To George Washington from the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 5 October 1792
From the Commissioners for the District of Columbia
George-Town 5th Octr 1792
Sir
As we have not yet received your order for the Sales and the Time is near at hand, we think it proper (least it should have escaped you) to remind you of it1—A few of the Plans executed, in Boston have Arrived, which we have dispersed, we have some expectation, that tomorrows Post may bring us some of those executed in Philaa—We take the liberty to send you one of the former.2 We are Sir &c.
Dd Stuart
Danl Carroll
LB, DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Sent.
1. GW had enclosed his orders for the sale of lots in the Federal City in his letter to the commissioners of 29 Sept. 1792, the receiver’s copy of which is docketed “Recd 8th Octr 1792.”
2. The enclosed plan, which has not been identified, was the Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia, Ceded by the States of Virginia and Maryland to the United States of America. Samuel Hill of Boston completed his engraving of this plan in the summer of 1792. Samuel Blodget, Jr., enclosed prints from this engraving in his letter to Thomas Jefferson of 25 June 1792 (see 24:119–20), and Jefferson forwarded them a short time later to GW, who noted the absence of “the soundings of the River & Branch,” which would be “very satisfactory & advantageous to have done” (see Tobias Lear to Jefferson, 11 July 1792). Later this year Philadelphia engravers James Thackara and John Vallance finished their larger and higher-quality engraving, which included the desired soundings, but it was not printed until after the October sale of lots. Jefferson sent 500 prints made from the Thackara and Vallance engraving to the commissioners in November (see Jefferson to D.C. Commissioners, 13 Nov. 1792, 24:612). For a reproduction of the print that Jefferson sent to the commissioners, see 23.