The Mall itself was never a tidal marsh. It was bordered on the north by Tiber Creek which ebbed and flowed with the tides leaving exposed mud.
Clay McShane is to be commended for pulling together those maps of
Washington for us, but the best way to get a sense of what the Mall
was is simply to walk down from Mall to Constitution Avenue, cross
Constitution Avenue, walk along the level to Pennsylvania Avenue and
then up the hill to F Street.
[Ed: The modern map at
http://sc94.ameslab.gov/TOUR/tour.html
may be useful to those who are not familiar with the geography
of Washington, D.C. ]
The problem area in terms of drainage was north of Constitution
Avenue, originally Tiber Creek, and south of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The next walk to take is down from Capitol Hill to the Botanical
Garden. Here is where the canal, which Tiber Creek was to become,
turned south and took advantage of the drainage of St. James Creek to
continue as a canal to the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. You can still
sense the rising land as you walk up from the Botanical Garden to the
Mall. The extension of the Mall which goes from the Washington
Monument to the Lincoln Memorial was open river in the 1790s. As with
many rivers, farming upstream led to silting below the fall
line. While President John Quincy Adams swam a few yards from the foot
of the White House Grounds, past the point formed where the Tiber met
the Potomac and continued to the Virginia shore, that feat soon became
problematical.
The map on the Mall web site to look at is Robert King's 1818 map:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/MALL/king.htm
From that it is easy to see the problematical low ground, which still
is not properly called a swamp or marsh. Originally the Mall was
probably forested, then became farm fields, then old fields. I think
the best way to describe the web site about it is to say that the site
describes how L'Enfant's plans for the undeveloped fields west of the
Capitol began a process which resulted in the tourist park we have
today.
I searched the Mall web site for the use of the words "swamp" and
"marsh" and found neither. Use of those words to describe the web site
are a disservice because they immediately raise two questions: why did
Washington site the capital on a swamp or marsh? and what engineering
measures were taken to develop the swamp or marsh? The questions raise
false issues and get students well off on the wrong foot when they try
to understand the development of Washington, D.C.
The chief attraction of the site to Washington and others was its
combination of several points of easily developed high ground combined
with a commodious and protected harbor along the Anacostia River.
L'Enfant did not place the Mall where he did with the idea that
placing his most significant avenue there would prompt drainage and
development, nor was it a long range plan. As I read his letters, he
first wanted to terrace the Capitol grounds which would have shown the
significance of the Grand Avenue (the Mall) where he envisioned the
palatial residences of ambassadors and perhaps a grand theatre, all to
be in place within ten years which even he would have realized was
impossible if the area was marsh or swampland.
Finally, we never are sure what the uses of history will be. What
Clay McShane has written might prompt a developer with an eye on some
wetlands, to point to the Mall as a living example of what wonderful
things can be done once a wetland is bulldozed over. It would not be
the first example of Americans claiming as a birthright some myth
perpetrated by historians.
Bob Arnebeck
2) Posted by Carl Abbott
In evaluating the swampiness of early Washington, it is important to
differentiate between the original site and land created later in the
city's development.
The original site was carefully chosen to be dry land -- Capitol Hill
and the lands sloping south and southeast toward the Eastern Branch of
the Potomac (Anacostia River); the White House on another piece of
high ground, the land that rose northward from the route of
Pennsylvania Avenue. Tourists who hike around Washington still
encounter this topography. South of Pennsylvania Avenue, and roughly
parallel to the northern edge of the modern Mall, ran Tiber Creek,
which drained low lands that can also still be perceived in the area
between Union Station and the Capitol. The creek was originally
navigable by small boats but gradually silted up over time, turning
into an unpleasant backwater.
The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and Tidal Basin are the result of
engineering efforts a century and more after the founding of the
city. One of the results of extensive agricultural and mining
development in the Potomac drainage area upstream from Washington was
erosion and the washing of substantial amounts of soil
downstream. Some of this soil settled out as the river's current
slowed below its falls -- that is, right in front of Washington. By the
1880s or so, substantial mud flats had accreted in front of the
original site. It was these flats that were engineered and beautified
into the contemporay waterfront.
It is also worth noting that Bladensburg, Maryland developed in the
mid-18th century as a tobacco port at the head of navigation on the
Anacostia River. Erosion resulting from heavy tobacco cultivation
also silted up the Anacostia, turning Bladensburg into an inland town.
Carl Abbott
Portland State University
Simon: 6/22/2001
From: tony.simon@ncpc.gov
List Editor: H-DC Editor
One strand of the "swamp" correspondence discusses Rep. Cannon's reference to the Lincoln Memorial site as a swamp, with the suggestion that this early-20th-Century comment tells us something about the original conditions of the area (more than we'd sense from looking today).
But I'd note that the conditions of this area changed very much between L'Enfant's time and Cannon's time. In addition to ongoing silting that another writer mentioned, there was also the river dredging in the late 19th Century , which dumped much river-bottom mud in this area. This newly-made land wasn't really shaped (or built upon with temporary buildings) until the 1910s. So in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the harsh descriptions may well have been justified -- but this doesn't tell us the area's character in the 1790s.
Tony Simon
Eig: 6/22/2001
From: Emily Eig
List Editor: H-DC Editor
If my memory serves me correctly there is a circa 1920-22(?)photograph of the Lincoln Memorial (looking from the Mall towards Virginia)that would indicate a watery setting for that monument. Perhaps that is what Mr. Cannon was referring to when he made his remarks years earlier?
Emily Hotaling Eig
EHT Traceries, Inc.
Eig: 6/23/2001
From: Emily Eig
List Editor: H-DC Editor
The 1884(?) Sachse map of "The National Capital Washington DC (see Reps, Washington On View, p.213) shows the watery area (i.e. the Potomac River)beyond (to the west and southwest of) the Washington Monument. At this area, the map is labeled "Line of the Plan for the Reclamation of the Potomac Flats." Upon seeing this map, Rep. Cannon's exclamation (regarding the area beyond the Washington Monument not the Mall) makes a lot of sense.
An undated photo showing this area, owned by the National Park Service, is published in An Illustrated History of The City of Washington (Junior League of Washington,pp.348-49) is captioned using Rep Cannon's famous "quote." The photo is quite persuasive as to the questionable appearance of this area at the time (probably 1920s)when the Memorial was new.
Emily Hotaling Eig
EHT Traceries, Inc.
Richards: 6/22/2001
From: Mark David Richards
List Editor: H-DC Editor
Tobias Lear wrote "Observations on the River Potomack, the Country Adjacent, and the City of Washington," published by Samuel Aloudon and Son, NY, 1793, reprinted in the Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Vol. 8, 1905, pps. 117-140.
He wrote, "... the President fixed upon the spot upon which the city has since been laid out, as the most proper for erecting the public buildings which are authorized to be prepared by the foregoing act. ...The whole area of the City consists of upwards of four thousand acres. -The ground, on an average, is about forty feet above the water of the river. Although the whole, when taken together, appears to be nearly a level spot, yet it is found to consist of what may be called wavy land; and is sufficiently uneven to give many very extensive and beautiful views from various parts of it, as well as to effectually answer every purpose of cleaning and draining the city. Two creeks enter the City, one from the eastern branch, the other from the Potomack, and take such directions as to be made to communicate with each other by a short canal. -By this means a water transportation, for heavy articles, is opened into the heart of the City. No place has greater advantages of water, either for the supply of the City or for cleansing the streets, than this ground. The most obvious force is from the head waters of a creek which separates the City from George-Town. -This creek takes its rise in ground higher than the City, and can readily be conveyed to every part of it. -But the grand object for this purpose, which has been contemplated by those best acquainted with the country hearabouts, and the circumstances attending it, and which has been examined with an eye to this purpose, by good judges, is the Potomack. The water of this river above the Great Falls, 14 miles from the city, is one hundred and eight feet higher than the tide-water. ..."
Perhaps Lear was exaggerating the benefits of the area for the federal city to drum up support, but he obviously didn't focus the least bit of attention on problems associated with standing water, rotting trees, or swamps that would need to be filled to make the venture successful. To say the capital was built on a swamp is a very different statement than to say the capital was built in an area with many advantages related to water ...
Lear predicted that the arrangement made with local landowners for establishing the federal city in this area would make Washington residents "forever free from a heavy tax, which is unavoidable in other large cities" The landowners early on felt there would be significant benefits also, such as never having to pay for street maintenance since those lands were given to the feds ("public"), so he wasn't the only one to be so optimistic!
Constance McLaughlin Green's description of the canal linking the Potomac to the Eastern Branch (Congressional sewers draining into it, etc.) causes me to think maybe "the swamp" was created after Congress arrived !?! The swamp imagery may also have related to "stigma effects" put on locals by those coming from other areas ("this area was NOTHING until the federal government made it into something valuable!"). I'll admit that on some hot humid summer days when the air is so thick I can see it, I feel I am living in a swamp!
Cheers, Mark Richards
Richards: 6/23/2001
From: Mark David Richards
List Editor: H-DC Editor
I was asked a question about Green's description... here are some excerpts...
In Green's book "Washington: Village and Capital 1800-1878," in the chapter on the "Jacksonian 'Revolution' and After," Green writes about growing health problems associated with faulty drainage and the muggy heat of summer ... she wrote, "The swampy stretches along the Washington Canal had become such an obvious menace to health in the 1820's that the city fathers begged the federal government to let them use any money derived from sales of publicly owned lots to drain the area. Congress ignored the plea. In the summer of 1832 an epidemic of Asiatic cholera took heavy toll, first among workmen on the C&O Canal and the laborers engaged in laying the water mains for government buildings and then among citizens generally. The board of health did what it could, forbidding the importation of fresh fruits and vegetables, 'abolishing' hog sties within the city limits during the emergency, prohibiting public entertainments, and annulling licenses to sell liquor for ninety days. The only treatment physicians prescribed was bleeding, doses of calomel, and abstention from all stimulants. City funds and private subscriptions provided a staff of doctors and three temporary hospitals in rented houses, but for weeks the 'dead carts' made the rounds every morning while the mournful sound of drivers' horns and the call 'Bring out the dead' echoed in the streets."
Later in the chapter "The City and the Hill," she writes, "While looking
forward to the introduction of acqueduct water, officials made no
preparations for a city-wide system of sanitary sewers. Certainly the
scheme the federal government had introduced provided no useful model. The
sewers from the Capitol emptied underground near the brow of the Hill and
from there drained harmlessly down toward the Mall, but the sewage from the
White House and the departmental offices nearby debouched in the low-lying
ground between the Executive Mansion and the canal; what is today the
Ellipse thus became a fetid marsh. The later extension of the pipes to
discharge into the canal was a very minor improvement. From the Patent
Office and Post Office the sewers fed into a branch of the Tiber Creek that
cut between 9th and 10th Streets and emptied into the canal. In that
shallow waterway the sewage which had been carried out into the river at ebb
tide was washed back in at high. Accumulated sediment at times stopped the
flow altogether and turned the canal into a stagnating open cesspool." ...
Alexander "Boss" Shepherd took care of the problem once and for all after
the Civil War ... :) Speaking of which, the remnants of the canal (stone
pillars) that are along Constitution Avenue don't look terribly durable...
hope we don't let these decay too much.
Mark Richards
LaRoche: 6/23/2001
From: "George S. LaRoche"
List Editor: H-DC Editor
There are two entirely independent reasons to lay this urban legend in its
grave.
First, there is the historical fact that there was no actual swamp
here. Some people may not discern the difference between a tidal marsh and
a swamp, but there are differences and there's no reason to ignore them
because they might seem "small" to casual observers. As John Adams said,
"facts are stubborn things," and these facts cannot and should not be
discarded.
Second, the alleged physical "swampiness" of "the District" has been used
more as a way to attack or condemn either the federal government, the local
government, and/or the District itself -- which means as well the people
here -- than it has been used as a way of describing the geography of the
District.
Joe Cannon's remark, in the context in which it was made, is more an attack
on putting the monument in the vicinity of what he saw as political
corruption than it was an attack on putting it on physically wet
ground. Joe Cannon wasn't stupid and it's probable that he knew a swamp
might be drained and wet land made dry, so why take such an extreme
position, if "wet ground" was all he thought was at stake?
Maybe Congress is properly described as a "swamp" and maybe local
government of the District has been through "swampy" periods, but the real
sting of these attributions hurts not Congress and not the local government
-- it hurts the half million people who live in the District, most of whom
have little or nothing to do with the federal government and almost none of
whom have any power to change it. When some pundit in Birmingham, Alabama
(to pick a place at random) slams "that swamp, the District of Columbia,"
you can bet that the pundit is really after Congress, but thousands of
people who have nothing to do with Congress and who have less power to do
something about it than the good citizens of Alabama (who, after all, vote
for Senators and Representatives, unlike those of D.C.) are swept up into
the slander. This tendency to take all who reside within the boundaries of
the District as co-conspirators in whatever foibles can be laid at
Congress' feet is no small part of the reason the people of the District
are still prevented from exercising their political rights. Thus, whether
the District ever was a swamp or not, the attribution is still damaging
because most of those making it are less concerned with recounting history
than they are interested in making political points, even at the expense of
innocent people.
Kraft: 6/23/2001
The stone pillars along Constitution Avenue are not remnants of the canal,
but former capitol gateposts. The following is from the District of Columbia
Inventory of Historic Sites:
U.S. Capitol, Bulfinch Gatehouses and Gateposts
On Constitution Avenue at 7th, 15th, and 17th Streets, NW
Former gate structures of the Capitol, built in 1814 at the foot of the west
Capitol grounds; part of the reconstruction of the Capitol after the War of
1812; designed to harmonize with the building’s basement story; generally
attributed to Charles Bulfinch, architect in charge of the restoration;
removed 1874, reconstructed at present locations in 1880; restored 1940; two
one-room gatehouses of rusticated Aquia sandstone; classical facades in the
style of Roman Triumphal arches with Doric columns, arched doorways,
guilloche frieze, and heavily foliated scroll of acanthus leaves and
rosettes; four rusticated gateposts similar, topped with acanthus motifs and
volutes; DC listing 11/8/64, NR listing 11/30/73;
Regarding swamps: enough already! Joe Cannon was a politician making a point,
not a purveyor of truth. I knew the swamp myth was out of control when, as a
tour guide, I took a group of people to the National Cathedral, where the
docent, at some 380 feet above the Potomac, went on about how "Washington was
built on a swamp."
Let's all agree never to whisper the s-word again and this nasty myth will
disappear.
Brian Kraft
Don't neglect the ca. 100 acre swamp at DuPont Circle, "Slash Run Swamp."
Phil Ogilvie
=================
I'm sorry, but it's too early to put the baby to bed.
This may not be a myth.
Pardon me for bringing an Attorney General into the fray but here's A-G
Richard Rush writing to John Adams, 5 Sept. 1814 (see Richard Rush Papers,
Library of Congress):
The city was still ..."a meagre village, a place with a few bad houses and
extensive SWAMPS." (my caps).
anthony pitch
=================
Re: the suggestion that we never whisper the s(wamp) word again, and it
will
disappear.
There was a recommendation, recently made at this site, that it might be a
good idea to compile all the baseless legends of local history that
deserve
to die but won't. The Built On A Swamp Myth would surely enjoy pride of
place in such a collection.
A writer with the calling to do good, could probably turn such a wealth of
material into many newspaper feature articles.
Repeating the facts, at frequent intervals, to the widest possible
audience,
is probably the only chance you have to kill a cherished myth.
Carlton Fletcher
=================
Yes, the myth is a nineteenth century one. And early at that if Bob
Arnebeck
is correct. He once told me that he thought it started with the petitions
to
Congress from local residents requesting services. They painted the
conditions as badly as they could.
kbowling@gwu.edu
Dante: 6/25/2001
When Bob Arnebeck first wrote that DC was never a swampy area, I was
puzzled because it seemed to fly in the face of the direct experience of
members of my family.
My grandmother (b. 1874) remembered Tiber Creek as an open sewer
producing a foul odor. My father always said that Potomac Park,the
Mall, and National Airport were built on "made land" because the areas
had once been below the level of the Potomac River. And many buildings
in downtown DC, he said, have sump pumps in their basements or
sub-basements because they are below the level of the water table.
In addition, we have the complaints of foreign diplomats, such as
Augustus John Foster, secretary to the British ambassador, who wrote
home in 1805 about the "sweltering city" from which residents of
Washington escaped, if possible, during the summer. This aspect of
Washington has not changed.
I think the post of Carl Abbott goes far towards explaining why it is
that Bob Arnebeck denies the appellation, and why it is that others
insist on it. They are speaking of different eras in the history of the
city. Perhaps "swamp" is not the proper technical terminology, but it
is what the ordinary citizen might have called the conditions near the
River.
Old pictures (drawings & paintings) of the city do indicate that before
the trees were cut down to build the houses and shops, this was a
forested area. And before the rivers silted up, the tidal marshes could
well have been described by the "laity" as swamps.
The heat, the humidity, the transformation of the Ellipse area into a
"fetid marsh" by its de facto use as a septic field for the White House,
the silted up areas, the dredging and the mudflats, the malaria and
yellow fever, probably combined to give Washington the reputation of
being a swamp, both among its own citizens and its visitors, and by
politicians with something to gain by so describing it.
Mary L. Dante
None of the conditions which Ms. Dante lists are present in the early
District (heat, humidity, transformation of the Ellipse area into a "fetid
marsh" by its use as a septic field for the White House, silted up areas,
dredging of mudflats, malaria, or yellow fever) were particular to
swampts. In fact, in the middle of a large swamp such as those which run
(and more ran) down the coast of South Carolina and into Georgia, it's
actually cooler than outside the swamp and there is less risk of malaria
because there are fewer mosquitoes because there are fewer warm-blooded
animals for them to dine upon. Malaria and yellow fever were not uncommon
in all cities when the District was in its infancy, and a poorly laid out
septic field is always going to be a stinking mess.
Our forebears, who lived closer to the land and closer to the natural
conditions of the land (not having air conditioning and all the other
amenities of modern life to insulate them from those natural conditions)
certainly had a more finely attuned sense of the quality and condition of a
piece of land than we do today. But like us, they were less inclined to
always speak the strict truth than they were to speak in whatever terms
would shape the response of their audience to their ends. So when
diplimats wrote home about the terrible conditions in the District, they
wanted their governments to take pity on them and recall them or send them
to more popular posts. And when a politician referred to some aspect of
the District, it probably had more to do with the politician's agenda than
with the facts of the situation.
So we need to study whatever evidence there is of what was here,
physically, apart from these representations, and I gather that this
evidence shows tidal marshes, mud flats, shoals, some scattered small bogs,
and lots and lots of very nice, gently rolling wooded land with fairly good
dark topsoil.
Also, recall that George Washington worked hard to make sure that the jewel
in his crown of achievements would be a grand and wonderful city, drawing
people and attention from all corners; I seriously doubt he would have
started it off to those ends in the middle of a swamp.
George S. LaRoche
Cormeny: 6/25/2001
A lot of the discussion on this topic seems to have rested on the
technical/scientific definition of a swamp; I'd like to submit that the fact
that Washington may not rest on an ecologically-correct "swamp" does not mean
we can't say it replaced "swampy ground" which, essentially, makes it a swamp
from the perspective if the non-scientists in the room.
In what way might observers realistically have called the land around the mall
a "swamp" in certain seasons at a certain point in history?
- it was sufficiently muddy and mucky that a person could not
safely/comfortably walk across it; a swamp, to many people, is that odd space
between solid ground and body of water.
- the fetid smell was distinctive -- stagnant water is a frequent feature of
(ecologically-correct) swamps, and whether the stench came from human and
animal waste or vegetable stagnation, it probably amounted to the same nasty
olfactory experience.
- it was (and is) absurdly hot and humid in the summertime compared to most of
the rest of the mid-Atlantic, and therefore reminiscent of the southern US
swamps and swamp surroundings like those around New Orleans and in central
Florida, which some visitors knew by first-hand experience or reputation.
Webster's defines a swamp first by comparison to other wet, forested locations,
"A seasonally flooded bottomland with more woody plants than a marsh and better
drainage than a bog." (I leave you to look up marshes and bogs yourselves).
Webster's also gives a broad secondary definition that seems to qualify it in
DC's 19th-century incarnation: "A lowland region saturated with water." (http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=swamp)
So I would submit that rather than "debunking the myth" that Washington was
built on a swamp, we can actually "contribute to the understanding" of the
environmental state of Washington and how it changed over time. Certainly we
can point to a period when non-scientists would objectively react "yuck, what a
swamp!" when confronted with the state of the land between the Capitol and the
White House -- and political correctness aside, why should this not be enough
to invite a deeper understanding of why many say Washington was built on a
swamp, rather than a stern corrective on the topic?
>From a "psychological history" perspective, it's interesting to observe
that the three factors of swampiness noted above adversely affect people, but
not plants or animals -- and it's people, after all, who get to do the
defining. Has there been a genuine shift in what people might call a "swamp,"
given greater ecological sensitivity achieved at the greater distance from
nature that almost all of us live in today, or would the same circumstances
still prompt the quick designation "swamp" from most people?
>From a "history of science" perspective, has the nomenclature and its
specificity changed over time? Could you have correctly and accurately called
th Mall area a "swamp" 150 or 200 years ago, or has this always been an
scientifically "inaccurate" way to describe the area? It seems that this
argument that the swamp is a historical "myth" relies on the notion that a
scientific definition trumps a non-scientific definition, and in our
technologically-obsessed age that may be the case. But assuming scientists had
bothered to define these not-solid-ground, not-body-of-water areas with any
precision at that time, and assuming that calling DC a "swamp" would have been
considered a travesty at the time, would anybody have cared?
As for "swamps" that are not swamps, I point you to:
"Congaree Swamp Monument," which "rests on a floodplain of the Congaree River
and is not a true swamp ," http://www.nps.gov/cosw/ . This news, if
taken seriously by the swamp-naysayers, could be fatal to the reputation of
Francis Marion, a military leader dubbed "Swamp Fox" by the British against
whom he fought in 1780 -- the name he got because he retreated to the "swamps"
around Charleston where the British couldn't /wouldn't follow (probably because
they were smelly and mucky, and absurdly hot if you're in full military dress
of the era).
The "Great Swamp" of New Jersey, "actually a mixture of Marshland, Meadowland,
dry Woodland and brush-covered Swampland" (http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/8665/about.html).
So perhaps we can be reassured that while people say Washington was built on a
swamp, we didn't actually get any closer to officially calling any area of the
city a swamp inaccurately -- more than South Carolina or New Jersey can claim!
Scott: 6/25/2001
"The composition of the city low grounds, lying below the hights, from the
Capitol to Halorama and to the margin of the Potomac, are alluyial, and
appear to have been reclaimed but recently.
Within the memory of many now living, seines have been hauled, and fish
taken, where handsome stores now stand, in the part of Pennsylvania Avenue
in which most business is now carried on, namely - between 9th and 10th
streets.
The extent of the marshes below Columbia College bears evidence that a part
of the stream of Rock creek once found its way across towards the Eastern
Branch, along the foot of the hights which flank the northern part of
Washington.
By judicious draining these swamps have been recently limited to a
comparatively small space, but their existence has still an injurious effect
upon the health of the inhabitants residing in their vicinity. This fact is
clearly established by the improvement of the health of all situated in the
vicinity of the low grounds from the centre market to Capitol Hill."
Craig R. Scott, CGRS
1) Posted by Bob Arnebeck
In a message dated 6/20/01 9:00:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Kenneth
Terry Jackson writes:
<< I have heard New York and Philadelphia called many things over the
years, but never swamps. >>
The point I am trying to make is that during their founding and growth
both New York and Philadelphia had to contend with swamps and
marshes. Let us suppose, for example, that Philadelphia had tried to
persuade Congress to stay by immediately expanding so that, like
Washington City, it could have long shorelines along two rivers and
offer, like Washington, thousands of undeveloped lots to speculators
with which to raise money to build a magnificent capital. And so it
annexed all the land south of the city to the confluence of the
Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. That would still have made it, I
think, a bit smaller than the City of Washington, and certainly that
newly expanded Philadelphia would have a great deal of marsh land.
Of course, Philadelphia of the 18th century did have to deal with low
ground in its midst. The covering of Dock Creek was heralded as a
guarantee of a healthy city. And then the yellow fever epidemics
hit. By 1793 Philadelphia had both a busy enough port and enough
alleys crowded with poor people so that yellow fever's origin and
spread could be blamed on that. But subsequent epidemics, occurring
after those areas were cleaned up, caused some to worry that the
marshes south of the city were to blame, just as, after a 1780 Dengue
Fever epidemic, Benjamin Rush blamed an increase in fevers on the
British for cutting the trees south of the city that protected
citizens from the noxious air coming from "the Neck," as the area
between Southwark and the confluence of the rivers was called.
Again, reports on the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s (the
founding decade of the City of Washington) helps us pinpoint the
swampy ground of New York City. Dr. Elihu H. Smith began his report on
the epidemic (published by Noah Webster in "A Collection of Papers on
the Subject of Bilious Fever, Prevalent in the United States for a Few
Years Past," 1796) by describing the area where the fever was most
prevalent. This is a fine piece of writing but I'll only quote a brief
sentence to demonstrate my point. Smith wrote: "Much of the ground, in
the northern part of this district [from "Long Island ferry to
Mr. Rutger's"], is swampy, and abounds with little pools and puddles
of stagnant water." Also, early maps of New York City denote an area
of "marshy ground" north of the Commons.
And thanks to Carl Abbott for his insights. I too have written a book,
which is still in print: THROUGH A FIERY TRIAL: BUILDING WASHINGTON
1790-1800 (Madison Books, 1991). Kenneth Bowling's THE CREATION OF
WASHINGTON D.C.: THE IDEA AND LOCATION OF THE AMERICAN CAPITAL (George
Mason U. Press, 1993) also discusses the swamp myth.
Bob Arnebeck
2) Posted by Michal McMahon
For more on Philadelphia's swamp, see my essay, "'Publick
Service' versus 'Mans Properties': Dock Creek and the Origins of Urban
Technology in 18th-Century Philadelphia," in J. McGaw, ed., EARLY
AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1994).
Finally, growing up in south Louisiana, I early learned the
difference between a marsh and a swamp. Marshes were a kind of open,
if watery, country and swamps were covered with cypress trees, in the
base of which often lived families of raccoons. I remember joining
others to surround such a cypress in the spring, then routing out a
family of raccoons and catching baby coons to take home as pets. I
wouldn't feel right doing that now, fifty years later, but I
participated then with great enthusiasm.
Michal McMahon
Levey: 6/25/2001
Having enjoyed everyone's postings on the swamp issue, I'd like to echo
George LaRoche's take. I'd also like to suggest that the "swamps" were
probably situational. That is, at various times large stands of trees and
vegetation were cleared for development that didn't happen quickly enough
during the city's first 60 years or so. The occasional, widespread patches
of bare ground (as well as the unpaved streets) made for marvelous puddles
when the weather dictated them, and I would suggest that this was part of
the origin of the various "swamp" descriptions.
Jane Freundel Levey
Beyond this is the considerable metaphorical difference between the two -
lots of bad things happen in swamps whereas marshes are generally regard
as far more kindly places.
We had/have marshes and not swamps. . ..
but good luck at trying to convince folks otherwise
sam smith
Lowe: 6/26/2001
No matter what one calls it, we must all agree that Washington had
extensive
wetlands of varying degrees of beauty and smell.
John Lowe
Ogilvie: 6/26/2001
Phil Ogilvie
Docktor: 6/26/2001
John W. Docktor
Clarke: 6/28/2001
I rather enjoy this discussion about swamps vs. marsh. I would like to
share wth you an alternative interpretation, open to discussion and to
debate. Let me suggest that almost every marshy/swampy description of
Washington, DC, is actually a statement about the city's environmental
quality. Most of the
which describe a Washington as sickly and rather unhealthy. And though
this state of morass is attributed to the natural feature of a swamp or
marsh, I assert that - the ill health is - in fact created by the society.
There have been times in the past when this area has suffered from
ecological shock. Literally reeling from the devastating impact of a
rapidly concentrating population, who, from lack of knowledge and greed
create periodic environmental crisis and disasters.
here's a few examples--just as a starting point for the
discussions--perhaps those reading this will come up with other examples.
1) This area, once teaming with wild life was devastated by the
onslaught of gun totting settlers.
2) Deforestation. The original old growth forest was burned to make
way for plantations, cut for firewood, construction and export trade.
There is hardly any original old growth left anywhere in the region.
3) Tobacco growing, which was the regions primary cash crop up until
the late 1700's, ruined the soil.
4) Slavery contributed to environmental plunder and over consumption.
Rather then build modest energy efficient homes, - it was cheaper and
easier to have an enslaved American of African descent, cut more wood,
continually stoke the fire day and night, clear more land, build bigger,
and plant more.
5) Fires for cooking and heating, especially in the city, contributed
to poor air quality and illness.
6) Before plumbing, the settlers stayed close to the rivers and creeks.
Early industries, used that same water for industry and power, Dams
interfered with fish migration. Early industrial pollution from plaster
mills, and tanneries along with human and animal waste - were dumped
directly into the water. By the 1830's what had once been an abundant
supply of fish were no more. Those who drank the water in some creeks and
rivers became ill - many died.
Eddie Becker
It isn't hard to agree that there were marshy lands along parts of the river
and along creeks (some of this land is still there today).
Maybe it is more accurate to say THE MALL in front of the White House and
Capitol was built on a large stream that was marshy along the edges, and
though there were no trees standing in water, many considered it a swamp?
Goose Creek, apparently called Tiber Creek by a fellow named Pope who called
his land Rome, ran from the front of where the mishmash of highways and the
Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery are today to it looks like about 7th
Street, in front of the Capitol ... most of the mall... (The District/Wilson
Building sits on piles on the clay of the Tiber...). The "Tiber" was
apparently a substantial body of water, probably didn't flow to well, wasn't
too deep ... ran into the St. James Creek east of the Capitol (Canal
Street?), which went west beside Carrollsburg and into the Eastern Branch.
Here is an account by Albert J. Beveridge in his "Life of John Marshall," as
quoted in "A Manual on the Origin and Development of Washington," by H. Paul
Caemmerer, Ph.D. (published by the U.S. Government Printing Office in 1939
by Senate Resolution No. 280). Was Beveridge describing the "Tiber" as a
wide swamp?!
"A strange sight met the eye of the traveler who, aboard one of the little
river sailboats of the time, reached the stretches of the sleepy Potomac
separating Alexandria and Georgetown. A wide swamp extended inland from a
modest hill on the east to a still lower elevation of land about a mile to
the west. Between the river and morass a long flat tract bore clumps of
great trees, mostly tulip poplars, giving, when seen from a distance, the
appearance of a fine park. Upon the hill stood a partly constructed white
stone building, mammoth in plan. The slight elevation north of the wide
slough was the site of an apparently finished edifice of the same material,
noble in its dimension and with beautiful, simple lines, but 'surrounded
with a rough rail fence 5 or 6 feet high unfit for a decent barnyard.' From
the river 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 highest ground to the northwest. 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. ...
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 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."
Imagine a construction site after a good rain ...
Even so, WHEN TALKING ABOUT WASHINGTON CITY OR THE DISTRICT AS A WHOLE ...
isn't it more accurate to say the design was laid out or superimposed upon
two mapped but mostly undeveloped towns (Hamburgh/Funkstown and
Carrollsburgh) and on the
land/pastures/plantations/farms/manors/yards/orchards of 19 landowners
between Rock Creek and the Eastern Branch, east of Georgetown. The owners
had named their lands: Mexico, Widow's Mite, Mount Pleasant, Jamaica, Port
Royal, Beall's Levels, Mill Track or Sherwood, Abby Manor, Duddington
Pasture, Hop Yard. Retired Naval officers named Mexico, Jamaica, and Port
Royal after camps.
Maybe there is a parallel between people saying "Washington was built on a
swamp," (meaning a lot of the Mall/federal area, not most of Washington City
or the District) and people saying "Washington is corrupt and out of touch
with the rest of America" (meaning "the federal government," rather than
District residents). For most, "Washington" is the federal government, a
power that touches everyone in the nation. The rest of the District (the
non-federal) is inconsequential for most people who do not live here-and is
mostly "invisible"!?!
McShane: 6/28/2001
Posted by Clay Mcshane
Here are the _Oxford English Dictionary_ definitions of swamp and
marsh.
Clay McShane
"SWAMP
1. a. A tract of low-lying ground in which water collects; a
piece of wet spongy ground; a marsh or bog. Orig. and in early
use only in the N. American colonies, where it denoted a tract of
rich soil having a growth of trees and other vegetation, but too
moist for cultivation (see quots. 1741, 1766, 1875).
1624 CAPT. J. SMITH Virginia IV. 163 Some small Marshes and Swamps
there are, but more profitable than hurtfull. 1685 PENN Further Acc.
Pennsylv. 7 Our Swamps or Marshes yeeld us course Hay for the Winter.
1688 CLAYTON Virginia in Phil. Trans. XVIII. 124 [Musk-rats] build
Houses as Beavers do, in the Marshes, and Swamps (as they there call
them) by the Water-sides. 1741 P. TAILFER, etc. Narr. Georgia 96 A
Swamp is any low watery Place, which is covered with Trees or Canes:
They are here of three Sorts, Cypress, River, and Cane Swamps. 1766
STORK Acc. E. Florida 26 note, The word swamp is peculiar to America;
it there signifies a tract of land that is sound and good, but by
lying low is covered by water. All the forest trees (pine excepted)
thrive best in the swamps, where the soil is always rich. 1875 TEMPLE
& SHELDON Hist. Northfield, Mass. 21 Swamps.As used by our fathers in
the earliest times, this term did not necessarily denote marshy
ground; but flat land which from its peculiar location had escaped the
ravages of the annual fires set by the Indians, and was covered with
an old growth of wood.
MARSH
I. 1. a. A tract of low lying land, flooded in winter and
usually more or less watery throughout the year.
c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) C 140 Calmetum, mersc. 971 Blickl.
Gloss. 261/1 On s[a]ltne mersc, in salsilaginem. a1250 Owl & Night.
304 Wenestu that haveck bo the worse, Tho crowe bi-grede him bi the
mershe? 1382 WYCLIF Gen. xli. 18 Seuen oxen..the which in the pasture
of mershe [1388 marreis] the grene leswis cheseden. c1475
Pict. Voc. in Wr.-W=FClcker 796/17 Hoc marescum, a merche. 1523
LD. BERNERS Froiss. I. xviii, There were meruaylouse great marshes and
daungerous passages. 1594 SHAKES. Rich. III, V. iii. 345 My Lord, the
Enemy is past the Marsh. 1673 TEMPLE Obs. United Prov. Wks. 1731 I. 8
By..the Course of Waters from the higher into lower Grounds..the flat
Land grows to be a Mixture of Earth and Water,..which is call'd a
Marsh. "
LaRoche: 6/30/2001
No one has suggested in this discussion that the word "swamp" is not a
perfectly good word to use to describe certain physical places. The
question I believe we've been discussing is whether it's accurate to say
the Washington was built on or in a swamp. In this regard, I side with
those who say "no."
The only original source I've which provides what seems to me to be a
description of the vicinity of the City which includes what I understand
physical geographers would call a "swamp" was provided by Craig Scott (this
list, June 25?), quoting Joseph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer
of Virginia and the District of Columbia, (1835; reprint Westminster,
Maryland: Willow Bend Books, 2000) at 472 (thank you, Mr. Scott), but even
this material doesn't describe the "swamp" as being particularly large,
certainly not large enough to cover the place where the City of Washington
was originally sited.
As for how lay persons use the word swamp, I'm not as familiar with the
original work of those writing in the mid-Atlantic colonies/States in the
late eighteenth century, as with those writing about Georgia and what
became Florida. In all texts I've read, these eighteenth (and seventeenth)
century authors were much more likely to label something in the same way as
professional physical geographers today would label it than we are today,
relatively separated as we are today from the land. And as to "swamp," it
was used in particular for LARGE areas, such as the Great Dismal Swamp of
Virginia. It was not used to refer to slender strips of land (of less than
a mile) bordering a river, howsoever they looked like a swamp.
So the way non-experts might be lax in their use of language seems to be
more OUR problem than a problem of those "lay persons" who lived here two
hundred years ago. But that doesn't mean that they didn't use terms
loosely to heighten their personal or political responses to the
situation. Thus, most of what I've seen (apart from the Martin quotation
noted above) smacks more of the author's intention to impress the reader
with the terrible conditions into which the author has been forced than
with an objective desire to describe what's actually here. And yet at the
same time, most of these sources, along with Martin, also describe a place
with excellent, dry land.
As for what happened between 1889-1912, I've never seen any reference to
draining the land, per se, but I have seen many references to filling the
land in, which also what happened to make a place for National Airport
(recently albeit temporarily renamed something or other). To have dry land
after draining it, they would have had to put in a dike along what's now
the river bank, for the land was at and below the waterline. But I've come
across accounts of trucks and barges being used to bring dry soil and
dredged soil to the area -- then called the Potomac Flats -- to raise it
above the waterline.
So why is it that this myth persists? Why is it so important to maintain
that Washington City was built on a swamp? And why is it that so many
people still refer to Washington AS a swamp?
George LaRoche
Schrag: 6/30/2001
>Webster's dictionary defines swamp as "wet spongy land.". . .
Yes, but we should also recall regional variations. Webster was
Connecticut man, who set out to codify the language as spoken at
Yale. I attach the Oxford English Dictionary's entry. Note that the
17th and 18th century sources all originate well south of New England
and distinguish between marshes and swamps. More recent definitions,
such as Webster's and the OED's lead definition, may be the result of
increasing unfamiliarity with swamps, and thus their confusion with
marshes.
Zach
Does anyone know about the accuracy of these descriptions?
>From "The Avenue of Presidents," by Mary Cable (1969):
"By the end of the ten-year period allotted by Congress for the creation of
the city, Pennsylvania Avenue was still little more than a gash in the
landscape. Of the city's 263 private houses - some of brick, more of
frame - scarcely a dozen faced the Avenue, and most of these were on the
north side. A few lots on the south side had been cleared as lumberyards,
but the ground there was low, wet, and swampy, and not an appealing building
site. High tide washing into Tiber Creek came to within twenty-feet of the
Avenue itself, and storms regularly brought the water clear across it.
Receding, the river left catfish in the puddles. When the tide was low,
small boys waded about in the Tiber, looking for turtle nests on its reedy
banks. Rabbits and squirrels abounded. When the birds were migrating,
there were so many wild ducks in the Tiber swamps that a person standing on
Pennsylvania Avenue might bring one down with stones. The Mall was a
pasture and was generally known as The Commons; people had already forgotten
that it was supposed to be (in the words of L'Enfant) 'a public walk ...
that will give to the city from the very beginning a superior charm over
most of those of the world.' Certainly it is a measure of the optimism of
federal America, as well as of the persuasiveness of its leaders, that by
1800 more than 2,500 citizens called this unpromising village home." (pps.
20-22)
"One stormy night in 1804 (according to this same chronicler), [Christian
Hines] the Tiber flooded Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol gate to above
6th Street. A party of workmen who tried to ford the flood found themselves
over their heads. 'Some caught hold of and supported themselves by bushes,
others by the branches of trees, and others, who were able, climbed them.'
Among the crowd that collected was President Jefferson. 'Mr. Jefferson felt
such anxiety for these unfortunate men that he offered fifteen dollars for
each person saved, and the use of his horse to any one who would make the
venture to rescue them, but no one attempted it, and they had to remain in
their unenviable positions all night. They could be heard at times calling
to each other to know if they were still living and encouraging each other
to hold on until day.' Among them was an elderly carpenter named Blewer,
whose 'pantaloons were torn nearly from his limbs, the skin rubbed off in
attempting to climb a tree or reach a limb, he being so much fatigued that
he would slide down again.' At the first light of day, a young man 'carried
Mr. Blewer out of the swamp," and collected $15 from the President." (p. 27)
"By the time of Jefferson's second inauguration, the poplars were
flourishing on Pennsylvania Avenue, the drains were working, and enough new
homes had been built on both sides so that it was beginning to look
something like a street." (p. 28)
One resident wrote the Washington City Council: "'I find the communications
to and from my house intercepted by a ditch adjoining the pavement on
Pennsylvania Avenue and by a marsh which fronts me on the East. A carriage,
a cart, or a single horse cannot pass from the Avenue to my house. It is
even difficult for a person on foot.' (p. 36)
1819: "Pennsylvania Avenue burgeoned with shops, and although no money was
voted for its improvement and the poplars were not doing well, nobody now
could deny that it had many of the aspects of a city street. By this time
most of the primeval trees in the vicinity of the Avenue had been cut down.
Tree-felling was a source of income for industrious woodsmen, who could cut
and saw two loads of timber a day, selling the chips and bark for kindling.
It was true that L'Enfant's plan necessitated the felling of many large
trees, but many that could have been pared were set upon by the poorer
inhabitants and used for firewood. 'Beautiful banks of the Tiber!
Delightful rambles! Happy hours! How like a dream do ye now appear,'
lamented Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, a prominent Washingtonian. 'Those
trees, those shrubs, those flowers are gone. Man and his works have
displaced the charms of nature ... the whole plain was diversified with
groves and clumps of forest trees which gave it the appearance of a fine
park. such as grew on the public grounds ought to have been preserved, but
in a government such as ours, where the people are sovereign, this could not
be done." An Englishman who visited the city in 1816 noted how unfortunate
it was not to have saved more trees. 'How agreeable would have been their
shade along the Pennsylvania Avenue where the dust so often annoys, and the
summer sun, reflected from the sandy soil, is so oppressive. The Lombardy
poplar, which now supplies their place, serves more for ornament than
shelter." (p. 41)
"L'Enfant had called for connecting Tiber Creek by canal with another creek
that debouched into the Eastern Branch below the Navy Yard, but in 1796 the
idea had been abandoned as too expensive. However, in 1807 private
enterprisers had obtained a charter from Congress permitting a canal from
the Eastern Branch to the Tiber at about 3rd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
The waterway would enable barges to carry produce to the center of town,
particularly to the Center Market, which occupied the area south of
Pennsylvania Avenue where the National Archives building now stands. It was
opened for business in 1815; however, it was never the stimulating success
that its backers had hoped for. It was not deep enough and had to be dredged
continually not only for silt but also for refuse dumped into the canal at
the Center Market and Fish Market. Meantime, where the Tiber and its
tributary creeks crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, substantial wooden bridges had
been put up to replace the perilous rough logs of an earlier day. There was
no public transportation on the Avenue until 1830. The poor walked, the
moderately well-to-do when by hack, and the rich had their own carriages.
Nobody, however, was safe from mud, dust, and wind on Pennsylvania Avenue.
John Quincy Adams, while he was Secretary of State in the Monroe
administration, noted in his diary, '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 we were both obliged to
get out in the mud. It was a mercy that we all got home with whole bones.'
(pps. 42-43)
Mark David Richards, Sociologist, mark@bisconti.com
Hastings: 7/2/2001
Posted by Dorian Hastings
New Orleans is definitely built in a swamp! The French Quarter was the
only high ground (11 feet above sea level), along with a few
criss-crossing ridges following a couple of bayous.
The earliest maps and records portray it thus. Cypress from the
swamps "back of town" were used to build houses in town. Following
the French and Indian War, France ceded Louisiana west of the
Mississippi to the Spanish--and included New Orleans (which primarily
lies EAST of the Mississippi) on the grounds that it was an island.
(The English got everything east of the Mississippi.)
Land along the lakefront (including the University of New Orleans
campus) was only drained, filled in, and developed in this century,
most of it in the 1920s, and following World War II.
Any map or history of New Orleans mentions these facts. I use the
Works Progress Administration (WPA) state guide for Louisiana
[U.S. W.P.A., LOUISIANA: A GUIDE TO THE STATE (New York: 1943)] for
quickie reference on such basic facts.
Any number of maps show the swamp, from Adrian de Pauger's 1724 plat
[see an on-line version of the plat, at
http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/lsmmaps/looker.asp?page=320
]
to Charles Zimple's wonderful map of 1834 to the Zacharie plat of 1891
in the New Orleans Guide [Workers of the Writers' Program of the Work
Projects Administration in the State of Louisiana, compilers;
_Louisiana: A Guide to the State_ (New York: Hastings House,
Publishers,1941), p. 44.]
.
I'm currently doing research on residential development along the
lakefront, and September 1 annual economic reports for the city,
published each year in the DAILY PICAYUNE of New Orleans usually
devote several pages to real estate development. I've looked at the
years from about 1899 to about 1909. A very small but helpful book on
the city's geography is Peirce Lewis, NEW ORLEANS: THE MAKING OF AN
URBAN LANDSCAPE (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1976). The Sept. 1
report for 1909 mentions the "impenetrable" brush and the sunning
alligators that travelers on the excursion train can view on their way
to the pleasure palaces along the lakefront.
Dorian Hastings
I'm sorry to be so late entering into the discussion of this subject. I've
been studying the locations of the swamps of Washington for over twenty years
while reconstructing the region's eighteenth century geography in map form.
Though the many literary sources of information are interesting, the ease
with which they may be interpreted to fit the analyst's predilections has
become obvious in the foregoing exchanges. There is another body of evidence
in the form of drawings, maps, plats, surveys and deed descriptions for which
the purely textual references may be taken as supplementary.
The following areas would have fit any or all of the proposed definitions of
swamp at the end of the eighteenth century:
1) Northward from 18th and R, nearly to Florida Ave.
These areas add up to a minimum of about 100 acres of swamp in the city.
With an original projected urban area of 6100 acres, the swamps were
approximately 1.6% of the total. I have left out of consideration the many
acres of tidal wetlands on the edges of the rivers and creeks which were
either seasonal or peripheral. Those listed were permanent conditions in the
natural landscape. The character of the land that would become the city
changed radically as it was developed through the nineteenth century. New
swamps came into existence and old ones were drained or filled. Eventualy
they all disappeared, leaving the question, "Was Washington built on a
swamp?" to which the accurate answer is "No, but it was built on a site that
included swamps".
Washington History vol.3, No. 1, Spring/Summer 1991, p.14 contains a map with
my preliminary findings.
Don Hawkins demonstrates the clarifying power of quantification: one hundred
soggy acres, six thousand dry. (One question: Black Duck Gut?)
[text deleted--start of a new thread]
Carlton Fletcher
Water and Sewer
Mark Richards, Dupont East, mark@bisconti.com
In the recent floods, some District residents learned a bit about the
water and sewer system. Heres some info, mostly drawn from Wilhelmus B.
Bryans A History of the National Capital, from 1914. Until 1831, DC
citizens got their water from "the rich gifts of nature of underground
springs." At that time, water was brought to federal buildings from a
spring two miles north of the capitol and from springs in Franklin Park.
As the population grew and water supplies became tighter, some residents
tapped into the federal flow. Until 1850, the sewers from the White House
and federal buildings in that area drained onto the mall where the flow
stagnated and made a marsh. (Now you know the real reason people imagined
a "swamp" there.) In 1851, sewers were directed down 17th Street to the
canal. The sewers from the post-office and patent office crossed 9th St.
and dumped into a branch of the Tiber Creek. City leaders were concerned
because the waterways were unfenced and people occasionally fell in. The
city first built sewers for drainage purposes by enclosing open streams
into brick conduits. In 1860, a third of Washington City sewage drained
into the city canal through these surface drains. Luckily, Bryan reported,
there was no outbreak of disease until the spring of 1857. . . . It was
caused by poisonous gases from obstructed sewers and was confined in its
extent to those in the building. Bryan says the relative good health of
the city was because residents used the box rather than vault privies.
Night soil was dumped away from population concentrations at 15th and R,
NW, until in 1855 it was taken to 14th and Florida and Georgia Ave. to be
treated for "agricultural purposes." (Yards in these areas may have mighty
rich soil!)
Between 1853 and 1863, the Washington Aqueduct System -- composed of a
conduit, two sedimentation reservoirs, and water mains -- was constructed.
Montgomery C. Meigs of the US Army Corps of Engineers was chief engineer.
The total cost was about three and one-half million dollars, but problems
with getting approval for funding, malaria, the Civil War, etc. delayed
construction. The Aqueduct System was expected to last 200 years, but
capacity was rapidly exceeded. We can thank "Boss" Shepherd was installing
sewage services to DC residents. From 1871 to 1873, he and the Board of
Public Works built 80 miles of sewers, the B Street Canal and Tiber Creek
were covered, and the open trench know as the James Creek Canal was
provided to carry sewage from South Capitol to the Anacostia River. The
Army Corps added the McMillan Park Reservoir and the Washington City
Tunnel (10 meters in diameter and 4 miles long) between 1882 and 1902. In
1905, a slow-sand water-filtration method was added at the McMillan
Reservoir, and additional improvements were continually made. In 1918 the
Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) was formed after DC
residents had started complaining about fouling streams within the Nations
Capital by waste from Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties
(http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/about/history.html). Over the years, a regional
system was developed. According to Dr. Myron Uman, until 1938 when the
Blue Plains treatment plant
(http://www.weta.org/potomac/regions/region8/detail7.html) was completed
(for DC and MD suburbs), raw sewage was dumped into the rivers. Even after
that, the system was overburdened and raw sewage was and is still dumped
into the rivers from time to time. Even so, conditions are better now than
before. Uman said that in the 1970s treatment technology was improved and
recreational boating and bass fish returned to the river. By the early
1980s, bottom vegetation returned and fish populations increased.
Matthew Gilmore
_______________________________________________
From: LEOHIRREL
March 17, 1998
The discussion of the Washington mall has prompted my curiosity, only I
haven't had the time to pursue the question. Based upon Constance
Green's "Washington: A History of the Capital," here are a few of the
details.
The L'Enfant plan did indeed include an open space running roughly
along what is now the mall to a short distance past the Washington
monument. The far side of the mall was a swamp, and the end point for
Tiber Creek. Little was done to make the mall an attraction. The
Washington Canal, originally intended as a corridor for transportation
became an open sewer, further detracting from the attractiveness of the
area. During the late 1850s Pennsylvania Railroad acquired a right of
way across the mall, and built a railroad station on the mall, ending
the open space. (I believe that this station was the site of
Garfield's assassination.)
During the era of "Boss" Shepherd in the 1870s the canal was filled in.
The real impetus for converting the mall into its present form came
with the so- called McMillan commission beginning in 1901. Under the
sponsorship of Senator James McMillian, the commission included Daniel
Burnham and Charles McKim (of McKim, Meade, & White). The commission
advocated restoring L'Enfant's original concept of grand vistas,
including an impressive mall. They even suggested such touches as
fountains from Capitol Hill. Daniel Burnham made a significant
contribution when he persuaded Pennsylvania Railroad to relocate, with
the resulting creation of the present Union Station.
For many reasons the McMillan Commission plan had a tortuous political
history that is discussed in Green's book. Nevertheless, during the
first three decades of the twentieth century the vision of the present
mall took shape. The swamp between the Washington Monument and the
Potomac River was filled in, with the creation of the Lincoln Memorial.
The major buildings of the Smithsonian were constructed during the
early twentieth century.
Leo Hirrel
Result pages:
Posted by Bob Arnebeck
In his review of Abbott's book, Lessoff write: "Washington's founders
and planners back in the 1790s set out to create a national city that
emphasized the South's crucial role in the continental republic, not a
regional or border city that presumed the South to be peripheral." I
have not read Abbott's book yet and will because I am intrigued with
his thesis, surely the dream of every tourist promotion director, that
cities actually do take on the character of the often legendary or
picturesque region they are imbedded in.
The founders of Washington, in my research for my book on the city's
founding, certainly didn't set out to create a city to emphasize such
a thing as a southern role. At the same time George Washington was
overseeing the building of the new federal capital, he was trying to
lease his Mount Vernon farms. He begged his English friends to send
over some good English farmers. The prospect of renting to
inefficient American farmers depressed him. In developing the city of
Washington, he had no illusion that the planters and their sons in
Virginia would suddenly become crackerjacks at urban development. Both
he and Jefferson had the dream of 50 or so German artisans coming
directly to the city. Washington urged George Walker among others who
went to Scotland to bring back skilled artisans from there.
In actuality much of the energy that went into the first decade of
development came from Massachusetts, much of it encouraged by
Washington. In 1800 John Adams, from Massachusetts, had more friends
in the new capital than Jefferson did. Poor Abigail Adams, who really
didn't want to join her husband in the new president's mansion,
finally came out of loyalty to her friends there, her nephew William
Cranch and family, Mr. and Mrs. Tristram Dalton and family, even the
beleaguered speculator James Greenleaf and his family were
acquaintances. All were relatively long time residents of the city.
Jefferson's best friends in the city were John and Abigail Adams. I
could extend the list of New Englanders. While Washington did build a
house in the capital, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe did not. John
Randolph was the city's principal and most biting critic. The Adams
family had a long presence in the city throughout the 19th century.
To be sure, several prominent Marylanders loomed large in the city's
development. But commentators at the time noted how un-Southern those
go-getters were. Thomas Johnson, former governor of Maryland and city
commissioner, did make much of the virtues of slave labor, but less
out of southern habit than as a cockeyed piece of social
engineering. His idea was that once northern laborers were lured down
to work in the city the pool of hired slaves would force them to keep
"cool" and not make exorbitant wage demands.
That said, the New Englanders proved themselve no masters at city
building - bankruptcies were legion. So like the swamp, the sleepy
southern town became a Washington legend to hide continuing failures
of development, until the genius of the American people made the
federal government a billion dollar than a trillion dollar concern
thus allowing the city's urban seed to flourish, as its founders
intended, quite independently of the plantation life nearby.
Bob Arnebeck
Decatur House lecture: 3/15/2001
______________________________
Bad examples:
Good examples:
Matthew Gilmore, October 2001
George LaRoche
From: WeLiveInDC@aol.com
List Editor: H-DC Editor
Ogilvie, Fletcher, Pitch, Bowling: 6/24/2001
From: H-DC Editor
pwo@gwu.edu
info@dcsightseeing.com
carltonf@earthlink.net
Though certainly some of you electobibliomaniacs could go word searching
and
start a record of the use of the word "swamp" for The City of Washington,"
or
rather the area of the original city of Washington.
Ken Bowling
From: "Mary L. Dante"
List Editor: H-DC Editor
dante@capaccess.org
LaRoche: 6/25/2001
From: "George S. LaRoche"
List Editor: H-DC Editor
At the risk of beating a dead horse (but because our editor is compiling a
list of considerations about the "swamp myth") . . .
From: Sara Cormeny
List Editor: H-DC Editor
Sara Cormeny * web site designer
sara@paperlantern.com
From: Willow Bend Books
List Editor: H-DC Editor
Quote from Joseph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia and
the District of Columbia, (1835; reprint Westminster, Maryland: Willow Bend
Books, 2000), 472:
Arnebeck & McMahon: 6/25/2001
List Editor: Wendy Plotkin
Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.
I too appreciated the maps provided by Clay McShane, buy could not
readily make out a "swamp" from them. Still, I don't doubt that early
Washingtonians used the term "swamp." In response to Ken Jackson's
statement, "I have heard New York and Philadelphia called many things
over the years, but never swamps," the first settlers in Philadelphia
persisted for several decades in labeling the small tidal cove a
swamp. This was where Penn and others pulled off the Delaware and
landed at the Blue Anchor Tavern. Almost as early, it was called the
Dock and later Dock Creek. By 1700, it was described as "an ornament"
to the city; around mid-century, Benjamin Franklin sat on a Common
Council committee charging with working out a design for restoring it.
Before any Europeans had a name for it, the Indians called it the
Coocanocon.
Department of History
West Virginia University
From: "Levey, Jane"
List Editor: H-DC Editor
Smith: 6/26/2001
A swamp is characterized by the presence of trees, a marsh is usually
associated with a river or inlet and mainly has grass
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW ssmith@igc.org
To the editor:
It seems that many people who read this list interpret swamp to be a
derogatory term rather than a merely descriptive one. I had always thought
that a swamp was a fresh-water wetland and a marsh was a salt-water one.
Either could be tidal or not. Are there any limnologists out there who
could discuss this for us? And how do swamps and marshes differ from fens
or
morasses?
jalowe@gwu.edu
I guess I have to stick my oar in again. I seem to remember discussing
the
meaning of swamp in Washington History some years ago. As I remember Dr.
Johnson said that it was a word derived from Amerindians and meant land
too
wet to plow. Today we distinguish marsh from swamp primarily on the basis
of
the presence of trees in the latter. And, of course, their is a whole
classification system for wetlands. It seems pointless to try to apply
twentieth-century definitions to eighteenth-century concepts. Surely, we
can
all agree on the fact that there was a great deal of wet land in the
federal
city.
I was once told that the angle formed by a line from the White House to
the
Washington Monument to the Capitol was to be a right angle. However,
swampy
ground forced the Washington Monument to be offset to the east.
jdocktor@cyberia.comv
Washington Map Society: http://www.washmap.org/
Is it true that the Washington Monument was not built on the site of the
Jefferson Stone -- the site which marks the exact cross point between the
Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Capitol
-- because that site was considered not stable enough since it lay on
reclaimed swamp land?
--Suzanne Clarke
sjclarke@mindspring.com
======================
Scott: 6/28/2001
Webster's dictionary defines swamp as "wet spongy land." The word swamp
was a
perfectly good word in the 17th,18th and 19th century, when the Great
Dismal
Swamp of Virginia was aptly named. But a swamp is something you want to
go out
and drain, which is what the Army Corp of Engineers did to the Potomac and
Anacostia lowlands around DC from about 1889 to 1912. Then came the
environmental movement which strived for the sanctity of wetlands, as well
as
the post modern "deconstruction" movement which seeks to cleanse and
launder
language. So the old word swamp just would not do. Something more
politically
correct like marsh or wetlands replaced swamp, just as "hearing impaired"
replaced the old unsavory "deaf and dumb." People who study history should
remember that in other eras words often had differing connotations and
meanings.
Gary Scott
Becker: 6/26/2001
From: H-DC Editor
eddie_becker@yahoo.com
Richards; 6/27/2001
From: Mark David Richards
List Editor: H-DC Editor
Mark Richards
List Editor: Wendy Plotkin
H-Urban WebLinks Editor
From: "George S. LaRoche"
List Editor: H-DC Editor
From: "Zachary M. Schrag"
List Editor: H-DC Editor
>People who study history should
>remember that in other eras words often had differing connotations and
>meanings.
>
Richards: 6/30/2001
From: Mark David Richards
List Editor: H-DC Editor
List Editor: Wendy Plotkin
Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.
Ph.D. Candidate
University of New Orleans
Hawkins: 7/17/2001
From: ADCHawk@aol.com
List Editor: H-DC Editor
2) Northeast from 17th and T St., N.W..
3) A triangle filling the area from 1st and M, N.E. to 2nd and N, N.E. to
1st N.E. between N and O.
4) A small area centered on New Jersey and D, N.W..
5) An extensive area covering the east end of the Mall.
6) Part of the Ellipse at the east end of Black Duck Gut.
Don Hawkins
ADCHawk@aol.com
Fletcher; 7/19/2001
From: Carlton Fletcher
List Editor: H-DC Editor
[TheMail--Richards: 8/24/2001]
From: H-DC Editor
List Editor: H-DC Editor
H-DC
Contribution from a 1998 thread on H-Shear
Hirrel: 3/17/1998
List Editor: H-SHEAR Editor Peter Knupfer
The entire 1998 thread on H-Shear
chiefly on the origin on the term "Mall"
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Search results
Your search for "mall" in returned 21 message(s).
_________________________________
Message logs 1-21
Network
1
DC mall
Author: LEOHIRREL
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998
h-shear
2
the DC mall
Author: C.Brooks@sussex.ac.uk (Colin Brooks)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998
h-shear
3
DC mall
Author: C.Brooks@sussex.ac.uk (Colin Brooks)
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998
h-shear
4
DC mall
Author: Marc Harris
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998
h-shear
5
Re: DC mall
Author: daniel preston
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998
h-shear
6
"the mall" in DC
Author: Mark Oehlert
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998
h-shear
7
the DC mall
Author: Dell Upton
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998
h-shear
8
Re: DC mall
Author: Marlene.E.Heck@Dartmouth.EDU (Marlene E. Heck)
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998
h-shear
9
DC mall
Author: Ray Moneta
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998
h-shear
10
the DC mall
Author: Pauline Maier
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998
h-shear
11
the DC mall
Author: Everdell@aol.com
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998
h-shear
12
DC mall
Author: "J. Thomas Chaffin"
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998
h-shear
13
DC mall
Author: "Theodore (Ted) J. Crackel"
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998
h-shear
14
DC mall
Author: Charlene Bickford
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998
h-shear
15
"the mall" in DC
Author: "J. Thomas Chaffin"
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998
h-shear
16
Part of 2000 thread on H-Urban on Abbott, _Political Terrain: Washington, D.C.
Arnebeck: 4/26/2000
List Editor: Wendy Plotkin
Author's Subject: Re: REVIEW: Abbott, _Political Terrain: Washington, D.C.
Independent Scholar
_____________________________________________
Decatur House example of the "swamp" description
From: H-DC Editor
Author's Subject: Mar. 31 C&O Canal lecture / Decatur House
March 31, 2001 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Location: Decatur House
In its early years, Washington DC was swamp land. What we now know as
Constitution Avenue was once the location of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
Extension, connecting the Potomac River to the Anacostia River. The
Lockkeepers house at Constitution Avenue and 17th Street is the only
remaining structure from this period of the Canal's history. Build around
1832, the C&O Canal Extension influenced the lives of those people living
in the District of Columbia, including the residents of the Decatur House.
Sheri J. Levinsky, Director of Education and Programs at the Decatur House
will discuss the history of the Canal Extension then lead a walk to the
Lockkeepers House.
____________________________________
Discussion of Environment and City Development
The City and the Natural Environment
Joel A. Tarr
Carnegie Mellon University
Swamps and Washington on the Web
http://www.weta.org/potomac/regions/region8/plannedcity.html
http://www.weta.org/potomac/history/features/federalcity.html
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pubs/Reports/WashingtonGW/
http://www.nmai.si.edu/pressroom/releases/mall_museum_facts.html
http://www.theledger.com/americanimp/0614_dc.html
http://www.bridgingthewatershed.org/ncpchistory.html
http://www.aoc.gov/cc/grounds/g_history.htm
?
Definition of Wetland
Sierra Club
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/199605/wetland.asp
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