The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1876-05-25
The Heiress of Washington.

The Heiress of Washington.
When Congress, at Its second d
session, held at New York in the
midsummer Of 1890, voted to give
to George Washington the selection
Of site on the Potomac for the ma
tional capital, that selection was
not only left to the successful Gen
eral, who had just brought the ma
tion safely through the fires Of Rev
olution, but to the surveyor, who,
as young man, had spent his early
life mapping out the plantations on
its banks. Nearly forty years be-
fore, young Washington, accompa-
nying Braddock to his sad defeat,
had encamped on the very spot
where the Washington Observatory
now stands. AS the young aid-de-
camp looked out from the door of
his tent at even-tide, he remarked
on the favorable character of such
a location for the site of a great
city. Since that day, Arlington, so
beautiful for situation that de Toe
queville has said that no place in
Europe possessed a lOvelier pros
pect, had come into his possession
by marriage. No day passed that
he did not look across the stately
Potomac upon those forest-hearing
hills, now crowned by the public
buildings of the Capital, and crowd
ed with the homes of more than a
hundred thousand people. Those
hills rose just across the river
against the lower edge of his own
plantation, and the two families
that lived opposite each other, often
exchanged visits; and on Sundays
they always met in the Episcopal
church of Alexandria His daily
contemplation of this place made
him fully aware of It's natural adj
vantages as the site of the future
metropolis. The two branches of
the Potomac, between which the
city is situated, promised ample
room for that commerce which the
first President always expected to
centralize in his favorite city. AL
exandria and Georgetown, places OF
large size for that day of small
things, were to constitute its sub
urbs, and were expected to be, as
they have been, swallowed up in the
superior greatness of their common
center. Nor is it unlikely that that
obscrvant mind was at all uncOn-
scious of the influence of the prox,
unity of large city on the value OF
the plantation belonging to his wife
on which he then lived, and which
was afterwards to descend to his
foster children, the Custises.
During the winters of I790-9l
Washington was busily engaged
with the four planters who lived Oh
the left bank of the Potomac, set
tling the terms on which they would
consent that their plantation:
should become the site of the fu
ture capital. 1t would seem as i
no great exertion would be required
to induce these gentlemen to agree
to exchange their boundless acres
of forest and hill-tilled plantation
for the crowded and valuable
squares of what was expected to bC
the largest city on the continent
But David Burns,-"that obstinat
Mr.. Burns" as Washington called
him-who owned the whole of tn
west end of Washington, was fo
some time opposed to the arrange
ment. For three generations, b
and his ancestry had lived on tha
spot and had acquired a wealth tina
| old Scotland had denied then
The place was originally laid out a
a plantation of six hundred acres
| and so small did that amount c
land then seem that it bore th
name of the Widows Mite. BU
by degrees the place grew and ell
, larged till it stretched from George
town to where the Capitol no
stands. In 1890, its owner was til
Justice of the peace for the who
neiohborhood and somewhat cho
! eric withal. And tradition relate
that when the President was OF
day telling him of the great adval
tages of the proposed plan, ol
Burns grufiiy burst out suI
pose. Mr.. Washington, you thin
> people are going to take every gri
from you as pure grain; but VIII
!, would YOU have been, if you hadn
.s married the widow Custis?'
e The southern border of the Bur-
plantation was a little stream, st
aowing below the Capitol, we
known to every Washington boy
the Tiber, and to every classic
scholar there as the Yellow Tib'
During the past winter that strea
has been walled and covered in,
. that its waves no longer greet I
= light till they reach those Botanic
gardens where Congressional hor
3 culture hourishes at national
u pense. On the very spot where
1s Capitol now towers by the side