LIKE Philadelphia, Washington was carefully planned; unlike Philadelphia or any other city of the Union, Washington was built for a special purpose. The youthful Government of the United States was in need of a fitting home of its own, a city wherein its President and other officers of government might reside, and where Congress might meet and make the laws. The first President of the new Republic had taken the oath of office in New York, and for some time Congress had assembled in the State House in Philadelphia; but those cities, together with the others which the Union considered, were situated along the north Atlantic seacoast out of ready touch with the States of the South, and for the most part, they were centers of growing commercial activity, with interests inclining towards trade and therefore unsuited to the business of government.
Where should the future Capital be located? The discussion aroused bitter controversy, the Northern States not wishing it placed too far south, and the South fearing it might be situated too far north to be mindful of the interests of the growing States of its own section. At last, as a compromise, a plot of ground on the bank of the Potomac River was settled upon as being "as near as possible to the center of wealth, of population and of territory," and President Washington was chosen to select the site and to arrange for the building of the future Capitol. He called to his aid Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and together the three settled upon the attractive situation with which we are familiar, an interesting view of which is presented upon a plate—the Vshaped rolling plain lying between the junction of the Potomac and its eastern branch.
The next step was to plan the new city, and the proposed design became such a widely debated topic that a drawing of it was carried over seas to the English potteries, and may be found to-day upon a yellow jug of Liverpool. Washington chose for the task of planning the new city a French resident of this country, Major l'Enfant, who carefully examined the site from all points, and, realizing the fact that he was creating a capitol not alone for thirteen States and three millions of people, but for a future mighty republic, he studied the plans of several of the beautiful cities of Europe—Rome, Paris, London, Venice. Jefferson told him that in his opinion none equaled the design of Philadelphia, "old Babylon revived"; but l'Enfant considered the chessboard effect of Philadelphia's streets too monotonous, his idea embracing three or four wide avenues running obliquely across the city in order to introduce pleasing curves and angles, as well as to render communication more ready.
L'Enfant's design, substantially as it appears in the illustration, was the one finally adopted. This charmingly executed drawing, full of significant details, is worthy of careful attention. Two graceful figures of women stand under the spreading branches of a tree holding aloft a scroll unrolled to view, above which is inscribed, "Plan of the City of Washington." The figure at the left, matronly and commanding, with the British emblem upon a shield at her feet, is supposedly Britannia; the other figure, designated America by a nearby eagle-adorned standard, is gazing interestedly upon the circular spot in the center of the design, presumably the site of the future Capitol of the new Republic, to which her elder sister is pointing with her finger as if in the act of explanation—or, possibly, considering the source of the production, may it not be admonition ? The Capitol-site is upon the summit of a hill, with the President's house one mile away, down a broad avenue, or mall. Running east and west across the design are the many parallel streets which were named for the letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, and so on; while running north and south, at right angles to them, laid out in the drawing in prospective blocks, are other streets numbered i, 2, 3, etc. Radiating from the Capitol and from the Executive Mansion, start sixteen wide avenues, named for the sixteen States which comprised the Republic in the year 1800. The avenues, as may be seen, cut the checkerboard at every variety of angle and form the squares, triangles and circles which render so beautiful the Washington of to-day. In the background of the illustration several sailing vessels appear upon a placid expanse of sea, while the foreground shows a bit of the "mille fleurs" pattern so popular in early decorative art.
Originally, the grounds of the Capitol and of the President's House extended to the banks of the Potomac, the "States" design reproduced in another chapter as well as the view of the President's mansion here given indicating its lawn sloping to the river's edge. An equestrian statue of Washington as an historic column from which all distances on the continent were to be calculated, five fountains and a grand cascade were among the features of the original plan which either were omitted or altered. The new city unanimously received the name of the first President and of its founder, Washington.
In the year 1793 the Capitol and the President's House were begun, and for several years thereafter the growing city was but a huge workshop, when long lines of teams might have been seen hauling blocks of Virginia sandstone from the river-landing to the places where the new structures were rising. As soon as the walls of the Capitol were laid, sculptors and skilled artisans were summoned from Europe to chisel the ornaments upon them; finally, in the autumn of 1800, one wing was sufficiently completed for the use of Congress, and a "packet sloop" sailed up the river bearing to their new home the public records and furniture of the Government. At the same time, the President's House, though not completed, was put in the best order possible for the occupation of President Adams; in the meanwhile, George Washington, the founder, having passed away at Mount Vernon, before his eyes could look upon the government of his nation housed in the city he had planned.
Mrs. Adams was the first lady of the Executive Mansion, and her letters give us charming pictures of the young capital city, then numbering about three thousand inhabitants, and of the beginnings of its official life. On her way to her new home she drove from Baltimore; "woods are all you see from Baltimore until you reach the city—which is only so in name," she wrote to a friend. But, in spite of the slight progress it had made in the twelve years of its existence, Mrs. Adams calls Washington a beautiful spot, and adds, "The more I view it, the more I am delighted with it." Pennsylvania Avenue, which now sweeps so stately from the Capitol to the White House, was, in the year 1800, mostly a deep morass covered with alder bushes, fine buildings being few and far apart, the roads muddy and sidewalks almost unknown. It is not to be wondered that disgusted statesmen wrote home to their families that the new home of the Government was "A Wilderness City," "A City of Streets without Houses," "A City of Magnificent Distances," "A Mud Hole," etc.
Northern journals stirred up feeling against the Capital, reviling its lonely situation and its slow growth. "The national bantling, called the city of Washington," they said, "remains after ten years of expensive fostering a rickety infant unable to go alone." "There sits the President," they went on, "like a pelican in the wilderness, or a sparrow upon the housetop"; they attempted, however, without success, to have the "bantling" removed to Baltimore.
In August, 1814, before the city had been completed, the War of 1812 was nearing its close, and to Washington came the British soldiers to destroy—a deed of reprisal inspired and executed by remembrance of the destruction of the Government buildings of York, the capitol of Canada, by the soldiers of General Pike. A company of redcoats reached the Capitol about six o'clock in the evening, and for sport they fired volleys into the windows; they trooped into the Hall of the House of Representatives and held a mock session: "Shall this harbor of Yankee democracy be burned ? All for it say 'Aye'!" was the question. There was no opposition. "Ayes" and cheers rang out, books and papers from the Library of Congress, desks and chairs were heaped for fuel, and within half an hour the beautiful edifice was in ruins, the bare walls only remaining erect. On to the President's House the British soldiers went, hoping to find President Madison and his wife, whom they wished "to exhibit in England," but the doors were locked and the occupants, taking with them the document of the Declaration of Independence and a portrait of Washington, had fled. A torch was applied, and the mansion together with all its furnishings was burned; the Patent Office, the Post Office, a hotel and a few dwellings only escaped the general destruction of the city. "The world is speedily to be delivered of a Government founded on democratic rebellion" was the approving comment of a London journal upon the incident.
The sketches for the old-china illustrations of the Capitol and the President's House were made soon after the city was rebuilt, for, notwithstanding their work of demolition, the British were among the first to picture the glories of the restored capital city of the young Republic. No less than six potters used prints of the Capitol, the handsomest building in America at the time Staffordshire pottery was made—a distinction which in its present enlarged form, keeping pace with the Republic's growth and importance, it proudly holds to the present day—and in them it may be seen rebuilt and remodeled, more imposing than before its ruin by fire. But the work of restoration had been slow, the autumn of 1819 seeing the Sixteenth Congress in possession of the new wings only, the main portion being yet incomplete. In the year 1824, Lafayette found workmen still engaged upon the building. At the time of the distinguished Frenchman's visit the city had a population of thirteen thousand, but "it was not rare," he recorded, "to see a plough tracing a furrow along Pennsylvania Avenue." As late as the year 1842, Charles Dickens, after his visit to Washington, wrote that "its streets begin in nothing and lead nowhere."
The illustration of the Capitol which is here shown1 is of unusual interest, being taken from a sketch made about the year 1830, and presenting but the kernel of the present structure, before the addition of dome and extended wings. In this view, the lines of the Capitol bear a resemblance to the City Hall in New York, its pilastered wings, columned entrance and approach of many steps exhibiting those characteristic details which make of the Capitol one of the best examples of the revival of classic influence in architecture, known in America as Colonial, to be found in the United States. In place of the proud group of structures which at the present time share with it the imposing hill-top site, the Capitol is here portrayed surrounded with a grassy lawn set with spreading trees, the large tree in the foreground no doubt being intended for the Washington Elm which was planted by the first President. In the foreground, two equestrian figures gowned in the styles of the day are pictured as pointing with their riding whips to the great foundation. The Capitol dome, for which the present structure is justly famed, required eight years of labor to erect. As one approaches the city of Washington and looks upon the airy dome lightly soaring above the roof-tops of the city, the scene calls to mind distant views of Florence dominated by Brunelleschi's famous cathedral dome, or of St. Peter's seen from the Pincian Hill in Rome. But, proclaiming it a product and expression of another system of government, from its summit springs a colossal figure of Freedom, represented as a goddess, her feet resting upon a globe inscribed E Pluribus Unum, the motto of the United States, her head bound with a circlet of stars, and crowned with eagles' plumes. The inner walls of the great dome, or Rotunda, are decorated with mural paintings which illustrate scenes of the pioneer history of America.
1 As the frontispiece.
The President's House, as exhibited in the view upon the plate, presents the appearance it did soon after it was rebuilt about a century ago—"a very simple building, but in good taste," was Lafayette's comment as he viewed it. Here one sees a substantial structure of Virginia sandstone, designed after the approved Colonial style of the period, with a formally laid-out garden of walks and parterres at the entrance, or south front, which was originally planned as the main entrance—the growth of the city changing it later on to the north side. To cover the marks of the fire upon the blackened walls, white paint was used when the mansion was rebuilt—the fact which gave to it the popular, and later on the official, title of White House. At the present time, although enriched with the addition of a portico and a colonnade, the home of our Presidents is fittingly defined by the modest phrase of the observing Frenchman.
A visit to the capital city to-day is not complete without an ascent of Washington Monument, the imposing pile erected in memory of the founder of the city, the first President. Lining the interior as one ascends the shaft may be seen marble tablets set in the walls, each one engraved with the name of the donor—State or society which from all parts of the world contributed them as memorials to Washington. From the summit, one is able to comprehend the plan of the city, locating the Capitol and the White House, with the connecting, but still unfinished, Mall, and the Government buildings; tracing the parallel streets and intersecting avenues spread out to view as upon a map; noting also, in this city dedicated solely to the uses of the government of a great nation, the absence of all those signs of industry and of commerce which are such prominent features in the illustrations of the cities previously considered. Finally, the gaze of the beholder wanders over the beautiful stretch of valley, down the broad sweep of the Potomac, until it rests upon Mount Vernon, the spot where, nestling in the dusky grove of cypresses, are the modest home and tomb of the city's and the nation's founder.
Washington is destined to lead in beauty all other American cities, and when l'Enfant's original plan shall one day be carried to completion, with its glorious Mall, lined on either side with suitable structures, sweeping majestically from the President's Mansion up the hill to the Capitol, as its characteristic feature, it will, as its founder and designer dreamed, vie in distinction with the renowned cities of the world.
(From The Blue-China Book by Ada Walker Camehl, 1916.)
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