To George Washington from the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 1 October 1796
From the Commissioners for the District of Columbia
Washington, 1st October 1796
Sir,
Conformably to your wish, expressed to us, when we had last the honor of your company,1 we have taken into consideration such matters, relative to the business of the City, as appear to require your attention, and beg leave, respectfully, to submit our opinions thereon—With respect to a national university, we are of opinion, that the Space heretofore proposed to be appropriated for a fort and Barracks, on Peter’s hill, is the most proper site for that object2—The establishment of a botanical Garden, a measure not unconnected with this, has lately been suggested; the sentiments of a number of the proprietors of the City and its vicinity, have been laid before us in a Letter, of which, we enclose a copy: in general, we approve the Idea, and think the place mentioned in that Letter, proper for the purpose; but, if it should not be approved, we presume, ground in the Square proposed for the university, may be applied to that purpose3—We have no doubt of the president’s right, at this time, to make such appropriations of the Grounds, ceded for the public use, as he shall judge them best adapted to, where it has not already, been specifically done—Taking every circumstance into consideration, we are of opinion that the present is a favorable moment to bring these subjects before Congress—A large and Valuable Space of Ground, the free grant of Individuals to the united States, being appropriated by the President to the purpose of an university, together, with the liberal pecuniary donation, which you, Sir, have made towards its support, seems to have laid such a foundation for an Institution, in the utility of which, all men agree, that we cannot but entertain the pleasing hope, that Congress will extend their patronage to it4—We are likewise of opinion, that the large Space of grounds, extending from the presidents Square to the Capitol, laid off in the plan of the City, for pleasure grounds, would afford proper sites for the houses of foreign Ministers, without deviating from the original intention. Indeed, we are informed, that such were Major L’Enfant’s ideas in laying off the ground5—Should this be approved, it would enable the president to be more liberal in his donations, and would avoid even the appearance of counteracting the Act of Congress, guarranteeing the Loan by which, the whole City property, not appropriated to public use, is pledged, for the redemption of the money to be borrowed6—Our Letter to the Spanish Minister, however, precludes us from the measure, so far as that Nation is concerned, unless the Minister himself should make choice of these Grounds7—We have also considered the subject of a marine-hospital in the City, and the Square of parcel of Land supposed to have been designated for that purpose8—this Tract contains upwards of Eighty Acres, for which, we shall have to pay, immediately 5333 33/100ths Dollars—It will contain about 240 Standard Lots, belonging to the public, which, at two hundred Dollars ⅌ Lot (a moderate price, in our opinion, were we even to sell at this time, considering the extent of water property annexed to it) amount to $48,000—We are not perfectly satisfied with the propriety of the situation, for the purpose of an hospital; neither do we see the necessity of sacrificing so much property, at this time, towards an Institution, which, certainly will not be wanting for many Years to come.
We are far from advising a measure which would do away appropriations already made, or change them, to the injury of adjacent purchasers, or of the City, at large—The Square on Peter’s hill and other Squares, similarly circumstanced, we consider as given up for public use, or, in the words of the Deeds of trust, to the use of the united-States;9 but, as the particular use has not been designated by authority, we are of opinion, it may yet be done—With regard to the large Tract, west of the Capitol, designed as public Walks and pleasure-Grounds, and which contains 289 acres, we conceive, that the erection of elegant buildings, with the necessary concomitant Improvements, provided they are judiciously placed, and not too numerous, so far from counteracting the original design, would add, greatly to the beauty & pleasure of the Scene, and would be the means of bringing the whole into more immediate notice and cultivation10—The hospital Square, as it has been called, has this distinguishing characteristic from the other Squares in the City, it has never been paid for by the public, in whole or in part.11 All the proprietors of adjacent property agree to the discontinuing the appropriation, and have signed a writing to that purpose, a copy of which is enclosed,12 and its situation is such that the general Interest of the City, we conceive, cannot be affected by the change—But, whatever may be done with this or other Squares, designed for public use, we think it is proper that the appropriations should now be fixed: there are maps of the city preparing for publication, in which, the appropriations ought to be designated13—We consider this among many others, as a weighty reason for the immediate determination of this business; when that is done, it is our opinion that the Trustees ought to convey the Streets, squares and parcels so appropriated, to the Commissioners, for the use of the United States, but, this being a great national object, it is our wish, that the president would advise with his constitutional counsel with respect to the completion of it14—We wish you, Sir, before your return to Philadelphia,15 to determine, particularly, the Sites for the Executive Departments—We Will then cause plans to be drawn, agreeably to the opinions of the executive Officers, expressed to Mr White, in Philadelphia, and submit them to your consideration, and, if approved, the buildings will commence as soon as our funds admit of it16—Our opinion is, that they ought to consist of two handsome brick buildings, on the presidents Square,17 so situated, as to give the most agreeable appearance to the whole.
We have been the more particular in this communication, because, it is our earnest desire that every thing respecting the seat of Government which can now be determined should be determined before a change takes place in the presidential Chair—We are, with Sentiments &c.
G: Scott
A. White
not signed by Dr Thornton18
P.S. It seems some difficulties have occurred among the Citizens respecting the propriety of recommending a part of the presidents Square for a botanic Garden, and their Letter is not yet ready to be forwarded.19
LB, DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Sent. GW replied to this letter on 5 and 21 October.
This is the first in a series of letters in this volume that document the correspondence between GW and the D.C. commissioners concerning the federal district proprietors and decisions about the appropriation of the land that they conveyed for the laying out of the Federal City. The ongoing work on new maps of the Federal City prompted the commissioners, in consultation with GW, to determine the use, or appropriation, of the tracts, squares, and streets designated for federal buildings and other public purposes. Though Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s 1791 plan of the Federal City had labeled the projected use of public squares and spaces, later modifications to that plan had not specified the location or site of most public buildings. Knowing that a new president would soon take office, the commissioners now attempted to work with GW to define the public appropriations. They already had corresponded with him about possible sites for the U.S. Mint and national university (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 24 July 1795, second letter). In this document, the commissioners discuss possible locations for the university, marine hospital, and other public areas.
Also, by a 1791 agreement, the original proprietors within the new federal district had conveyed their land to trustees for the establishment of the national capital. That contract required the government to compensate the proprietors in the amount of £25 for every acre of land appropriated for public buildings and parks (excluding streets), commonly referred to as public reservations. The agreement directed a division of the remaining land (not reserved for public purposes) into city lots, with the commissioners and proprietors receiving equal benefit. In other words, half of the remaining lots would go to proprietors, while the other half would go to the commissioners. The commissioners planned to market their half, and all proceeds from sales were intended to finance construction of federal buildings. Proprietors were authorized to purchase the lots on which their houses were located for £12½ per acre. The commissioners hoped to complete the division of lots between them (public) and the federal district proprietors in 1796. The division of lots, coupled with James Reed Dermott’s ongoing work on a map depicting public appropriations—a map that would become the official map of the Federal City (see notes 5 and 13 below)—induced GW and the commissioners to try to finalize decisions about the use of public spaces and the location of federal buildings. In other words, since the commissioners would divide only the land not reserved or designated for public buildings, it became urgent to determine the land reserved for public purposes. In doing so, the reserved land would not be divided or converted into marketable lots. Since Dermott planned to represent the public reservations on his map, which had been left off the earlier 1792 engraved plan of the Federal City, the commissioners now recommended that the use (i.e., university, hospital, etc.) of those reservations be designated. Once a determination of the appropriations was made, the commissioners wanted the trustees to then convey the appropriated tracts to them (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 31 Jan. 1797, and n.1 to that document; Agreement of the Proprietors of the Federal District, 30 March 1791, and the source note to that document; , 44–45; and 285).
1. GW may have last met with the commissioners during his stay in the Federal City on 17–18 Aug., when he examined “the public buildings,” or on 25 Sept., when he passed through Georgetown, D.C. (GW to John Fitzgerald, 19 Aug.; see also Thomas Peter to GW, 19 Oct., and n.3 to that document; and GW to James Anderson, 18 Aug.).
2. Peter’s Hill (also called University Square), named for Georgetown merchant Robert Peter, comprised an area of land in the Federal City bounded by 23d and 25th Streets, E Street NW, and the Potomac River. It was adjacent to lots in square thirty-three, owned by D.C. commissioner William Thornton. On his 1791 map of the Federal City, Pierre Charles L’Enfant had designated the site for a fort. The 1792 Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia, drawn by Andrew Ellicott, also depicted a partial fortification on Peter’s Hill. GW preferred this site as the home of the national university, though he considered a tract on the Eastern Branch allocated for a marine hospital as a possible alternative (see n.8 below; see also , 1:251–52). The tract on Peter’s Hill, later styled Camp Hill and then Meridian Hill, never served as a site for a national university. Instead, it was the location of temporary quarters for a detachment of marines in the early nineteenth century. Peter’s Hill later became the site of the Naval Medical Command (see Thornton’s first letter to GW, this date, and n.2; , 395–97; , 1:251–75; and Jan K. Herman, A Hilltop in Foggy Bottom: Home of the Old Naval Observatory and the Naval Medical Department [Washington, D.C., 1984], 2–5). For initial plans to locate the national university northeast of Massachusetts Avenue, see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 21 Oct., and n.3 to that document.
For GW’s long-standing advocacy for a national university, see GW to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 8 Jan. 1790; see also GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 28 Jan. 1795, and St. George Tucker to GW, 24 April 1797, in 1:118.
3. The letter to the D.C. commissioners from the proprietors of the federal district has not been identified, but on 26 Oct., the commissioners again received a “Memorial … from Robert Morris and others respecting a Botanic Garden” (DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Proceedings, 1791–1802; see also , 400). Those documents may have pertained to the proposed establishment of a botanical garden within the President’s Square, the site of the presidential house and grounds, now called Lafayette Square. GW suggested the inclusion of a botanical garden on the tract designated for the national university (see n.2; see also GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 21 Oct.).
4. GW had granted his fifty shares of Potomac River Company stock toward the endowment of a national university in the Federal City (see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 28 Jan. 1795, and n.1 to that document). GW advocated for a national university in his annual message to Congress in December 1796 (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 21 Nov. 1796, and n.1 to that document; see also GW to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 7 Dec.; and Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 21 Feb. 1797).
5. The “plan,” commonly referred to as “the engraved plan,” denotes the map of the Federal City entitled Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia …, which was drawn by surveyor Andrew Ellicott and first engraved in the summer of 1792 by Samuel Hill of Boston. A superior, higher-quality engraving of Ellicott’s map, which included the soundings of the Potomac and Eastern Branch, was completed in October 1792 by James Thackara and John Vallance under the same title. The superior Thackara-Vallance engraving is the plan referenced in the present and subsequent letters from the commissioners. The Thackara-Vallance and Hill engravings were based on Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s 1791 map of the federal district, but they incorporated the modifications and revisions to L’Enfant’s plan that had been made by Ellicott, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew’s brother Benjamin Ellicott. The Ellicott plan and subsequent Thackara-Vallance engravings differed from L’Enfant’s original map in several ways. With the exception of the Capitol and the space for the executive mansion, most of the large rectangular areas or squares described on L’Enfant’s design to represent sites reserved for public buildings or fortifications were left blank in the Ellicott plan in order to be later appropriated as needed. This caused disputes between proprietors and the commissioners (see L’Enfant to GW, 22 June 1791; see also , 20:57–72, 24:119–20; and 284–88, 294).
In his 1791 manuscript plan of the Federal City, L’Enfant conceived of a field “being a part of the walk from the President’s house of about 1800 feet in breadth.” According to his plan, every lot in that area “designates some of the situations which command the most agreeable prospects, and which are the best calculated for spacious houses and gardens, such as may accomodate foreign Ministers etc.” (, 61–65, quotes on 65). The 1792 engraved map of the Federal City also depicted spacious grounds between the Capitol and the President’s House, and between the President’s House and the Potomac River, the present-day location of the National Mall.
6. The “Act authorizing a Loan for the use of the City of Washington,” 6 May 1796, permitted the D.C. commissioners to borrow a total of $300,000. The loan was guaranteed by Congress. According to Section 2 of the law, Federal City lots not appropriated to public use “shall be, and are hereby declared and made chargeable with the repayment of all and every sum and sums of money, and interest thereupon, which shall be borrowed.” The proceeds from lot sales were to be applied “to the discharge of said loans … And if the product of the sales of all the said lots … prove inadequate to the payment … of the sums borrowed under this act, then the deficiency shall be paid by the United States” ( 461). For the pursuit of a loan to facilitate completion of the public buildings in the Federal City, see GW to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 8 Jan. 1796, n.1.
7. For the letter of 23 Sept. from the commissioners to Carlos Martinez de Yrujo y Tacon, the Spanish minister to the United States, and for Yrujo’s reply of 28 Sept. indicating that he would “take proper measures respecting the Selection of a Site” for a residence, see GW to Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 18 Sept., and n.2 to that document.
8. L’Enfant’s 1791 original plan depicted a site intended for a marine hospital, located east of the Capitol at the intersection of Massachusetts and Georgia (now Potomac) avenues between D, G, and 19th streets SE, on the Eastern Branch. This location later became the site of an almshouse and city jail. An edifice for a naval hospital was instead erected on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue between 9th and 10th streets SE (see , 47; see also , 1:277).
9. The commissioners may refer to the 1791 deeds of trust that conveyed proprietors’ land to trustees (see source note). Based on a memorandum composed by then secretary of state Thomas Jefferson in 1790, the deeds of trust stipulated that the Federal City land laid out into public lots, walks, gardens, and streets be reconveyed to the commissioners. In addition, “the residue in such lots … for the purpose of raising money” would be reconveyed “to such persons … as the Commissioners shall direct” (Jefferson to GW, 17 Sept. 1790, n.2; see also , 109–12; Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 30 Nov., and n.2 to that document; and Commissioners for the Federal District to GW, 30 June 1791, source note).
10. The commissioners refer to the open space in L’Enfant’s plan west of the Capitol that comprises the present-day National Mall.
11. The “hospital Square” was the eighty-acre tract on the Eastern Branch designated for the marine hospital (see n.8). There had been efforts to convert that square into building and house lots.
12. The enclosed copy has not been found. However, the commissioners are referring to the signed statements dated 27 and 28 Sept. by Abraham Young, William Prout, Robert Morris, and other federal district proprietors, agreeing to a proposal made in a circular letter of 27 Sept. from John Nicholson to several proprietors. The circular reads in part: “The Commissioners agree to propose to the president to lay out the ground in the City of Washington into squares and lots for building, which is at present laid down on the Engraved map for a Marine Hospital.” The commissioners sought the “concurrence” of the “proprietors” (DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Received). Morris listed the following condition for his consent to the proposition made in the circular: “I agree provided the Grounds … have not been Specifically appropriated for the Marine Hospital by the same Authority that made the other public Appropriations in the City (DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Received). On 28 Sept., James Reed Dermott of the Federal City surveying department signed a statement that reads in part: “I hereby certify that the open Ground on the Eastern Branch … supposed to be intended for a marine Hospital contains upwards of Eighty Acres of Land. That Morris [and other named proprietors] are the only proprietors of the said Ground. And also that no sales have been made by the Commissioner’s of any of the squares or Lots adjacent to the said supposed Appropriation except to Morris & Nicolson” (DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Received).
The above documents pertain to Nicholson’s and James Greenleaf’s efforts to convert the hospital square into building lots. Except for Thornton, the commissioners favored the division of the square into lots. After all, the appropriation of a hospital square would require a substantial payment to the proprietors according to the 1791 agreement, which required compensation for land taken for public use (see source note). Conversely, a division of the site into house lots, half to be marketed by the public, would help the commissioners raise several thousand dollars to finance construction of public buildings (see Thornton’s first letter to GW of this date; see also GW to Daniel Carroll, 16 Dec. 1793; Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 23 Dec. 1793; and , 395).
13. The commissioners likely are referring to the “Appropriation Map” prepared by Dermott sometime between June 1795 and January 1797, though not published until about ninety years later. The map, made at a scale of 600 feet to the inch, was composed as a result of the D.C. commissioners’ request that Dermott prepare a plat of the Federal City delineating the public appropriations. Dermott’s map differed from the Ellicott engraved plan (see n.5) in several ways. It represented seventeen tracts of land reserved for public buildings (reservations). Conversely, the Ellicott plan had deleted the descriptions of public squares found on L’Enfant’s map ( 281–301). Before leaving office, GW signed Dermott’s map as the official plan of the Federal City (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 31 Jan., and n.1 to that document; see also 245). In the fall of 1796, surveyor Nicholas King also prepared several site maps delineating property of the original proprietors.
14. GW soon ordered trustees John Mackall Gantt and Thomas Beall to convey the proprietors’ lots to the commissioners (see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 5 Oct., and n.2 to that document; see also Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 3 Nov.).
15. GW arrived in Philadelphia on Monday, 31 Oct. (see GW to Alexander Hamilton, 2 Nov., and n.1 to that document).
16. In early 1797, the commissioners sent GW plans of buildings designated to house the executive departments, but GW ultimately suspended construction of those edifices for financial and other reasons (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 31 Jan. 1797, and GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 15 and 27 Feb.).
17. L’Enfant envisioned “presidents Square” as the north front lawn of the presidential mansion and grounds. Bounded by H, 15th, and 17th streets, the square was later surrounded by residences of cabinet members and other prominent citizens. President Jefferson converted the area to a public park in 1804, and it was renamed Lafayette Square in 1824.
18. Commissioners Gustavus Scott and Alexander White formed a board without Thornton on this date, but Thornton wrote GW in two letters of this date about issues mentioned in the present document.
19. The letter has not been identified. Thornton in 1812 wrote of “the Ground destined for a Botanical Garden at the junction of the President’s Square & Capitol Park So. of the mouth of the Tiber,” but no immediate action was taken on its establishment. The Columbia Institute initiated plans for a botanic garden near Capitol Hill around 1821. The U.S. Botanic Garden was established in 1850 and is now located near the Capitol, bounded by Maryland and Independence avenues SW (Thornton to Jefferson, 20 Jan. 1812, and Jefferson to John Bradbury, 21 March 1812, in , 4:425–28, 563–64).