To George Washington from the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 27 February 1797
From the Commissioners for the District of Columbia
Washington, 27th February 1797
Sir,
Your favor of the 20th would have been sooner attended to, but the mails have lately come in, very irregularly, & always late at night1—mr Davidson’s will be taken up as soon as we have a full board, which will be the last of this or beginning of next week2—what mr Davidson alludes to in his memorial, where he says, deviations have been made since the publication of the engraved plan, we know not—That plan required the doing of many acts to carry it into effect; such as the laying out & bounding a water-Street, on the waters which surround the City, & laying out Squares, where vacant spaces, unappropriated, were left, in several parts of the City3—Acts of this kind, have no doubt, from time to time, been done, & with the full consent of all interested—we enclose a copy of a Letter, lately received from Messrs Willink; it holds out no very encouraging prospects4—There is at present, no intention of engaging any additional Stone-carvers—What was done by mr Hadfield, was at the request of the board, but on further investigation, before the receipt of your Letter, it had been determined to engage no additional carvers5—We have the honor to be, & c.
G. Scott
W. Thornton
LB, DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Sent. GW replied to this letter on 3 March.
1. The commissioners’ book of proceedings for 25 Feb. records the receipt of GW’s letter to them of 20 Feb. (DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Proceedings, 1791–1802).
2. The commissioners next formed a full board on Friday, 3 March. Alexander White had been absent from meetings since around 14 Feb. (see Thornton to GW, same date, and n.2).
3. For Samuel Davidson’s memorials to the commissioners of 25 Oct. 1796 and 31 Jan. 1797, which concerned his property near President’s Square, see Commissioners for the District of Columbia to GW, 3 Feb., and n.1 to that document. For the 1792 engraved plan of the Federal City, which incorporated modifications to Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s 1791 plan and included soundings of the Potomac River and Eastern Branch, see the commissioners to GW, 1 Oct. (first letter), and n.5 to that document.
4. The commissioners’ proceedings for 25 Feb. recorded the receipt of a letter of 24 Nov. 1796 from Dutch bankers Jan and Wilhem Willink. That letter has not been identified, but it undoubtedly pertained to the Willinks’ unsuccessful efforts to have a loan negotiated in the Netherlands (see the commissioners’ first letter to GW of 31 Oct., and notes 1 and 2 to that document). The Willinks again wrote the commissioners on 10 Jan. 1798 “Concerning the difficulty of procuring a Loan in Holland” (DNA: RG 42, Records of the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, Letters Received).
5. For George Hadfield’s search for “Ornement Carvers” for the U.S. Capitol and for GW’s directives against unnecessary ornamentation on that building, see GW to the Commissioners for the District of Columbia, 20 Feb., postscript; see also Thomas Law to GW, c.10 Feb., and n.2 to that document.