Old Hickory by Albert Marrin

Author:Albert Marrin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

In 1823, Washington, D.C., bore little resemblance to the city we now know. When Thomas Jefferson dubbed it “that Indian swamp in the wilderness,” few challenged his description. Although it had thirty-nine thousand inhabitants, enslaved people included, in many ways it was still just a frontier town set in the marshes along the Potomac River. The unfinished Capitol sat on a hilltop, in a clearing hemmed in by trees and brush. Bored congressmen would slip away to shoot birds, rabbits, and squirrels on its grounds. In the distance, the shaft of the Washington Monument, also unfinished, rose amid a jumble of storage sheds and marble blocks.10

Wide avenues nearly empty of houses stretched to the horizon. In the heat of summer, their unpaved gutters turned to deserts of swirling sand and powdered horse manure. In winter, gutters became muddy streams. “The mud,” a visitor noted in 1819, “is so frightful that one sinks down above the ankles.” Fine carriages let elegant ladies out in quagmires; many walked barefoot to keep from soiling their shoes. Mosquitoes rose in clouds from the foul marshes, and cockroaches scurried about. Mounds of trash stank to high heaven, food for the pigs roaming Pennsylvania Avenue. Known simply as “The Avenue,” it was the city’s main thoroughfare, connecting the Capitol and the White House. A brick sidewalk ran along its west side. A stream—really an open sewer—flowed down Capitol Hill and ran along its east side, right past the White House.11

Most government officials lived in boardinghouses on or near The Avenue. Usually they “messed”—ate and drank—together for companionship and to share expenses. Washington was a drinker’s town, alcohol coming in endless varieties from raw corn whiskey to the finest French champagne. At night, men gathered around silver punch bowls described by a visitor as being “large as a Roman bathing tub,” discussing the day’s events. At the boardinghouse where the justices of the Supreme Court stayed, boarders voted to drink only in wet weather, to preserve their health. Chief Justice John Marshall, hardly a wild lad, could not do without his wine. Informed that the sun was shining brightly, Marshall would say, “All the better; for ... it [is] certain that it must be raining somewhere.” Fill the glasses!12

Senator Jackson took in the sights. He had not been to Washington since the fall of 1819, when Congress debated his invasion of Florida. Again he visited the Capitol, the nerve center of government. Besides the House of Representatives and Senate, this building held the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court chamber—in the basement. In the House, representatives sat at their desks answering letters, dozing, or chatting with neighbors. Now and then someone called out “Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker!” to raise a question or ask permission to reply to a speech. Yet the acoustics were so bad that hardly anyone heard anything clearly. No matter. Speakers droned on, chiefly to have their words printed, at public expense, and sent home, also at public expense, to show voters what a fine job they were doing.

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