Читать книгу Ten Years in Washington: Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them - Mary Clemmer - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Washington’s Faith in the Future—Mr. Sparks is “inclined to think”—A Slight Miscalculation—Theoretical Spartans—Clinging to Old World Glories—Jefferson Acts the Critic—He Communicates Some Ideas—Models of Antiquity—Babylon Revived—Difficulty in Satisfying a Frenchman’s Soul—The Man who Planned the Capital—Who was L’Enfant?—His Troubles—His Dismissal—His Personal Appearance, Old Age, Death and Burial-Place—His Successor—The French Genius “Proceeded”—The New City of Washington—A Magnificent Plan—All About the City—The Major not Appreciated—“Getting on Badly”—L’Enfant Worries Washington—A Record which Can Never Perish—An Overpaid Quaker—Jefferson Expresses his Sentiments—A Sable Franklin—The Negro Engineer, Benjamin Bancker—A Chance for a Monument.

The majority of Congress were opposed to a commercial Capital, yet there are many proofs extant that to the hour of his death George Washington cherished the hope that the new city of his love would be not only the capital of the nation, but a great commercial metropolis of the world. Mr. Jared Sparks, the historian, in a private letter says: “I am inclined to think that Washington’s anticipations were more sanguine than events have justified. He early entertained very large and just ideas of the vast resources of the West, and of the commercial intercourse that must spring up between that region and the Atlantic coast, and he was wont to regard the central position of the Potomac as affording the most direct and easy channel of communication. Steamboats and railroads have since changed the face of the world, and have set at defiance all the calculations founded on the old order of things; and especially have they operated on the destiny of the West and our entire system of internal commerce, in a manner that could not possibly have been foreseen in the life-time of Washington.” Throughout the correspondence of Washington are scattered constant allusions to the future magnificence of the Federal City, the name by which he loved to call the city of his heart, allusions which show that his faith in its great destiny never faltered. In a letter to his neighbor, Mrs. Fairfax, then in England, he said: “A century hence, if this country keeps united, it will produce a city, though not as large as London, yet of a magnitude inferior to few others in Europe.” At that time, after a growth of centuries, London contained eight hundred thousand inhabitants. Three-fourths of Washington’s predicted century have expired, and the city of Washington now numbers one hundred and fifty thousand people.

The founders of the Capital were all very republican in theory, and all very aristocratic in practice. In speech they proposed to build a sort of Spartan capital, fit for a Spartan republic; in fact, they proceeded to build one modeled after the most magnificent cities of Europe. European by descent and education, many of them allied to the oldest and proudest families of the Old World, every idea of culture, of art, and magnificence had come to them as part of their European inheritance, and we see its result in every thing that they did or proposed to do for the new Capital which they so zealously began to build in the woods. The art-connoisseur of the day was Jefferson. He knew Europe, not only by family tradition but by sight. Next to Washington he took the deepest personal interest in the projected Capital. Of this interest we find continual proof in his letters, also of the fact that his taste had much to do with the plan and architecture of the coming city. In a letter to Major L’Enfant, the first engineer of the Capital, dated Philadelphia, April 10, 1791, he wrote: “In compliance with your request, I have examined my papers and found the plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Carlsruhe, Amsterdam, Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons, Montpelier, Marseilles, Turin, and Milan, which I send in a roll by post. They are on large and accurate scales, having been procured by me while in those respective cities myself.... Having communicated to the President before he went away, such general ideas on the subject of the town as occurred to me, I have no doubt in explaining himself to you on the subject, he has interwoven with his own ideas such of mine as he approved.... Whenever it is proposed to present plans for the Capital, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity, which have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the president’s house I should prefer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which have already received the approbation of good judges. Such are Galerie du Louise, the Gardes Meubles, and two fronts of the Hotel de Salm.” On the same day he writes to Washington: “I received last night from Major L’Enfant a request to furnish any plans of towns I could for examination. I accordingly send him by this post, plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, etc., which I procured while in those towns respectively. They are none of them, however, comparable to the old Babylon revived in Philadelphia and exemplified.” But these two fathers of their country, as time proved, “did not know their man.” Had they done so, they would have known in advance that a mercurial Frenchman would never attempt to satisfy his soul with acute angles of old Babylon revived through the arid and level lengths of Philadelphia.

The man who planned the Capital of the United States not for the present but for all time, was Peter Charles L’Enfant, born in France in 1755. He was a lieutenant in the French provincial forces, and with others of his countrymen was early drawn to these shores by the magnetism of a new people, and the promise of a new land. He offered his services to the revolutionary army as an engineer, in 1777, and was appointed captain of engineers February 18, 1778. After being wounded at the siege of Savannah, he was promoted to major of engineers, and served near the person of Washington. Probably at that time there was no man in America who possessed so much genius and art-culture in the same directions as Major L’Enfant. In a crude land, where nearly every artisan had to be imported from foreign shores, the chief designer and architect surely would have to be. Thus we may conclude at the beginning, it seemed a lucky circumstance to find an engineer for the new city on the spot.

The first public communication extant concerning the laying out of the city of Washington is from the pen of General Washington, dated March 11, 1791. In a letter dated April 30, 1791, he first called it the Federal City. Four months later, without his knowledge, it received its present name in a letter from the first commissioners, Messrs. Johnson, Stuart, and Carroll, which bears the date of Georgetown, September 9, 1791, to Major L’Enfant, which informs that gentleman that they have agreed that the federal district shall be called The Territory of Columbia, (its present title,) and the federal city the city of Washington, directing him to entitle his map accordingly.

In March, 1791, we find Jefferson addressing Major L’Enfant in these words: “You are desired to proceed to Georgetown, where you will find Mr. Ellicott employed in making a survey and map of the federal territory. The special object of asking your aid is to have the drawings of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the federal grounds and buildings.”

The French genius “proceeded,” and behold the result, the city of “magnificent distances,” and from the beginning of magnificent intentions,—intentions which almost to the present hour, have called forth only ridicule—because in the slow mills of time their fulfillment has been so long delayed. As Thomas Jefferson wanted the chessboard squares and angles of Philadelphia, L’Enfant used them for the base of the new city, but his genius avenged itself for this outrage on its taste by transversing them with sixteen magnificent avenues, which from that day to this have proved the confusion and the glory of the city. French instinct diamonded the squares of Philadelphia with the broad corsos of Versailles, as Major L’Enfant’s map said, “to preserve through the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same time.”

A copy of the Gazette of the United States, published in Philadelphia, January 4, 1792, gives us the original magnificent intentions of the first draughtsman of the new city of Washington.

The following description is annexed to the plan of the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, as sent to Congress by the President some days ago:

PLAN OF THE CITY INTENDED AS THE PERMANENT SEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PROJECTED AGREEABLY TO THE DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN PURSUANCE OF AN ACT OF CONGRESS, PASSED ON THE 16TH OF JULY, 1790, “ESTABLISHING A PERMANENT SEAT ON THE BANKS OF THE POTOMACK.”

BY PETER CHARLES L’ENFANT.

OBSERVATIONS EXPLANATORY OF THE PLAN.

I. The positions of the different grand edifices, and for the several grand squares or areas of different shapes as they are laid down, were first determined on the most advantageous ground, commanding the most extensive prospects, and the better susceptible of such improvements as the various interests of the several objects may require.

II. Lines or avenues of direct communication have been devised to connect the separate and most distant objects with the principals, and to preserve throughout the whole a reciprocity of sight at the same time. Attention has been paid to the passing of those leading avenues over the most favorable ground for prospect and convenience.

III. North and south lines, intersected by others running due east and west, make the distribution of the city into streets, squares, &c., and those lines have been so combined as to meet at certain points with those diverging avenues so as to form on the spaces “first determined,” the different squares or areas which are all proportioned in magnitude to the number of avenues leading to them.

MR. ELLICOTT “DOES BUSINESS.”

Every grand transverse avenue, and every principal divergent one, such as the communication from the President’s house to the Congress house, &c., are 160 feet in breadth and thus divided:

Ten feet for pavement on each side, is	20	feet
Thirty feet of gravel walk, planted with trees on each side,	60	feet
Eighty feet in the middle for carriages,	80	feet
	160	feet

The other streets are of the following dimensions, viz.:

Those leading to the public buildings or markets,	130
Others,	110-90

In order to execute the above plan, Mr. Ellicott drew a true meridian line by celestial observation, which passes through area intended for the Congress house. This line he crossed by another due east and west, and which passes through the same area. The lines were accurately measured, and made the basis on which the whole plan was executed. He ran all the lines by a transit instrument, and determined the acute angles by actual measurement, and left nothing to the uncertainty of the compass.

REFERENCES.

A. The equestrian figure of George Washington, a monument voted in 1783 by the late Continental Congress.

B. An historic column—also intended for a mile or itinerary column, from whose station, (at a mile from the Federal House,) all distances and places through the Continent are to be calculated.

C. A Naval itinerary column proposed to be erected to celebrate the first rise of a navy, and to stand a ready monument to perpetuate its progress and achievements.

D. A church intended for national purposes, such as public prayers, thanksgivings, funeral orations, &c., and assigned to the special use of no particular sect or denomination, but equally open to all. It will likewise be a proper shelter for such monuments as were voted by the late Continental Congress for those heroes who fell in the cause of liberty, and for such others as may hereafter be decreed by the voice of a grateful nation.

E. E. E. E. E. Five grand fountains intended with a constant spout of water.

N. B. There are within the limits of the springs twenty-five good springs of excellent water abundantly supplied in the driest seasons of the year.

F. A grand cascade formed of the waters of the sources of the Tiber.

G. G. Public walk, being a square of 1,200 feet, through which carriages may ascend to the upper square of the Federal House.

H. A grand avenue, 400 feet in breadth and about a mile in length, bordered with gardens ending in a slope from the house on each side; this avenue leads to the monument A, and connects the Congress garden with the

I. President’s park and the

K. Well improved field, being a part of the walk from the President’s House of about 1,800 feet in breadth and three-fourths of a mile in length. Every lot deep colored red, with green plats, designating some of the situations which command the most agreeable prospects, and which are best calculated for spacious houses and gardens, such as may accommodate foreign ministers, &c.

L. Around this square and along the

M. Avenue from the two bridges to the Federal House, the pavements on each side will pass under an arched way, under whose cover shops will be most conveniently and agreeably situated. This street is 106 feet in breadth, and a mile long.

The fifteen squares colored yellow are proposed to be divided among the several States of the Union, for each of them to improve, or subscribe a sum additional to the value of the land for that purpose, and the improvements around the squares to be completed in a limited time. The centre of each square will admit of statues, columns, obelisks, or any other ornaments, such as the different States may choose to erect, to perpetuate not only the memory of such individuals whose councils or military achievements were conspicuous in giving liberty and independence to this country, but those whose usefulness hath rendered them worthy of imitation, to invite the youth of succeeding generations to tread in the paths of those sages or heroes whom their country have thought proper to celebrate.

The situation of those squares is such that they are most advantageously seen from each other, and as equally distributed over the whole city district, and connected by spacious avenues round the grand federal improvements and as contiguous to them, and at the same time as equally distant from each other as circumstances would admit. The settlements round these squares must soon become connected. The mode of taking possession of and improving the whole district at first must leave to posterity a grand idea of the patriotic interest which promoted it.

Two months after the publication of those magnificent designs for posterity, Major L’Enfant was dismissed from his exalted place. He was a Frenchman and a genius. The patrons of the new Capital were not geniuses, and not Frenchmen, reasons sufficient why they should not and did not “get on” long in peace together. Without doubt the Commissioners were provincial, and limited in their ideas of art and of expenditure; with their colonial experience they could scarcely be otherwise; while L’Enfant was metropolitan, splendid, and willful, in his ways as well as in his designs. Hampered, held back, he yet “builded better than he knew,” builded for posterity. The executor and the designer seldom counterpart each other. L’Enfant worried Washington, as a letter from the latter, written in the autumn of 1791, plainly shows. He says: “It is much to be regretted that men who possess talents which fit them for peculiar purposes should almost invariably be under the influence of an untoward disposition.... I have thought that for such employment as he is now engaged in for prosecuting public works and carrying them into effect, Major L’Enfant was better qualified than any one who has come within my knowledge in this country, or indeed in any other. I had no doubt at the same time that this was the light in which he considered himself.” At least, L’Enfant was so fond of his new “plan” that he would not give it up to the Commissioners to be used as an inducement for buying city lots, even at the command of the President, giving as a reason that if it was open to buyers, speculators would build up his beloved avenues (which he intended, in time, should outrival Versailles) with squatter’s huts—just as they afterwards did. Then Duddington House, the abode of Daniel Carroll, was in the way of one of his triumphal avenues, and he ordered it torn down without leave or license, to the rage of its owner and the indignation of the Commissioners. Duddington House was rebuilt by order of the government in another place, and stands to-day a relic of the past amid its old forest trees on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless its first demolition was held as one of the sins of the uncontrollable L’Enfant, who was summarily discharged March 6, 1792. His dismissal was thus announced by Jefferson in a letter to one of the Commissioners: “It having been found impracticable to employ Major L’Enfant about the Federal City in that degree of subordination which was lawful and proper, he has been notified that his services are at an end. It is now proper that he should receive the reward of his past services, and the wish that he should have no just cause of discontent suggests that it should be liberal. The President thinks of $2,500, or $3,000, but leaves the determination to you.” Jefferson wrote in the same letter: “The enemies of the enterprise will take the advantage of the retirement of L’Enfant to trumpet the whole as an abortion.” But L’Enfant lived and died within sight of the dawning city of his love which he had himself created—and never wrought it, or its projectors any harm through all the days of his life. He was loyal to his adopted government, but to his last breath clung to every atom of his personal claim upon it, as pugnaciously as he did to his maps, when commanded to give them up. He lived without honor, and died without fame. Time will vindicate one and perpetuate the other in one of the most magnificent capitals of earth. His living picture lingers still with more than one old inhabitant. One tells of him in an unchangeable “green surtout, walking across the commons and fields, followed by half-a-dozen hunting dogs.” Also, of reporting to him at Port Washington in 1814 to do duty, and of first receiving a glass of wine from the old soldier-architect and engineer before he told him what to do. Mr. Corcoran, the banker, tells how L’Enfant looked in his latter days: “a rather seedy, stylish old man, with a long blue or green coat buttoned up to his throat, and a bell-crowned hat; a little moody and lonely, like one wronged.”

COLUMBIA SLAVE PEN. FREEDMAN’S SAVINGS BANK.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE.

MAJOR L’ENFANT’S RESTING PLACE.

He lived for many years on the Digges’ farm, the estate now owned by George Riggs, the banker, situated about eight miles from Washington. He was buried in the family burial-ground, in the Digges’ garden. When the Digges family were disinterred, his dust was left nearly alone. There it lies to-day, and the perpetually growing splendor of the ruling city which he planned, is his only monument.

He was succeeded by Andrew Ellicott, a practical engineer, born in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania. He was called a man of “uncommon talent” and “placid temper.” Neither saved him from conflicts, (though of a milder type than L’Enfant’s,) with the Commissioners. A Quaker, he yet commanded a battalion of militia in the Revolution, and “was thirty-seven years of age when he rode out with Washington to survey the embryo city.” He finished, (with certain modifications,) the work which L’Enfant began. For this he received the stupendous sum of $5.00 per day which, with “expenses,” Jefferson thought to be altogether too much. In his letter to the Commissioners dismissing L’Enfant, he says: “Ellicott is to go on to finish laying off the plan on the ground, and surveying and plotting the district. I have remonstrated with him on the excess of five dollars a day and his expenses, and he has proposed striking off the latter.”

After Ellicott concluded laying out the Capital, he became Surveyor-General of the United States; laid out the towns of Erie, Warren and Franklin, in Pennsylvania, and built Fort Erie. He defined the boundary dividing the Republic from the Spanish Possessions; became Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office, and in 1812 Professor of Mathematics at West Point, where he died August, 1820, aged 66.

Ellicott’s most remarkable assistant was Benjamin Bancker, a negro. He was, I believe, the first of his race to distinguish himself in the new Republic. He was born with a genius for mathematics and the exact sciences, and at an early age was the author of an Almanac, which attracted the attention and commanded the praise of Thomas Jefferson. When he came to “run the lines” of the future Capital, he was sixty years of age. The caste of color could not have grown to its hight at that day, for the Commissioners invited him to an official seat with themselves, an honor which he declined. The picture given us of him is that of a sable Franklin, large, noble, and venerable, with a dusky face, white hair, a drab coat of superfine broadcloth, and a Quaker hat. He was born and buried at Ellicott’s Mills, where his grave is now unmarked. Here is a chance for the rising race to erect a monument to one of their own sons, who in the face of ignorance and bondage proved himself “every inch a man,” in intellectual gifts equal to the best.