What to see in America . ngton calledthe place FederalCity, but after hedied it received hisname. When theseat of governmentwas moved from Phil-adelphia to the newcapital in 1800, de-partment records andequipment were sentby vessels, and the clerks and officials journeyed with theirfamilies by stage. They found Washington very inade-quately prepared to receive them, and those who could notcrowd into the few hotels and other buildings had to resortto Georgetown, three miles away, through mud and one government building was finished, and Pennsyl-vania Avenue, the principal thoroughfa
What to see in America . ngton calledthe place FederalCity, but after hedied it received hisname. When theseat of governmentwas moved from Phil-adelphia to the newcapital in 1800, de-partment records andequipment were sentby vessels, and the clerks and officials journeyed with theirfamilies by stage. They found Washington very inade-quately prepared to receive them, and those who could notcrowd into the few hotels and other buildings had to resortto Georgetown, three miles away, through mud and one government building was finished, and Pennsyl-vania Avenue, the principal thoroughfare, was a bog linedby bushes. The original intention was to build the city onthe salubrious high ground immediately around the Capitol,and that the Presidents house should be a secluded, comfort-able retreat amidample grounds inthe suburbs. Butthe people per-sisted in build-ing on the lowground adjacentto the broadPennsylvaniaAvenue whichled from the Cap-itol to the Ex-ecutive Mansion. Sailboats Unloading Wood at Wharves. The Nations Capital 141 On August 24, 1814, a British force of 5000, after defeat-ing a somewhat larger body of Americans, mostly militia,at Bladensburg, encamped at nightfall close to Washington,and details of troops burned the Capitol, White House,Treasury, and Navy Yard. The conflagration lit up thewhole surrounding country. Before IXIrs. Madison, thewife of the President, leftthe city, she secured Gil-bert Stuarts celebratedportrait of Washington,and the original draft ofthe Declaration of Inde-pendence to carry with |her. The stone walls of |the Presidents mansion !remained standing, andwhen the building wasrestored the stone waspainted white to obliter-ate the marks of the it acquired the nameby which it is commonlyknown. The city developedslowly. Very little paving had been done by 1860, andmost of the streets were worse than country roads. In sum-mer the dust rose in clouds, and in winter the streets werewell-nigh impassable with mud. Street
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1919
