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: