USA > Washington > Standard history of the city of Washington from a study of the original sources > Part 36
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Mention was made in a former chapter of the agitation re- sulting in the passage of the Act of March 2, 1893, relative to the establishment of a permanent system of highways in that por- tion of the District lying outside of the cities of Washington and Georgetown. This Act directed the Commissioners to prepare
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a plan for the extension of the highways over the territory men- tioned, subject to certain stipulations as to width of streets; the work to be done in sections as occasion should demand; and that the maps of the sections as laid out should be subject to the ap- proval of a commission consisting of the Secretaries of War and Interior and the Chief of Engineers. The Commissioners were further given authority to lay out circles and reservations at the intersections of the principal avenues and streets, corresponding in number and dimensions with those existing at such inter- sections in the city as originally laid out. This monumental task was accomplished between the years 1893 and 1898 by Mr. William P. Richards of the District Engineering Department, who had immediate charge of the work. Mr. Richards was large ly aided by Captain, afterwards Commissioner, Lansing H. Beach, who as one of the assistants to the Engineer Commission- er during the greater part of this period gave the project his special attention. By a provision in the Act of March 2, 1893, as well as by subsequent provisions in Acts of June 30, 1898, and February 16, 1904, the Commissioners were empowered to name the streets, avenues, alleys, highways, and reservations so laid off. By an order of August 6, 1901, the Commissioners adopted an elaborate system to be followed in giving names throughout the entire highway extension system, and by an order dated October 15, 1904, and numerous orders subsequent thereto have given names to various streets and reservations under the system so adopted.
The nomenclature of the streets of Georgetown was changed to make it conform as nearly as possible to that of the streets of Washington by an order of the Commissioners of October 4, 1880. This was an arbitrary order and was without authority from Congress, which, however, by the Act of February 11, 1895, abolishing the separate designation of the city of Georgetown, directed the change in the nomenclature of the streets of George- town to be made. Nothing was done by the Commissioners in compliance with this requirement until eleven years after the passage of the Act, when, by an order dated November 24, 1909, they validated their former action.
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The first telephone service installed in the City was the Na- tional Telephone Exchange which was established by George C. Maynard and William H. Barnard in 1879, and which was suc- ceeded in December 1 of that year by the National Capital Tele- phone Company. The latter company was succeeded by the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, a New York cor- poration, in August, 1883. No specific authorization by Congress of any telephone company to do business or lay wires in the city appears ever to have been granted, the only legislation on the subject being in the form of direction to the Commissioners in various appropriation bills not to allow other than existing companies to lay wires in the streets and limiting the height of wires and length of conduits.
In the fall of 1881 the first attempt at the introduction of electric lighting in the City of Washington took place in con- nection with the ceremonies attending the dedication of the statue to General Thomas in Thomas Circle. It was planned to string a temporary row of arc lamps over the middle of Penn- sylvania Avenue from the Peace Monument to the Treasury De- partment by means of guys stretched across the street, the cur- rent to be obtained from a dynamo connected with the engine of a saw mill on 13th street. This attempt was not a success but as an immediate consequence of the interest awakened by it, the Heisler Electric Light Company was incorporated by Messrs. Stilson Hutchins, D. B. Ainger, Wm. Dixon, Moses Kelly and George A. Kelly. A small experimental plant was established in the Washington Post Building supplying current to a small number of lights in the neighborhood of Pennsylvania Avenue and 10th Street. On October 14, 1882, the United States Elec- tric Lighting Company was incorporated under the laws of West Virginia, with a capital of $300,000, and took over the property of the Heisler Company. This company vigorously extended its system throughout the city, its first large contract being with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In 1884 it laid an under- ground conduit on Pennsylvania Avenue and other streets, be- ing one of the pioneers of underground conduit construction, in which its expensive system was regarded as a model. The company's plant was burned down on the night of July 16, 1885,
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but within two weeks the company was again in operation and the following September consolidated with the Brush Electric Light Company. The present building at 133 and B Streets was com- pleted in 1887.
On November 27, 1898, the city post office was established in the unfinished General Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets, after more than a cen- tury of migration from one location to another. Mr. Madison Davis, in a paper read before the Columbia Historical Society in 1902, gives an interesting account of its various homes, from which the following information is gathered: from July 17 to December 31, 1795, the city post office was located at the home of Thomas Johnson, Jr., the first postmaster on the north side of F Street between 13th and 14th; from January 1, to September 30, 1796, at the home of Christ. Richmond, at the southeast corner of 13th and F Streets; from October 1, 1796 to January 29, 1799, on 1st Street between East Capitol and A Streets, north- east; from January 30, 1799, to June 19, 1800, on the north side of F Street between 13th and 14th, probably the same as its first location ; from June 11, 1800 to June 30, 1801, at the north- west corner of 9th and E Streets; from July 1, 1801, to March 31, 1802, on F between 14th and 15th Streets; from April 1, 1802 to June 30, 1810, in the "Southwest Executive Building, then occupied by the State War and Navy Departments on 17th Street, southwest of the President's House; from July 1, 1810, to October 31, 1812, in a building somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue west of the President's House; from November 1, 1812, to June 30, 1829, in Blodget's Hotel on E between 7th and 8th Streets; from July 1, 1829, to December 15, 1836, in an extension of the Blodget building on 7th and E Streets; from December 16, 1836, the date of the destruction of the Blodget building by fire, to December 30, 1837, in Sceaver's house on the west side of 7th between D and E Streets; from December 31, 1837, to June 28, 1839, in the old Masonic Hall, which is still standing, at the southwest corner of 43 and D Streets; from June 29, 1839, to September 30, 1841, at the present site of the Raliegh Hotel, at Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Streets; from October 1, 1841, to September 22, 1843, in the large rooms under Carusi's saloon,
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which was then a place of entertainment for the fashionable people of the city, at 11th and C Streets; from September 23, 1843 to July, 1857, in two brick buildings on the west side of 7th street between E and F, just north of the south portion of the uncompleted General Post Office, now the Land Office building ; from July, 1857, to November, 1879, in the 1st floor of the F Street front of the completed General Post Office building ; from November, 1879, to May 31, 1892, in the former Seaton House on the south side of Louisiana Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets; from June 1, 1892 to November 26, 1898, in the Union building on the north side of G Street between 6th and 7th Streets.
In July, 1908, the new Municipal Building on Pennsylvania Avenue between 133 and 14th Streets, was occupied by the Dis- triet government. The first permanent headquarters of the Dis- trict government, following the abolishment of the Territorial government, were in the Morrison building on the west side of 4} Street just above Pennsylvania Avenue, which it occupied from July, 1874, to June 28, 1887. It then moved to the re- modeled lumber warehouse of Mr. T. W. Smith on 1st Street between B and C Streets, which it occupied until May, 1895. It then removed to 464 Louisiana Avenue, opposite the old City Hall, where it remained until it removed to the newly completed Municipal Building.
Among the principal railroad developments of the last de- cade of the nineteenth century were the entrance into the city of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company on April 1, 1891, and the consolidation of southern lines into the Southern Rail- way Company on July 1, 1894. The coming in of the new cen- tury has been rendered memorable by the construction of the Washington Passenger Terminals and the Union Station.
The Union Station was the result of an insistent demand for the removal of grade crossings, and of the desirability of removing the railroad tracks and station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Company from the Mall, as well as of the con- venience and artistic results to be gained from the establishment of a single station in which due regard should be had to esthetic considerations.
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Agitation against grade crossings dates back practically to the coming into the city of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in 1872. The first legislation on the subject consisted in two separate Acts of Congress, both dated February 12, 1901, deal- ing respectively with the Baltimore and Ohio and the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Companies.
With respect to the first named company, Congress by this legislation provided for a station near the site of the present Union Station with an overhead viaduct from the north. With respect to the latter company it provided for a new station on the site of the old one on the Mall between 6th and 7th Streets, with an overhead viaduct across the Mall and on Maryland and Virginia Avenues, a new steel railroad bridge in place of the old Long Bridge, and a new steel highway bridge five hundred feet above the location of the old Long Bridge.
The efforts of the Park Commission of 1901 looking to the removal of the railroad tracks and station from the Mall, the fact that Mr. Burnham of that Commission was the architect for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and to some extent, the formation of a community of interest in the ownership of the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads, resulted in the passage by Congress of the Act of February 28, 1903, provid- ing for the erection of the Union Station on its present site at the intersection of Delaware and Massachusetts Avenues, at a cost of not less than four million dollars, with overhead viaducts from the north which should connect with the Maryland and Virginia Avenue tracks of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad by a tunnel under the Capitol grounds approximately on the line of 1st Street, east. The passenger traffic of the Pennsylvania Railroad was to come into this station over a line connecting at Magruder Station, Maryland, with its existing line.
To compensate them for the rights and property surrender- ed and for the expense incident to the construction of the new terminals, Congress provided for the payment of one and a half million dollars each to the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania companies; the payment to the former to be borne in equal shares by the general Government and by the District of Colum-
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bia, and the payment to the latter to be borne entirely by the United States.
The Acts of Congress above mentioned authorized the crea- tion of a terminal company for the purpose of constructing and operating the terminals and station, and accordingly The Wash- ington Terminal Company was incorporated on December 6, 1901, its stock being taken in equal shares by the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania companies. The Union Station was de- signed by Daniel H. Burnham and Company, of Chicago. The first train came into the new station on October 23, 1907.
The tracks controlled by the terminal company extend from Florida Avenue to the south portal of the tunnel, and are used by the other roads entering the city under special trackage con- tracts. The terminal company handles only passenger traffic, cach of the several railroad companies maintaining its own freight yards.
Other less important developments in the way of rail com- munication with points outside of the city were the completion of the Washington and Chesapeake Beach Railway in 1892; the Washington, Alexandria and Mt. Vernon Electric now the Washington and Virginia, Railway in 1894; and the trackage arrangement of April 15, 1907, whereby the Washington, Balti- more an Annapolis Electric Railway Company enters the city over the tracks of the Washington Railway and Electric Com- pany.
An event of importance to Georgetown was the establishment of direct steam railroad connection with the Baltimore and Ohio system. This was accomplished by the building of a line along the Georgetown water front under a charter to the Georgetown Barge, Dock, Elevator and Railway Company granted in 1888, the work being completed in 1890. The line for some distance up the river was constructed by the Washington and Western Maryland Railroad Company in 1909; and the line from the point where it crosses the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal to a con- nection with the Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio at Chevy Chase Station, was constructed by the Metropolitan Southern, a subsidiary company to the Baltimore and Ohio, in 1910.
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The beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century found most of the water transportation business of Washington in the hands of four companies ; the Inland and Seaboard Coast- ing Company, the Clyde Line, the Washington Steamboat Com- pany, Ltd., and the Potomac Steamboat Company.
The Inland and Seaboard Coasting Company continued for a number of years to operate the John Gibson and E. C. Knight on the New York run. The Knight was sunk in collision with a schooner off Hog Island in 1883, and the Gibson was sold when the line was abandoned in the following year. This company continued to operate the Lady of the Lake and Jane Mosely on the run to Norfolk until 1892, when the advent of the more modern steamers of the Norfolk and Washington Steamboat Company forced the older vessels off the route. The Inland and Seaboard Coasting Company built the John W. Thompson, named after its first President, about 1878, and placed her on the run to the lower river landings. After the breaking up of the company she was sold to E. S. Randall and her named changed to the Harry Randall.
The Clyde Line started about 1876 with the small side-wheel steamer Sue on the run between Washington and Baltimore, with stops at the lower river landings. About 1887 the Sue was bought by Charles Lewis, who for some time had been operat- ing the John E. Taggart on the same run, and who in October, 1894, sold out to the Weems Line, which at once replaced the Taggart with the iron screw steamer Potomae. This line in 1900 replaced the Sue with the screw boat Northumberland; in 1902 it replaced the Potomac with the Calvert; and in 1905, it replaced the Calvert with the Anne Arundel. In 1907 the line was purchased by the Maryland, Delaware and Virginia Railway Company, which replaced the Anne Arundel with the Three Rivers.
In 1878 the Express, which was operated by a rival of the Clyde Line was wrecked in a storm on Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of the river, with the loss of several lives.
The Washington Steamboat Company operated the Wake- field and T. V. Arrowsmith on the lower river route from 1878 to 1895, when these boats were acquired by the Randall Line,
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which added to the fleet the former John W. Thompson, re-named the Harry Randall. In 1906 the line was bought by the Chesa- peake and Potomac Steamboat Company which has since con- tinued to operate it on the old run, to the lower river, and which changed the name of the Harry Randall to the Capital City.
The Potomac Steamboat Company under the management of George E. Mattingly operated the George Leary and Excelsior between Washington and Norfolk from about 1876 until March, 1891, when the line was taken over by the Norfolk and Wash- ington Steamboat Company. The Excelsior had been built to ferry cars to the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railway ter- minus at Aquia Creek; and after the construction of the track from that terminus to Quantico, on the Potomac, was used to carry passengers from Washington to Quantico until the con- struction of the railroad from that place to Alexandria in 1872 completed the through rail connection between Washington and Richmond. She was exceptionally fast, with double boilers and a superstructure so high as to completely hide her walking beam.
The Norfolk and Washington Steamboat Company com- menced operations in the Spring of 1891 with the palatial screw steamers Washington and Norfolk, to which in 1895 was added a larger boat, the Newport News, and in 1905 and 1912, respec- tively, the still larger vessels Southland and Northland. This line since its inauguration has been under the management of Mr. D. J. Callahan, with Mr. E. B. Bowling as General Agent.
The steamer W. W. Corcoran commenced making trips to Mount Vernon about 1870, and continued to do so until re- placed by the Charles Macalester in 1890. She was burned at her dock in September, 1891. About 1876, and for some years after, the Arrow, a small fast stcamer, also took excursions to Mount Vernon. The Mary Washington, a flat-bottomed steamer, equipped with a centerboard, was operated by E. S. Randall as an excursion boat to White House and Occoquon from about 1873 to 1882.
In the early eighties Mr. E. S. Randall commenced running the Pilot Boy on excursions to River View, later adding the Sam-
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uel J. Pentz and Harry Randall. During the late nineties the Ma- calester was aided on the Mount Vernon and Marshall Hall run by the River Queen, a fast ante-bellum boat, which had been used as a transport during the Civil War, and on which Presi- dent Lincoln made his visit to the Union Army in front of Petersburg in 1865. After being used on the Marshall Hall run for several years the River Queen was employed for a number of seasons in carrying colored excursions to Notley Hall and Glymont. Colonial Beach was established as a summer resort during the late eighties, since which time a number of steamers have been engaged in the extensive excursion traffic to that place ; among them the T. V. Arrowsmith, the Jane Mosely, the Harry Randall, and since 1906, the St. John's of the Chesapeake and 1 Potomac Line.
In connection with the history of the water front, it is of interest to mention that the first patrol boat was the small steam launch Joe Blackburn which was put in service in 1888. She was replaced by the Vigilant in 1897.
The first fire boat was the Fire fighter which went into ser- vice October 31, 1905. The provision for her in the District Ap- propriation Act of 1905 was the result of the personal and practically unaided efforts of Mr. M. I. Weller.
The development and improvement of the horse car lines of the city until they were superseded by the cable and electric methods of propulsion, were in large measure the result of the competition of the chariot and herdic lines.
The so-called chariots, were put in service on Pennsylvania Avenue by Mr. John B. Daish on March 5th, 1877, the day of President Hayes' inauguration. Fifteen of these vehicles operated from 22d and Pennsylvania Avenue, via G Street, and the Ave- nue, to the foot of the Capitol. Subsequently twenty more were put on a route from 32d and M Streets in Georgetown to 4th and Pennsylvania Avenue, southeast. To meet this competition the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company placed on Penn- sylvania Avenue from 17th Street to the Peace Monument a line of so-called bobtail one horse cars, with a three cent fare. The chariot line, which had a fare of five cents or six tickets for a
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quarter, accepted the tickets of the street railway companies and resold them at a discount in large quantities to the Government, and to the department stores and other purchasers, a course which was necessitated by the refusal of the street railway com- panies to redeem them. The chariots were continued for two and a half or three years, when, the adventure not proving prof- itable, the equipment was sold to the Washington and George- town Railroad Company.
The Herdic Phaeton Company in December, 1879, com- menced carrying passengers in vehicles which took their names from their designer, Peter H. Herdic, of Wilmington, Delaware. This company commenced operations with a line of one-horse vehicles from 22d and G Streets, northwest, by way of G Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, north of the Capitol, to the Navy Yard gate. To meet this competition the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company reestablished the line of one- horse cars with a three cent fare from 17th Street and Penn- sylvania Avenue to the Capitol, with which it had fought the chariot line, but so large a proportion of the traffic took advan- tage of these cars that the railroad company was compelled to discontinue them and meet the competition of the herdics with a more frequent two-horse car service.
In 1833 the herdic company established a line from 11th and East Capitol Streets to 15th and T Streets, northwest, by way of East Capitol Street, Pennsylvania Avenue and 15th Street. This line passed through the Capitol grounds, and around the Capitol to the north, the vehicles passing under the steps of the Senate wing to discharge passengers, and in inclem- ent weather doing the same at the House wing. To meet the competition resulting from the 15th Street portion of this line, the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company in 1884 re- placed its old one-horse cars on the 14th Street line with two-horse cars, and instead of stopping them at 15th Street and New York Avenue, continued them on Pennsylvania Avenue, part going up to the east front of the Capitol from the south, and part replacing the branch line which had been maintained from the Peace Monu-
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ment to the old Baltimore and Ohio depot at New Jersey Avenue and C Street. Soon after this the herdic company moved its route from 15th to 16th Street. About this time it installed an entire new equipment of two-horse coaches.
In 1886 the herdie company established a line on I and K Streets to 13th and north on 13th to T Street, northwest; and another line west on I Street to 17th, on 17th to N and on N to 21st Street, northwest, using on the latter some of its old one-horse coaches.
In 1887 the herdic company discontinued that part of its service from the Capitol to the Navy Yard gate, as well as its ends at 13th and T Streets, and 21st and N Streets, and placed a two-horse line from 22d and G Streets northwest, to the Toll Gate at 15th and H Streets, northeast, by way of G, 15th, F, 5th, and H Streets, running in competition with the Columbia Rail- way Company's one-horse car line. To meet this competition the Columbia Railway Company replaced its one-horse with two- horse cars and later inaugurated a system of reciprocal trans- fers with the Metropolitan Railroad Company at 14th and New York Avenue and at 9th and New York Avenue.
The change from one-horse to two-horse cars on the Metro- politan line took place in 1886 and 1887, being effected first on the F Street line and afterwards on the 9th Strect line. This change however, had no connection with the activities of the herdic company.
It was in large measure due to the efforts of the herdic company that Congress by Act of May 25, 1894, required all street car and herdic tickets to be printed in sheets of six each, and compelled the acceptance of each other's tickets by all lines, and provided for monthly settlements between the various com- panies; at the same time forbidding the reissue of the tickets after being once used. Previous to this the tickets were resold as long as they held together, and before they were retired be- came very soiled and filthy. The herdic company sold the street car tickets received by it in lots of one hundred for $3.90 and later issued books of its own tickets at the same rate. Many of its passengers then adopted the custom of sitting by the ticket
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receptacles, there being then no conductors on the herdic line, and taking all fares, whether cash or tickets, of the street car lines, and depositing herdic company tickets in the receptacles. This course soon threatened to prove disastrous to the herdic company which then obtained the passage of the law above mentioned in order to compel the railway companies to accept its tickets.
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