A manual on the origin and development of Washington

by H. Paul Caemmerer

EXECUTIVE BUILDING, 1820-1866

W. K. Force, in his Picture of Washington for 1850, said, speaking of the northeast Executive Building:

The first floor is occupied by the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury at the east end, and the Second Comptroller of the Treasury at the west end. On the second floor are the apartments of the Secretary of State and his suite; also the library of the department, containing some ten or twelve thousand volumes.

John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State when the move to this new home was made, and thereafter followed a long list of distinguished Secretaries, the last to occupy this building being William H. Seward, from 1861 to 1869.

The north wing of the present Treasury Department Building bears on its exterior wall on Fifteenth Street a tablet, erected April 30, 1929, by the Kiwanis Club of Washington, in cooperation with the Committee on Marking Points of Historic Interest, which contains the following inscription:

FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA WAS DEVELOPED AND STRENGTHENED BY THE SIGNING OF THE WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY, ON AUGUST 9, 1842, IN THE OLD STATE DEPARTMENT BUILDING WHICH STOOD ON THIS SITE. THIS TREATY ESTABLISHED THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES.

On March 3, 1871, Congress appropriated half a million dollars to start work on the State, War, and Navy Departments Building. The act provided:

For the construction under the direction of the Secretary of State, on the southern portion of the premises now occupied by the War and Navy Departments, of a building which will form the south wing of a building that, when completed, will be similar in ground plan and dimensions to the Treasury Building and provide accommodations for the State, War, and Navy Departments.

The original plans were drawn by Thomas U. Walter, a noted Philadelphia architect, who designed the Dome of the Capitol and the completed Treasury Building, but A. B. Mullett, Supervising Architect of the Treasury, undertook the work, and finally only the interior conformed to the original plans.