The Friends, or Quakers, as "the world's people" call them, had a society at Washington formed principally by the clerks of that persuasion who had come from Philadelphia when the seat of government was removed from there. Their harmony was, however, disturbed in 1827, when a number of the most influential among them left the "Orthodox" or old belief and followed Elias Hicks, of New York, who founded what has since been known as Hicksite Friends. The Friends believed in a free gospel ministry, and did not recognize either water-baptism or the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. At their meetings the elders and preachers occupied a platform at one end of the meeting-houses, the men sitting on unpainted benches on one side and the women on the other. The congregation would sit quietly, often for an hour, until the Spirit moved some preacher, male or female, to speak or to offer prayer. There was no singing, and often long intervals of silence. Marriages were solemnized at the monthly meetings, the ceremony consisting simply of a public acknowledgment by the man and woman, after due inquiry of their right to be united. After they had stood up in meeting and publicly taken one another to be man and wife, a certificate of the ceremony was publicly read by one of the elders, and then signed by the contracting parties and witnesses.
[Facsimile] John Quincy Adams JOHN QUINCY ADAMS—son of John Adams—was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11th, 1767; Minister to the Netherlands and Prussia, 1794-1801; United States Senator, 1803-1808; Professor at Harvard College, 1808-1809; Minister to Russia, 1809-1817; negotiating the treaty of Ghent in 1815; Secretary of State, 1817-1825; President, 1825-1829; Representative in Congress, 1831, until stricken by death in the Capitol, February 23d, 1848.
CHAPTER III. JOURNALISM IN 1828.
Georgetown, now called "West Washington," was originally laid out as a town in 1751, and settled by the Scotch agents of English mercantile houses, whose vessels came annually to its wharves. They brought valuable freights of hardware, dry goods, and wines, and they carried back tobacco, raised in the surrounding country, and furs, brought down the Potomac by Indian traders. There were also lines of brigs and schooners running to New York, Boston, Salem, Newburyport, and the West Indies. Two principal articles of import were sugar and molasses, which were sold at auction on the wharves. Business in these staples has been entirely superseded by the coal and flour trade.
The main street of Georgetown was generally filled every week-day with the lumbering Conestoga six-horse wagons, in which the farmers of Maryland and Central Pennsylvania brought loads of wheat and of corn, taking back dry goods, groceries, salt, and, during the fishing season, fresh shad and herring. Another source of trade was the Potomac River, which was navigable above Georgetown as far as Cumberland in long, flat-bottomed boats, sharp at both ends, called "gondolas." These boats were poled down the Potomac to the Great Falls, twelve miles above Georgetown, where a canal with locks was constructed, running around the falls and back to the river. The same plan of avoiding the rapids was suggested by George Washington, who was once president of the company. The canal was finished in 1793, but it never yielded a sufficient revenue to pay expenses.
The "gondolas" brought down considerable quantities of flour, corn, pork, and iron, much of which was shipped at Georgetown to other ports. During the year 1812 several hundred hogsheads of Louisiana sugar were brought by way of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Potomac Rivers to Georgetown. This was a realization of Washington's idea that the city which he founded and which bore his name would become an entrepot for the products of the Mississippi Valley destined for shipment abroad. He displayed his faith in this belief by the purchase of wharf lots, which would not to-day bring what he paid for them.
The Union Tavern at Georgetown was a well-patronized and fashionable inn during the first quarter of the present century. Among the distinguished men who were its guests were Louis Philippe, Count Volney, Baron Humboldt, Fulton (the inventor), Talleyrand, Jerome Bonaparte, Washington Irving, General St. Clair, Lorenzo Dow (the eccentric preacher), Francis S. Key (author of the "Star Spangled Banner"), with John Randolph and scores of other Congressmen, who used to ride to and from the Capitol in a large stagecoach with seats on the top and called the "Royal George."
When my mother was born in Georgetown, in 1799, the neighbors were startled by the repeated firing of a heavily charged musket beneath the window of her mother's room. It was a welcome-into-the-world salute fired by "Old Yarrah," a very aged Mahometan, who had been brought as a slave from Guinea to Georgetown, where my grandfather had shown him some kindness, which he thus acknowledged after the custom of his own people.
General Washington used to pass through Georgetown on his journeys between the North and Mount Vernon, and I have heard my grandfather describe the interest which he took when the "Federal City" was located. On one occasion he rode over to visit David Burns, who owned a farm on which the Executive Mansion and the Departments now stand. Washington agreed with the Commissioners that what is now Lafayette Square should be a reservation, but Burns disliked to donate any more building lots for the public good. Finally Washington lost his temper and left, saying, as he crossed the porch: "Had not the Federal City been laid out here, you would have died a poor tobacco planter." "Aye, mon!" retorted Burns, in broad Scotch, "an' had ye nae married the widow Custis, wi' a' her nagurs, you would hae been a land surveyor to-day, an' a mighty poor ane at that." Ultimately, however, the obstinate old fellow donated the desired square of ground.
When Major L'Enfant came to Georgetown to lay out the Federal District he brought a letter of introduction to my grandfather, who had a great deal of trouble in endeavoring to adjust the difficulties between the fiery French officer and the Commissioners appointed to govern the infant metropolis. The Major, who was very imperious, claimed supreme authority, which the Commissioners would not submit to. On one occasion, a Mr. Carroll had commenced the erection of a large brick house, which Major L'Enfant found encroached on one of the proposed streets. Summoning his chain bearers and axmen, he demolished the trespassing structure and filled up the cellar, against Mr. Carroll's earnest protests.