From George Washington to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 5 October 1796
To the Commissioners for the District of Columbia
Mount Vernon 5th Octr 1796
Gentlemen,
The bad weather (rather rain) on Monday,1 prevented my sending to the Post Office as usual, that afternoon, of course it retarded your receipt of the enclosed request of the Trustees.2
I will give the Several matters contained in your letters of the first instant due consideration, and inform you of the result as I pass through the City, on my return to Philadelphia, wch I expect will be on, or about the 25th3—If this delay will involve inconveniences, let me be informed thereof, and I will endeavour to give it to you sooner.4 I am—Gentlemen, with great esteem Your Obedient Servt
Go: Washington
ALS, DLC: U.S. Commissioners of the City of Washington records; LB, DLC:GW.
1. The previous Monday was 3 October.
2. GW probably intended to enclose his executive order of 3 Oct. to Thomas Beall and John Mackall Gantt, trustees of the lands conveyed to the United States by the federal district proprietors. However, in his letter to the commissioners written on 7 Oct. from Mount Vernon, GW indicated that he had sent the incorrect enclosure with this document: “Hurried in closing my dispatches for the Post Office on Wednesday [5 Oct.], I enclosed for you a wrong paper. The proper one is now sent, and I request that the other may be returned” (ALS, NNGL). The “wrong paper” enclosed has not been identified.
In his 7 Oct. letter to the commissioners, GW enclosed his executive order to Beall and Gantt of 3 Oct., which reads: “Whereas in and by certain Deeds executed by Notley Young and others proprietors of land within the City of Washington whereby the whole land of the said Notley Young & others in the said City is vested in you subject to the trusts in the said Deeds mentioned, it is among other things provided that you shall on the request of the President of the United States for the time being convey all or any part of the said Land which shall not then be conveyed in execution of the trusts aforesaid to such person or persons as he shall appoint in fee simple. I do therefore in order to prevent any difficulties which may occur in the execution of the said trusts request you to convey all Lands now vested in you by the said Deeds from the said Notley Young and others within the said City to Gustavus Scott, William Thornton, and Alexander White Commissioners appointed under the Act of Congress entitled ‘An Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States in fee-simple subject to the trusts yet remaining to be executed.’
“Given under my hand this third day of October in the Year One thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-six” (copy, DLC: U.S. Commissioners of the City of Washington records). This executive order, which was recorded on 1 Dec. 1796, was made in response to the commissioners’ request to GW of 1 Oct. to convey to them the public tracts and squares in the Federal City appropriated for public use. GW submitted this order for review to Attorney General Charles Lee (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 1 Oct., both letters [letter 1; letter 2]; see also GW to Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 26 Dec., and n.3 to that document). For the “Act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States,” 16 July 1790, which authorized the president to appoint three commissioners to survey and purchase land for the public use in the Federal City, see 130.
3. GW left Mount Vernon on 25 Oct. and was in the Federal City on the 26th and 27th to meet with the commissioners. He returned to Philadelphia on 31 Oct. (see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 21 Oct., and n.2 to that document; and GW to Alexander Hamilton, 2 Nov., and n.1 to that document).