Evening Star Newspaper, January 31, 1932, Page 80

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D GCIRTANTARNVEEIT 1032 Postal Department Building BY JOHN CLAGETT PROCTOR. HE story which has becn told so many times about the blunt way in which President Andrew Jacison settled the controversy over tre selection of a site for the Treasury Building by simply strolling a short distance from the White House, sticking his cane in the ground, and declaring at the same time, “Put it right here!"-—indicating the site it now occupies, which o¢bstructs the Pennsylvania avenue view of the White House——may or may not be true, but we do know that the site for the present Poct Office Department Building was settled in substantially such a way, except that the chief actors in this case were Senator Leland Stanferd of California and John B. McCarthy, a newspaper man of this city. Everybody in Washington—or nearly every- body—knew Mr. McCarthy, for he was a native ot the city, and engaged in newspaper work here from the time he was a youngster until his death in this city May 28, 1926, at an ad- vanced age. He was as near the ideal citizen as one might expect to see, and especially was he of the type of man whose word was always beyond question. For many years he was a constant attendant at the meetings of the Asso- ciation of Oldest Inhabitants, where he was the corresponding secrelary, and where he was much beloved. As is customary at these meetings, some of the members frequently entertain the others present with the recollections of early Wash- ington, and it was in tfis way that the writer upon more than one occasion has heard Mr. McCarthy tell of how the Post Office Building was located on the south side of the Avenue between E'eventh and Twelfth streets. “Billy” Mahone, the readjuster Senator from Virginia, it appears, wanted the building placed on what was known as the Mahone lot, on North Capitol street about opposite the Sibley Hospital, and others wanted it placed elsewhere. HEN Senator Stanford came to Congress in 1885 he was placed on the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds and later be was made chairman of the committee. At this time Mr. McCarthy was representing here an out-of-town paper, and Senator Stanford drafted him as secretary of the committee on which he was chairman. It was during this time that the question of the selection of 2 site for the Post Office came up, causing the Senator so much trouble. Finally one day as the two were riding up the Avenue, the Senator turned to his secre- tary, and in sheer desperation said: “McCarthy, where would you put the Post Office?” Being as anxious as his chief to close the matter once and for all time, he promptly replied, “Right there,” pointing to the present Post Office site —and there it was placed. But Senator Stan- ford did not live to see it completed, for he died June 21, 1893, at Palo Alto, Calif. He sleeps within a mausoleum in the grounds of Stan- ford University; McCarthy lies here in Oak Hill Cemetery Some of us may think it takes unnecessarily long to construct the public buildings now under way or just completed, but from the time the act of Congress was passed to acquire the Post Office site—June 25, 1890—until the building was completed just nine years had elapsed. No wonder Stanford died in the meantime. To many of us who were of voting age in the District of Columbia 42 years ago—but who could not vete then and even now labor under that disadvantage—it seems almost im- possible that so many years have elapsed since this building was begun. Indeed, we can clearly see the hole in the ground, just as we can see the excavations today for the new public build- ings, and we can even see the pile-drivers hammering the piles deep into the earth. Not the cement kind of piles which they are now driving into the ground at Tenth street and Pennsylvania avenue, but long wooden piles, quite similar in appearance to telegraph poles, and they were driven as close together as pos- sible all over the block. They came across some strange things here also, among which was a deep, uncharted well, into which a span of horses, used in plowing up the earth, came very near falling. EING one of Washington's earliest settled neighborhoods, we may still expect to find most anything hereabout, and the deeply im- bedded brickwork recently unearthed just in- side the northeast corner of Tenth street on Constitution avenue should cause no particular surprise, for this spot and the post office site were very low ground at one time, and all this area has been considerably raised since the davs of the Tiber and later of the Washington Canal A< to just what this semi-circular brickwork was built for, it would be hard to say, except that it undoubtedly had something to do with the old canal. Few people today have the slightest concep- tion as to the real magnitude of this old water- wayv, long since abandoned—partly filled in, and a portion converted into a sewer. In 1837 it was walled with stone throughout its course from the Eastern Branch (to the east of Greenleaf Point) to Seventeenth street north- west Its width somewhat varied, but from Seventeenth street to the Center Market at Seventh street, it was 150 feet, and in other sections from 45 to 80 feet. At desirable places substantial bridges were erected over it. These were sufficiently high to permit the passing of steamboats beneath them. While the canal was still under construction, in 1815, we are told, it was sufficiently com- pleted to permit two barges te pass from Twelfth street northwest to the Eastern Branch, a distance of a little more than twe m'les, which was made in 30 minutes. One of the barges conveyed the directors of the company, members of the City Council. and prominent citizens, while the other vessel car- ried the Marine Band. In addition to its being walled throushout. &s stated, at a later period wharves wers ket Washington Landmark to Be Succeeded by More Modern Structure—Its Site and Early Owners—Nearby Blocks, IV ashington Canal, W harves and Basins. Post Office Department Building, soon to be razed to make way for the Fe\(lvral building program. and cesspools and culverts constructed to re- ceive the sediment from the streets, thus pre- venting the canal from fllling up. Basins were also built at different points, one of these being between Tenth and Twelfth streets, and as the writer looked at the brickwork recently un- overed it occurred to him that this was prob- ably the eastern end of the basin wall at this point. On the evening following the discovery of this wall a descendant of the Ingle family called the writer on the phone and suggested that the wall may have been a part of a pow- der magazine, since she had heard her mother speak of one being in that vicinity during the War of 1812. But the writer assured her that this spot was covered with water at that time, and would not have been a desirable place at all in which to place such a building. S near as can be approximated, this wall was close to the site of John McClelland’s won foundry, to which he moved during the Civil War period from Tenth and E streets northwest, where he had kept his machine and blacksmith shop at least from 1850. It is probzble that McClelland’'s shops adjoined this wall on the north, and that the fact of its being close to the canal was an inducement for his moving here. What the writer has said regarding the old cana! at this point is substantially what James Croggon, an eye-witness, wrote many years ago, saying: “In the early part of the last century the Tiber Creek, which was under the name of the Washington Canal, was being walled, but the work had not then reached the line of Eleventh street. At this point a little stream flowed into it from the north, forming a small basin. he north shore was marshy and the tides and rains made its lines indefinite, some- times throwing them above C street. In 1836, when the work was nearly completed to Twelfth street, it was opened from that point to the Eastern Branch. In that year the canal company was authorized to construct a basin between Tenth and Twelfth streets, the site of which is now occupied by the wholesale QA Masonjc Building erecied in 1804 .4 lendmor); uatil removed to erect tha Post Office Department Building. St s Doomed market, and here was located on the west side of the basin what was familiarly known as the Twelfth street wharf. A lumber yard was established on the west of the basin, extending to Twelfth street, by Messrs. King and Langley, which in after years was conducted by Ulysses Ward for a long time. With the consumption of wood for fuel nearby, timber came in de- mand, furnishing empioyment to boat and team. The canal basin became a lumber and wood market, the business finally extending far along the banks of the canal.” NDEED, it is possible that this bit of curved masonry, after all, might have been a land- ing place connected with the canal, for we find that such places were built elsewhere in the city, cne, for instance, at the junction of Twenty-eighth and K streets northwest, parti- culars of which were some years ago related by the late William W. Birth, who said “Few, if any, of the now living inhabitants of our city know that on the east side of Rock Creek, at its southcast juncti-n “with Twenty- eighth and K streets, there was built in the 90's of the eighteenth century a convenient and handsome stair landing place for river travelers coming to the then embryo National Capital. This structure was made of Stafford County, Va., sandstone, from the same quar- ries that furnished the material used in the censtruction of the President’'s house and the old sections of the Capital. It was not finished with the chisel, but with the pick, or ‘gquarry dressed.’ “The form of the landing was semi-circular. At low tide level a substantial platform, 6 by 3 feet, was solidly bedded on a gneiss founda- tion, and from that rose a series of 12 or 14 steps of 8 by 12 inches rise and tread, termi- nating at the then street grade in a graceful sweep up and down the creck, some 30 feet in length by a breadth of about 15 feet. The creek from the bridge down to its mouth, a little west of the present canal outlet lock, had then a sufficient depth of water to safely float sloops and schooners of considerable size, bring= ing wood, building and paving stones and sand. The first wharf, about 100 feet below the bridge, was owned and in use by Shaw & Birth, my grandfather and father: the next one was used by a man named Miller, who carried on the pottery business there: then came the public fish wharf, and below it three or four landings used for general purposes; bringing the line of wharves down to some two or three hundred feet from the river.” The writer has no personal kncwledge of the old canal, though his grandfather, Samuel Childs Davison, lived on Tenth street north- west, less than 200 feet north of Constitution avenue before the Civil War, and here the writer's mother and father were married by the Rev. Dr. Samson in 1856. In after years the Davison home was used for business pur- poses, and more recently gave way with the other structures in the block for the intended Department of Justice building. LOCK 323, where the Post Office Building stands, was settled at a very early date, and the ancestors of many of Washx:ng!on‘s best families once lived here, ac well as in the other blocks within the Government triangle. Some few were even living where the Post Office stands when the block was taken over by the Government in 1890, but nearly all had moved elsewhere, though many had re- tained their interest in the block, while still others had sold out to persons who merely held the property for business or speculative pur- poses. Looking over the files cf The Star, the writer found in the issue of October 24, 1890, the following article, which gives the names of the residents and names of the property owners in this block at that time. The reader _\\ill no doubt recegnize quite a number. The item reads: “The Post Office Site. “The Property Owners Whose Ground Is to Be Condemned. “Trte petition filed at the Court House yes- terday in the name of Secretary Windom by District Attorney Hoge to secure the con- demnation of square 323 for the new City Post Office site, as stated in The Star, gave the names of the property owners in the square as follows: Catherine Conner, 120 Massachu- setts avenue northwest; John W. Coken, 1327 G street; John Walker, 418 B street northeast; John A. Baker, 1819 H strect; Nora Morgan, 905 E street; Ethelbert C. Morgan, 918 E street; Joseph D. Morgan, 997 E street; Ada M. Hill, 1449 Rhode Island avenue: R. Ross Perry, trustee, 1309 P street; Helene Hartney, 223 Seventh street southwest; Charles Duncanson, 909 H street; August Lepreux, 908 I street: Charles B. Church, trust 306 Eleventh street southwest; Joseph J. Darlington, 1023 Twenty- fifth street northwest; Charles B. Church, 306 Eleventh street southwest; William A. H. Church, 212 Eleventh street southwest: Charles W. Church, Pittston. Me : William H. Yerkes, 622 G street southwest; James L. Barbour, 724 Ninth street northwest; Samuel H. Bacon, 1418 N street northwest. and Meclvin J. Power, Pitts- ton, Me., of the Independence Ice Company; George L. Sheriff, 524 Third street northwest; Thomas Ritchie Stone, trustee, 1345 F street northwest; Jane Lenthal Harrison, 818 Connec- ticut avenue northwest; William Stone Abert, Jane Stone Abert, Hamiiton Abert, 1025 Tenth street northwest; Elizab>tr J. Stone, 609 Four- teenth street nmorthwest; William J. Aiken, 456 C street northwest; Ellen Gentner, 1714 Eighth street northwest; Catharine Beiner, 1313 Ninth street northwest; Mary VeeSchmid 454 H street northwest; Emma L. Gentner, 1714 Eighth street northwest; Frederick C. Gentner, 1459 Florida avenue northwest; Ida B. Walker, 608 New York avenue northwest: Minnie E. Gent- ner, 1714 Eighth street northwest; Maggie J. Simons, 1716 Eighth street northwest; William G. Gentner, 1714 Eighth street northwest; Harry P. Gentner, 1714 Eighth street north- west; Federal Lodge. No. 1, A. F. A. M.; Co- lumbia Lodge, No. 3, A. F. A. M.; Lebanon