USA > Washington > Standard history of the city of Washington from a study of the original sources > Part 5
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"And the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, by an act passed on the 3rd day of December,
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1789, and entitled 'An act for the cession of ten miles square, or any lesser quantity of territory within this State, to the United States in Congress assembled, for the perma- nent seat of the General Government,' did enact, that a tract of country not exceeding ten square miles, or any lesser quantity, to be located within the limits of the said State, and in any part thereof, as Congress might by law direct, should be and the same was thereby forever ceded and relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil as of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution of Government of the United States :
"And the Congress of the United States, by their act passed the 16th day of July, 1790, and entitled 'An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States,' authorized the President of the United States to appoint three commissioners to survey under his direction, and by proper metes and bounds to limit a district of territory not exceeding ten miles square on the river Potomac, at some place between the mouth of the Eastern Branch and Conogocheague, which district, so to be located and limited, was accepted by the said Act of Congress as the district for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States.
"Now, therefore, in pursuance of the powers to me confid- ed, and after duly examining and weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the several situations within the limits aforesaid, I do hereby declare and make known that the location of one part of the said district of ten miles square shall be found by running four lines of experiment in the following manner, that is to say: Running from the court house of Alexandria, in Virginia, due southwest half a mile, and thence a due southeast course till it shall strike Hunting Creek, to fix the beginning of the said four lines of experiment.
"Then beginning the first of the said four lines of exper- iment at the point on Hunting Creek, where the said southeast course shall have struck the same, and running the said first line due northwest ten miles; thence the second into Maryland, due northeast ten miles; thence the third line due southeast ten miles; and thence the fourth line due southwest ten miles, to the beginning on Hunting Creek.
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"And the said four lines of experiment being so run, I do hereby declare and make known that all that part within the said four lines of experiment which shall be within the State of Maryland, and above the Eastern Branch, and all that part within the same four lines of experiment which shall be within the Commonwealth of Virginia, and above a line to be run from the point of land forming the Upper Cape of the mouth of the Eastern Branch due southwest, and no more, is now fixed upon, and directed to be surveyed, defined, limited, and located for a part of the said district accepted by the said Act of Congress for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States; hereby expressly reserving the direction of the survey and location of the remaining part of the said district, to be made hereafter contiguous to such part or parts of the present location as is or shall be agreeably to law.
"And I do accordingly direct the said commissioners, appointed agreeably to the tenor of the said Act, to proceed forthwith to run the said lines of experiment, and, the same being run, to survey and, by proper metes and bounds, to define and limit the part within the same which is herein- before directed for immediate location and acceptance, and thereof to make due report to me under their hands and seals.
"In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents, and signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Philadelphia the 24th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1791, and of the Independence of the United States the fifteenth.
George Washington.
By the President : Thomas Jefferson."
The President, having had a number of these proclamations printed, sent them to Messrs. Stoddert and Deakins, with the following letter requesting the publication of them:
"Gentlemen : I enclose you several proclamations expressing the lines which are to bound the District of ten miles square for the permanent seat of the General Govern- ment, which I wish you to have made public with all expedition, and in the most general and extensive manner that you can to prevent any kind of speculation, let them be published in the newspapers-put up in public places
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and otherwise so disposed as to answer my object as fully as possible. The proclamations are this moment struck off and the mail is about to be closed, which prevents me from adding more at this time; but I shall write you more fully upon this subject in a few days.
I am, sir, Your most obt servt,
George Washington. United States, January 24, 1791."
This proclamation the President sent to Congress with the following letter suggesting the enactment of a law so amending the Residence Act as to permit him to carry out the object sought :
"Gentlemen: In execution of the powers with which Congress were pleased to invest me by their act entitled, 'An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States' and on mature consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the several positions within the limits prescribed by the said Act I have, by a proclamation bearing date this day directed Commissioners, appointed in pursuance of the Act, to survey and limit a part of the territory of ten miles square on both sides of the river Potomac so as to compre- hend Georgetown in Maryland and to extend to the Eastern Branch. I have not by this first act given to the said territory the whole extent of which it is susceptible in the direction of the river; because I thought it important that Congress should have an opportunity of considering whether by an amendatory law they would authorize the location of the residue at the lower end of the present location so as to comprehend the Eastern Branch itself and some of the country on its lower side in the State of Maryland, and the town of Alexandria in Virginia; if however they should think that the federal territory should be bounded by the water edge of the Eastern Branch, the location of the residue will be to be made at the upper end of what is now directed. A copy of the proclamation is inclosed for your more particular information. I have thought it best to await a survey of the territory before it is decided in what part of it the public buildings shall be erected."
The result of the President's request was the passage by Congress of an amendatory Act, approved March 3, 1791, repealing so much of the original Residence Act "as requires
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that the whole of the district or territory, not exceeding ten miles square shall be located above the mouth of the Eastern Branch," and making it lawful "for the President to make any part of the territory below the said limit, and above the mouth of Hunting Creek, a part of the said district, so as to include a convenient part of the Eastern Branch, and of the lands on the lower side thereof, and also the town of Alexandria." The Act closed with a proviso to the effect that nothing therein contained should authorize the erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the river Potomac.
Previous to the passage of this Act steps had been taken looking to a survey of the ten miles square.
On February 1st, 1791, President Washington wrote to Mr. Jefferson :
"Tuesday Evening.
"My dear Sir: Nothing in the enclosed letter superceding the necessity of Mr. Ellicott's proceeding to the work in hand I would thank you, for requesting him, to set out on Thursday ; or as soon after as he can make it convenient : Also for preparing such instructions as you may conceive it necessary for me to give him for ascertaining the points we wish to know; first, for the general view of things and next for the more accurate and final decision.
Yrs. Sincerely and affly., George Washington."
Pursuant to this request Mr. Jefferson wrote to Major Ellicott "to proceed by the first stage to the Federal Territory on the Potomac for the purpose of making a survey of it."
Andrew Ellicott* was a native of Pennsylvania, born Janu- ary 24, 1754, and was consequently just entering his thirty- eighth year when this commission was given him. He had served in the Revolutionary Army, rising to the rank of Major. At the time of his appointment to the task of surveying the Federal Territory he had just come from the completed surveys of boundary lines of the great central states of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, in most of which important and responsible work he was chosen Commissioner
*Life of Andrew Ellicott, by Sallie K. Alexander-Recds. Col. Hist. Soc. Vol. 2.
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as well as astronomer and surveyor. The determination of the west boundary of the State of New York, it being the limit of the Massachusetts claim and a subject of National import was made by him pursuant to a joint resolution of the old and the new Congress, under the direction of President Washington. From this duty Maj. Ellicott came to the Federal District, directly in the line of his continuing official duty as Geographer General, and not as one engaged for the occasion.
On February 14, Major Ellicott arrived in Alexandria and wrote his wife:
"I have been treated with great politeness by the inhabitants, who are truly rejoiced at the prospect of being included in the Federal district. I shall leave this town this afternoon to begin the rough survey of the ten miles square."
On the same day he wrote Mr. Jefferson telling him of the progress of his work, ending with the lines :
"You will observe by the plan which I have suggested for the permanent location a small deviation with respect to the courses from those mentioned in the proclamation. The reason of which is that the courses in the proclamation strictly adhered to would neither produce straight lines nor contain quite the ten miles square besides the almost impossibility of running such lines with tolerable exactness."
Major Ellicott was assisted in the work of laying off the Federal Territory by Messrs. Briggs and Fenwick, his brother Benjamin Ellicott, and the negro astronomer and mathematician, Benjamin Banneker, a free negro who had already attracted the attention of Washington and Jefferson by his wonderful mathematical ability. He was a protege of Major Ellicott and of his father, Joseph Ellicott. His knowledge of the exact sciences was remarkable, and he was able on a number of occasions to indicate errors in the "Nautical Almanac" which had before passed unnoticed.
Major Ellicott had at first little appreciation of the site that had been selected for the Federal Territory, a letter to his wife during the period ending :
"The country intended for the Permanent Residence of
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Congress, bears no more proportion to the country about Philadelphia and German-Town, for either wealth or fertility, than a crane does to a stall-fed Ox!"
In order to provide for Major Ellicott's expenses the President, pursuant to a previous understanding, wrote to Thomas Beall, the Mayor of Georgetown, as follows :
"Philadelphia, February 3d, 1791.
"Sir: In consequence of your letter of the 26th of January to Daniel Carroll, Esquire, informing him that the order of the President of the United States upon you as Mayor of Georgetown, would be paid on sight, I have to request that you will answer the demands of Andrew Ellicott, Esquire, within the sum of fifty guineas, as he may have occasion to make them without further advice from Your most obedient servant,
George Washington." !
In the meantime Major Pierre Charles L' Enfant had been selected by the President to make a preliminary survey of the site of the proposed city. About the first of March, the letter bearing date, merely March, 1791, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Major L'Enfant as follows :
"Sir: You are desired to proceed to Georgetown where you will find Mr. Ellicott employed in making a survey and maps of the Federal Territory. The special object of asking your aid is to have the drawings of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the Federal town and buildings. You will therefore be pleased to begin on the Eastern Branch and proceed from thence upwards, laying down the hills, valleys, morasses, and waters between that, the Potomac, the Tyber, and the road leading from Georgetown to the Eastern Branch, and connecting the whole with certain fixed points on the maps Mr. Ellicott is preparing. Some idea of the height of the lands above the base on which they stand would be desirable. For necessary assistance and expenses be pleased to apply to the Mayor of Georgetown who is written to on this sub- ject. I will beg the favour of you to mark to me your progress about twice a week, by letter, say every Wednesday and Saturday evening, that I may be able in proper time
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to draw your attention to some other objects which I have not at this moment sufficient information to define.
"I am with great esteem, Sir,
Your most obedient humble sevt.,
Th. Jefferson.
Majr L'Enfant."
Major L'Enfant had come to America in the fall of 1777, with Monsieur Ducoudray. He was promoted to a Captaincy of Engineers, February 18, 1778, and after the war granted the rank of major by brevet on his own application. He had been wounded at the siege of Savannah and made a prisoner at Charleston. He is stated to have been born in France, August 2, 1755. He would thus have been only twenty-two years of age on his coming to this country-scarcely old enough to have had any engineering experience-and thirty-six at the time of his employment on the Federal City. Subsequent to the Revolution he lived for a time with the Calverts, near Marlboro, Maryland. Going back to France on a mission connected with the Order of Cincinnati and again returning to America he obtained employment as an architect in the reconstruction of the building at New York for the meeting of the first Federal Congress. He is described as fully six feet tall erect and of a military bearing, with a finely proportioned figure and prominent nose.
The work of L'Enfant in connection with the remodeling of the New York Capitol building had come to the notice of President Washington. His attention had been further drawn to the French Engineer by a direct application by the latter for appointment to the task of laying out the new Federal city. In making this application, L'Enfant had taken time by the forelock, as the Act fixing the site on the Potomac was not passed until nearly ten months later.
In his letter, which bore date September 11, 1789, in which, from the quality of the English employed, he doubtless had the aid of an amenuensis, as his other letters display a very defective knowledge of the idiomatic nature of the English language, he said :
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"The late determination of Congress to lay the founda- tion of a city, which is to become the Capital of this vast empire, offers so great an occasion of acquiring reputation to whoever may be appointed to conduct the execution of the business that your excellency will not be surprised that my ambition and the desire I have of becoming a useful citizen should lead me to wish a share in the undertaking.
"No nation, perhaps, had ever before the opportunity offered them of deliberately deciding on the spot where their capital city should be fixed or of combining every necessary consideration in the choice of situation, and although the means now within the power of the country are not such as to pursue the design to any great extent it will be obvious that the plan should be drawn on such a scale as to leave room for the aggrandizement and embellishment which the increase of the wealth of the nation will permit it to pursue at any period, however remote. Viewing the matter in this light, I am fully sensible of the extent of the undertaking, and under the hope of a continuance of the indulgence you have hitherto honored me with I now presume to solicit the favor of being employed in this business."
The letter continued with a recommendation that the preparation of a system of coast fortifications be at once commenced and a request for appointment to the Engineer Corps where he could engage in the fortification work as well as in such work of a civil character as might require his attention.
Concerning the arrival at Georgetown of Majors Ellicott and L'Enfant, the Georgetown Weekly Ledger of March 12, 1791, says :
"Some time last month arrived in this town Major Andrew Ellicott, a gentleman of superior astronomical abilities. He was appointed by the President of the United States to lay off a tract of land ten miles square on the Potomac for the use of Congress. He is now engaged in this business and hopes soon to accomplish the object of his mission. He is attended by Benjamin Banniker, an Ethiopian, whose abilities as a surveyor and astronomer clearly prove that Mr. Jefferson's concluding that race of men were void of mental endowments was without foundation.
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"Wednesday evening arrived in this town Major Long- font a French gentleman employed by the President of the United States to survey the lands contiguous to Georgetown where the Federal city is to be built. His skill in matters of this kind is justly extolled by all disposed to give merit its proper tribute of praise. He is earnest in the business and hopes to be able to lay a plat of that parcel of land before the President upon his arrival in this town."
Major L'Enfant wrote to Mr. Jefferson on March 11, 1791, reciting his arrival on the 9th and his review of the ground the following day, the Mayor of Georgetown having offered his assistance in procuring three or four men to attend him in the surveying. It is evident that even in this brief view of the ground he grasped many of the possibilities which it offered, for he says :
"As far as I was able to judge through a thick fog I passed on many spots which appeared to me really beautiful and which seem to dispute with each other who command. In the most extensive prospect on the water the gradual rising of the ground from Carrollborough toward the Ferry Road, the level and extensive ground from there to the bank of the Potomac as far as Goose Creek present a situation most advantageous to run streets and prolong them on grand and far distant point of view."
Previous to Major L'Enfant's appointment, and while Major Ellicott was preparing to make his survey of the ten miles square President Washington had been continuing his efforts to obtain suitable terms from the owners of such land as he deemed necessary for the Federal town.
By this time it is evident that the President had come to the conclusion that little could be accomplished so long as he worked in the open to reach an agreement with the land owners, as the prospect of a speedy inflation of the values of their lands had aroused a degree of cupidity in the owners which no appeal to their public spirit was effective to counter- act. Accordingly he determined to abandon his tactics of direct approach and to endeavor to make terms with the proprietors through secret agents who should adopt the appearance of being engaged in a speculation of their own. For this purpose
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he selected Messrs. Deakins and Stoddert who had acted for him before in making arrangements with the land owners. To these gentlemen he wrote from Philadelphia under date of February 3, 1791 :
"Philadelphia, February 3d, 1791.
"Gentlemen: In asking your aid in the following case permit me at the same time to ask the most perfect secrecy. "The Federal Territory being located, the competition for the location of the town now rests between the mouth of the Eastern Branch and the lands on the river below and adjacent to Georgetown.
"In favor of the former, Nature has furnished powerful advantages. In favor of the latter is its vicinity to George- town which puts it in the way of deriving aids from it in the beginning, and of communicating in return an increased value to the property of that town. These advantages have been so poised in my mind as to give it different tendencies at different times. There are lands which stand yet in the way of the latter location and which, if they could be obtained for the purposes of the town, would remove a considerable obstacle to it, and go near indeed to decide what has been so long on the balance with me.
"These are, first, the lands on the S. West side of a line to be run from where the road crosses Goose Creek in going from Georgetown to the Eastern Branch to the corner of Charles Beatty's lot; including by the plat of Beatty and Orme the house of William Peerce; or if the whole of this parcel cannot be obtained, then secondly, so much as would lie within a line to be run from the said ford, or thereabouts, to the middle of the line of cession which extends from the corner of Beatty's lot, as above mentioned, to its termination on Goose Creek; thirdly, the lands of Mr. Carroll between Goose Creek, the river and Mr. Young, to the same ford of the creek.
"The object of this letter is to ask you to endeavor to purchase these grounds of the owners for the public, particularly the second parcel, but as if for yourselves, and to conduct your propositions so as to excite no suspicion that they are on behalf of the public.
"The circumstances of the funds appropriated by the States of Virginia and Maryland, will require that a twelve months credit be stipulated, in order that they may cover you from any inconvenience which might attend your
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personal undertakings. As the price at which the lands can be obtained would have its weight also with me, I would wish that in making your bargains you should reserve to yourselves a fortnight's time to consider, at the end of which you should be free to be off or on, but the seller not so. This will admit your writing to me and receiving my definitive answer.
"A clear purchase is so preferable to every other arrange- ment, that I should scarcely think any other worthy attention.
"I am obliged to add that all the dispatch is requisite which can consist with the success of your operations, and that I shall be glad to hear by post of your progress, and prospect of the accomplishment of this business, in whole or part.
"I am, Gentlemen, Your most Obe'd Hble, &c., George Washington.
Messrs. Deakins and Stoddart.
"P. S .- That my description of the lands required in the foregoing letter may be more clearly understood, and my wishes further explained, I enclose you a rough (and very rough indeed it is) copy of the ceded tracts, roads, etc., of Messrs. Beatty and Orme's Survey-adding thereto lines of augmentation. To obtain the lands included within the lines A, B and C is my first wish, and next to that the lands within the lines D, E and F; but those within the lines D, E, and along the Creek to G, are indispensably necessary ; and being not over 250 acres might, I suppose, be easily obtained. It ought to be the first essay and I wish to know as soon as possible the result of it, before any others are directly attempted. G. W."
It is difficult to gather from this letter the precise areas to which the President referred, the sketch to which it relates being apparently no longer in existence; yet it is evident that he was endeavoring to extend the limits of the proposed cessions as far as possible to the northeast. He had at the same time been making every effort through Deakins and Stoddert to acquire the land of David Burnes and other proprietors nearer Georgetown. These lands then appeared to be indispensable, owing to the unwillingness of the proprietors of the lands near the Eastern Branch to come to satisfactory terms. Accordingly
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President Washington, on February 17th wrote to Deakins and Stoddert :
"Gentlemen: I have received your favor of the 9th and 11th inst. and shall be glad if the purchase from Burns should be concluded before you receive this at £18 or £12-10 as you choose, but as you mention that should he ask as far as £20 or £25, you will await further instructions before you accept such an offer. I have thought it better, in order to prevent delay, to inform you that I would wish his lands to be purchased even at those prices, rather than not obtain them."
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