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Ammi B. Young

Supervising Architect of the Treasury and his 1858 Alexandria Post Office and Customhouse

Published in the Summer 1994 issue of the The Alexandria Chronicle, by the Alexandria Historical Society, Inc.

Ammi B. Young, Supervising Architect of the Treasury and his 1858 Alexandria Post Office and Customhouse, page 13 of 16

(Continued from Page 12)

12. Alexander H. Bowman (hereafter AHB) Office of Construction, U.S. Treasury Department to Ammi B. Young (hereafter ABY), June 27, 1857, vol. 2, entry 6, RG 121, NA, 345; SMC to Cornelius and Baker, 21 September 1860), vol. 4, entry 6, RG 121, NA 71. The superintendent of the Windsor VT project was told by Bowman in a letter of November 1857 that he could get materials cheaper in Boston; AHB to Daniel Linsley, 6 November 1857, vol. 7, entry 2, RG 121, NA, 312.

13. James Gutthrie, Secretary of the Treasury to Senator R. M. T. Hunter, Chairman of the Committee on Finances, February 1, 1855. (U.S. Congress, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session, Executive Document No. 54), quoted in Peterson, 94.

14. Both Bowman, and Anderson who was later the U.S. commander at Ft. Sumter, were West Point classmates, and were loaned by Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, to the Treasury Department to "further Treasury pioneering with iron," from Donald J. Leahy, Lucky Landmark: A Study of a Desiqn and its Survival, General Services Administration, Public Building Series, 1973, 33, quoted in Peterson, 95; also ibid., 78

15. AHB to various heads of colleges and universities, 25 October 1856, vol. 2, entry 6, RG 121, NA, 204 ff. List taken from Bowman's letters (above) of institutions to which plans were sent at that time: Bowdoin, Dartmouth, University of Vermonk, Harvard, Arnherst, Brown, Yale, Columbia, College of New Jersey (Princeton); University of Pennsylvania, University of Delaware, St. Mary's College (Baltimore), Georgetown University, University of Virginia, University of North Carolina, University of South Carolina, Charleston (SC) College, University of Mississippi, University of Michigan, University of Nashville, Transylvania, Marietta College (PA), Indiana University (Bloomington), University of Saint Louis, Cooper Institute (Cooper Union), as well as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of the British Museum and other overseas intellectual establishments. The secretary of the Smithsonian, Joseph Henry was called upon to supply Bowman with the names of these institutions.

Both the University of Vermont's Special Collections and the Dartmouth College Business Engineering Library still have some of these plans but, neither has complete sets. (Between them they are missing #19, Bath ME, 520, Waldoboro ME, and #s 22, 23 and 24 from the 1855 set.) Peterson in his 1980 essay lists Columbia University's Avery Library Collection holdings of the 1855 set, which is complete except for #s 16, 22, 23 and 24. He doesn't mention if they have the 1856 set. Dartmouth holds, from both sets, #s 1, 5, 7-A, 11-18, 21, 25-26, 28-38, and nine unnumbered; W has 2-13, 15, 17, 18, 25, 27 and nine unnumbered plans, also. They are Indianapolis, Springfield IL, Portsmouth NH, Plattsburgh, Dubuque, Ogdensburg, Galena (Customhouse), Rutland and Windsor VT.)

16. Lois Craig et al., The Federal Presence: Architecture. Politics. And National Desian (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978): 99

17. AHB to Secretary of the Treasury, 3 March 1858, vol. 2, entry 5, RG 121, NA, 501-506.

18. ABY to Honorable Sheldon Foot, 23 October 1860, vol 4, entry 6, RG 121, NA 89.

19. Wodehouse, "ABY, 1798-1874," 280.

20.,T. Michael Miller, "Charles Lee, Collector of Customs: Portrait of an Early Alexandrian on the Waterfront." Paper presented at the Second Annual Waterfront Forum. Alexandria Archaeology, Alexandria, Virginia June 3, 1983 (np)

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