When Bob Arnebeck first wrote that DC was never a swampy area, I was
puzzled because it seemed to 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.  My father 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
in downtown DC, he said, have sump pumps in their basements or
sub-basements because they are below the level of the water table.

In addition, we have the complaints of foreign diplomats, such as
Augustus John Foster, secretary to the British ambassador, who wrote
home in 1805 about the "sweltering city" from which residents of
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 the appellation, and why it is that others
insist on it.  They are speaking of different eras in the history of the
city.  Perhaps "swamp" is not the proper technical terminology, but it
is what the ordinary citizen might have called the conditions near the
River.

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

Mary L. Dante
mld
dante@capaccess.org


On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, H-DC Editor wrote:

> From: Wendy Plotkin <wplotk1@uic.edu>
> List Editor: Wendy Plotkin <wplotk1@uic.edu>
> Editor's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.
> Author's Subject: Re: WWW: "The Mall" and "Swamp" Beginnings of D.C.
> Date Written: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 09:55:36 -0500
> Date Posted: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 09:55:36 -0500
> [Ed: This posting includes responses from Bob Arnebeck, who initiated
> the discussion, and Carl Abbott, author of POLITICAL TERRAIN:
> WASHINGTON, D.C., FROM TIDEWATER TOWN TO GLOBAL METROPOLIS (Chapel
> Hill: U. of North Carolina Pr., 1999) ]
>
> 1) Posted by Bob Arnebeck <Swamp1800@aol.com>
>
> The Mall itself was never a tidal marsh. It was bordered on the north
> by Tiber Creek which ebbed and flowed with the tides leaving exposed
> mud.
>
> Clay McShane is to be commended for pulling together those maps of
> Washington for us, but the best way 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 F Street.
>
> [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, and south 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. James Creek to
> continue as a canal to the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. You can still
> sense the rising land as you walk up from the Botanical Garden to the
> Mall. The extension of the Mall which goes from the Washington
> 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 few yards from the foot
> of the White House Grounds, past the point formed where the Tiber met
> the Potomac 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 or marsh. Originally the Mall was
> probably forested, then became farm fields, then old fields. I think
> the best way to describe the web site about it is to say that the site
> describes how L'Enfant's plans for the undeveloped fields west of the
> Capitol began a process which resulted in the tourist park we have
> today.
>
> I searched the Mall web site for the use of the words "swamp" and
> "marsh" and found neither. Use of those 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 were taken to develop the swamp or marsh? The questions raise
> false issues and get students well off on 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 of easily developed high ground combined
> with a commodious and protected harbor along the Anacostia River.
> L'Enfant did not place the Mall where he did with the idea that
> placing his most significant avenue there would prompt drainage and
> development, nor was it a long range plan. As I read his letters, he
> first wanted to terrace the Capitol grounds which would have shown the
> significance of the Grand Avenue (the Mall) where he envisioned the
> palatial residences of ambassadors and perhaps a grand theatre, all to
> be in place within ten years which even he would have realized was
> impossible if the area was marsh or swampland.
>
> Finally, we never are sure what the uses of history will be. What
> Clay McShane has written might prompt a developer with an eye on some
> wetlands, to point to the Mall as a living example of what wonderful
> things can be done once a wetland is bulldozed over. It would not be
> the first example of Americans claiming as a birthright some myth
> perpetrated by historians.
>
> Bob Arnebeck
> http://members.aol.com/Swamp1800
> (early DC history)
>
> 2) Posted by Carl Abbott <AbbottC@mail.pdx.edu>
>
> In evaluating the swampiness of early Washington, it is important to
> differentiate between the original 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 and southeast toward the Eastern Branch of
> the Potomac (Anacostia River); the White House on another piece of
> high ground, the land that rose northward from the route of
> Pennsylvania Avenue. Tourists who hike around Washington still
> encounter this topography. South of Pennsylvania Avenue, and roughly
> parallel to the northern edge of the modern Mall, ran Tiber Creek,
> which drained low lands that can also still be perceived in the area
> between Union Station and the Capitol. The creek was originally
> navigable by small boats but gradually silted up over time, turning
> into an unpleasant backwater.
>
> The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and Tidal Basin are the result of
> engineering efforts a century and more after the founding of the
> city. One of the results of extensive agricultural and mining
> development in the Potomac drainage area upstream from Washington was
> erosion and the washing of substantial amounts of soil
> downstream. Some of this soil settled out as the river's current
> slowed below its falls -- that is, right in front of Washington. By the
> 1880s or so, substantial mud flats had accreted in front of the
> original site. It was these flats that were engineered and beautified
> into the contemporay waterfront.
>
> It is also worth noting that Bladensburg, Maryland developed in the
> mid-18th century as a tobacco port at the head of navigation on the
> Anacostia River. Erosion resulting from heavy tobacco cultivation
> also silted up the Anacostia, turning Bladensburg into an inland town.
>
> Carl Abbott
> Portland State University


Matthew Gilmore
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