Stepped away from Lake Michigan for a diary about another wet place—
I am in Washington, D.C., which was once swampland, a city created to be our capitol in 1791 with a decree from President George Washington. How ironic that George Washington never slept there. George asked his pal Major Andrew Ellicott to survey the ten mile by ten mile diamond-shaped space and place boundary stones one per mile, 40 in all, where the city would be built. Andrew is called a surveyor but look at me with my cowboy hat, I’m a cowboy, Andrew Ellicott!
Andrew got the free black polymath, Benjamin Banneker, who was an accomplished astronomer, writer, engineer, and actual real-life surveyor, He is now being recognized as the guy who got things done, and this week, I am on a secular pilgrimage to walk the boundary stones he set with Ellicott. It’s tricky—some of the original area was sold off to Virginia to create Arlington and Alexandria, a couple of them are in awkward spaces like freeway dividers or people’s back yards, and one is four feet under the Potomac. But it’s a spiritual journey; nothing is perfect.
I set out this morning to walk the stones in the northeast, Takoma Park, with my old pal Jenn, “Number 5” (that’s where she stands in the order of my friendships and that’s how she’s identified on my phone contact list). We started from her house where she and her husband David, an excellent musician and Virginia native. They have a banjo on their wall with little drum screws that read “Union Forever”.
What did I discover so far? The stones along the northeast boundary experience all sorts of daily life, including David’s nephew’s print shop, trashy-trash, drug deals, the place where Jenn and David’s daughter got in a car crash and gave up driving forever, and this very poignant fact—that the stones denote a border with Maryland on this side, and Maryland was a slave state, and so in 1863, in April, the slaves of DC were freed, but it wasn’t until Juneteenth that slaves just a few feet away on the other side of these stones, were freed. Here’s Jenn straddling the border, her left side free, her right side owned.
Just look across the street next time you are walking—imagine you are free, and your sister or mother on the other side of the street is owned. Even for those four months.
More about the boundary stones and my walks with friends in the area this week.
wow
What a cool adventure! It reminded me of the reproduction poster I have hanging above my desk, of the District platted out by Andrew Ellicott (well, he got all the credit) in 1792. I took a closer look, and realized that it doesn't have the boundary stones on it- I feel cheated!