nothing could be seen beyond the groves near the banks of the stream except the two great buildings and the splendid trees which thickened into a seemingly dense forest upon the higher ground to the northward.1 On landing and making one's way through the underbrush to the foot of the eastern hill, and up the gullies that seamed its sides thick with trees and tangled wild grapevines, one finally reached the immense unfinished structure that attracted attention from the river. Upon its walls laborers were languidly at work. Clustered around it were fifteen or sixteen wooden houses. Seven or eight of these were boarding-houses, each having as many as ten or a dozen rooms all told. The others were little affairs of rough lumber, some of them hardly better than shanties. One was a tailor shop; in another a shoemaker plied his trade; a third contained a printer with his hand press and types, while a washerwoman occupied another; and in the others there was a grocery shop, a pamphletsand-stationery shop, a little dry-goods shop, and an oyster shop. No other human habitation of any kind appeared for three quarters of a mile.3 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 1 Gallatin to his wife, Jan. 15, 1801, Adams: Gallatin, 252–53. 2 Hunt, 10. Gallatin to his wife, supra. 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, 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.1 A few small houses, some of brick and some of wood, stood on the edge of this long, broad embryo 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, some finished and some in the process of erection. Here and there unsightly gravel pits and an occasional brick kiln added to the raw unloveliness of the whole. Such was the City of Washington, with Georgetown near by, when Thomas Jefferson became President and John Marshall Chief Justice of the United States the Capitol, Pennsylvania Avenue, the 1 Bryan, 1, 357-58. 2 A few of these are still standing and occupied. 3 Gallatin to his wife, supra; also Wharton: Social Life in the Early Republic, 58-59. "Executive Mansion" or "President's Palace," the department buildings near it, the residences, shops, hostelries, and streets. It was a picture of sprawling aimlessness, confusion, inconvenience, and utter discomfort. When considering the events that took place in the National Capital as narrated in these volumes, -the debates in Congress, the proclamations of Presidents, the opinions of judges, the intrigues of politicians, when witnessing the scenes in which Marshall and Jefferson and Randolph and Burr and Pinkney and Webster were actors, we must think of Washington as a dismal place, where few and unattractive houses were scattered along muddy openings in the forests. There was on paper a harmonious plan of a splendid city, but the realization of that plan had scarcely begun. As a situation for living, the Capital of the new Nation was, declared Gallatin, a "hateful place." Most of the houses were "small miserable huts" which, as Wolcott informed his wife, "present an awful contrast to the public buildings." 2 Aside from an increase in the number of residences and shops, the "Federal City" remained in this state for many years. "The Chuck holes were not bad," wrote Otis of a journey out of Washington in 1815; "that is to say they were none of them much deeper than the Hubs of the hinder wheels. They were however exceedingly frequent." Pennsylvania 1 Gallatin to his wife, Aug. 17, 1802, Adams: Gallatin, 304. 2 Wolcott to his wife, July 4, 1800, Gibbs, II, 377. Otis to his wife, Feb. 28, 1815, Morison: Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Olis, п, 170–71. This letter is accurately descriptive 1 1 Avenue was, at this time, merely a stretch of "yellow, tenacious mud," 1 or dust so deep and fine that, when stirred by the wind, it made near-by objects invisible. And so this street remained for decades. Long after the National Government was removed to Washington, the carriage of a diplomat became mired up to the axles in the sticky clay within four blocks of the President's residence and its occupant had to abandon the vehicle. John Quincy Adams records in his diary, April 4, 1818, that on returning from a dinner the street was in such condition that "our carriage in coming for us .. was overset, the harness broken. We got home with difficulty, twice being on the point of oversetting, and at the Treasury Office corner we were both obliged to get out.. in the mud. . . It was a mercy that we all got home with whole bones." " of travel from the National Capital to Baltimore as late as 1815 and many years afterward. "The Bladensburg run, before we came to the bridge, was happily in no one place above the Horses bellies. - As we passed thro', the driver pointed out to us the spot, right under our wheels, where all the stage horses last year were drowned, but then he consoled us by shewing the tree, on which all the Passengers but one, were saved. Whether that one was gouty or not, I did not enquire. . . "We.. arriv'd safe at our first stage, Ross's, having gone at a rate rather exceeding two miles & an half per hour. . . In case of a break Down or other accident, . . I should be sorry to stick and freeze in over night (as I have seen happen to twenty waggons) for without an extraordinary thaw I could not be dug out in any reasonable dinnertime the next day." Of course conditions were much worse in all parts of the country, except the longest and most thickly settled sections. 1 Parton: Life of Thomas Jefferson, 622. 2 Plumer to his wife, Jan. 25, 1807, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong. 3 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Adams, Iv, 74; and see Quincy: Life of Josiah Quincy, 186. Bayard wrote to Rodney: "four months [in Washington] almost Fever and other malarial ills were universal at certain seasons of the year. "No one, from the North or from the high country of the South, can pass the months of August and September there without intermittent or bilious fever," records King in 1803.2 Provisions were scarce and Alexandria, across the river, was the principal source of supplies. "My God! What have I done to reside in such a city," exclaimed a French diplomat. Some months after the Chase impeachment 5 Senator Plumer described Washington as "a little village in the midst of the woods." "Here I am in the wilderness of Washington," wrote Joseph Story in 1808.7 6 Except a small Catholic chapel there was only one church building in the entire city, and this tiny wooden sanctuary was attended by a congregation which seldom exceeded twenty persons. This absence of churches was entirely in keeping with the killed me." (Bayard to Rodney, Feb. 24, 1804, N. Y. Library Bulletin, iv, 230.) 1 Margaret Smith to Susan Smith, Dec. 26, 1802, Hunt, 33; also Mrs. Smith to her husband, July 8, 1803, ib. 41; and Gallatin to his wife, Aug. 17, 1802, Adams: Gallatin, 304–05. 2 King to Gore, Aug. 20, 1803, Life and Correspondence of Rufus King: King, IV, 294; and see Adams: History of the United States, IV, 31. 3 Gallatin to his wife, Jan. 15, 1801, Adams: Gallatin, 253. Plumer to Lowndes, Dec. 30, 1805, Plumer: Life of William Plumer, 244. "The wilderness, alias the federal city." (Plumer to Tracy, May 2, 1805, Plumer MSS. Lib. Cong.) 7 Story to Fay, Feb. 16, 1808, Life and Letters of Joseph Story: Story, 1, 161. This was a little Presbyterian church building, which was abandoned after 1800. (Bryan, 1, 232; and see Hunt, 13-14.) |