulating that on every third lot purchased of him a house should be built within four years from the date of sale. Greenleaf further agreed that if so required by the Commission- ers, he would lend them one thousand pounds Maryland currency, each month until the completion of the public buildings, but not later than January 1, 1800. For the purpose of securing the loans they were to set apart by way of mortgage one lot for each £25 advanced by Greenleaf. Shortly after this Mr. Robert Morris agreed to join with Greenleaf in the speculation and gave the latter authority to contract with the Commissioners for a like number of lots. Greenleaf contracted on Morris' behalf for three thousand lots at thirty-five pounds each with similar building requirements to those in the Greenleaf contract. These two contracts were on December 24, 1793, merged in a single contract between the Commissioners on the one hand, and Morris and Greenleaf on the other, for six thousand lots, stipulated to average 5,265 square feet in area, at thirty pounds each ; in all, one hundred and eighty thousand pounds Maryland currency ($480,000), in seven annual payments to begin May 1, 1794.
Morris and Greenleaf agreed to build twenty two-story brick houses each year until one hundred and forty houses should be built, the same to conform to the building regulations of the city. The same provision was included, as in the Greenleaf contract, relative to sales by Morris and Greenleaf. It was stipulated that four thousand five hundred of the lots should be southwest of Massachusetts Avenue and the remaining fifteen hundred to
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the northeast thereof. A number of provisions limited the loca- tions from which the lots could be selected and the manner of selecting them. Everything relating to a loan in the original Greenleaf contract was referred to a new contract with Green- leaf. John Nicholson was associated in this enterprise as a silent partner with Morris and Greenleaf.
On July 9, 1794, the Commissioners, pursuant to an agree- ment that day entered into by them with Greenleaf for the purpose of facilitating a loan for which he was negotiating in Holland, issued certificates to him for three thousand lots to be used by Greenleaf as security for the loan. The amount for which Greenleaf was negotiating was three hundred thousand pounds Maryland currency, ($800,000), and the arrangement between Greenleaf and the Commissioners was that the city was to receive one-third of this amount. This was one of the last acts of the original Board of Commissioners. The transactions grow- ing out of this contract play a prominent part in the early history of the city and will be set forth as part of the history of the administrations of the succeeding Commissioners.
CHAPTER V.
Conclusion of the Establishment Period.
OWARDS the close of the year 1793 it became evident that a due attention to the affairs of the city demanded that the Commissioners should reside close to the scene of operations. Commissioners Johnson and Stuart were unwill- ing to remove to Georgetown. The former, moreover, was desirous of entering into business ventures largely in connection with real estate in the new city, and such an undertaking he considered as incompatible with his capacity as Commissioner. In the fall of 1793, the Commissioners advised Mr. Blodget that Mr. Johnson and Doctor Stuart were continuing in office solely for the purpose of closing up the affairs of the Hotel lot- tery. The last meetings of the old Board, with Commissioners Carroll and Stuart present, were held from July 27 to 31, 1794, from which date an adjournment was taken to September 15. During this interim the President appointed in the places of Commissioners Johnson and Stuart, Gustavus Scott of Baltimore and Doctor William Thornton, of Philadelphia. Mr. Scott's commission was dated August 23, 1794; Doctor Thornton's, September 12, 1794.
Gustavus Scott was born in Prince William County, Virgin- ia, and educated at King's College, Aberdeen, Scotland. When his friend, Sir Robert Eden, was appointed Royal Governor of Maryland he removed to that province and entered upon the practice of law in Somerset County. He was a delegate to the Maryland Convention of 1774, 1780 and 1784. He also had been a member of the association of the freemen of Maryland who signed the pledge in 1775 to throw off the proprietary authority and assume a provisional government. In 1784 he was elected
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a delegate to Congress, serving only one term. He was one of the organizers of the Potowmack Company.
William Thornton was born at Tortola, West Indies, and was educated as a physician. He lived for many years in Philadelphia and held a high position in scientific circles. His taste for architecture had been demonstrated in his design for the Philadelphia library building in 1790. As the designer of the Capitol he was thought to be specially fitted for membership on the Commission, one of the chief duties of which was to bring about the completion of that building. After the abolishment of the Commission he was appointed first Superintendent of the Patent Office and served in that capacity until his death in 1827.
The first meeting of the new Board was held September 15, 1794, with Mr. Carroll and Mr. Scott present. Doctor Thornton joined the Board the following day. Mr. Carroll continued on the Board until May 21, 1795. He was succeeded by Alexander White of Virginia whose commission bore date May 18, 1795.
Mr. White was born in Rappahannock County, Virginia, in 1738. He took an active part in the political agitation which preceded the Revolution, being noted for his eloquence and patriotism. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1788 and also to the first and second Congresses of the United States. It was he to whom Mr. Jefferson, in the passage from his Ana previously quoted, refers as having reluctantly voted in favor of the Funding Bill in order to make possible the adoption of the site on the Potomac for the federal seat. Mr. White was one of the directors of the Potowmack Company. At the time of his appointment, his home was at Woodville, near Winchester, Virginia, where he died in 1804.
The salaries of the Commissioners under the new arrange- ment were raised to $1600 per year in recognition of the fact that their entire time was to be devoted to the city's affairs. Mr. Thomas Johnson, Jr., a nephew of the former Commissioner Johnson, who had succeeded Mr. Gantt, continued for some time as Secretary to the Board and was succeeded by Mr. Thomas Munroe. On July 28, 1796, the Commissioners abolished the office of Treasurer on the ground that the continued presence of
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the members of the Commission at the scene of operations rendered the office no longer necessary.
At the time the new Board came into office the Chief Surveyor was Thomas Freeman. In May, 1796, Mr. Freeman was appointed by President Washington to run the line between the territory of the United States and Spain. His place was taken by Mr. Dermott. On January 3, 1798, the Board resolved that they had no further occasion for the services of Mr. Dermott. What the cause of this action was does not appear, though a letter from Dermott's successor Nicholas King to the President some years later recites that it was for misconduct.
Commissioner Scott died on Christmas day, 1800, and on January 14, 1801, his successor, William Cranch, presented his Commission and took his place on the Board. Mr. Cranch was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, in 1769. After practicing law three years in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, he came to Washington in 1793 as the agent of James Greenleaf. He resigned his Commission on March 3d, 1801, after serving six weeks on the Board, to accept an appointment as one of the judges of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, of which he became Chief Justice in 1805, serving in that capacity until his death in 1855.
Mr. Cranch was succeeded on March 10, 1801, by Tristram Dalton. Mr. Dalton was born in Newburg, Massachusetts, in 1738. He was an ardent patriot, a delegate to the convention of committees of the New England provinces which met at Providence in 1776, a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and a short term Senator from Massachusetts in the first Con- gress of the United States. He died in Boston in 1817.
With the coming into office of the new Commissioners a noticeable change took place, not only in the manner of adminis- tering the affairs of the federal establishment, but in the matters to which the activities of the Commissioners were directed.
The first Commissioners had been the pioneers in the work of establishing the new city and their term was characterized by those struggles with primitive conditions which are the inevitable incidents to all pioneering endeavor. To them had belonged the
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task of devising ways and means and inventing methods for carrying on a work which not only was without precedent at the time they were called upon to perform it, but stands today as unique among the achievements of men. The work of the succeeding Boards, so far as their administrative functions were concerned, consisted mainly in carrying out what the original Board had begun.
In another field, however, their task was far heavier and involved exertions and responsibilities of a character and magni- tude which were unknown to the members of the original Board. The latter, despite the disappointments which they met in their efforts to raise money from sales of lots, had been able to carry on their work with the funds provided in the Maryland and Virginia donations. But these resources had, with the excep- tion of the last installment of the Virginia donation, been exhausted by the time the new Commissioners came into office. Their task involved, therefore, not only the carrying out of the work which had been started, but the procuring of the money with which to do it. How desperate the city's affairs at that time were; how intimately they were involved with matters of national and even international consequence; and at what labor and devotion on the part of the Commissioners they were rescued and continued to a successful outcome, are matters which have passed largely into oblivion. If, as is sincerely believed, the memories of Commissioners Carroll, Johnson and Stuart are entitled to perpetuation because of the work which they per- formed in organizing and setting in motion the work of establish- ing the city, no less a debt is due to Gustavus Scott, William Thornton and Alexander White whose exertions preserved and made effective the results of their predecessors' labor.
An important circumstance attending the appointment of the new Commissioners was the fact that by the terms of their appointment they were required to remove to Georgetown. In consequence of their residence at Georgetown it was possible for the Commissioners to meet as often as the business demanded. On February 18, 1795, they announced that after the 20th day of March they would sit three times each week and as much
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oftener as the business might require. From recitals in their correspondence it is apparent that practically all their time not given to meetings was taken up with other matters connected with the affairs of the city.
One of the first measures entered upon by the new Board was the collection of the final installment of the Virginia dona- tion. This installment, amounting to $40,000, was then practically a year overdue, owing largely to the expense of guarding her frontiers from the Indians. Finally, in response to the repeated applications of the Commissioners, Mr. John Hopkins, the officer having charge of the collection of the State revenue, wrote on January 21, 1795, proposing to endeavor to obtain $14,000 from sales of the State's western lands and $10,000 from the sale of three hundred hogsheads of tobacco then in the treasury, for a commission of three per cent of the money obtained. The Com- missioners were reluctant to lose the three per cent but finally consented to the proposition only because of their extreme need of money.
The next active step taken by the Commissioners looking to the procuring of funds was to send Doctor Thornton to Phila- delphia in February of 1795, in conformity with a request of President Washington, for the purpose of endeavoring to negoti- ate a loan based upon the public property. Mr. Greenleaf had attempted to place a loan both in this country and in Holland upon the property which had been conveyed to him by the Com- missioners for that purpose. His efforts in this country had been futile and the Commissioners had withdrawn from the plan of attempting to affect a joint negotiation.
Dr. Thornton sounded all the financial institutions of Phila- delphia without success and after conference with the President and Mr. Randolph, the Secretary of State, it was decided to apply to the English financiers. Accordingly on March 20, 1795, a power of attorney, for this purpose was sent to four Americans then in England, William Allen Dear, Samuel Bayard, Joshua Johnson and William Murdoch. These gentlemen or any two or three of them, were authorized to negotiate a loan to the extent of £300,000 Sterling. At this period the Napoleonic wars were
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taxing the financial resources of all Europe to the limit, and funds were not available for investments of any character.
Pending the outcome of these applications, the operations of the Commissioners were seriously handicapped by the lack of funds. They were aided to some extent by the Bank of Columbia which advanced to them upon the personal notes of themselves and their Treasurer, Colonel Deakins, sufficient for indispensable expenditures, but at the close of the season of 1795 the outlook was little short of hopeless.
On September 27, 1795, the Commissioners wrote to Presi- dent Washington :
"We see with equal indignation and grief the hour approaching fast when all our Operations must cease for want of a few thousand Dollars; this too when every material is collected and the season is most favorable for the rapid progression of the works. We are Daily in session exerting our best endeavors tho' hitherto in vain to form some prob- able scheme to raise thirty or forty thousand Dollars to continue the Operations on the public buildings till the middle of December. The various expedients Have been discussed, nothing bearing the Appearance of efficiency has Occurred."
The continuation of the work through the fall of that year was made possible by the sacrifice of the stock held by the Com- missioners in the Bank of Columbia.
It was at about this time that a suggestion, which ultimately proved to contain the solution of their difficulties, was made to the Commissioners by Colonel Forrest, one of the proprietors of the land embraced in the city, who was a member of the Mary- land Legislature, and who had at all times interested himself actively in the city's affairs. On October 24, 1795, Colonel Forrest wrote to the Commissioners that he had suggested to a number of influential members of the Maryland Legislature the possibility of a loan of $200,000 of the United States six per cent stock held by the State of Maryland. This was the stock which the Federal Government had issued to the several states when it assumed the payment of their expenditures in connection with the Revolutionary War. It will be remembered that it was in return for the southern votes in favor of the law providing for
1
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this assumption that the northern members of Congress had agreed to vote for the placing of the federal seat on the Poto- mac River.
The United States stock held by the State of Maryland was paying that State $25,000 annually in interest, sufficient to meet all of its ordinary administrative expenses. Colonel Forrest wrote that he had convinced those with whom he had spoken that it was the same thing to the State of Maryland whether it received the interest payments on this stock from the general Government or from the City of Washington, and gave it as his opinion that an application for a loan of a portion of this stock would meet with success. It developed, however, that a sufficient number of the members of the Legislature could not be convinced of the safety of such an investment of the State's funds with no other security than the public property in the City of Washington, the sales of which had thus far proved anything but encouraging.
Nothing remained but an appeal to Congress. This was a project which had been delayed as a last resort, and which was now determined upon with reluctance and doubt. As has already been mentioned, Congress had refused to make any appropria- tion at the time of the passage of the act fixing upon the Potomac as the site of the Federal City; and at that time the friends of the Potomac had given repeated assurances that the national Government would not be called upon for financial aid. To go to Congress now and ask for money was, therefore, a most unpleasant task for the Commissioners. Commissioner White, by reason of his former service and extensive acquaintance in Congress, was selected for the duty.
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