... that on the 27th of March a bill had been introduced in the House of Representatives for granting a sum of money for building a Federal Hall, a house for the President, etc.
At a meeting of the Commissioners on September 9, 1791, in reply to a letter from Major L'Enfant a letter was written saying:
... that the title of the map he was making was to be, "A Map of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia," and that the streets were to be named alphabetically one way and numerically the other, etc.
(Signed by)
Thomas Johnson,
David Stuart,
Daniel Carroll.
L'Enfant aimed to make an original plan for the Federal City, adapted to the topography, but he endeavored to secure ideas from plans of great cities of Europe that might be found possible of adaptation so he wrote to Jefferson who sent his notable reply and plans of a number of cities that he had secured evidently while our minister to France.
"June 30th Washington noted, 'The business which brot. me to Georgetown being finished and the Comrs. instructed with respect to the mode of carrying the plan into effect, I set off this morning a littel after 4 o'clock, in the prosecution of my journey towards Philadelphia....'"
"Thereupon the building site for the city took on intense activity."
Pierre Charles L'Enfant was the son of Pierre L'Enfant, an artist who painted battle scenes and also designed tapestries for the Gobelin Works. L'Enfant himself was an artist and it was his artistic temperament which caused him trouble. At the age of 22 he had come to America to volunteer his services in the war against England. He became an officer of engineers, and also helped Gen. von Steuben drill the Army at Valley Forge, and worked on fortifications. After the war he was a practicing architect in New York City for several years but when he heard of the Federal City to be created he longed to be the author of its plan and as I have said wrote to Washington asking for the job.
But it was his desire for perfection which eventually was his undoing. There was delay in submitting the Plan to President Washington, and also he refused to take orders from any one except Washington, whereas he was told to take them from the three Commissioners of the District of Columbia: Thomas Johnson, David Stuart, and Daniel Carroll. Dr. David Stuart had become the second husband of Mrs. John Parke Custis, daughter-in-law of Mrs. Washington. Things went from bad to worse when the nephew of Daniel Carroll the Commissioner, Daniel Carroll of Duddington, started to build a house which abutted into a street laid out on the Plan and Major L'Enfant had it demolished. Also there was delay in getting the Map engraved.