Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2007 by Troy Taylor
All rights reserved
Cover design by Marshall Hudson.
First published 2007
e-book edition 2012
Manufactured in the United States
ISBN 978.1.61423.529.3
print edition ISBN 978.1.59629.302.1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Taylor, Troy.
Wicked Washington : mysteries, murder & mayhem in Americas capital / Troy Taylor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-59629-302-1 (alk. paper) 1. Washington (D.C.)--History--Anecdotes. 2. Washington (D.C.)--Social conditions--Anecdotes. 3. Washington (D.C.)--Biography--Anecdotes. 4. Politicians--Washington (D.C.)--Biography--Anecdotes. 5. Scandals--Washington (D.C.)--History--Anecdotes. 6. Corruption--Washington (D.C.)--History--Anecdotes. 7. Murder--Washington (D.C.)--History--Anecdotes. 8. Crime--Washington (D.C.)--History--Anecdotes. 9. Criminals--Washington (D.C.)--Biography--Anecdotes. I. Title.
F194.6.T395 2007
975.3--dc22
2007035340
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Introduction
There are some who would frown at the idea of me referring to our beloved nations capital as wicked. We dont see wickedness as we gaze on the magnificent dome of the Capitol building or along the stretch of the Washington Mall. This is not a city like Chicago, with her long history of blood and corruption, or New Orleans, with her centuries of ghosts, pirates and voodoo. This is Washington, Americas seat of power, where laws are created and where great men walk the streets or stare down at us from the marble seats of towering monuments. This should be a place where the sun that shines off the polished stone is only half as bright as the sterling reputation of this great city.
But, of course, this is not the case.
Washington, like other American cities that are steeped in legend and lore and stained with blood, has a past. It is a past that is unlike that of any other city in our nation, from the methods that were used to build her to the scandals, deaths and corruption that have so captured our imagination. As the reader will soon discover, the description of wicked for Washington is one that is especially fitting!
The city of Washington is a place of strangeness and contradictions. It is the capital of the United States, but it exists in a place that is not actually a state. It is the center of our nations laws, and yet for many years, the residents of the city were unable to vote in national elections. For decades the city was so unhealthy that thousands of deaths (including that of Abraham Lincolns son) were blamed on the unsanitary conditions of the streets and waterways. Despite its reputation as a shining beacon of democracy, most realized the city had a dark side too. One writer stated that: Washington is the nations gothic capital, the shining city on a haunted hill.
The first settlers in Washington were Native Americans who came to the area more than four thousand years ago. Their descendants were later pushed out of the region by the Europeans, who expanded the Virginia colony from the south and the province of Maryland from the east. While the central portion of the future city was largely uninhabitable wetlands, two port towns appeared nearby, on opposite sides of the Potomac River. Georgetown was first settled in 1706, and the city of Alexandria came along years later in 1749. Two smaller settlements also started nearby. They were Carrollsburg and Hamburgh, a small collection of houses that was located near the present-day site of the state department headquarters in Foggy Bottom.
After the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783, the new American government met in New York and Philadelphia. Rivalry between the states to be home to a new, permanent capital led the 1787 Constitutional Convention to empower Congress to create a new federal district that would not be part of any state. The location for the new capital was chosen by the time-honored method of political maneuvering. It happened over a dinner between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson agreed to support Hamiltons banking and federal bond plans, which involved the government assuming states debts in exchange for Hamiltons support of the nations capital being in a southern locale.
On December 23, 1788, the Maryland General Assembly allowed the state to cede land for the federal district. The Virginia General Assembly waited almost a full year before they also relinquished land. The signing of the Residence Act of 1790 mandated a site for the seat of government that did not exceed ten miles square (one hundred square miles) and that was located on the River Potomac, at some place between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and the Connogocheque. This act authorized the president of the United States to select the actual location.
Once again, politics would play a role in the manipulation of the site. President George Washington wanted to include the town of Alexandria, Virginia, within the square federal district that had been authorized by the act. To accomplish this, the boundaries of the district would have to be moved to encompass an area on the Potomac River that was downstream from the mouth of the Eastern Branch (now the Anacostia River), and subsequently, they would not fall between the mouths of the Eastern Branch and the Connogocheque. Some of the members of Congress cried out in protest; viewing this as a ploy by the president to make money from the foundation of the district. Washington and his family owned property in and near Alexandria, which was just seven miles upstream from Mount Vernon, Washingtons home and plantation. These congressmen would only agree to an amendment to the original act that would allow Alexandria into the federal district if the new act contained a prohibition against building federal offices on the Virginia side of the Potomac River.
Map of the city of Washington, 1851. Lloyd Van Derveer, Camden, N.J.
Eventually, the final site was just below the fall line of the Potomac, which was the farthest point upstream that oceangoing boats could navigate. It included several ports and became a key location for transferring goods, particularly tobacco, between ships and land and river transports. The only drawback to the site was that it was also accessible to the forces of foreign armies, as became apparent two decades later when British invaders burned the city during the War of 1812.
After the land was given to the government by the states of Maryland and Virginia, and the towns of Georgetown and Alexandria were included in the new district, the remainder of the territory was divided into Washington City, the county of Washington on the Maryland side of the Potomac (named after George Washington) and Alexandria County on the Virginia side.
