(continued from page 1) set aside for a marine hospital – or at least fifty acres of it – could be appropriated as the location for a navy yard.
Of the seventeen public appropriations in the national capital, and designated on the 1818 map of Robert King, the site in question was Public Appropriation Number Thirteen, comprising in excess of 80 acres – a part of which is today occupied by D.C. General Hospital at 1900 Massachusetts Avenue, southeast. On March 2, 1797, in a letter TO THE CITY TRUSTEES, President Washington had designated the boundaries of the Thirteenth Appropriation as:
Thirteenth. The appropriation bounded on the north by the south side of South B Street, on the west by the east side of Nineteenth street east, the south by the north side of South C street, and on the east by the Eastern Branch or Annakostia River.
At the end of the designation of the Seventeenth Appropriation, and without interruption, the letter concludes with:
..., as the same are also laid out and delineated on the said plan, to Gustavus Scott, William Thornton, and Alexander White, commissioners appointed under the act of Congress entitled “An act for establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States,” to hold to the said Gustavus Scott, William Thornton, and Alexander White, and their successors in office, as commissioners aforesaid, to the use of the United States forever, according to the tenor of the act of Congress aforesaid.
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States this second day of March, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven.
[U.S. Seal]
[Signed] GEORGE WASHINGTON
By the President:
TIMOTHY PICKERING,
Sect’y of State
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Last updated November 22, 2008
