To George Washington from Daniel Carroll of Duddington, 6 February 1797
From Daniel Carroll of Duddington
Washington [D.C.] Feby 6th 1797
Sir
I take the liberty to address you a few lines, which I hope will not intrude much on your time, and when I assure you I am actuated from the best of principles, I flatter myself my intention will be received in a proper manner—I am informed, & I bilieve the fact is so, that the Commissioners are about to erect two large offices contg forty rooms each, near the Presidents house,1 this being the case can any one in this place suppose the funds which are known will be sufficient to compleat the two public Buildings, & the offices, or is it not known sufficient to the satisfaction of every one, that the funds now likely to be procured, will be barely sufficient to finish what is already begun,2 & to do this I am fearfull will require more oeconomy & management, than has been displayed heretofore—The idea of those offices has thrown a damp on the spirit of all, & I believe will be the cause of preventing numbers going on with improvements, as they must be satisfied if they are prosecuted, which will require a large sum taken from the Capitol & Presidents house, the whole will remain unfinished by the year 18003—With respect to myself, I must candidly own, & I hope I shall be believed, that were the offices to be put around the Capitol, where my Interest lies,4 I woud be among the first, to oppose it & think it an improper step, while the funds for compleating the Capitol, & Presidents house remain as they are—I had intended to erect a handsome tavern adjoining the Capitol, but this step will prevent my laying out one shilling, I have three brick houses by the Capitol, but so little has been the attention paid to that building, & so much seems to be the wish intirely to defeat it, that they remain generally dead on my hands5—With the highest esteem & wishes for your happyness I remain Sir Your Mo. Obt Sert
Danl Carroll of Dudn
ALS, DLC:GW.
1. Carroll refers to the planned construction of office buildings designed to house the executive departments (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 1 Oct. 1796 [first letter]; and the commissioners to GW, 31 Jan. 1797, and n.3 to that document).
2. Carroll may be alluding to the $100,000 loan that the D.C. commissioners obtained from the state of Maryland and to the loan that they attempted to have negotiated in the Netherlands. The commissioners sought both loans after Congress had authorized them in May 1796 to borrow a total of $300,000 (see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 31 Oct. 1796 [first letter]; see also John Hoskins Stone to GW, 12 Dec. 1796; and 461).
3. Carroll predicted correctly; neither the U.S. Capitol nor the President’s House was completed by 1800, the year designated for the transfer of the federal government to Washington, D.C. (see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 17 Feb., and n.3).
4. The site of the U.S. Capitol was situated in the southern portion of Carroll’s 500-acre New Troy tract, which was bounded by areas near present-day Fourth Street, SE-NE and present-day First Street, SW-NW (see Pierre L’Enfant to GW, 21 Nov. 1791, editorial note).
5. For Carroll’s brick houses, one of which was built in the place of his previously demolished abode, see Pierre Charles L’Enfant to GW, 21 Nov. 1791, editorial note. Both before and after the government’s removal to Washington, D.C., in 1800, Carroll was involved in the construction of several large buildings near the Capitol, including hotels. The first tavern built near the Capitol, the Capitol Hill Tavern, was constructed in 1796 and was located on lots owned for a time by Carroll. The tavern, however, did not count among his property. For Carroll’s initial plans to have a hotel built, see Thomas Law to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, this date, found at the commissioners to GW, 7 Feb., n.1. Robert Morris and John Nicholson also built houses on and near South Capitol Street on lots that Carroll had conveyed to James Greenleaf, who then assigned them to Morris and Nicholson. The houses on South Capitol Street were described as having “breast summer fronts,” with the potential to accommodate shops (, 124–26, quote on 126; see also 11–14, 19–24, 30–31; and , 1:292, 312–13, 519).