Two Maps See a chronology of DC Maps
On Jan 22, 1791 George Washington named the three planning commissioners, and on Jan 24 he informed Congress that he had designated the area between (and including) Georgetown and the Eastern Branch of the Potomac as the new federal district, (meaning an area surrounding 1200 acres that he owned there, Arnebeck p33). Next he put his secretary of state Thomas Jefferson in charge of the project. In early February Jefferson sends Andrew Ellicott, the geographer general of the United States, to layout the boundary of the ten by ten mile square. In March Washington has Jefferson send L'Enfant "to the city to begin mapping the lands along the Eastern Branch". By June 22, 1791, the first draft of the historic plan was ready. "He (L'Enfant) presented three reports to Washington, the first, giving only his general ideas, before the end of March, the second in June, the last in August, the two latter accompanied with plans, the last of which being the one which was followed in the building of the city." [p. 17. Elizabeth S. Kite, "L'Enfant and Washington 1791-1792"] Simply stated this means that the second and third L'Enfant 'reports' to Washington (those delivered in June and August) were accompanied by copies of planning maps and implies that the August plan was the one used in the building of the city. We are told that L'Enfant was fired from his job for not producing a map that included street names and lot numbers, which Washington and the planning comissioners needed in order to begin selling land there, so that they could raise money for the building project. When the comissioners, Washington and Jefferson tired of L'Enfant's "foot dragging", they fired him and put Ellicott in charge of the task of producing printed copies of the map. It took Ellicott and his brother Benjamin three weeks to finish a copy of the map divided into numbered lots. The involvement of the Ellicott's raised questions about who was responsible for what in the completed map, and opinions differ as to the extent of Ellicot's involvement. If you have read much about DC history you may know that L'Enfant delivered his first copy of the plan to G Washington in June of 1791, and he delivered the second draft, what has come to be known as 'the dotted-line drawing' in a letter to GW posted on Aug 19, 1791. He produced subsequent plans that were deemed not to be suitable by the city commissioners (in part) because they didn't feature lot numbers which were needed for the auctioning of land. Following his dismissal Andrew Ellicott and his brother Benjamin produced two different maps, one of which showed depths for the Potomac River at the request of T. Jefferson. Unfortunately, in "The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital", David Ovason reduces the number of maps produced to two, one by Pierre L'Enfant and one by Andrew Ellicott and incorrectly attributes L'Enfant's first draft (pictured on page 42 of "Secret Architecture") as Ellicott's final revision of L'Enfant's plan. I will repeat that: the image on page 42 of "S. A." that Ovason attributes to Ellicott was in fact L'Enfant's first (June) draft of the planning map. He works backwards from L'E's later drafts to the former, and attributes the differences that we see to changes made by Ellicott, putting the 'horse before the cart' so to speak. All one has to do is compare the map on page 42 to the current (or a later) map to see the folly in this. Logic tells us that Ellicott's revision of L'Enfant's map would closely resemble the later DC layout- that is, the latest map should most closely resemble the real map. The corollary of this is that the planning map found to be the most different from the current map is, in all likelihood, the oldest map, which we know to have been delivered to GW in June of 1791. Street Names and Lot Numbers Ovason compares the supposed L'Enfant and Ellicott's maps thusly on page 42 of "Secret Architecture": "One distinction between the two early maps is that L'Enfant's plan shows no street names, while the plan which Ellicott drew up, after L'Enfant's dismissal from the project, gives names to the avenues and numbers the lots." And on page 59, he states categorically that: "This second map (which I have reproduced on p 42) was made after L'Enfant's dismissal from service, and was in fact an ammended version of his own, printed on behalf of Ellicott, in March 1792. Detailed comparisons have been made between the two maps, and it is quite clear that Ellicott amended many aspects of the original design -- changing such things as the angles of avenues and the locations of squares and circles." Elsewhere people are more specific, suggesting that "Ellicott changed the alignment of Massachusetts Avenue, eliminated five short radial avenues, added two short radial avenues southeast and southwest of the Capitol, and named the city streets." [You should note that in "Through a Fiery Trial", Bob Arnebeck writes,"The day after the September 8 (1791) meeting the commissioner's wrote to L'Enfant informing him of the city's name and the system for naming the streets." (pp. 61-2) "As for the streets, those running east and west would be designated by letters, those running north and south by numbers." (page 60). Ellicott did not take over the job of preparing the map for engraving until Feb 1792, and did not name the streets.] Again, Ovason asserts that Ellicottt's version of the map 1) gives names to the avenues and numbers the lots, and 2) shows changes in the angles of avenues (plural) and the locations of squares and circles. He does not show us the 'first' map so that we might compare. The Page 42 Map This is the a copy of the map image that Ovason shows on page 42, to which I have added one line marking Massachusetts Avenue (Ellicott is supposed to have re-aligned it), to show the bend or crook in that. Note 1) the spelling of Potomac with a "W" and a "C", 2) how buisy the map is, 3) how the pentagram in the north-west quadrant is ill-formed, and 4) the fact that this map features neither street names nor lot numbers, yet this is supposed to be Ellicott's revised map which features street names. Something is clearly wrong here, in that Ovason's arguement depends on showing a map with street names and lot numbers yet he points us to a map with neither. Your homewerk task is to find a copy of a 1792 era planning map that does feature street names and lot numbers, produced by Ellicott or by others. [Hint: see page 2 of "Secret Architecture"] Next locate the Capitol Building and lot 666 on the map. Jefferey Meyer includes a copy of the above image on page 24 of "Myths in Stone", identifying it as "L'Enfant's original ideas" (p23). This same map can be found facing page 374 in Arnebeck's book where he describes it as "Pierre L'Enfant's plan dancing with diagonal avenues". Speaking to the complexity of the plan Arnebeck recommends that "those who had to survey and build the city found it a maddening blueprint even after it was simplified by Andrew Ellicott"; which sounds funny because Ellicott was the one surveying it. The point is that Arnebeck appears to be buying into the notion that Ellicott worked on and changed this map, which he says is L'Enfant's. Note that Arnebeck is saying the opposite of what Ovason is claiming, that the 'buisy' image above is L'Enfant's plan that was later 'simplified' by Andrew Ellicott. Ovason's claim means that Ellicott changed Mass Ave to the bend that we see above, while what Arnebeck says means that Ellicott modified it from the condition above. Peter Charles L'Enfant Here is a copy of the full map image that Ovason is using on page 42; the Library of Congress number for this print is ct000512; you can click the link or the image below to see the listing of that print there. The Library of Congress attributes this map to L'Enfant. You may note that the above map image bears this inscription in the upper left hand corner. You can clearly see the name of Peter (the English equivalent of Pierre) Charles L'Enfant. The Library of Congress notes for this print reads, "Includes text, indexed "References," and photocopied newspaper article titled "New City of Washington," from the 'Gazette of the United States', Philadelphia, Jan. 4, 1792, which was before L'Enfant was suspended from the project in February of 1792. Remember that Ellicott claimed the map was "printed on behalf of Ellicott, in March 1792". The Later DC Map Layout The implication of the foregoing statements by Ovason is that, 1) Ellicot mades changes to L'Enfant's design 2) resulting in the image shown above, and 3) that was the image that was used as the guide for the layout of the new capital city. Presumably this would mean that the above image would match the later DC map layout. There is just one problem with that, the above image bears no resemblance to later maps of Washington, DC, as you can see from this map (below) made by Robert King in 1818. Note especially 1) the difference in Massacheusetts Avenue in yellow below (which is practically straight in this image), 2) how much cleaner (less buisy, simplified) this map is that the previous one, and 3) how articulated the pentagram is. Note that the articualtion of the pentaram results from the changed alignment of Mass Ave, as well as the elimination of some radial avenues that is credited to Ellicott above. Click for a larger image. The map reproduced on page 42 of Ovason's book does not produce this layout. It becomes clear that, instead of the map being altered To the image on page 42, it was altered From that image to this one; the question is, by whom? Arnebeck claims that Ellicott simplified the plan shown on page 42. Ellicott's Changes? All of this, of course has been leading up to one idea that is on Ovason's mind; he wants to establish that it was Ellicott who somehow not only took charge of printing the map after L'Enfant, but that he was the one responsible for major features of the plan, inspite of the fact that he says early on in the book, "It is no longer possible for us to determine with any certainty... whether it was the surveyor Ellicott or the designer L'Enfant, who was responsible for the arcane significance of the city". [Ovason p45] This does not however keep him from speculating. "In view of this, my suspicion is that it was Ellicott who laid down the orientations to the sunset and to the stars, which we are about to examine." (p333) This of course refers to Pennsylvania Avenue. "From reading into reports and letters of those early days, I am left with the conviction that it was Andrew Ellicott who laid out the important direction of Pennsylvania Avenue, and linked it with the stars. In the course of doing this he ammended to a small degree the plan proposed by L'Enfant". [Ov p. 382] This suggests that Ellicott altered the alignment of Penn Ave, and that Penn Ave should look different in the L'E and Ellicot maps. You may note that the cornerstone of Ovason's arguement is his attribution of L'Enfant's June 22 plan to Ellicott- "a more famous map which is often (though wrongly) called the L'Enfant map". (p 59) But he's got the wrong image; the page 42 map really is L'Enfant's. The Dotted Line Map: August 1791 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". The comment by L'Enfant about the draft having been altered, points 1) to an earlier version of the map, and 2) to Washington's having provided feedback concerning that earlier map. 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". Note that this map is a real-features map, like the King map and topo map above, and does not include future planning like the page 42 map. Click for a larger image. In "Through a Fiery Trial", Bob Arnebeck writes, "The president returned to Mt. Vernon in early June (1791)... (and) L'Enfant did hand-deliver his plan on June 22nd, but the president did not elaborate on it in his diary". I suggest that this is the map which Ovason presents on page 42 of "Secret Architecture", which features a bent Mass Ave. Later he says that the president "thought the revised plan L'Enfant unveiled suitable for engraving and asked L'Enfant to see to it".( p 59) This is the dotted-line map from August '91. It appears that the two maps to which Ovason refers in the book are L'Enfant's first draft (reproduced on p 42) and the faded 'dotted-line map' of August 1791 to which he alludes. Subsequent maps were plan style (with the creek filled in), but which reflected the revisions made in the dotted-line map. As you can see the line map is a minimalist plan, showing topographic features of the area, and not really suitable for planning use; ie, it does not show lot numbers or streets, etc. Compare If we follow Ovason's logic of labeling the dotted line map as the "first" DC planning map, then it might seem plausable that the latter map was an alteration of that; but as we saw, earlier, the page 42 map, which Ovason attributes to Ellicott, features a crooked Mass. Ave., and does not match up with the 1818 Robert King version of the DC map, or with the current layout in which the avenue is pretty much straight. What if Ovason has "put the cart before the horse", and the line map was, as it says in L'Enfant's letter to Washington (Aug 19,1791), an ammended version of the page 42 map? The only thing left to be done would be to transfer the changes on the line map to the page 42 map form and add lot numbers, which is what the Ellicotts did. A casual comparison of the page 42 map and the King (1818) map shows that changes were made to the former. Let us now compare the dotted line map with King's map. In this image, we have emphasized some of the existing elements in that. 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 with the current DC layout, and implies that, if any thing, the map Ovason presents was altered to produce the line map which we know to be L'Enfant's. Arnebeck (page 374) suggests that it was Ellicott who simplified the page 42 map, but the dotted-line drawing appears to show that it was L'Enfant who made the changes, not Ellicott. Note especially that Massachusetts Ave is straightened in the line drawing from the crooked version on page 42, meaning that it was L'Enfant who straightened that and not Ellicott. What we see on page 42 is the early draft of L'Enfant's plan, which is the only one that differs from all the others, including the current configuration. Continue

Two Maps

See a chronology of DC Maps

On Jan 22, 1791 George Washington named the three planning commissioners, and on Jan 24 he informed Congress that he had designated the area between (and including) Georgetown and the Eastern Branch of the Potomac as the new federal district, (meaning an area surrounding 1200 acres that he owned there, Arnebeck p33).
Next he put his secretary of state Thomas Jefferson in charge of the project. In early February Jefferson sends Andrew Ellicott, the geographer general of the United States, to layout the boundary of the ten by ten mile square. In March Washington has Jefferson send L'Enfant "to the city to begin mapping the lands along the Eastern Branch". By June 22, 1791, the first draft of the historic plan was ready.
"He (L'Enfant) presented three reports to Washington, the first, giving only his general ideas, before the end of March, the second in June, the last in August, the two latter accompanied with plans, the last of which being the one which was followed in the building of the city." [p. 17. Elizabeth S. Kite, "L'Enfant and Washington 1791-1792"] Simply stated this means that the second and third L'Enfant 'reports' to Washington (those delivered in June and August) were accompanied by copies of planning maps and implies that the August plan was the one used in the building of the city.

We are told that L'Enfant was fired from his job for not producing a map that included street names and lot numbers, which Washington and the planning comissioners needed in order to begin selling land there, so that they could raise money for the building project. When the comissioners, Washington and Jefferson tired of L'Enfant's "foot dragging", they fired him and put Ellicott in charge of the task of producing printed copies of the map. It took Ellicott and his brother Benjamin three weeks to finish a copy of the map divided into numbered lots.

The involvement of the Ellicott's raised questions about who was responsible for what in the completed map, and opinions differ as to the extent of Ellicot's involvement.

If you have read much about DC history you may know that L'Enfant delivered his first copy of the plan to G Washington in June of 1791, and he delivered the second draft, what has come to be known as 'the dotted-line drawing' in a letter to GW posted on Aug 19, 1791. He produced subsequent plans that were deemed not to be suitable by the city commissioners (in part) because they didn't feature lot numbers which were needed for the auctioning of land. Following his dismissal Andrew Ellicott and his brother Benjamin produced two different maps, one of which showed depths for the Potomac River at the request of T. Jefferson.

Unfortunately, in "The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital", David Ovason reduces the number of maps produced to two, one by Pierre L'Enfant and one by Andrew Ellicott and incorrectly attributes L'Enfant's first draft (pictured on page 42 of "Secret Architecture") as Ellicott's final revision of L'Enfant's plan.
I will repeat that: the image on page 42 of "S. A." that Ovason attributes to Ellicott was in fact L'Enfant's first (June) draft of the planning map. He works backwards from L'E's later drafts to the former, and attributes the differences that we see to changes made by Ellicott, putting the 'horse before the cart' so to speak.

All one has to do is compare the map on page 42 to the current (or a later) map to see the folly in this. Logic tells us that Ellicott's revision of L'Enfant's map would closely resemble the later DC layout- that is, the latest map should most closely resemble the real map. The corollary of this is that the planning map found to be the most different from the current map is, in all likelihood, the oldest map, which we know to have been delivered to GW in June of 1791.

Street Names and Lot Numbers
Ovason compares the supposed L'Enfant and Ellicott's maps thusly on page 42 of "Secret Architecture":

"One distinction between the two early maps is that L'Enfant's plan shows no street names, while the plan which Ellicott drew up, after L'Enfant's dismissal from the project, gives names to the avenues and numbers the lots."
And on page 59, he states categorically that:

"This second map (which I have reproduced on p 42) was made after L'Enfant's dismissal from service, and was in fact an ammended version of his own, printed on behalf of Ellicott, in March 1792. Detailed comparisons have been made between the two maps, and it is quite clear that Ellicott amended many aspects of the original design -- changing such things as the angles of avenues and the locations of squares and circles."

Elsewhere people are more specific, suggesting that "Ellicott changed the alignment of Massachusetts Avenue, eliminated five short radial avenues, added two short radial avenues southeast and southwest of the Capitol, and named the city streets."
[You should note that in "Through a Fiery Trial", Bob Arnebeck writes,"The day after the September 8 (1791) meeting the commissioner's wrote to L'Enfant informing him of the city's name and the system for naming the streets." (pp. 61-2) "As for the streets, those running east and west would be designated by letters, those running north and south by numbers." (page 60). Ellicott did not take over the job of preparing the map for engraving until Feb 1792, and did not name the streets.]
Again, Ovason asserts that Ellicottt's version of the map 1) gives names to the avenues and numbers the lots, and 2) shows changes in the angles of avenues (plural) and the locations of squares and circles. He does not show us the 'first' map so that we might compare.

The Page 42 Map
This is the a copy of the map image that Ovason shows on page 42, to which I have added one line marking Massachusetts Avenue (Ellicott is supposed to have re-aligned it), to show the bend or crook in that. Note 1) the spelling of Potomac with a "W" and a "C", 2) how buisy the map is, 3) how the pentagram in the north-west quadrant is ill-formed, and 4) the fact that this map features neither street names nor lot numbers, yet this is supposed to be Ellicott's revised map which features street names.

Something is clearly wrong here, in that Ovason's arguement depends on showing a map with street names and lot numbers yet he points us to a map with neither. Your homewerk task is to find a copy of a 1792 era planning map that does feature street names and lot numbers, produced by Ellicott or by others. [Hint: see page 2 of "Secret Architecture"] Next locate the Capitol Building and lot 666 on the map.
Jefferey Meyer includes a copy of the above image on page 24 of "Myths in Stone", identifying it as "L'Enfant's original ideas" (p23). This same map can be found facing page 374 in Arnebeck's book where he describes it as "Pierre L'Enfant's plan dancing with diagonal avenues". Speaking to the complexity of the plan Arnebeck recommends that "those who had to survey and build the city found it a maddening blueprint even after it was simplified by Andrew Ellicott"; which sounds funny because Ellicott was the one surveying it. The point is that Arnebeck appears to be buying into the notion that Ellicott worked on and changed this map, which he says is L'Enfant's.

Note that Arnebeck is saying the opposite of what Ovason is claiming, that the 'buisy' image above is L'Enfant's plan that was later 'simplified' by Andrew Ellicott. Ovason's claim means that Ellicott changed Mass Ave to the bend that we see above, while what Arnebeck says means that Ellicott modified it from the condition above.

Peter Charles L'Enfant
Here is a copy of the full map image that Ovason is using on page 42; the Library of Congress number for this print is ct000512; you can click the link or the image below to see the listing of that print there. The Library of Congress attributes this map to L'Enfant.

You may note that the above map image bears this inscription in the upper left hand corner. You can clearly see the name of Peter (the English equivalent of Pierre) Charles L'Enfant.

The Library of Congress notes for this print reads, "Includes text, indexed "References," and photocopied newspaper article titled "New City of Washington," from the 'Gazette of the United States', Philadelphia, Jan. 4, 1792, which was before L'Enfant was suspended from the project in February of 1792. Remember that Ellicott claimed the map was "printed on behalf of Ellicott, in March 1792".

The Later DC Map Layout
The implication of the foregoing statements by Ovason is that, 1) Ellicot mades changes to L'Enfant's design 2) resulting in the image shown above, and 3) that was the image that was used as the guide for the layout of the new capital city. Presumably this would mean that the above image would match the later DC map layout.
There is just one problem with that, the above image bears no resemblance to later maps of Washington, DC, as you can see from this map (below) made by Robert King in 1818. Note especially 1) the difference in Massacheusetts Avenue in yellow below (which is practically straight in this image), 2) how much cleaner (less buisy, simplified) this map is that the previous one, and 3) how articulated the pentagram is.
Note that the articualtion of the pentaram results from the changed alignment of Mass Ave, as well as the elimination of some radial avenues that is credited to Ellicott above.

Click for a larger image.
The map reproduced on page 42 of Ovason's book does not produce this layout. It becomes clear that, instead of the map being altered To the image on page 42, it was altered From that image to this one; the question is, by whom? Arnebeck claims that Ellicott simplified the plan shown on page 42.

Ellicott's Changes?
All of this, of course has been leading up to one idea that is on Ovason's mind; he wants to establish that it was Ellicott who somehow not only took charge of printing the map after L'Enfant, but that he was the one responsible for major features of the plan, inspite of the fact that he says early on in the book, "It is no longer possible for us to determine with any certainty... whether it was the surveyor Ellicott or the designer L'Enfant, who was responsible for the arcane significance of the city". [Ovason p45] This does not however keep him from speculating.
"In view of this, my suspicion is that it was Ellicott who laid down the orientations to the sunset and to the stars, which we are about to examine." (p333) This of course refers to Pennsylvania Avenue.
"From reading into reports and letters of those early days, I am left with the conviction that it was Andrew Ellicott who laid out the important direction of Pennsylvania Avenue, and linked it with the stars. In the course of doing this he ammended to a small degree the plan proposed by L'Enfant". [Ov p. 382] This suggests that Ellicott altered the alignment of Penn Ave, and that Penn Ave should look different in the L'E and Ellicot maps.

You may note that the cornerstone of Ovason's arguement is his attribution of L'Enfant's June 22 plan to Ellicott- "a more famous map which is often (though wrongly) called the L'Enfant map". (p 59) But he's got the wrong image; the page 42 map really is L'Enfant's.

The Dotted Line Map: August 1791
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". The comment by L'Enfant about the draft having been altered, points 1) to an earlier version of the map, and 2) to Washington's having provided feedback concerning that earlier map.
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".
Note that this map is a real-features map, like the King map and topo map above, and does not include future planning like the page 42 map.

Click for a larger image.

In "Through a Fiery Trial", Bob Arnebeck writes, "The president returned to Mt. Vernon in early June (1791)... (and) L'Enfant did hand-deliver his plan on June 22nd, but the president did not elaborate on it in his diary". I suggest that this is the map which Ovason presents on page 42 of "Secret Architecture", which features a bent Mass Ave.
Later he says that the president "thought the revised plan L'Enfant unveiled suitable for engraving and asked L'Enfant to see to it".( p 59) This is the dotted-line map from August '91.
It appears that the two maps to which Ovason refers in the book are L'Enfant's first draft (reproduced on p 42) and the faded 'dotted-line map' of August 1791 to which he alludes. Subsequent maps were plan style (with the creek filled in), but which reflected the revisions made in the dotted-line map. As you can see the line map is a minimalist plan, showing topographic features of the area, and not really suitable for planning use; ie, it does not show lot numbers or streets, etc.

Compare
If we follow Ovason's logic of labeling the dotted line map as the "first" DC planning map, then it might seem plausable that the latter map was an alteration of that; but as we saw, earlier, the page 42 map, which Ovason attributes to Ellicott, features a crooked Mass. Ave., and does not match up with the 1818 Robert King version of the DC map, or with the current layout in which the avenue is pretty much straight.
What if Ovason has "put the cart before the horse", and the line map was, as it says in L'Enfant's letter to Washington (Aug 19,1791), an ammended version of the page 42 map? The only thing left to be done would be to transfer the changes on the line map to the page 42 map form and add lot numbers, which is what the Ellicotts did.
A casual comparison of the page 42 map and the King (1818) map shows that changes were made to the former. Let us now compare the dotted line map with King's map. In this image, we have emphasized some of the existing elements in that.

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 with the current DC layout, and implies that, if any thing, the map Ovason presents was altered to produce the line map which we know to be L'Enfant's.
Arnebeck (page 374) suggests that it was Ellicott who simplified the page 42 map, but the dotted-line drawing appears to show that it was L'Enfant who made the changes, not Ellicott.
Note especially that Massachusetts Ave is straightened in the line drawing from the crooked version on page 42, meaning that it was L'Enfant who straightened that and not Ellicott. What we see on page 42 is the early draft of L'Enfant's plan, which is the only one that differs from all the others, including the current configuration.

Continue