A manual on the origin and development of Washington

by H. Paul Caemmerer

THE ELLICOTT PLAN—THE L’ENFANT PLAN ENLARGED

The executed plan of the Federal City as redrawn by Andrew Ellicott departs but little from the modified L’Enfant plan. The changes are perhaps an improvement on the layout as modified by President Washington.

Discussion recently has arisen in reference to the credit Ellicott should be given for the executed plan of Washington. In 1802 a congressional committee found—

that the plan of the city was originally designed by Major L’Enfant, but that in many respects it was rejected by the President, and a plan drawn up by Mr. Ellicott, purporting to have been made from actual survey, was engraved and published by order of General Washington in the year 1792.

The chief alteration shown in Ellicott’s engraved plan is the straightening of what is now Massachusetts Avenue. The suppression of the eastern portion leading to the upper bridgehead made it end at what is now known as Lincoln Square, the drawbridge over Eastern Branch being reached by what is now Kentucky Avenue.

By moving the marine hospital site north some distance and ignoring the Rock Creek Ford at the other end, Ellicott was enabled to run Massachusetts Avenue in nearly a direct line; the western end reached the road to Frederick, as it did in L’Enfant’s plan.

The settlement of this section of the city was at that date problematical, and no serious attention was given to the change in plan. The area was marshy and was a popular place for hunting snipe. This fact explains the meandering of Florida Avenue to the northwestern boundary line of the old city.

THE ELLICOTT PLAN

[Transcriptions]

TRANSCRIPTION OF NOTES INSCRIBED ON ELLICOTT PLAN

In an overlay of the two plans of L’Enfant and Ellicott, prepared with great accuracy by the hydrographic section of the Navy, only the main east-west and north-south axes of the Capitol and White House coincide. An examination of this drawing shows that the art of surveying had not at that period reached present-day accuracy.

THE DERMOTT OR TIN CASE MAP OF THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, 1797-98

Several suppressed sections of the L’Enfant plan were restored in the engraved plan. Maryland Avenue was carried through to the “Grand Avenue,” and South Carolina Avenue extended to New Jersey Avenue and the “Town House” site.

The plan of James R. Dermott, the officially approved plan, had many more city squares, and consequently more lots for sale. It is known as the Tin Case Map, because about 50 years later it was thus found preserved. The cry of grasping owners and voracious speculators was for more lots; and L’Enfant’s letter of warning to President Washington dated August 19, 1791, against this evil proved more than justified. This city plan also indicated the names of the avenues.

What is known as the King Map was made by Robert King, a surveyor in the office of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and published in 1818.

THE KING MAP

The map is of interest in that we note in it the word Judiciary in what is known as Judiciary Square. We learn from L’Enfant’s Memorial addressed to Congress on December 7, 1800, that L’Enfant intended the third coordinate branch of the Government, the Judiciary, be located there. To-day the Square is largely occupied by court buildings.

VIEW OF EARLY WASHINGTON

Chapter VI
EARLY WASHINGTON

While Major L’Enfant drew the plan of the Federal City, it was Andrew Ellicott who afterward carried it out. The building of the city attracted many speculators, who invested heavily. Robert Morris, James Greenleaf, Thomas Law, John Nicholson, and Samuel Blodgett were among those who lost thereby.

When Washington became the seat of government in 1800 there were 109 brick and 263 frame houses, sheltering a total population of about 3,000. The early years of the city’s development were difficult and too much praise cannot be given the men who carried the burden. The departments of the government that existed then were State, Treasury, War, Navy, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Postal Service. They employed a total of 137 clerks.

We have brief accounts of the appearance of Washington written by travelers who visited the United States during the period from 1790 to 1800. There is an interesting description by Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who wrote an account of his “Voyage dans les États-Unis d’Amerique fait en 1795-97.” The accounts of several inhabitants in Washington of the period is well summed up by Albert J. Beveridge in his Life of John Marshall (vol. III, pp. 1-4):

A strange sight met the eye of the traveler who, aboard one of the little river sailboats of the time, reached the stretches of the sleepy Potomac separating Alexandria and Georgetown. A wide swamp extended inland from a modest hill on the east to a still lower elevation of land about a mile to the west. Between the river and morass a long flat tract bore clumps of great trees, mostly tulip poplars, giving, when seen from a distance, the appearance of a fine park.

Upon the hill stood a partly constructed white stone building, mammoth in plan. The slight elevation north of the wide slough was the site of an apparently finished edifice of the same material, noble in its dimensions and with beautiful, simple lines, but “surrounded with a rough rail fence 5 or 6 feet high unfit for a decent barnyard.” From the river nothing could be seen beyond the groves near the banks of the stream except the two great buildings and the splendid trees which thickened into a seemingly dense forest upon the higher ground to the northward.

On landing and making one’s way through the underbrush to the foot of the eastern hill, and up the gullies that seamed its sides thick with trees and tangled wild grapevines, one finally reached the immense unfinished structure that attracted attention from the river. Upon its walls laborers were languidly at work.

Clustered around it were fifteen or sixteen wooden houses. Seven or eight of these were boarding-houses, each having as many as ten or a dozen rooms all told. The others were little affairs of rough lumber, some of them hardly better than shanties. One was a tailor shop; in another a shoemaker plied his trade; a third contained a printer with his hand press and types, while a washerwoman occupied another; and in the others were a grocery shop, a pamphlets-and-stationery shop, a little dry-goods shop, and an oyster shop. No other human habitation of any kind appeared for three-quarters of a mile.

Courtesy of National Photo Co.

THE SIX BUILDINGS

A broad and perfectly straight clearing had been made across the swamp between the eastern hill and the big white house more than a mile away to the westward. In the middle of this long opening ran a roadway, full of stumps, broken by deep mud holes in the rainy season, and almost equally deep with dust when the days were dry. On either border was a path or “walk” made firm at places by pieces of stone; though even this “extended but a little way.” Alder bushes grew in the unused spaces of this thoroughfare [the present notable Pennsylvania Avenue], and in the depressions stagnant water stood in malarial pools, breeding myriads of mosquitoes. A sluggish stream meandered across this avenue and broadened into the marsh.

A few small houses, some of brick and some of wood, stood on the edge of this long, broad street. Near the large stone building at its western end were four or five structures of red brick looking much like ungainly warehouses. Farther westward on the Potomac hills was a small but pretentious town with its many capacious brick and stone residences, some of them excellent in their architecture and erected solidly by skilled workmen.

Other openings in the forest had been cut at various places in the wide area east of the main highway that connected the two principal structures already described. Along these forest avenues were scattered houses of various materials * * *. Such was the City of Washington, with Georgetown nearby, when Thomas Jefferson became President and John Marshall Chief Justice of the United States—the Capitol, Pennsylvania Avenue, the “Executive Mansion” or “President’s Palace,” the department buildings near it, the residences, shops, hostelries, and streets.

The south lines of the 10-mile square—the Federal district in which the new Capital lay—were to run from the intersection of the Potomac River and the Eastern Branch, but, as has been related, by the act of March 3, 1791, these boundary lines were moved south to include Alexandria and part of Virginia within the Federal territory. The land lying within the bounds of the proposed city was given by the proprietors to trustees appointed by the Government under an agreement by which the Nation received the land necessary for streets without charge, purchasing the areas for parks and building sites at the rate of £25 per acre. The remaining land was divided equally with the original proprietors. The first settlements were made on grants given chiefly to retired naval officers who named their holdings after their camps—Mexico, Jamaica, and Port Royal. There were two settlements on the site—Carrollsburg, named after its founder, and Hamburg, an early real-estate development near and south of Georgetown. A stream of considerable size known originally as Goose Creek ran through the city. It later became known as Tiber Creek, because a resident named Pope, whose estate he facetiously called Rome, contended that if there was a Pope in Rome, his residence should be situated on the Tiber.

As is noticed by reference to the plans, a canal extended from the point about where the Lincoln Memorial is located, along B Street, now Constitution Avenue, east to the Capitol; thence along James Creek, known to-day as Canal Street. In those days Pennsylvania Avenue was a dusty road, lined with poplar trees, and often so flooded that it was not an uncommon sight to see boats floating on it. For a long time an isolated group of buildings known as the Six Buildings at Twenty-first Street and Pennsylvania Avenue stood halfway between the Capitol and Georgetown.

EARLY WASHINGTON, SHOWING THE JEFFERSON POPLARS

THE ELLICOTT MAP

Washington as the infant city appeared in 1800 is best described by John Cotton Smith, Member of Congress from Connecticut, in a letter written by him at the time, as follows:

Our approach to the city was accompanied with sensations not easily described. One wing of the Capitol only had been erected, which with the President’s House, 1 mile distant from it, both constructed with white sandstone, were shining objects in dismal contrast with the scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues and streets, portrayed on the plan of the city, not one was visible, unless we except a road, with two buildings on each side of it, called the New Jersey Avenue. The Pennsylvania Avenue, leading, as laid down on paper, from the Capitol to the Presidential Mansion, was nearly the whole distance a deep morass covered with alder bushes, which were cut through to the President’s House; and near Georgetown a block of houses had been erected which bore the name of the “six buildings” * * *. The desolate aspect of the place was not a little augmented by a number of unfinished edifices at Greenleaf’s Point.

There appeared to be but two really comfortable habitations, in all respects, within the bounds of the city, one of which belonged to Dudley Carroll and the other to Notley Young. The roads in every direction were muddy and unimproved. A sidewalk was attempted, in one instance, by a covering formed of the chips hewed for the Capitol. It extended but a little way and was of little value; for in dry weather the sharp fragments cut our shoes, and in wet weather covered them with white mortar. In short, it was a new settlement.

Newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, and New England and satirists everywhere cracked many amusing jokes at the expense of the embryonic city. The Capitol was called “the palace in the wilderness” and Pennsylvania Avenue “the great Serbonian Bog.” Georgetown was declared “a city of houses without streets” and Washington “a city of streets without houses.”

The Abbe Correa de Serra, the witty minister from Portugal, bestowed upon Washington the famous title of “the city of magnificent distances,” referring to the great spaces between the scattered houses; while Thomas Moore, just then coming into prominence as a poet, visited the city in 1804, and contributed to the general fund of humor by the composition of this satire:

In fancy now beneath the twilight gloom,

Come, let me lead thee o’er this second Rome,

Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,

And what was Goose Creek once is Tiber now.

This fam’d metropolis, where fancy sees

Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;

Which second sighted seers e’en now adorn

With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn.

During the administrations of Adams and Jefferson the city improved considerably. Jefferson secured money from Congress for public buildings. In 1803 he appointed Benjamin Latrobe as the Architect of the Capitol, and by him the construction of the Capitol was carried on so energetically that he gave form to the old portion of the Capitol that Thornton had simply planned.

Thomas Jefferson also secured money from Congress for the improvement of Pennsylvania Avenue, which was then a dusty highway in the summer and swampy place in winter; planted poplar trees and did what he could to redeem that thoroughfare from its lamentable condition. He applied his artistic taste and skill to the work of beautifying the city.

Chapter VII
WASHINGTON, 1810-1815

An interesting account of Washington during this period is given by David Baillie Warden in his book entitled “A Description of the District of Columbia,” published in Paris in 1816, and dedicated to Mrs. George Washington Parke Custis. He states:

It is scarcely possible to imagine a situation more beautiful, healthy and convenient than of Washington. The gentle undulated surface throws the water into such various directions, as affords the most agreeable assemblage. The rising hills, on each side of the Potomac, are truly picturesque; and as the river admits the largest frigates, their sails, gliding through the majestic trees which adorn its banks, complete the scenery.

The city extends from northwest to southeast about four miles and a half, and from northeast to southwest about two miles and a half. The public buildings occupy the most elevated and convenient situations, to which the waters of the Tiber Creek may be easily conducted, as well as to every other part of the city, not already watered by springs.

The streets run from north to south, and from east to west, crossing each other at right angles, with the exception of fifteen, that point to the State of which each bears the name. The capitol commands the streets called the Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania avenues; the President’s House, those of Vermont, New York, and Connecticut; and all these different intersections form eleven hundred and fifty squares. The Pennsylvania Street, or avenue, which stretches in a direct line from the President’s house to the capitol, is a mile in length, and a hundred and sixty feet in breadth. That of the narrowest streets is from ninety to a hundred feet, which will give a fine appearance to the city; but in a region where the summer sun is so intensely hot, and the winter winds so severely cold, narrow streets, affording shade and shelter, would be of great utility.

The plan of the city of which we have prefixed an engraving (There is a plan by Major L’Enfant, engraved at the expence of the Government, on the scale of a hundred poles to an inch), is universally admired. The most eligible places have been selected for public squares and public buildings. The capitol is situated on a rising ground, which is elevated about eighty feet above the tide-water of the Potomac. This edifice will present a front of six hundred and fifty feet, with a colonade of two hundred and sixty feet, and sixteen Corinthian columns thirty-one feet and a half in height. The elevation of the dome is a hundred and fifty feet * * *.

The President’s house consists of two stories, and is a hundred and seventy feet in length, and eighty-five feet in breadth. It resembles Leinster-House in Dublin. * * * The view from the windows fronting the river is extremely beautiful.

The Public Offices, the Treasury, Department of State, and of War, are situated in a line with, and at the distance of four hundred and fifty feet from the President’s House. These buildings, of two stories, have a hundred and twenty feet in front, sixty in breadth, and sixteen feet in height, and are ornamented with a white stone basement, which rises six or seven feet above the surface. It was originally proposed to form a communication between these offices and the house of the president, a plan which was afterwards abandoned.

The Jail consists of two stories, and is a hundred by twenty-one feet.

The Infirmary is a neat building.

There are three commodious Market-places built at the expence of the corporation.

The public buildings at the Navy Yard are the barracks, a work-shop, and three large brick buildings for the reception of naval stores. The Barracks, constructed of brick, are six hundred feet in length, fifty in breadth, and twenty in height. At the head of the Barrack-yard is the Colonel’s house, which is neat and commodious. The Workshop, planned by Latrobe, is nine hundred feet in length.

The Patent Office, constructed according to the plan of J. Hoban, esquire (who gained the prize for that of the President’s house) consists of three stories, and is a hundred and twenty feet long, and sixty feet wide. It is ornamented with a pediment, and six Ionic pilasters. From the eminence (This eminence has the shape of a tortoise-shell) on which it stands, the richly-wooded hills rise on every side, and form a scenery of unequaled beauty. It was erected by Mr. Blodgett to serve as a public hotel * * *. In 1810 this edifice was purchased by the government.—Dr. Thornton, director.

In the summer of 1814 this metropolis was taken possession of by an English naval and land force, which set fire to the Capitol, President’s house, Public Offices, and Navy Yard. The loss sustained was $1,215,111.

Two of the luxuries of life, pine-apples and ice, are found at Washington at a cheap rate. The former, imported from the West Indies, are sold at twenty-five cents each. The latter article is purchased, throughout the summer, at half a dollar per bushel. * * *

It is deeply to be regretted, that the government or corporation did not employ some means for the preservation of the trees which grew on places destined for the public walks. How agreeable would have been their shade along the Pennsylvania Avenue where the dust so often annoys, and the summer sun, reflected from the sandy soil, is so oppressive. The Lombardy poplar, which now supplies their place, serves more for ornament than shelter.

Water may be distributed to any part of Washington from several fine springs, and also from the Tiber Creek, the source of which is 236 feet above the level of the tide in the same stream. * * *

The canal, which runs through the centre of the city, commencing at the mouth of Tiber Creek, and connecting the Potomac with its eastern branch, is nearly completed. Mr. Law (Brother to Lord Ellenborough) the chief promoter of this undertaking, proposes to establish packet-boats to run between the Tiber Creek and the Navy-Yard—a conveyance which may be rendered more economical and comfortable than the hackney-coach. This canal is to be navigable for boats drawing three feet of water.

The population of the territory of Columbia, in 1810, amounted to 24,023. That of the city was 8,208; of Georgetown, 4,948; of Alexandria, 7,227.

On August 24, 1814, the British arrived in Washington at about 6 o’clock in the evening. That night they burned the Capitol, the President’s House, the Treasury, State and Navy Department Buildings, and a number of private houses on Capitol Hill. The flames could be seen from the Francis Scott Key mansion at Georgetown. Several wagonloads of valuable documents had been taken a few days previously from the State Department to Leesburg, Va., 35 miles northwest of Washington, to a place of safety.

The British also intended to burn the Patent Office, but Commissioner Thornton met them boldly, saying: “Are you Englishmen or Goths and vandals? This is the Patent Office, the depository of the ingenuity of the American Nation, in which the whole civilized world is interested. Would you destroy it? If so, fire away and let the charge pass through my body.” The British allowed it to remain and withdrew.

Mrs. Dolly Madison, having secured such property from the White House as could be carried, including the Gilbert Stuart portrait of General Washington, which she cut from the frame, went through Georgetown and that night slept in a camp of soldiers with a guard about her tent. Later the President, who had taken refuge in a tavern near McLean, in Virginia, joined Mrs. Madison. The southwest end of the bridge over which they had crossed the Potomac—it was then a pile bridge 1 mile long—was burned, and they were thereupon required to make their return to Washington by boat. The residence of the President was then established at the Octagon House at Eighteenth Street and New York Avenue. In 1815 the residence of the President was removed to the “Seven Buildings,” at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Nineteenth Street, one of the early homes of the Department of State. Here it remained until the Executive Mansion was restored, March, 1817.

After the withdrawal of the British the Blodgett Hotel building, acquired for the use of the Patent Office, was for a time occupied by Congress for its sessions. Later Congress moved into a building at First and A Streets NE., known later as the Old Capitol Building and used during the Civil War as a military prison.

WASHINGTON, FROM THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE, 1830

CHRIST CHURCH BURIAL GROUND, LATER KNOWN AS “CONGRESSIONAL CEMETERY”
SHOWING CENOTAPHS ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN EARLY DAYS

Chapter VIII
WASHINGTON, 1816-1839

The administration of President Monroe, who served two terms (1817-1825) is known as the “era of good feeling,” but so far as developing the plan of Washington little was done. In 1820 the population of Washington was 13,247.

During these years the Capitol was rebuilt and was reoccupied by Congress. In 1820 the corner stone of the city hall on Judiciary Square was laid. In 1824 General Lafayette made his memorable visit to Washington.

In 1825 trees were planted on two squares of the filled lowlands south of Pennsylvania Avenue. That year, also, the eastern portico of the Capitol was completed; Pennsylvania Avenue was graded from Seventeenth to Twenty-second Streets; the grounds of the White House, as the Executive Mansion came to be known after the War of 1812, and the grounds of the city hall were also graded. At that time there were about 13 miles of brick paving, average width 13 feet.

Among churches that were built during this period was Foundry Methodist Church, founded in 1816, at Fourteenth and G Streets NW. The site was given by Henry Foxall, who operated a foundry about a mile above Georgetown, near the site of the canal, in fulfillment of a vow that if his foundry were spared during the attack on Washington he would make this gift.

On January 27, 1824, the Legislature of Virginia granted a charter to the newly organized Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Co., which was to supersede the old Potomac Co., of which George Washington had been first president, and which had developed commerce with the West. At Little Falls, on the north side of the river, a canal 2¹⁄₂ miles long, with 4 masonry locks having a total elevation of 37 feet, had been constructed. At Great Falls, on the south side, a canal 1,200 yards long, with 5 locks having a total difference of level of 76 feet 9 inches, was constructed. The two lower locks were cut in solid rock.

On July 4, 1828, President John Quincy Adams turned the first spadeful of earth for the new canal, which was completed to the first feeder at Seneca on July 4, 1831. From this place to Point of Rocks work was delayed by a legal contest with the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., which extended its first 45 miles along the same course as the canal. That railroad company, organized in 1828 at Baltimore, was the beginning of one of the great railroad systems of the United States that were to revolutionize commerce and industry. To-day the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal remains the property of the United States Government, and is to be made into a great park.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ABOUT 1820
FROM PAINTING MADE BY SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, SHORTLY AFTER REBUILDING OF THE CAPITOL AFTER THE FIRE OF 1814 ORIGINAL IN THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART

Courtesy of National Photo Co.

SITE AND MATERIAL FOR DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BUILDING, 1839

Georgetown had become a great trading center. From 1815 to 1835 products to the value of $4,077,708 were exported from Georgetown to foreign markets, and from 1826 to 1835 nearly $5,000,000 worth of products to other American cities, including a million barrels of flour and 5,400 hogsheads of tobacco.

GATEHOUSE, BUILT IN 1835, ALONG THE OLD CHESAPEAKE & OHIO CANAL

In the spring of 1828, shortly before what was called the corner stone of the main line was laid, Congress enacted a law granting entrance of a railroad line into the District. Some six years passed before the Washington branch reached the District line. The first service began on Monday, July 20, 1835, with two trains each way. A great celebration, in which 1,000 passengers and 2 bands on 4 trains took part, marked the entrance of the railroad service to the National Capital. The steam cars passed through the city on their daily trips to the depot at the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Second Street. October 1, 1835, it was reported that the average number of travelers per day was 200.

During this period the construction of the present Treasury Department, Patent Office, and old Post Office Department Buildings was authorized. They conformed to the Capitol and the White House in their fine style of classical architecture, and emphasized the fact that Washington is the National Capital.

Unfortunately, it was during this period that great mistakes were made—such as giving over part of the Mall to garden purposes and in letting Government areas, so much desired now, go for private purposes; also in the location of certain public buildings, as erecting the Treasury Department in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Chapter IX
WASHINGTON, 1840-1859

In 1840 Washington had a population of 23,364. The city was still in a very much undeveloped state, though the fact that it was the National Capital was not lost sight of. In 1846 the construction of the Smithsonian Institution Building was begun, and on July 4, 1848, the corner stone of the Washington Monument was laid. On July 4, 1851, the corner stone for the enlargement of the Capitol according to plans as we see it to-day, was laid.

THE CAPITOL, 1840

However, so far as city development was concerned, little was done during this period. The L’Enfant plan seemed either forgotten or entirely too large for the National Capital. In the city of Washington not a street was lighted up to 1860 excepting Pennsylvania Avenue. Pigs roamed the principal thoroughfares. Pavements, save for a few patches here and there, were altogether lacking. An open sewer carried off common refuse, and the police and fire departments might have sufficed for a small village rather than for a nation’s capital.

WASHINGTON, 1852

In 1846 the part of the District of Columbia on the west bank of the Potomac, including Alexandria, was re-ceded to Virginia. This was done pursuant to an act of Congress of July 9 of that year, and with the assent of the people of the county and town of Alexandria, at an election on the first and second days of September, 1846, by a vote of 763 for retrocession and 222 against it. On September 7, 1846, President Polk issued a proclamation giving notice that the portion derived from the State of Virginia, about 36 square miles, was re-ceded to that State. The action of Congress and the President was based upon petitions of the people of the town and county of Alexandria. The chief reasons were two: First, that the United States did not need Alexandria County for the purpose of the seat of government; the public buildings were all erected on the north side of the river, as required by law—none on the south side—and it was declared that so far as it could be foreseen the United States would never need that part of the District of Columbia for the purpose of the seat of government. Secondly, the petitioners said that the people of Alexandria had failed to derive or share in the benefits which had been enjoyed by the residents of the Maryland portion of the District of Columbia in the disbursements for public improvements, etc., while on the other hand they were deprived of those political rights incident to citizenship in a State.

Since then the United States has acquired something over 2 square miles of this territory for use as a military post, a national cemetery, a Signal Corps station, and the Department of Agriculture Experiment Farm.

The constitutionality of the retrocession has often been questioned. But Congress had expressed itself clearly on the subject, and the majority of the voters had their way in the matter. In a test case before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1875 (Phillips v. Payne), the court, while not directly ruling on the question, held that an individual is estopped from raising the question. According to an opinion rendered by an attorney general about 1900, it would now take the consent of the State of Virginia to reinclude the Virginia portion as part of the District of Columbia.

In the development of the National Capital the portion in Virginia is properly included in the metropolitan area of Washington. The National Capital Park and Planning Commission is, by authority of Congress, cooperating with similar commissions of the States of Maryland and Virginia. The great object is to secure for the remote regions of the National Capital area the same harmonious development as there is in the heart of the city. Both the States of Maryland and Virginia are cooperating to the fullest extent in this matter.

On December 16, 1852, the first issue of the Washington Evening Star, which has grown into one of the great national dailies, appeared.

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BUILDING, 1855

Chapter X
WASHINGTON 1860-1870

Washington in 1860 was still a comparatively small and undeveloped city, with a population of 61,122. But the people were soon aroused to intense excitement because of the strife between the States. When the Civil War began, the eyes of the Nation were turned on Washington. The city increased in population to over 100,000 in a few months time and was the center of great war-time activities. On April 18, 1861, 500 Pennsylvania troops, the first to answer President Lincoln’s call for volunteers, entered the city, and the day following they were joined by the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment. Soon thousands of additional men were here from all the States in the North. Washington became an armed camp. Schools, churches, and public halls were turned into hospitals to care for the sick and wounded. A chain of forts and batteries was erected about the city to protect it, and by October 1862 there were 252,000 soldiers encamped around Washington on both sides of the river. There were 70 hospitals, caring for 30,000 sick and wounded men.

OLD CAPITOL PRISON

THE CAPITOL, SHOWING UNCOMPLETED DOME, 1860

WASHINGTON, FROM ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, 1865

SECOND INAUGURAL OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 1865

On the morning of July 11, 1864, great fear spread over the city as Gen. Jubal A. Early reached a point about 6 miles to the north of the city where the Walter Reed General Hospital now stands. General Grant sent the Sixth and part of the Nineteenth Corps to Washington, and their arrival on the afternoon of that day saved the city. On the following day a skirmish of troops and sharp engagement took place, which President Lincoln witnessed as a spectator at Fort Stevens, exposing himself for a time to the fire. That evening General Early, finding himself opposed by a greater force than he was prepared to meet, withdrew, recrossing the Potomac at White Fords, Va.

During the four years of the war thousands of troops passed through Washington on their way to the front, thrilled by the thought of being in the Nation’s Capital. Even though the Civil War was a great handicap to the carrying out of improvements in the city, still several notable improvements were made, among these being the work of enlarging the Capitol and completing the Dome as we see it to-day. In that period also the first street-car line was opened, the Long Bridge was rebuilt, and work on the Washington Aqueduct developed so that from that time water has been brought from the Potomac at Great Falls to the city.

In 1861 the number of employees of the Government was 3,466, and in 1865 they numbered 7,184.

On October 2, 1862, the first horse-drawn street cars commenced operation, running from the Navy Yard to Georgetown; they continued in use for 40 years.

On April 14, 1865, occurred the great tragedy when President Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater by the actor John Wilkes Booth. The funeral procession was a great solemn occasion, for Abraham Lincoln, on whom the Nation had depended during four years of war to guide it safely through the bitter conflict, had given his life for the cause that the Union might be preserved. On May 23 and 24 took place the Grand Review on Pennsylvania Avenue of 200,000 men, requiring six hours for General Meade’s army on the first day and seven hours for General Sherman’s army on the second day to pass before President Johnson and General Grant. In a few days those who made up these armies passed from military life and resumed their places among their fellow citizens.

Buildings that had been used as hospitals were again given over to peaceful pursuits, and the forts that surrounded the city were dismantled. Lumber from temporary buildings that were torn down was used to begin the construction of houses in a new subdivision called Mount Pleasant. But the great era for civic improvements was not to take place for another five years, until the administration of President Grant.

Photograph by courtesy of the Oldest Inhabitants Association

GRAND REVIEW OF UNION ARMY, MAY, 1865

OLD HAYMARKET SQUARE, LOUISIANA AVENUE BETWEEN NINTH AND TENTH STREETS

THE CAPITOL, 1870

Chapter XI
IMPROVEMENTS MADE DURING PRESIDENT GRANT’S ADMINISTRATION

The year 1870 marked the beginning of a new and effective movement for the development of the National Capital. Washington was then a city of 109,199.

Great efforts to relocate the National Capital in some other city, preferably farther to the west, were made by some who were familiar with conditions in Washington. St. Louis offered to spend several millions of dollars for the erection of public buildings. Congress settled this agitation by appropriating $500,000 as an initial sum for the construction of the State, War, and Navy Building.

By an act of Congress approved February 21, 1871, a Territorial form of government, consisting of a governor, a board of public works, and a legislative assembly, was created. Alexander R. Shepherd, better known as “Boss” Shepherd, a native of Washington, was appointed a member of the board of public works and, later, governor of the new Territory.

VIEW SHOWING HORSE CARS

WASHINGTON, 1890

Great projects were placed under way for the development of the city. One hundred and eighty of the 300 miles of half-made streets and avenues were improved, and nearly all the thickly settled streets of the city were paved with wood, concrete, or macadam; 128 miles of sidewalks were built and 3,000 gas lamps were installed. A general and costly system of sewers was begun. Old Tiber Creek was filled in, and the greatest nuisance of Washington thereby put out of sight. Scores of new parks were graded, fenced, and planted with trees and beautified by fountains. A special park commission was appointed for this work. It planted 60,000 trees, and a movement was thus begun which has given to Washington one of its most characteristic features. To-day there are 114,000 trees along street curbs because of the custom that has prevailed to plant trees along curbs when new streets are opened for traffic. Many of the small triangles for which Washington is noted were transformed from rubbish heaps into beautiful reservations and planted with trees. There were soon more paved streets here than in any other city of the country, and President Grant, in his message to Congress, said, “Washington is rapidly becoming a city worthy of the Nation’s Capital.”

GATEPOST DESIGNED BY BULFINCH, NEAR THE CAPITOL

However, the public took issue with Governor Shepherd, whose drastic measures paved the way for modern Washington. Bonds were issued to meet the expenses incurred by these improvements, taxes piled up to the point of confiscation, and Shepherd was banished from the city. Yet without the support of President Grant it would have been impossible for Governor Shepherd to have brought about those civic improvements for which he is remembered.

The Territorial form of government lasted three years, or until June 20, 1874, when Congress provided that a new form of municipal government with three commissioners appointed by the President, with the consent of the Senate, should be established in the District of Columbia. This, known as the temporary form of government, lasted until July 1, 1878, when the present form was established.

VIEW OF THE MALL ABOUT 1890

Chapter XII
THE INFLUENCE OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AND OF THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION ON ART IN THE UNITED STATES

The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 at Philadelphia marked a century of progress. It aroused the country to its opportunities, after a period of lethargy and unrest that followed the Civil War. A decade had elapsed since the end of that terrible conflict, and a new day dawned. President Grant gave the people confidence that he would guide the affairs of the Nation safely as their Chief Executive. Industries were established, commerce and trade developed, and prosperity followed. The Philadelphia Centennial of 1876 brought a sense of the power of the United States in material resources, coupled with an admission of poverty in the things of the spirit, and a determination to remedy shortcomings in this respect. The people then turned their attention to the finer things of life and became interested in erecting monuments and establishing art galleries. Thus, the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D. C., the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts were chartered about the time of the centennial celebration.

Again, in 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, had a great effect on art in the United States. It stirred the whole world by the production of beautiful and impressive groups of buildings, so arranged and coordinated as to create the sense of unity in the whole composition. The White City along the shores of Lake Michigan still lives in the minds of many people to-day. The use of landscape effects, of canals and basins, of statuary and paintings, all contributed to impress the public and to lift people to new standards and ideals of achievement. It marked the beginning of a new era of civic development. In Chicago, for the first time, men saw the advantage of teamwork to produce a result finer than anything before dreamed of. A number of the great artists in the United States to-day served their apprenticeship during the preparation of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago. Several of the artists served on the decorations of the Congressional Library, which was completed in 1897. A considerable number of the beautiful creations in architecture and sculpture in Washington during the past 35 years by great artists reflect the experience and inspiration received during that period.

WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, CHICAGO—COURT OF HONOR, LOOKING EAST

WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, CHICAGO—COURT OF HONOR, LOOKING WEST

A most remarkable result of the aesthetic achievements of the World’s Columbian Exposition was the influence it had on the architecture of several national expositions which were held at the close of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The first of these expositions was the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, which was held at Omaha, Nebr., 1897-1898. Several classical buildings were erected for it, as were erected also for the Pan-American Exposition, held at Buffalo, N. Y., in 1901, to emphasize the progress of Americans of the western continents during the nineteenth century. Then followed the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, which ranks as the third great World’s Fair held in this country in 1904, in celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the transfer of the Louisiana Territory by France to the United States, during the administration of President Jefferson. It is significant that as Thomas Jefferson had introduced the classical style of architecture into this country, so at this Exposition most of the 15 largest buildings resembled in character the classical buildings of the Chicago World’s Fair. The next exposition in which architecture had an important part was the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition, held at Seattle, Wash., in 1909. Again the classical style of architecture was emphasized, and, as at the Chicago Exposition, the buildings had an ivory-white appearance. It was stated at the time:

The influences of an Exposition are of course many, but one of the most palpable influences of our American expositions has been their power to stimulate a powerful interest in architecture and building.

The beneficent influence of the Chicago World’s Fair on our architecture is of inestimable value, not only for the architects but for the entire country. Many Americans owe their interest in buildings and architecture to a visit to Chicago in 1893, just as many cities and towns recall in their municipal and government structures the revival of classic splendor seen in the stucco palaces of the World’s Fair.

The next exposition of importance was the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco, Calif., held in 1915. In 1906 almost the entire central part of the city had been destroyed by a frightful earthquake and fire. In less than a decade the city was rebuilt, and by 1915 there had also been planned and constructed the great Exposition. Its principal buildings were built in the classical style of architecture.

Chapter XIII
HIGHWAY PLAN OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

The street-planning process has experienced several stages of development.

1. The narrow streets of Georgetown are typical of the first stage.

2. The wide avenues and streets of the area included in the L’Enfant plan are appropriately referred to as outstanding proof of the value of proper planning. The merit of this generous street plan was never more widely appreciated than at present, when other cities are spending millions of dollars to have their streets widened to meet traffic requirements.

3. The dark days of the National Capital, as far as its circulation system is concerned, were those during which, outside the city planned by L’Enfant, streets were dedicated without reference to any comprehensive plan. This period was from about 1866 to 1893. The lack of authority to enforce a plan allowed land-owners, insensible to the superior qualities of the L’Enfant scheme, to do as they pleased. Prior to 1893 no city plan existed beyond the original city limits. Streets could be created entirely at the will of the subdivider by the simple recording of a plat, for there was no authority to control or coordinate subdivisions. Sixteenth Street was blocked at Florida Avenue, just as Seventeenth Street is today. Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Tennessee Avenues were ignored. Widths of important streets were reduced, and a method of land subdivision came into vogue wholly out of keeping with a capital city.

4. The reaction brought the so-called highway plan outside of the original city limits of Washington and Georgetown. It was in effect an extension of the plan of the original city to apply to all parts of the District of Columbia, with such changes as were influenced by the topography. All subdivisions subsequent to 1893 conform, by requirement of law, to this official plan. This highway plan, first made effective in 1898, was a belated but praiseworthy effort to extend the L’Enfant plan with its scheme of streets and avenues beyond the old city. Considering the period in which it was prepared, and the state of city-planning science at the time, it was a notable achievement. The work was done by a board on street extensions, with a membership entirely ex officio, known as the Highway Commission, established by the act of Congress of 1893.

Courtesy Army Air Corps

WASHINGTON, LOOKING NORTH FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

Courtesy Army Air Corps

WASHINGTON, LOOKING SOUTH FROM SIXTEENTH STREET AND COLUMBIA ROAD

5. Since then the Surveyor’s Office of the District of Columbia and the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which superseded the Highway Commission of 1893, have made an intensive study of the highway problems of the District of Columbia, including street railroad problems. This has required a differentiation of street functions, and an application of the best methods of modern land subdivision to the remaining undeveloped areas; also an attempt to restate the L’Enfant ideal in the terms of a motor age. The results achieved appear in the changes in the highway plan already approved by the Commission or being recommended to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia from time to time. Many changes in the highway plan have thus been made, each case having required careful study of effects on topography, trees, drainage, lot depths and sizes, etc. The acts of Congress of 1914 and 1925 authorized additional changes in the Highway Plan. The act approved December 15, 1932 (Public, No. 307, 72d Cong.), authorizes the Commissioners of the District of Columbia “to readjust and close streets, roads, highways, or alleys in the District of Columbia rendered useless or unnecessary.” The desirability of discontinuing streets which have never been opened and which exist only on a map and only part of which are in public ownership, when a better and cheaper way of giving the same traffic connection can be found, seems so manifest as to require no further justification.

GATEHOUSE BY BULFINCH WHICH FORMERLY STOOD NEAR THE CAPITOL

With a view to creating direct arteries in which the vital traffic flow of the community may freely move, a major thoroughfare scheme, extending into the metropolitan area of Washington, has also been studied. The District Commissioners have an interesting map illustrating the Highway Plan. The Highway Department of the District of Columbia has charge of upkeep and maintenance of highways in the District of Columbia. Out of 1,020 miles of streets in the District of Columbia 855 miles are paved.

Chapter XIV
THE McMILLAN PARK COMMISSION—THE PLAN OF 1901

In 1900 a great celebration commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the removal of the seat of government to the District of Columbia was held in Washington. The keynote of the celebration was the improvement of the District of Columbia in a manner and to the extent commensurate with the dignity and the resources of the American Nation. The population was 218,196.

OLD BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD STATION

While the centennial exercises were in progress the American Institute of Architects, in session in Washington, discussed the subject of the development of parks and the placing of public buildings; the tentative ideas of a number of the leading architects, sculptors, and landscape architects of the country were heard; and as a result the Institute appointed a committee on legislation. Consultations between that committee and the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia were followed by the order of the Senate for the preparation and submission of a general plan for the development of the entire park system of the District of Columbia.

MODEL OF WASHINGTON SHOWING CONDITIONS IN 1901

MODEL OF THE FUTURE WASHINGTON, PLAN OF 1901

WASHINGTON, FROM ARLINGTON, PLAN OF 1901

Thus, Hon. James McMillan, of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, submitted the following resolution, which was adopted by the United States Senate on March 8, 1901:

Resolved, That the Committee on the District of Columbia be, and it is hereby, directed to consider the subject and report to the Senate plans for the development and improvement of the entire park system of the District of Columbia. For the purpose of preparing such plans the committee may sit during the recess of Congress and may secure the services of such experts as may be necessary for a proper consideration of the subject. The expenses of such investigation shall be paid from the contingent fund of the Senate.

OLD PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD STATION

On March 19, 1901, the subcommittee of the District Committee having the matter in charge met the representatives of the American Institute of Architects and agreed to their proposition that Daniel H. Burnham, architect, and Frederick Law Olmsted, jr., landscape architect, be selected as experts, with power to add to their number. These gentlemen accepted, and subsequently invited Charles F. McKim, architect, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sculptor, to act with them in the preparation of plans. The services of men who had won the very highest places in their several professions had thus been secured.

THE MALL, SHOWING RAILROAD TRACKS CROSSING IT

THE MALL INUNDATED

The nature and scope of the work having been outlined to the commission, they entered upon their task, but not without hesitation and misgivings. The problem was both difficult and complex. Much had to be done; much, also, had to be undone. Also the aid and advice of the commission was sought immediately in relation to buildings and memorials under consideration, and thus the importance and usefulness of the commission were enhanced.

The commission, in order to make a closer study of the practice of landscape architecture as applied to parks and public buildings, made a brief trip to Europe, visiting Rome, Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Paris, London, and their suburbs. Attention was directed principally to ascertaining what arrangement of park areas best adapts them to the uses of the people and what are the elements that give pleasure from generation to generation, and even from century to century. The many and striking results of this study were given in the Park Commission Report, including plans and illustrations. The Committee on the District of Columbia submitted the report to the Senate on January 15, 1902. It was adopted and ordered to be printed as Senate Report No. 166, Fifty-seventh Congress, first session.