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No one has suggested in this discussion that the word "swamp" is not a perfectly good word to use to describe certain physical places. The question I believe we've been discussing is whether it's accurate to say the Washington was built on or in a swamp. In this regard, I side with those who say "no." The only original source I've which provides what seems to me to be a description of the vicinity of the City which includes what I understand physical geographers would call a "swamp" was provided by Craig Scott (this list, June 25?), quoting Joseph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia and the District of Columbia, (1835; reprint Westminster, Maryland: Willow Bend Books, 2000) at 472 (thank you, Mr. Scott), but even this material doesn't describe the "swamp" as being particularly large, certainly not large enough to cover the place where the City of Washington was originally sited. As for how lay persons use the word swamp, I'm not as familiar with the original work of those writing in the mid-Atlantic colonies/States in the late eighteenth century, as with those writing about Georgia and what became Florida. In all texts I've read, these eighteenth (and seventeenth) century authors were much more likely to label something in the same way as professional physical geographers today would label it than we are today, relatively separated as we are today from the land. And as to "swamp," it was used in particular for LARGE areas, such as the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia. It was not used to refer to slender strips of land (of less than a mile) bordering a river, howsoever they looked like a swamp. So the way non-experts might be lax in their use of language seems to be more OUR problem than a problem of those "lay persons" who lived here two hundred years ago. But that doesn't mean that they didn't use terms loosely to heighten their personal or political responses to the situation. Thus, most of what I've seen (apart from the Martin quotation noted above) smacks more of the author's intention to impress the reader with the terrible conditions into which the author has been forced than with an objective desire to describe what's actually here. And yet at the same time, most of these sources, along with Martin, also describe a place with excellent, dry land. As for what happened between 1889-1912, I've never seen any reference to draining the land, per se, but I have seen many references to filling the land in, which also what happened to make a place for National Airport (recently albeit temporarily renamed something or other). To have dry land after draining it, they would have had to put in a dike along what's now the river bank, for the land was at and below the waterline. But I've come across accounts of trucks and barges being used to bring dry soil and dredged soil to the area -- then called the Potomac Flats -- to raise it above the waterline. So why is it that this myth persists? Why is it so important to maintain that Washington City was built on a swamp? And why is it that so many people still refer to Washington AS a swamp? George LaRoche At 04:52 PM 6/28/2001 -0400, you wrote: >Is it true that the Washington Monument was not built on the site of the >Jefferson Stone -- the site which marks the exact cross point between the >Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Capitol >-- because that site was considered not stable enough since it lay on >reclaimed swamp land? > >--Suzanne Clarke ><sjclarke@mindspring.com> > >====================== > >Webster's dictionary defines swamp as "wet spongy land." The word swamp >was a >perfectly good word in the 17th,18th and 19th century, when the Great >Dismal >Swamp of Virginia was aptly named. But a swamp is something you want to >go out >and drain, which is what the Army Corp of Engineers did to the Potomac and >Anacostia lowlands around DC from about 1889 to 1912. Then came the >environmental movement which strived for the sanctity of wetlands, as well >as >the post modern "deconstruction" movement which seeks to cleanse and >launder >language. So the old word swamp just would not do. Something more >politically >correct like marsh or wetlands replaced swamp, just as "hearing impaired" >replaced the old unsavory "deaf and dumb." People who study history should >remember that in other eras words often had differing connotations and >meanings. > > Gary Scott <Gary_Scott@nps.gov> Matthew Gilmore H-DC list co-editor, web editor dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~dclist/ [list website] http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-DC [subscribe to H-DC] Remember to check http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=h-dc for past list messages.
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