The National tribune., 1900-01-25

and the Avenue were two or three more.
Avenue were one or two buildings, in one
of which a Mr.. Samuel Harrison Smith
had established a newspaper styled the
National IRtelligencer Near by was little
building called the Mash Market, where
Center Market now stands.
Nearly the whole of what is now called
= the MALI was then piece of wet. marshy
ground, covered with weeds and wancopins
(water chinkapin); where sportsmeu shot
ortolan, where cattle formed paths in zig
gag courses; where negroes hunted stray
cattle with tinkling bells about their necks,
and where fishermen often took their spoil
Many parts of the Avenue touched the
waters edge. and the road was corduroy
Feb. 10, 1890, the Committee of House
of Representatives on the District of Column
bia declared that it was necessary to pro
vide a safe and convenient road of COM
munication between the Capitol and Ex-
ecutive Departments, and so they recon-
mended a macadamZed road. Prior to
this, Sept. 81, 1915, the princely sum of
5000 had been appropriated to improve
Pennsylvania Avenue from Second to
Fourteenth streets, with the exception of
that part lying between Ninth and Tenth.
The contrast between promise and action
made dscontents, and so the cry to remove
the seat of Government was often heard.
To transform the waste lands, forests
and marshes into an attractive Capital was
n slow process. DR.. Busey gives curious
but authentic story connected with that
~ ,,f fhr
Seventeenth streets west. A long time ago
a number of distinguished and benevolent
ladies who had daily tramPed the broad
highway, but could not understand how n
street that Geviatcd 81 an obtuSc angle from
the main lire of the thoroughfare at
Seventeenth street and terminated abruptly
at Fifteenth street'without any connection
with it except through Fifteenth street
could be any part Of the Avenue that pene-
trated the city from east to west. These
women were distressed at the anomalous
and nameless orpi:anage condition of the
way in front of the Executive Mansion.
After many consultations they assembled
in council determined to rescue the helpless,
parentless and misnamed child from its de-
plorable condition of orphanagc and un-
fortunate descent and restore it to such an
honorable and dignified place in the no.
menclature of the streets as would be in
keeping with its prestige and position in
front of the Executive Mansion.
The council denominatcd it :. Executive
Way" but for some reason unknown to the
writer the authorities failed to accept the
edict of the mothers council, and it re-
mains to day as it was born. az. offshoot of
the main thoroughfarc, with an ancestral
though uncertain pedigree.
1t was Jan. %. 1871, that Washington
issued letters patent appointing Commis-
sioners under the act of July 16, 1890, for
surveying the District. II was, us we have
seen, in 1900 that Congress moved TO the
site OF the new Capital. for in truth that
was all it was. ii is just little over 100
years since Washington and Jefferson and
the rest of the public men of the time gave
the opportunity to coming generations to
build upon the foundations that they had
laid Capital City of magnificent proper
tions for the grandest Republic of the
earth