Three Maps
June 1791 In "Through a Fiery Trial", Bob Arnebeck writes, "The president returned to Mt. Vernon in early June (1791)... L'Enfant did hand-deliver his plan on June 22nd, but the president did not elaborate on it in his diary". Stephenson suggests that this map is lost, but I suspect that it is the March drawings that are missing. The Library of Congress number for this print is ct000512. The Library of Congress attributes this map to L'Enfant. The text in the oval in the upper left hand corner of this map reads, "Plan of the city, intended for the permanent seat of government of the United States". L'Enfant's June 22 report to the President opens with these words, "In framing the plan, here anexed (attached), for the Intended federal City". Later he writes, "reflecting it is that of the Intended City". The text on the map matches that in the report. [Ellicott uses the phrase "Plan of the City of Washington in the District of Columbia" in his 1792 maps.] Speaking of this plan at Suter's tavern on June 29th the President suggests that it is just a first draft, that there would be fewer diagonals in the finished product, and that the White House would be moved to the west for the advantage of higher ground. Below we see Massachusetts Avenue highlighted in red; note the radical bend in that. Note as well how busy it is; it appears to be the map from which diagonals were taken. One has to ask why, if L'Enfant went to the trouble to produce the map above that included plans for filling in the Tiber Creek, did he not just go ahead and fill in the area for the Jefferson Memorial location at the same time? It doesn't require much imagination to extend 16th St a little bit along with Maryland Avenue which runs southwest from the Capitol Building to that location. Beyond that, the only other thing that the McMillan Commission added to this plan was the Lincoln Memorial. August 1791: The Dotted Line Map On August 18th, 1791, Thomas Jeffreson sent a letter to Pierre L'Enfant concerning the planning map, which read, in part: "A person applied to me the other day on the subject of engraving a map of the federal territory. I observed to him that if yourself or Mr. Ellicott chose to have this done, you would have the best right to it -- do either of you intend this?" The following day L'Enfant wrote a letter to George Washington which was accompanied by his latest draft of the planning map (below), which had, in L'Enfant's words, been "altered agreeable to your direction", and which he referred to as "the anexced map of doted lines". In the Library of Congress Map Collection we find a map labeled "Dotted line map of Washington, D.C., 1791, before Aug. 19th" (numbered ct000301), the notes for which read, "Accompanied by positive and negative photocopies of L'Enfant's letter to George Washington, Aug. 19, 1791, the original in the L'Enfant papers". Ovason refers to this as "The badly faded map of the future capital of the United States, attributed with good reason to L'Enfant and drawn about August 1791". Click for a larger version of the map. Note that the comment about the draft having been altered, points 1) to an earlier version of the plan (the June map), and 2) to Washington's having provided feedback concerning that earlier map. Below you can see that Mass Ave has been straightened in the dotted line map. Notice how this is a real features map rather than a future plan like the June map. Imagine it to be composed of two layers, one being a topographic map of the area in 1791, the other is the street plan for the city. The Current Configuration Actually it's the 1818 King Map of the city, but I like to use it instead of Ellicott's map because he included the landscaping around the axial crossing like L'Enfant did in his June map. As you can see above, the King map is also a 'real features' map of the region and works well when compared to the dotted line map, which we will now do. First we emphasize some features in the King map. Here we have done the same to the dotted-line map. This image shows the line map overlaid on the King map. As you see, they are a pretty good match to one another, and there are very few differences to account for the changes that Ellicott supposedly made to L'Enfant's plan. Mainly some squares have been removed. This shows a continuity between the line map and the current DC layout. It should now be clear that the changes made to the map, were not made by Ellicott after he replaced L'Enfant in the task of preparing the planning map for printing, but were adjustments that L'Enfant made to an earlier version of his own map at the request of GW. When Washington saw the changes that L'Enfant had made to the map in August, he asked him to see about getting the finished map engraved, which never happened, but if you compare Ellicott's plan below to the first L'Enfant plan at the top of the page, you will see that they are quite similar, and that the Ellicott map incorporates the changes made in the August drawing. Note how much simpler this map is than the June map. It is as if the fog cleared in July and early August. Ovason On pages 42 and 59 Ovason talks about two maps. He is comparing the map with the oval at the top (on his page 41 and 42) and the dotted line map. That is, Ovason actually compares two versions of L'Enfant's map, not a L'Enfant and an Ellicott map. Ovason is from the 'Ellicott made changes to L'Enfant's map' group, and uses a comparison of the dotted line map and the map with the oval to prove this fact. Instead of realizing that the oval map was the first map that was revised by the dotted line map, he proclaims that it is Ellicottt's version of the map. He attributes the differences to changes made by Ellicott. Stephenson Stephenson suggests that the June map is lost, that two maps were delivered in August (even though only one is mentioned in the report) and one of those is presumably lost too, and that the line drawing was produced in December by Benjamin Ellicott on behalf of L'Enfant. The problem with this story is that after the President saw the August ammendments to the June drawing he approved the plnn to be engraved; that is he was looking for a version of the map that looked like the June map, only different- like the Ellicott map. Decemeber would have been a little late in the game to be producing rough drawings. The commissioners had asked for a map with street names and lot number for the October auction but never got it. Continue

Three Maps

June 1791

In "Through a Fiery Trial", Bob Arnebeck writes, "The president returned to Mt. Vernon in early June (1791)... L'Enfant did hand-deliver his plan on June 22nd, but the president did not elaborate on it in his diary". Stephenson suggests that this map is lost, but I suspect that it is the March drawings that are missing.
The Library of Congress number for this print is ct000512. The Library of Congress attributes this map to L'Enfant.

The text in the oval in the upper left hand corner of this map reads, "Plan of the city, intended for the permanent seat of government of the United States". L'Enfant's June 22 report to the President opens with these words, "In framing the plan, here anexed (attached), for the Intended federal City". Later he writes, "reflecting it is that of the Intended City". The text on the map matches that in the report. [Ellicott uses the phrase "Plan of the City of Washington in the District of Columbia" in his 1792 maps.]

Speaking of this plan at Suter's tavern on June 29th the President suggests that it is just a first draft, that there would be fewer diagonals in the finished product, and that the White House would be moved to the west for the advantage of higher ground. Below we see Massachusetts Avenue highlighted in red; note the radical bend in that. Note as well how busy it is; it appears to be the map from which diagonals were taken.

One has to ask why, if L'Enfant went to the trouble to produce the map above that included plans for filling in the Tiber Creek, did he not just go ahead and fill in the area for the Jefferson Memorial location at the same time? It doesn't require much imagination to extend 16th St a little bit along with Maryland Avenue which runs southwest from the Capitol Building to that location. Beyond that, the only other thing that the McMillan Commission added to this plan was the Lincoln Memorial.

August 1791: The Dotted Line Map
On August 18th, 1791, Thomas Jeffreson sent a letter to Pierre L'Enfant concerning the planning map, which read, in part:
"A person applied to me the other day on the subject of engraving a map of the federal territory. I observed to him that if yourself or Mr. Ellicott chose to have this done, you would have the best right to it -- do either of you intend this?"
The following day L'Enfant wrote a letter to George Washington which was accompanied by his latest draft of the planning map (below), which had, in L'Enfant's words, been "altered agreeable to your direction", and which he referred to as "the anexced map of doted lines".
In the Library of Congress Map Collection we find a map labeled "Dotted line map of Washington, D.C., 1791, before Aug. 19th" (numbered ct000301), the notes for which read, "Accompanied by positive and negative photocopies of L'Enfant's letter to George Washington, Aug. 19, 1791, the original in the L'Enfant papers". Ovason refers to this as "The badly faded map of the future capital of the United States, attributed with good reason to L'Enfant and drawn about August 1791".

Click for a larger version of the map.
Note that the comment about the draft having been altered, points 1) to an earlier version of the plan (the June map), and 2) to Washington's having provided feedback concerning that earlier map. Below you can see that Mass Ave has been straightened in the dotted line map.

Notice how this is a real features map rather than a future plan like the June map. Imagine it to be composed of two layers, one being a topographic map of the area in 1791, the other is the street plan for the city.

The Current Configuration

Actually it's the 1818 King Map of the city, but I like to use it instead of Ellicott's map because he included the landscaping around the axial crossing like L'Enfant did in his June map. As you can see above, the King map is also a 'real features' map of the region and works well when compared to the dotted line map, which we will now do. First we emphasize some features in the King map.

Here we have done the same to the dotted-line map.

This image shows the line map overlaid on the King map.

As you see, they are a pretty good match to one another, and there are very few differences to account for the changes that Ellicott supposedly made to L'Enfant's plan. Mainly some squares have been removed. This shows a continuity between the line map and the current DC layout. It should now be clear that the changes made to the map, were not made by Ellicott after he replaced L'Enfant in the task of preparing the planning map for printing, but were adjustments that L'Enfant made to an earlier version of his own map at the request of GW.
When Washington saw the changes that L'Enfant had made to the map in August, he asked him to see about getting the finished map engraved, which never happened, but if you compare Ellicott's plan below to the first L'Enfant plan at the top of the page, you will see that they are quite similar, and that the Ellicott map incorporates the changes made in the August drawing. Note how much simpler this map is than the June map. It is as if the fog cleared in July and early August.

Ovason
On pages 42 and 59 Ovason talks about two maps. He is comparing the map with the oval at the top (on his page 41 and 42) and the dotted line map. That is, Ovason actually compares two versions of L'Enfant's map, not a L'Enfant and an Ellicott map. Ovason is from the 'Ellicott made changes to L'Enfant's map' group, and uses a comparison of the dotted line map and the map with the oval to prove this fact. Instead of realizing that the oval map was the first map that was revised by the dotted line map, he proclaims that it is Ellicottt's version of the map. He attributes the differences to changes made by Ellicott.

Stephenson
Stephenson suggests that the June map is lost, that two maps were delivered in August (even though only one is mentioned in the report) and one of those is presumably lost too, and that the line drawing was produced in December by Benjamin Ellicott on behalf of L'Enfant. The problem with this story is that after the President saw the August ammendments to the June drawing he approved the plnn to be engraved; that is he was looking for a version of the map that looked like the June map, only different- like the Ellicott map. Decemeber would have been a little late in the game to be producing rough drawings. The commissioners had asked for a map with street names and lot number for the October auction but never got it.

Continue