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Citation: Matthew Gilmore. Swamps and the City of Washington. H-DC. 12-29-2015.https://networks.h-net.org/node/28441/pages/36129/swamps-and-city-washingtonLicensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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Swamps and the City of WashingtonPage published by Matthew Gilmore on Sunday, July 27, 2014

Swamps and the City of Washington

An H-DC thread, begun on H-Urban; with ancillary material

Cross-post from H-Urban/Arnebeck: 6/22/2001

Wendy Plotkin List Editor: H-DC Editor Posted by Bob Arnebeck

While Clay McShane is to be congratulated for his list of web sites about urban history, I hate to seeurban mythology creep into it. In describing a site on the history of the Mall in Washington, DC ["TheMall," at http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7ECAP/MALL/chron.html], McShane writes: "Well-illustratedhistory of the Mall in Washington, D.C. from its days as a swamp to the present including discardedplans."

For the past ten years a number of historians of Washington, DC, have been trying to put to rest theidea that the city was built on a swamp. The Mall in particular was not a swamp, though it did have ariver with a tidal flow next to it (where today's Constitution Avenue runs). As I read the web site inquestion, it does not suggest that the area was originally a swamp.

The City of Washington, like every other US city founded in the 17th and 18th centuries alongtidewater, did have low ground. But the knee jerk association of Washington with a swamp, on a liston urban history, does a disservice, unless we all want to join forces and begin talking about the NewYork swamp, and the Philadelphia swamp, and the Baltimore swamp, etc. It bears remembering thatto many Europeans in the 18th century all of America was a swamp.

Bob Arnebeck Independent scholar Wellesley Island, NY

Cross-Post from H-Urban/Mcshane & Kolb: 6/22/2001 Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.1) Posted by Clay Mcshane

Technically, Bob Arnebeck is correct. Its probably more correct to describe it as a tidal marsh, ratherthan a swamp. Readers can judge this for themselves. I suggest looking at the following:

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At the mall site: http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7ECAP/MALL/lenfant.jpg. http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7ECAP/MALL/downview.jpg At American Memory: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/map_item.pl?data=/home/www/data/gmd/gmd385/g3851/g3851a/pm001090.sid&style=gmd&itemLink=D?gmd:13:./temp/~ammem_ZRLp::@@mdb=eaa,aap,aaeo,rbaapcbib,aasm,ftvbib,aaodyssey,hh,gottscho,mharendt,bbpix,bbcards,magbell,lbcoll,rbpebib,calbkbib,tccc,lhbcbbib,cwband,gmd,cwar,cola,consrvbib,bdsbib,coolbib,coplandbib,curt,dag,musdibib,fsaall,papr,aep,papr,papr,fine,dcm,cmns,flwpabib,afcreed,cowellbib,toddbib,lomaxbib,ngp,raelbib,gottlieb,mtj,alad,gmd,wpa,mal,scsm,mcc,gmd,papr,gmd,aipn,papr,ncpm,ncpsbib,omhbib,gmd,pan,vv,wpapos,psbib,pin,presp,lhbprbib,qlt,gmd,ncr,relpet,gmd,papr,papr,dukesm,mussm,mesnbib,denn,amss,fpnas,papr,runyon,wtc,detr,hlaw,lhbumbib,varstg,horyd,mgw,hawp,nawbib,suffrg,papr,nfor&title=The+national+capital, Washington+City,+D.C.+ h t t p : / / m e m o r y . l o c . g o v / c g i -bin/query/D?pan:39:./temp/~ammem_ZRLp::@@@mdb=eaa,aap,aaeo,rbaapcbib,aasm,ftvbib,aaodyssey,hh,gottscho,mharendt,bbpix,bbcards,magbell,lbcoll,rbpebib,calbkbib,tccc,lhbcbbib,cwband,gmd,cwar,cola,consrvbib,bdsbib,coolbib,coplandbib,curt,dag,musdibib,fsaall,papr,aep,papr,papr,fine,dcm,cmns,flwpabib,afcreed,cowellbib,toddbib,lomaxbib,ngp,raelbib,gottlieb,mtj,alad,gmd,wpa,mal,scsm,mcc,gmd,papr,gmd,aipn,papr,ncpm,ncpsbib,omhbib,gmd,pan,vv,wpapos,psbib,pin,presp,lhbprbib,qlt,gmd,ncr,relpet,gmd,papr,papr,dukesm,mussm,mesnbib,denn,amss,fpnas,papr,runyon,wtc,detr,hlaw,lhbumbib,varstg,horyd,mgw,hawp,nawbib,suffrg,papr,nforhttp://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?detr:48:./temp/~ammem_ZRLp::displayType=1:m856sd=det:m856sf=4a10394:@@mdb=eaa,aap,aaeo,rbaapcbib,aasm,ftvbib,aaodyssey,hh,gottscho,mharendt,bbpix,bbcards,magbell,lbcoll,rbpebib,calbkbib,tccc,lhbcbbib,cwband,gmd,cwar,cola,consrvbib,bdsbib,coolbib,coplandbib,curt,dag,musdibib,fsaall,papr,aep,papr,papr,fine,dcm,cmns,flwpabib,afcreed,cowellbib,toddbib,lomaxbib,ngp,raelbib,gottlieb,mtj,alad,gmd,wpa,mal,scsm,mcc,gmd,papr,gmd,aipn,papr,ncpm,ncpsbib,omhbib,gmd,pan,vv,wpapos,psbib,pin,presp,lhbprbib,qlt,gmd,ncr,relpet,gmd,papr,papr,dukesm,mussm,mesnbib,denn,amss,fpnas,papr,runyon,wtc,detr,hlaw,lhbumbib,varstg,horyd,mgw,hawp,nawbib,suffrg,papr,nforhttp://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/map_item.pl?data=/home/www/data/gmd/gmd385/g3851/g3851a/pm001066.sid&style=gmd&itemLink=D?gmd:5:./temp/~ammem_UYOl::@@mdb=aaodyssey,gmd,gmd,gmd,gmd,gmd,gmd,gmd&title=Panoramic+view+of+Washington+City+

I'd be interested in hearing how other people read those images.

In passing, I might note that my office in the South End and my home in the West End were once tidalmarshes, as was most of Central Boston. Why is that a disservice?

Clay McShaneProfessorDepartment of HistoryNortheastern University

2) Posted by Carolyn Kolb

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Actually there is an American city founded in the 18th century which indeed had a swamp nearby andwhich the present city boundaries now enclose -- New Orleans. The city, founded circa 1718,sometimes gets left out of considerations of American 18th century cities (and there are lots of extantrecords, too), but in this case it has earned a spot!

Carolyn KolbUniversity of New Orleans

Jackson: 6/22/2001 From: Wendy Plotkin Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.Posted by Kenneth Terry Jackson

I do not remember if I remember correctly, but did not the powerful speaker of the house, JosephCannon of Illinois, or something to that effect, say that he would die and go to hell before he wouldallow a monument to the Great Emancipator be built in that "God-Damned Swamp."

[Ed: See the Washington Post January 4, 1991 article "How 1902's City of Tomorrow Became the Capital ofToday" (by Benjamin Forgey) at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/2000/city0104.htm the Newshouse News Service story"Memorial Sprawl Spurs Ban on More Construction on National Mall" at http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1c011801.html and PRESERVATION's "The Brawl on the Mall" (January, February, 2001) at http://www.savethemall.org/media/brawl.html with accounts of House Speaker Cannon's opposition to the placement of the Lincoln Memorial on theWashington mall. See also the National Park Service's history of the Lincoln Memorial at http://www.nps.gov/linc/memorial/construct.htm with reference to the "swampy area along the Potomac River" filled to create Potomac Park.

In other words, the association of DC with a swamp is not recent. And the mall seems almost belowthe level of the Potomoc. And isn't the term swamp associated with the water table and humidityrather than the proximity to a river?

I have heard New York and Philadelphia called many things over the years, but never swamps. NewOrleans and Houston are also said to be built in swampy country. I say this by way of a question andnot as an indication that I know what I am talking about.

Ken JacksonColumbia University

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Arnebeck & Abbott: 6/21/2001 From: Wendy Plotkin Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.[Ed: This posting includes responses from Bob Arnebeck, who initiated the discussion, andCarl Abbott, author of POLITICAL TERRAIN: WASHINGTON, D.C., FROM TIDEWATERTOWN TO GLOBAL METROPOLIS (Chapel Hill: U. of North Carolina Pr., 1999) ]

1) Posted by Bob Arnebeck The Mall itself was never a tidal marsh. It was bordered on the north by Tiber Creek which ebbed andflowed with the tides leaving exposed mud.

Clay McShane is to be commended for pulling together those maps of Washington for us, but the bestway 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 FStreet.

[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, andsouth 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. JamesCreek to continue as a canal to the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. You can still sense the rising landas you walk up from the Botanical Garden to the Mall. The extension of the Mall which goes from theWashington 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 fewyards from the foot of the White House Grounds, past the point formed where the Tiber met thePotomac 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 ormarsh. Originally the Mall was probably forested, then became farm fields, then old fields. I think thebest way to describe the web site about it is to say that the site describes how L'Enfant's plans for theundeveloped fields west of the Capitol began a process which resulted in the tourist park we havetoday.

I searched the Mall web site for the use of the words "swamp" and "marsh" and found neither. Use ofthose 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 weretaken to develop the swamp or marsh? The questions raise false issues and get students well off on

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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 ofeasily developed high ground combined with a commodious and protected harbor along the AnacostiaRiver. L'Enfant did not place the Mall where he did with the idea that placing his most significantavenue there would prompt drainage and development, nor was it a long range plan. As I read hisletters, he first wanted to terrace the Capitol grounds which would have shown the significance of theGrand Avenue (the Mall) where he envisioned the palatial residences of ambassadors and perhaps agrand theatre, all to be in place within ten years which even he would have realized was impossible ifthe area was marsh or swampland.

Finally, we never are sure what the uses of history will be. What Clay McShane has written mightprompt a developer with an eye on some wetlands, to point to the Mall as a living example of whatwonderful things can be done once a wetland is bulldozed over. It would not be the first example ofAmericans 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 theoriginal 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 andsoutheast toward the Eastern Branch of the Potomac (Anacostia River); the White House on anotherpiece of high ground, the land that rose northward from the route of Pennsylvania Avenue. Touristswho hike around Washington still encounter this topography. South of Pennsylvania Avenue, androughly parallel to the northern edge of the modern Mall, ran Tiber Creek, which drained low landsthat can also still be perceived in the area between Union Station and the Capitol. The creek wasoriginally navigable by small boats but gradually silted up over time, turning into an unpleasantbackwater.

The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and Tidal Basin are the result of engineering efforts a centuryand more after the founding of the city. One of the results of extensive agricultural and miningdevelopment in the Potomac drainage area upstream from Washington was erosion and the washingof substantial amounts of soil downstream. Some of this soil settled out as the river's current slowedbelow its falls -- that is, right in front of Washington. By the 1880s or so, substantial mud flats hadaccreted in front of the original site. It was these flats that were engineered and beautified into thecontemporay waterfront.

It is also worth noting that Bladensburg, Maryland developed in the mid-18th century as a tobaccoport at the head of navigation on the Anacostia River. Erosion resulting from heavy tobaccocultivation also silted up the Anacostia, turning Bladensburg into an inland town.

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Carl AbbottPortland State University

Simon: 6/22/2001 From: [email protected] List Editor: H-DC Editor

One strand of the "swamp" correspondence discusses Rep. Cannon's reference to the LincolnMemorial site as a swamp, with the suggestion that this early-20th-Century comment tells ussomething 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 andCannon's time. In addition to ongoing silting that another writer mentioned, there was also the riverdredging 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 thelate 19th and early 20th Centuries, the harsh descriptions may well have been justified -- but thisdoesn'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 EigEHT 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) theWashington Monument. At this area, the map is labeled "Line of the Plan for the Reclamation of thePotomac Flats." Upon seeing this map, Rep. Cannon's exclamation (regarding the area beyond theWashington Monument not the Mall) makes a lot of sense.

An undated photo showing this area, owned by the National Park Service, is published in AnIllustrated History of The City of Washington (Junior League of Washington,pp.348-49) is captionedusing Rep Cannon's famous "quote." The photo is quite persuasive as to the questionable appearanceof this area at the time (probably 1920s)when the Memorial was new.

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Emily Hotaling EigEHT 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 ofWashington," published by Samuel Aloudon and Son, NY, 1793, reprinted in the Records of theColumbia 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 themost proper for erecting the public buildings which are authorized to be prepared by the foregoingact. ...The whole area of the City consists of upwards of four thousand acres. -The ground, on anaverage, 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 issufficiently uneven to give many very extensive and beautiful views from various parts of it, as well asto effectually answer every purpose of cleaning and draining the city. Two creeks enter the City, onefrom the eastern branch, the other from the Potomack, and take such directions as to be made tocommunicate with each other by a short canal. -By this means a water transportation, for heavyarticles, is opened into the heart of the City. No place has greater advantages of water, either for thesupply of the City or for cleansing the streets, than this ground. The most obvious force is from thehead waters of a creek which separates the City from George-Town. -This creek takes its rise inground higher than the City, and can readily be conveyed to every part of it. -But the grand object forthis 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, bygood judges, is the Potomack. The water of this river above the Great Falls, 14 miles from the city, isone 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, buthe 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 thecapital was built on a swamp is a very different statement than to say the capital was built in an areawith many advantages related to water ...

Lear predicted that the arrangement made with local landowners for establishing the federal city inthis area would make Washington residents "forever free from a heavy tax, which is unavoidable inother large cities" The landowners early on felt there would be significant benefits also, such as neverhaving to pay for street maintenance since those lands were given to the feds ("public"), so he wasn'tthe 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 afterCongress arrived !?! The swamp imagery may also have related to "stigma effects" put on locals bythose coming from other areas ("this area was NOTHING until the federal government made it intosomething valuable!"). I'll admit that on some hot humid summer days when the air is so thick I can

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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 drainageand the muggy heat of summer ... she wrote, "The swampy stretches along the Washington Canal hadbecome such an obvious menace to health in the 1820's that the city fathers begged the federalgovernment 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, firstamong workmen on the C&O Canal and the laborers engaged in laying the water mains forgovernment 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 limitsduring the emergency, prohibiting public entertainments, and annulling licenses to sell liquor forninety days. The only treatment physicians prescribed was bleeding, doses of calomel, and abstentionfrom all stimulants. City funds and private subscriptions provided a staff of doctors and threetemporary hospitals in rented houses, but for weeks the 'dead carts' made the rounds every morningwhile 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 ofacqueduct water, officials made no preparations for a city-wide system of sanitary sewers. Certainlythe scheme the federal government had introduced provided no useful model. The sewers from theCapitol emptied underground near the brow of the Hill and from there drained harmlessly downtoward the Mall, but the sewage from the White House and the departmental offices nearbydebouched in the low-lying ground between the Executive Mansion and the canal; what is today theEllipse thus became a fetid marsh. The later extension of the pipes to discharge into the canal was avery minor improvement. From the Patent Office and Post Office the sewers fed into a branch of theTiber Creek that cut between 9th and 10th Streets and emptied into the canal. In that shallowwaterway the sewage which had been carried out into the river at ebb tide was washed back in athigh. Accumulated sediment at times stopped the flow altogether and turned the canal into astagnating open cesspool." ... Alexander "Boss" Shepherd took care of the problem once and for allafter the Civil War ... :) Speaking of which, the remnants of the canal (stone pillars) that are alongConstitution 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

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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 discernthe difference between a tidal marsh and a swamp, but there are differences and there's no reason toignore them because they might seem "small" to casual observers. As John Adams said, "facts arestubborn 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 orcondemn either the federal government, the local government, and/or the District itself -- whichmeans as well the people here -- than it has been used as a way of describing the geography of theDistrict.

Joe Cannon's remark, in the context in which it was made, is more an attack on putting the monumentin the vicinity of what he saw as political corruption than it was an attack on putting it on physicallywet ground. Joe Cannon wasn't stupid and it's probable that he knew a swamp might be drained andwet land made dry, so why take such an extreme position, if "wet ground" was all he thought was atstake?

Maybe Congress is properly described as a "swamp" and maybe local government of the District hasbeen through "swampy" periods, but the real sting of these attributions hurts not Congress and notthe local government -- it hurts the half million people who live in the District, most of whom havelittle or nothing to do with the federal government and almost none of whom have any power tochange 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 ofpeople who have nothing to do with Congress and who have less power to do something about it thanthe good citizens of Alabama (who, after all, vote for Senators and Representatives, unlike those ofD.C.) are swept up into the slander. This tendency to take all who reside within the boundaries of theDistrict as co-conspirators in whatever foibles can be laid at Congress' feet is no small part of thereason 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 thosemaking it are less concerned with recounting history than they are interested in making politicalpoints, even at the expense of innocent people.

George LaRoche

Kraft: 6/23/2001 From: [email protected] List Editor: H-DC Editor

The stone pillars along Constitution Avenue are not remnants of the canal, but former capitolgateposts. The following is from the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites:

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U.S. Capitol, Bulfinch Gatehouses and Gateposts On Constitution Avenue at 7th, 15th, and 17thStreets, NW Former gate structures of the Capitol, built in 1814 at the foot of the west Capitolgrounds; part of the reconstruction of the Capitol after the War of 1812; designed to harmonize withthe building’s basement story; generally attributed to Charles Bulfinch, architect in charge of therestoration; removed 1874, reconstructed at present locations in 1880; restored 1940; two one-roomgatehouses of rusticated Aquia sandstone; classical facades in the style of Roman Triumphal archeswith Doric columns, arched doorways, guilloche frieze, and heavily foliated scroll of acanthus leavesand rosettes; four rusticated gateposts similar, topped with acanthus motifs and volutes; DC listing11/8/64, NR listing 11/30/73;

Regarding swamps: enough already! Joe Cannon was a politician making a point, not a purveyor oftruth. I knew the swamp myth was out of control when, as a tour guide, I took a group of people tothe 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

Ogilvie, Fletcher, Pitch, Bowling: 6/24/2001 From: H-DC Editor

[a few more wading in--Ed.]

Don't neglect the ca. 100 acre swamp at DuPont Circle, "Slash Run Swamp."

Phil [email protected]

=================

I'm sorry, but it's too early to put the baby to bed. This may not be a myth. Pardon me for bringing anAttorney General into the fray but here's A-G Richard Rush writing to John Adams, 5 Sept. 1814 (seeRichard Rush Papers, Library of Congress):

The city was still ..."a meagre village, a place with a few bad houses and extensive SWAMPS." (mycaps).

anthony [email protected]

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=================

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 allthe baseless legends of local history that deserve to die but won't. The Built On A Swamp Myth wouldsurely 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 manynewspaper feature articles.

Repeating the facts, at frequent intervals, to the widest possible audience, is probably the onlychance you have to kill a cherished myth.

Carlton [email protected]

=================

Yes, the myth is a nineteenth century one. And early at that if Bob Arnebeck is correct. He once toldme that he thought it started with the petitions to Congress from local residents requesting services.They painted the conditions as badly as they could. Though certainly some of you electobibliomaniacs could go word searching and start a record of theuse of the word "swamp" for The City of Washington," or rather the area of the original city ofWashington.

[email protected] Bowling

Dante: 6/25/2001 From: "Mary L. Dante" List Editor: H-DC Editor

When Bob Arnebeck first wrote that DC was never a swampy area, I was puzzled because it seemedto 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. Myfather 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 indowntown DC, he said, have sump pumps in their basements or sub-basements because they arebelow the level of the water table.

In addition, we have the complaints of foreign diplomats, such as Augustus John Foster, secretary tothe British ambassador, who wrote home in 1805 about the "sweltering city" from which residents of

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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 theappellation, and why it is that others insist on it. They are speaking of different eras in the history ofthe city. Perhaps "swamp" is not the proper technical terminology, but it is what the ordinary citizenmight have called the conditions near the River.

Old pictures (drawings & paintings) of the city do indicate that before the trees were cut down tobuild the houses and shops, this was a forested area. And before the rivers silted up, the tidalmarshes 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 useas a septic field for the White House, the silted up areas, the dredging and the mudflats, the malariaand yellow fever, probably combined to give Washington the reputation of being a swamp, bothamong its own citizens and its visitors, and by politicians with something to gain by so describing it.

Mary L. Dante [email protected]

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 aboutthe "swamp myth") . . .

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, inthe middle of a large swamp such as those which run (and more ran) down the coast of SouthCarolina and into Georgia, it's actually cooler than outside the swamp and there is less risk of malariabecause there are fewer mosquitoes because there are fewer warm-blooded animals for them to dineupon. 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 (nothaving air conditioning and all the other amenities of modern life to insulate them from those naturalconditions) certainly had a more finely attuned sense of the quality and condition of a piece of landthan we do today. But like us, they were less inclined to always speak the strict truth than they wereto speak in whatever terms would shape the response of their audience to their ends. So whendiplimats wrote home about the terrible conditions in the District, they wanted their governments totake pity on them and recall them or send them to more popular posts. And when a politician referredto some aspect of the District, it probably had more to do with the politician's agenda than with the

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facts of the situation.

So we need to study whatever evidence there is of what was here, physically, apart from theserepresentations, and I gather that this evidence shows tidal marshes, mud flats, shoals, somescattered small bogs, and lots and lots of very nice, gently rolling wooded land with fairly good darktopsoil.

Also, recall that George Washington worked hard to make sure that the jewel in his crown ofachievements would be a grand and wonderful city, drawing people and attention from all corners; Iseriously doubt he would have started it off to those ends in the middle of a swamp.

George S. LaRoche

Cormeny: 6/25/2001 From: Sara Cormeny List Editor: H-DC Editor

A lot of the discussion on this topic seems to have rested on the technical/scientific definition of aswamp; 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 aswamp 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 certainseasons at a certain point in history?

- it was sufficiently muddy and mucky that a person could not safely/comfortably walk across it; aswamp, 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, itprobably 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 thosearound New Orleans and in central Florida, which some visitors knew by first-hand experience orreputation.

Webster's defines a swamp first by comparison to other wet, forested locations, "A seasonally floodedbottomland with more woody plants than a marsh and better drainage than a bog." (I leave you tolook up marshes and bogs yourselves). Webster's also gives a broad secondary definition that seemsto qualify it in DC's 19th-century incarnation: "A lowland region saturated with water."(http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=swamp)

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So I would submit that rather than "debunking the myth" that Washington was built on a swamp, wecan actually "contribute to the understanding" of the environmental state of Washington and how itchanged 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 WhiteHouse -- and political correctness aside, why should this not be enough to invite a deeperunderstanding of why many say Washington was built on a swamp, rather than a stern corrective onthe topic?

>From a "psychological history" perspective, it's interesting to observe that the three factors ofswampiness 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," givengreater ecological sensitivity achieved at the greater distance from nature that almost all of us live intoday, or would the same circumstances still prompt the quick designation "swamp" from mostpeople?

>From a "history of science" perspective, has the nomenclature and its specificity changed overtime? Could you have correctly and accurately called th Mall area a "swamp" 150 or 200 years ago, orhas this always been an scientifically "inaccurate" way to describe the area? It seems that thisargument that the swamp is a historical "myth" relies on the notion that a scientific definition trumpsa non-scientific definition, and in our technologically-obsessed age that may be the case. Butassuming scientists had bothered to define these not-solid-ground, not-body-of-water areas with anyprecision at that time, and assuming that calling DC a "swamp" would have been considered atravesty at the time, would anybody have cared?

As for "swamps" that are not swamps, I point you to: "Congaree Swamp Monument," which "rests ona floodplain of the Congaree River and is not a true swamp ," http://www.nps.gov/cosw/ . This news, iftaken seriously by the swamp-naysayers, could be fatal to the reputation of Francis Marion, a militaryleader dubbed "Swamp Fox" by the British against whom he fought in 1780 -- the name he gotbecause 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 theera). The "Great Swamp" of New Jersey, "actually a mixture of Marshland, Meadowland, dryW o o d l a n d a n d b r u s h - c o v e r e d S w a m p l a n d "(http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/8665/about.html). So perhaps we can be reassured that whilepeople say Washington was built on a swamp, we didn't actually get any closer to officially calling anyarea of the city a swamp inaccurately -- more than South Carolina or New Jersey can claim!

Sara Cormeny * web site designer [email protected]

Scott: 6/25/2001 From: Willow Bend Books List Editor: H-DC Editor

Quote from Joseph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia and the District ofColumbia, (1835; reprint Westminster, Maryland: Willow Bend Books, 2000), 472:

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"The composition of the city low grounds, lying below the hights, from the Capitol to Halorama and tothe 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 handsomestores 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 Rockcreek once found its way across towards the Eastern Branch, along the foot of the hights which flankthe northern part of Washington.

By judicious draining these swamps have been recently limited to a comparatively small space, buttheir 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 thelow grounds from the centre market to Capitol Hill."

Craig R. Scott, CGRS

Arnebeck & McMahon: 6/25/2001 List Editor: Wendy Plotkin Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.

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 andPhiladelphia had to contend with swamps and marshes. Let us suppose, for example, thatPhiladelphia had tried to persuade Congress to stay by immediately expanding so that, likeWashington City, it could have long shorelines along two rivers and offer, like Washington, thousandsof undeveloped lots to speculators with which to raise money to build a magnificent capital. And so itannexed all the land south of the city to the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Thatwould still have made it, I think, a bit smaller than the City of Washington, and certainly that newlyexpanded 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. Thecovering of Dock Creek was heralded as a guarantee of a healthy city. And then the yellow feverepidemics hit. By 1793 Philadelphia had both a busy enough port and enough alleys crowded withpoor people so that yellow fever's origin and spread could be blamed on that. But subsequentepidemics, occurring after those areas were cleaned up, caused some to worry that the marshessouth of the city were to blame, just as, after a 1780 Dengue Fever epidemic, Benjamin Rush blamed

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an increase in fevers on the British for cutting the trees south of the city that protected citizens fromthe noxious air coming from "the Neck," as the area between Southwark and the confluence of therivers was called.

Again, reports on the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s (the founding decade of the City ofWashington) helps us pinpoint the swampy ground of New York City. Dr. Elihu H. Smith began hisreport on the epidemic (published by Noah Webster in "A Collection of Papers on the Subject ofBilious Fever, Prevalent in the United States for a Few Years Past," 1796) by describing the areawhere the fever was most prevalent. This is a fine piece of writing but I'll only quote a brief sentenceto 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 stagnantwater." 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: THROUGHA FIERY TRIAL: BUILDING WASHINGTON 1790-1800 (Madison Books, 1991). Kenneth Bowling'sTHE 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

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 KenJackson's statement, "I have heard New York and Philadelphia called many things over the years, butnever swamps," the first settlers in Philadelphia persisted for several decades in labeling the smalltidal cove a swamp. This was where Penn and others pulled off the Delaware and landed at the BlueAnchor Tavern. Almost as early, it was called the Dock and later Dock Creek. By 1700, it wasdescribed as "an ornament" to the city; around mid-century, Benjamin Franklin sat on a CommonCouncil committee charging with working out a design for restoring it. Before any Europeans had aname for it, the Indians called it the Coocanocon.

For more on Philadelphia's swamp, see my essay, "'Publick Service' versus 'Mans Properties': DockCreek and the Origins of Urban Technology in 18th-Century Philadelphia," in J. McGaw, ed., EARLYAMERICAN 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 thebase of which often lived families of raccoons. I remember joining others to surround such a cypressin the spring, then routing out a family of raccoons and catching baby coons to take home as pets. Iwouldn't feel right doing that now, fifty years later, but I participated then with great enthusiasm.

Michal McMahonDepartment of History

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West Virginia University

Levey: 6/25/2001 From: "Levey, Jane" List Editor: H-DC Editor

Having enjoyed everyone's postings on the swamp issue, I'd like to echo George LaRoche's take. I'dalso like to suggest that the "swamps" were probably situational. That is, at various times largestands of trees and vegetation were cleared for development that didn't happen quickly enoughduring the city's first 60 years or so. The occasional, widespread patches of bare ground (as well asthe unpaved streets) made for marvelous puddles when the weather dictated them, and I wouldsuggest that this was part of the origin of the various "swamp" descriptions.

Jane Freundel Levey

Smith: 6/26/2001 A swamp is characterized by the presence of trees, a marsh is usually associated with a river or inletand mainly has grass

Beyond this is the considerable metaphorical difference between the two - lots of bad things happenin 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 smithPROGRESSIVE REVIEW [email protected]

Lowe: 6/26/2001 To the editor: It seems that many people who read this list interpret swamp to be a derogatory termrather than a merely descriptive one. I had always thought that a swamp was a fresh-water wetlandand a marsh was a salt-water one. Either could be tidal or not. Are there any limnologists out therewho could discuss this for us? And how do swamps and marshes differ from fens or morasses?

No matter what one calls it, we must all agree that Washington had extensive wetlands of varyingdegrees of beauty and smell.

John [email protected]

Ogilvie: 6/26/2001 I guess I have to stick my oar in again. I seem to remember discussing the meaning of swamp inWashington History some years ago. As I remember Dr. Johnson said that it was a word derived from

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Amerindians and meant land too wet to plow. Today we distinguish marsh from swamp primarily onthe basis of the presence of trees in the latter. And, of course, their is a whole classification systemfor wetlands. It seems pointless to try to apply twentieth-century definitions to eighteenth-centuryconcepts. Surely, we can all agree on the fact that there was a great deal of wet land in the federalcity.

Phil Ogilvie

Docktor: 6/26/2001 I was once told that the angle formed by a line from the White House to the Washington Monument tothe Capitol was to be a right angle. However, swampy ground forced the Washington Monument tobe offset to the east.

John W. [email protected] Washington Map Society: http://www.washmap.org/

Clarke: 6/28/2001 Is it true that the Washington Monument was not built on the site of the Jefferson Stone -- the sitewhich marks the exact cross point between the Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the LincolnMemorial, and the Capitol -- because that site was considered not stable enough since it lay onreclaimed swamp land? --Suzanne [email protected]

====================== Scott: 6/28/2001

Webster's dictionary defines swamp as "wet spongy land." The word swamp was a perfectly goodword 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 Engineersdid to the Potomac and Anacostia lowlands around DC from about 1889 to 1912. Then came theenvironmental 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 swampjust 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 shouldremember that in other eras words often had differing connotations and meanings. Gary Scott

Becker: 6/26/2001 From: H-DC Editor

I rather enjoy this discussion about swamps vs. marsh. I would like to share wth you an alternativeinterpretation, open to discussion and to debate. Let me suggest that almost every marshy/swampydescription of Washington, DC, is actually a statement about the city's environmental quality. Most ofthe which describe a Washington as sickly and rather unhealthy. And though this state of morass isattributed to the natural feature of a swamp or marsh, I assert that - the ill health is - in fact created

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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 ofknowledge and greed create periodic environmental crisis and disasters. here's a few examples--justas 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 forfirewood, construction and export trade. There is hardly any original old growth left anywhere in theregion.

3) Tobacco growing, which was the regions primary cash crop up until the late 1700's, ruined thesoil.

4) Slavery contributed to environmental plunder and over consumption. Rather then build modestenergy 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 plantmore.

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 thatsame water for industry and power, Dams interfered with fish migration. Early industrial pollutionfrom plaster mills, and tanneries along with human and animal waste - were dumped directly into thewater. By the 1830's what had once been an abundant supply of fish were no more. Those who drankthe water in some creeks and rivers became ill - many died.

Eddie Becker [email protected]

Richards; 6/27/2001 From: Mark David Richards List Editor: H-DC Editor

It isn't hard to agree that there were marshy lands along parts of the river and along creeks (some ofthis 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 alarge 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 Popewho called his land Rome, ran from the front of where the mishmash of highways and the NavyBureau 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 intothe St. James Creek east of the Capitol (Canal Street?), which went west beside Carrollsburg and into

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the Eastern Branch.

Here is an account by Albert J. Beveridge in his "Life of John Marshall," as quoted in "A Manual onthe 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 swampextended inland from a modest hill on the east to a still lower elevation of land about a mile to thewest. 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 partlyconstructed white stone building, mammoth in plan. The slight elevation north of the wide slough wasthe site of an apparently finished edifice of the same material, noble in its dimension and withbeautiful, simple lines, but 'surrounded with a rough rail fence 5 or 6 feet high unfit for a decentbarnyard.' From the river nothing could be seen beyond the groves near the banks of the streamexcept the two great buildings and the splendid trees which thickened into a seemingly dense forestupon the highest ground to the northwest. On landing and making one's way through the underbrushto the foot of the eastern hill, and up the gullies that seamed its sides thick with trees and tangledwild grapevines, one finally reached the immense unfinished structure that attracted attention fromthe river. Upon its walls laborers were languidly at work. ...

A broad and perfectly straight clearing had been made across the swamp between the eastern hilland the big white house more than a mile away to the westward. In the middle of this long openingran a roadway, full of stumps, broken by deep mud holes in the rainy season, and almost equally deepwith dust when the days were dry. On either border was a path or 'walk' made firm at places bypieces of stone; though even this 'extended but a little way.' Alder bushes grew in the unused spacesof this thoroughfare, and in the depressions stagnant water stood in malarial pools, breeding myriadsof 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 itmore accurate to say the design was laid out or superimposed upon two mapped but mostlyundeve loped towns (Hamburgh /Funks town and Carro l l sburgh) and on theland/pastures/plantations/farms/manors/yards/orchards of 19 landowners between Rock Creek andthe 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 aftercamps.

Maybe there is a parallel between people saying "Washington was built on a swamp," (meaning a lotof the Mall/federal area, not most of Washington City or the District) and people saying "Washingtonis corrupt and out of touch with the rest of America" (meaning "the federal government," rather thanDistrict residents). For most, "Washington" is the federal government, a power that touches everyonein the nation. The rest of the District (the non-federal) is inconsequential for most people who do not

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live here-and is mostly "invisible"!?!

Mark Richards

McShane: 6/28/2001 List Editor: Wendy Plotkin

Posted by Clay Mcshane

Here are the _Oxford English Dictionary_ definitions of swamp and marsh.

Clay McShaneH-Urban WebLinks Editor

"SWAMP

1. a. A tract of low-lying ground in which water collects; a piece of wet spongy ground; a marsh orbog. Orig. and in early use only in the N. American colonies, where it denoted a tract of rich soilhaving 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 moreprofitable than hurtfull. 1685 PENN Further Acc. Pennsylv. 7 Our Swamps or Marshes yeeld uscourse Hay for the Winter. 1688 CLAYTON Virginia in Phil. Trans. XVIII. 124 [Musk-rats] buildHouses 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 withTrees 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 soundand good, but by lying low is covered by water. All the forest trees (pine excepted) thrive best in theswamps, where the soil is always rich. 1875 TEMPLE & SHELDON Hist. Northfield, Mass. 21Swamps.As used by our fathers in the earliest times, this term did not necessarily denote marshyground; but flat land which from its peculiar location had escaped the ravages of the annual fires setby 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 theyear.

c725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) C 140 Calmetum, mersc. 971 Blickl. Gloss. 261/1 On s[a]ltne mersc, in

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salsilaginem. a1250 Owl & Night. 304 Wenestu that haveck bo the worse, Tho crowe bi-grede him bithe mershe? 1382 WYCLIF Gen. xli. 18 Seuen oxen..the which in the pasture of mershe [1388marreis] the grene leswis cheseden. c1475 Pict. Voc. in Wr.-W=FClcker 796/17 Hoc marescum, amerche. 1523 LD. BERNERS Froiss. I. xviii, There were meruaylouse great marshes and daungerouspassages. 1594 SHAKES. Rich. III, V. iii. 345 My Lord, the Enemy is past the Marsh. 1673 TEMPLEObs. United Prov. Wks. 1731 I. 8 By..the Course of Waters from the higher into lower Grounds..theflat Land grows to be a Mixture of Earth and Water,..which is call'd a Marsh. "

LaRoche: 6/30/2001 From: "George S. LaRoche" List Editor: H-DC Editor

No one has suggested in this discussion that the word "swamp" is not a perfectly good word to use todescribe certain physical places. The question I believe we've been discussing is whether it's accurateto 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 ofthe City which includes what I understand physical geographers would call a "swamp" was providedby Craig Scott (this list, June 25?), quoting Joseph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer ofVirginia 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 beingparticularly large, certainly not large enough to cover the place where the City of Washington wasoriginally sited.

As for how lay persons use the word swamp, I'm not as familiar with the original work of thosewriting in the mid-Atlantic colonies/States in the late eighteenth century, as with those writing aboutGeorgia and what became Florida. In all texts I've read, these eighteenth (and seventeenth) centuryauthors were much more likely to label something in the same way as professional physicalgeographers today would label it than we are today, relatively separated as we are today from theland. And as to "swamp," it was used in particular for LARGE areas, such as the Great Dismal Swampof 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 aproblem of those "lay persons" who lived here two hundred years ago. But that doesn't mean thatthey 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'sintention to impress the reader with the terrible conditions into which the author has been forcedthan with an objective desire to describe what's actually here. And yet at the same time, most ofthese 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 forNational Airport (recently albeit temporarily renamed something or other). To have dry land after

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draining it, they would have had to put in a dike along what's now the river bank, for the land was atand below the waterline. But I've come across accounts of trucks and barges being used to bring drysoil 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 builton a swamp? And why is it that so many people still refer to Washington AS a swamp?

George LaRoche

Schrag: 6/30/2001 From: "Zachary M. Schrag" List Editor: H-DC Editor

>Webster's dictionary defines swamp as "wet spongy land.". . .>People who study history should>remember that in other eras words often had differing connotations and>meanings.>

Yes, but we should also recall regional variations. Webster was Connecticut man, who set out tocodify the language as spoken at Yale. I attach the Oxford English Dictionary's entry. Note that the17th and 18th century sources all originate well south of New England and distinguish betweenmarshes and swamps. More recent definitions, such as Webster's and the OED's lead definition, maybe the result of increasing unfamiliarity with swamps, and thus their confusion with marshes.

Zach

Richards: 6/30/2001From: Mark David Richards List Editor: H-DC Editor

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, PennsylvaniaAvenue was still little more than a gash in the landscape. Of the city's 263 private houses - some ofbrick, more of frame - scarcely a dozen faced the Avenue, and most of these were on the north side. Afew lots on the south side had been cleared as lumberyards, but the ground there was low, wet, andswampy, and not an appealing building site. High tide washing into Tiber Creek came to withintwenty-feet of the Avenue itself, and storms regularly brought the water clear across it. Receding, theriver left catfish in the puddles. When the tide was low, small boys waded about in the Tiber, lookingfor 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

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might bring one down with stones. The Mall was a pasture and was generally known as TheCommons; people had already forgotten that it was supposed to be (in the words of L'Enfant) 'apublic walk ... that will give to the city from the very beginning a superior charm over most of thoseof the world.' Certainly it is a measure of the optimism of federal America, as well as of thepersuasiveness of its leaders, that by 1800 more than 2,500 citizens called this unpromising villagehome." (pps. 20-22)

"One stormy night in 1804 (according to this same chronicler), [Christian Hines] the Tiber floodedPennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol gate to above 6th Street. A party of workmen who tried to fordthe flood found themselves over their heads. 'Some caught hold of and supported themselves bybushes, others by the branches of trees, and others, who were able, climbed them.' Among the crowdthat collected was President Jefferson. 'Mr. Jefferson felt such anxiety for these unfortunate men thathe offered fifteen dollars for each person saved, and the use of his horse to any one who would makethe venture to rescue them, but no one attempted it, and they had to remain in their unenviablepositions all night. They could be heard at times calling to each other to know if they were still livingand encouraging each other to hold on until day.' Among them was an elderly carpenter namedBlewer, whose 'pantaloons were torn nearly from his limbs, the skin rubbed off in attempting to climba tree or reach a limb, he being so much fatigued that he would slide down again.' At the first light ofday, 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 wasbeginning to look something like a street." (p. 28)

One resident wrote the Washington City Council: "'I find the communications to and from my houseintercepted by a ditch adjoining the pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue and by a marsh which frontsme on the East. A carriage, a cart, or a single horse cannot pass from the Avenue to my house. It iseven difficult for a person on foot.' (p. 36)

1819: "Pennsylvania Avenue burgeoned with shops, and although no money was voted for itsimprovement and the poplars were not doing well, nobody now could deny that it had many of theaspects of a city street. By this time most of the primeval trees in the vicinity of the Avenue had beencut down. Tree-felling was a source of income for industrious woodsmen, who could cut and saw twoloads of timber a day, selling the chips and bark for kindling. It was true that L'Enfant's plannecessitated the felling of many large trees, but many that could have been pared were set upon bythe 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, aprominent Washingtonian. 'Those trees, those shrubs, those flowers are gone. Man and his workshave displaced the charms of nature ... the whole plain was diversified with groves and clumps offorest trees which gave it the appearance of a fine park. such as grew on the public grounds ought tohave been preserved, but in a government such as ours, where the people are sovereign, this couldnot be done." An Englishman who visited the city in 1816 noted how unfortunate it was not to havesaved more trees. 'How agreeable would have been their shade along the Pennsylvania Avenue wherethe dust so often annoys, and the summer sun, reflected from the sandy soil, is so oppressive. TheLombardy poplar, which now supplies their place, serves more for ornament than shelter." (p. 41)

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"L'Enfant had called for connecting Tiber Creek by canal with another creek that debouched into theEastern 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 fromthe Eastern Branch to the Tiber at about 3rd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. The waterway wouldenable barges to carry produce to the center of town, particularly to the Center Market, whichoccupied the area south of Pennsylvania Avenue where the National Archives building now stands. Itwas opened for business in 1815; however, it was never the stimulating success that its backers hadhoped for. It was not deep enough and had to be dredged continually not only for silt but also forrefuse dumped into the canal at the Center Market and Fish Market. Meantime, where the Tiber andits tributary creeks crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, substantial wooden bridges had been put up toreplace the perilous rough logs of an earlier day. There was no public transportation on the Avenueuntil 1830. The poor walked, the moderately well-to-do when by hack, and the rich had their owncarriages. Nobody, however, was safe from mud, dust, and wind on Pennsylvania Avenue. JohnQuincy Adams, while he was Secretary of State in the Monroe administration, noted in his diary, 'Ourcarriage in coming for us was overset, the harness broken. We got home with difficulty, twice beingon the point of oversetting, and at the Treasury office we were both obliged to get out in the mud. Itwas a mercy that we all got home with whole bones.' (pps. 42-43)

Mark David Richards, Sociologist, [email protected]

Hastings: 7/2/2001List Editor: Wendy Plotkin Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.

Posted by Dorian Hastings

New Orleans is definitely built in a swamp! The French Quarter was the only high ground (11 feetabove 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 tobuild houses in town. Following the French and Indian War, France ceded Louisiana west of theMississippi 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, filledin, 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 ]

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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 1annual economic reports for the city, published each year in the DAILY PICAYUNE of New Orleansusually devote several pages to real estate development. I've looked at the years from about 1899 toabout 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 reportfor 1909 mentions the "impenetrable" brush and the sunning alligators that travelers on theexcursion train can view on their way to the pleasure palaces along the lakefront.

Dorian HastingsPh.D. CandidateUniversity of New Orleans

Hawkins: 7/17/2001 From: [email protected] List Editor: H-DC Editor

I'm sorry to be so late entering into the discussion of this subject. I've been studying the locations ofthe swamps of Washington for over twenty years while reconstructing the region's eighteenth centurygeography in map form. Though the many literary sources of information are interesting, the easewith which they may be interpreted to fit the analyst's predilections has become obvious in theforegoing exchanges. There is another body of evidence in the form of drawings, maps, plats, surveysand 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 theeighteenth century:

1) Northward from 18th and R, nearly to Florida Ave.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.

These areas add up to a minimum of about 100 acres of swamp in the city. With an original projectedurban area of 6100 acres, the swamps were approximately 1.6% of the total. I have left out ofconsideration the many acres of tidal wetlands on the edges of the rivers and creeks which wereeither seasonal or peripheral. Those listed were permanent conditions in the natural landscape. Thecharacter of the land that would become the city changed radically as it was developed through the

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nineteenth century. New swamps came into existence and old ones were drained or filled. Eventualythey all disappeared, leaving the question, "Was Washington built on a swamp?" to which theaccurate 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 preliminaryfindings.

Don [email protected]

Fletcher; 7/19/2001 From: Carlton Fletcher List Editor: H-DC Editor

Don Hawkins demonstrates the clarifying power of quantification: one hundred soggy acres, sixthousand dry. (One question: Black Duck Gut?)

[text deleted--start of a new thread]

Carlton Fletcher

[TheMail--Richards: 8/24/2001] From: H-DC Editor List Editor: H-DC Editor [from http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2001/01-08-22.htm -- the current issue of theMail]

Water and Sewer

Mark Richards, Dupont East, [email protected]

In the recent floods, some District residents learned a bit about the water and sewer system. Heressome 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 thattime, water was brought to federal buildings from a spring two miles north of the capitol and fromsprings in Franklin Park. As the population grew and water supplies became tighter, some residentstapped into the federal flow. Until 1850, the sewers from the White House and federal buildings inthat area drained onto the mall where the flow stagnated and made a marsh. (Now you know the realreason people imagined a "swamp" there.) In 1851, sewers were directed down 17th Street to thecanal. The sewers from the post-office and patent office crossed 9th St. and dumped into a branch ofthe Tiber Creek. City leaders were concerned because the waterways were unfenced and peopleoccasionally fell in. The city first built sewers for drainage purposes by enclosing open streams into

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brick conduits. In 1860, a third of Washington City sewage drained into the city canal through thesesurface 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 inthe building. Bryan says the relative good health of the city was because residents used the boxrather 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 "agriculturalpurposes." (Yards in these areas may have mighty rich soil!)

Between 1853 and 1863, the Washington Aqueduct System -- composed of a conduit, twosedimentation reservoirs, and water mains -- was constructed. Montgomery C. Meigs of the US ArmyCorps 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. TheAqueduct 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 theBoard 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 SouthCapitol to the Anacostia River. The Army Corps added the McMillan Park Reservoir and theWashington City Tunnel (10 meters in diameter and 4 miles long) between 1882 and 1902. In 1905, aslow-sand water-filtration method was added at the McMillan Reservoir, and additional improvementswere continually made. In 1918 the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) was formedafter DC residents had started complaining about fouling streams within the Nations Capital by wastefrom Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties (http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/about/history.html). Overthe years, a regional system was developed. According to Dr. Myron Uman, until 1938 when the BluePlains 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 wasoverburdened 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 wasimproved and recreational boating and bass fish returned to the river. By the early 1980s, bottomvegetation returned and fish populations increased.

Matthew GilmoreH-DC