Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1896-02-01


PLACE. Ten years ago the engineers of
the war department, making use of
liberia, congressional appropriations,
began what was called the "recl3uia-
ton of the Potomac flats" With scows
and dredges they scooped the alluYlai
deposits and conce1tered them. They
surrounded them with stone walls,
and Tiled them with earth taken from
various points in the city where build
ing operations were going OH. To-
day the old Potomac fats are almost
forgotten and in their place is an arti-
fetal lsland about mile in length, and
nearly half mile wide. 1t is covered
with trees of many varieties, and
skilled landscape gardeners are trans
forming it into park and pleasure drive
which bids fair to become justly cele-
brateG for picturesqneness and beauty.
When the great civil engineer, Maj.
L'Enfant, prepared the plan upon
which the capital city was built, and
out of which it has already grown far
beyond the expectation or imagination
of the designer, the village of Ham
burg still existed. The people there
complained bitterly that Goth street
should run right through their hamlet,
regardless of their property rights.
They expected London or Paris to
Immediately grow upon them, and were
indignant with the engineer who pre-
pared the plans. They protested
against their approval. But they have
long since been gathered unto their
fathers, and the village of Hamburg
is almost a faded reminiscence. Their
rights were never disturbed, and they
lived to the ends of their days upon
the lands which they had acquired by
priority of settlement. Their heirs
moved into the more popular portions
of the new city, and their property is
now, by purchase and sale, in the hands
of men and women whose grandfathers
were then unborn. They could not dip
into the future and see all the wonders
which should grow around their pris-
tine habitation. They never saw the
Potomac flats. nor heard the hills re-
sound with the whistles of palatial
steamers plying the placid stream on
which their shallops fioated. / have
often imagined how the man whom
Pocahontas saved would rub his eyes
and pinch himself to realize that he
was the same John Smith, if he could
row his heavy boat up the Potomac
from Norfolk to-day and gaze upon the
transformation scene.
But AnaIostan castle is no longer
known by that name. and Observatory
hill as no longer the place where sc.en-
lists study the heavens and WELD the
ponderous telescope. The entire
plant of the naval observatory las
been transferred to the heights back of
old Georgetown, that former suburb of
Washington. which is now a very I'M
portant part of the city proper; that
wonderful elevation which the original
lord of the domain called the ROCK of
Dumrarton;'' for that splendid and
vast elevated acreage was originally
granted to a Scotchman named Miriam
Beall, who came here from the vicinity
of the medieval Dumbarton castle.
which is celebrated in the interesting
fiction of the Scottish Chiefs. by Jane
Porter. Everything has changed and
is constantly changing, SO that the
student of current local history is in
voluntarily reminded of the saying Of
the Apostle Paul: ''Old things have
passed away. Beholdl All things
have become new" SMITH D. FET.