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
