Use of Slaves to Build and Capitol and White House 1791-1801: by Bob Arnebeck

Part Four

Wheat Row in SW Washington: built 1796

Use of Slaves by Private Builders in the City of Washington 1791-1801

In June 1797 the following notice appeared in the Washington Gazette:

TWO DOLLARS REWARD RAN AWAY, on Friday the 26th of May, a NEGRO Man by the name of STEPHEN, about 23 years old, 5 feet ten inches high, very black, knockkneed, looks surly when questioned too much - a painter by trade. Whoever will return him to me in George Town, or confine him so that I my get him will get the above reward HENRY HARSHMAN George Town June 6, 1797

While the name of the master, Harshman, almost says it all, what is interesting for our discussion is that after making Stephen seem rather unattractive, Harshman added that Stephen is a painter by trade. This suggests that Harshman, if himself not a painter who used slaves, might have hired out Stephen to paint for others. On the other hand the meager reward, $2, suggests that Stephen was not that valuable a slave.

Compare that notice with one that appeared in June 26, 1795, offering a $20 reward for Dick who was in the "employ" John Henderson. Henderson was among the first carpenter-builders hired by James Greenleaf to build brick houses. When Henderson hired Dick from his master was he getting a skilled slave or just a common laborer? Does the $20 reward give us any clue? At that time, the commissioners were paying five dollars a month to masters for the hire of their slaves.

On April 10, 1799, John Mumford offered a $20 reward for Charles, who he described as six feet tall and an "excellent house carpenter" working in the Federal city, as the City of Washington was often called, or Georgetown. So that suggests Dick was also skilled.

Also at about that same time, another notice appeared trying to rein in another slave named Charles, once owned by John Templeman, a man who did a good bit of shipping business from Georgetown and who also invested in the City of Washington:

Ten Dollars Reward Ran Away, from the subscriber, on the 19th inst., a NEGRO MAN, named CHARLES, about 5 feet 5 or 6 inches high, about 26 years of age, small build with bandy legs, has a flattering way of speaking. He formerly belonged to Dr. Halliday near Nottingham, and was sold to Mr. Templeman, of George Town. Whoever takes up the said Negro, within the boundary of the Federal City or George Town, and delivers him to me, shall receive Five Dollars; or if taken out of the District, the above reward. John Vermonnet, City of Washington, Feb 26, 1797

John Vermonnet, an engineer who supervised the building of fortifications in Alexandria, Virginia, had notices in the newspapers on other matters. He offered to paint miniature portraits. He also got a license to serve liquors. So Charles went from the control of a doctor, to a shipper, to an engineer/artist/innkeeper. Did any of the skills of the masters pertain to him, or was he simply a servant of some sort?

Brutally short as they are, these notices about runaway slaves at least focus on the African American in question. No other evidence gives us the size, disposition and, perhaps, skills of the man in question. Two other notices emphasized the skills. Clem and Will from Prince George's County "were last seen on their way to the City of Washington with their broad axes and some other tools...." John from southern Virginia passed himself off as one who "had hired his time for the year and was going to the federal city for employment."

John seemed to be using work in the city as a ploy to move through the countryside to make his escape. Clem and Will wanted to get to the city for work. Obviously since they were not going with the permission of their master, they aimed to hire themselves out. This was technically illegal but doubtlessly at a time of labor shortage, employers were less prone to ask questions. Another ad for a runaway explicitly says that the slave hired out himself. On April 20, 1799, Margaret Adams offered a $10 reward for a "yellow man", John Anderson, who might be in the Federal City or Greenleaf's Point, once and now known as Buzzards Point, where he might "hire himself out" for fishing.

In early 1801 there appeared a notice that didn't mention any particular skills, but which traced a resume of Robert that made it seem like he must have had some talent if so many men, one after another, bought him.

RANAWAY from the Subscriber, living in the upper end of Orange County, a Negro man named ROBERT, formerly the property of Parson Buckens of Stafford County and by him sold to Mr. James Patten of Alexandria, and the said Patten sold him to William Brock barkeeper from whom the Subscriber purchased him - He is somewhat pitted with the small pox, is about Five feet nine inches high, and between 22 and 24 years of age; had on when he went away, cotton Jacket and Overhauls, and green Waistcoat - he has been seen in the employ of Mr. James R. Dermot and supposed to be concealed by said Dermot. Whoever will secure said Negro in Alexandria jail, shall receive TEN dollars reward. RICHARD SANDFORD Feb 19, 1801. N.B. Any person haboring or employing said Negro will be dealt with to the utmost rigor of the law R.S.

James Dermot had risen from an assistant surveyor for the commissioners in 1792 to head surveyor and then a wheeler-dealer in the City of Washington and may have well needed skilled slaves to make habitable the houses he bought and sold in the city.

Unfortunately, there are not enough of these ads to give us an accurate picture of what skills slaves exhibited as the city grew, but the ads we have make plain that slaves had skills. As I suggested in Part Two of this essay, there is little evidence that the commissioners used or wanted skilled slaves to work on the public buildings. Was it because they offered too low a wage to interest those masters who owned skilled slaves? Did those masters fare better hiring them out to private contractors? In Part Two I quote a letter showing how William Deakins tried to get a higher wage for his skilled slave from the brick contractor Mitchell. The commissioners oversaw long term projects, two buildings that it would take years to complete. Private contractors built houses within months. Hiring skilled slaves to those contractors trying to meet deadlines for anxious private investors may have been rather remunerative.

The first private contractors in the city were the people already living there, like Notley Young, Daniel Carroll of Duddington, and David Burnes, as well as the speculators like Benjamin Stoddert, Uriah Forrest, Samuel Davidson, George Walker, and William Prout who bought land in the city just before the President made a deal with the landowners in March 1791. Stoddert, Forrest, and Davidson stayed in Georgetown. Stoddert and Forrest planned to sell their lots and let the buyers build. Davidson, who had tenants who farmed his land in the city, tried and failed to get loans to develop his lots. Walker and Prout stayed in the houses that came with the farms they bought and also tried to get bank loans from Europe before doing any building and failed to get them. Young and Burnes stayed in the houses they had lived in for years and were more anxious to continue farming than to begin developing lots. Daniel Carroll of Duddington eventually built and sold houses on his lots, but until 1799, he only built a large house for his own family. Since he owned many slaves, he may have used them to do his building, but I've seen no documents about construction of the house. So while there were upwards of 400 slaves, outnumbering whites, who lived in what would become the boundaries of the City of Washington, the designation of the city as the national capital gave no immediate impetus to private building and consequently, slaves who had been farm hands did not suddenly become adept in the building trades.

In the previous three parts of this essay, I've touched on the lack of evidence suggesting that the men who came to city to win contracts from the commissioners to dig a canal and build a bridge over Rock Creek relied on slave labor. Canal digging was a specialty of Irish emigrants, and a Patrick Whelan won the contract. Leonard Harbaugh, the Baltimore contractor who built the stone bridge, prided himself on the use of cranes which may have lessened the need for slaves to do the heavy lifting. What payrolls we have pertaining to his other jobs for the commissioners show that he used only a few slave laborers.

The first major non-government building project in the city was Blodget's Hotel on 8th Street NW just off Pennsylvania Avenue at E Street. When he started the project Blodget was the commissioners' superintendent, but the hotel was not to be financed by the commissioners. With their permission, Blodget organized a national lottery to raise money for the building and the first prize was ownership of the hotel, 120 by 60 feet which would make it the largest inn in the country. Blodget hired James Hoban to build the hotel and since Hoban used slave carpenters and laborers at the President's house, I assume that slaves worked on the hotel, especially during the first year of construction when work went on without interruption. Unfortunately, Blodget's papers, which must have been voluminous, are not extant, and his copious correspondence with the commissioners pertains mainly to the failure of his two lotteries, not the slow progress of the hotel's construction, which began in 1793 and was almost done by fits and starts, long out of Blodget's hands, in 1800. Fortunately, other speculators' papers are available.

In late 1793, the Boston born James Greenleaf bought 6,000 city lots from the commissioners and more lots from private landowners, on condition that he build seven brick houses a year on the commissioners' lots, 20 houses on the lots he bought from Daniel Carroll of Duddington, and 10 houses on lots he bought from Stoddert. Those building agreements made him the city's first developer. Greenleaf was in his late twenties and had made his fortune speculating on the American Revolutionary War debt in London and Holland. He had no experience in the South and never personally calculated on the employment of slaves. He hired relatives from Massachusetts and men he had met in Europe to oversee his operations and had an eye out for labor saving machinery. He hired a man in New York City who had just patented a brick making machine and sent him and his machine to the city.

Greenleaf did not hire a skilled workforce. He made contracts with three experienced builders, John Henderson, James Simmons and Joseph Clark. Henderson was a Georgetown builder first hired by Stoddert to build on Pennsylvania Avenue northwest of the President's house, then Greenleaf bought out the contract. As noted above, in 1795, a runaway slave had been described as working for Henderson. Simmons was a builder from Philadelphia. Joseph Clark was an English born builder who had made a reputation for himself in Annapolis. Friends there had suggested to Washington that he hire Clark to design and build the public buildings in the new capital. As I noted in Part One of this essay, one reason for recommending him was his having a large number of hands working for him. Given the volatility of the market in free labor, I think phrases like that were a way of saying a contractor had skilled slaves or indentured servants he could rely on.

The initial buildings at Greenleaf's Point (southwest Washington near South Capitol Street) were for workers and made of wood, which according the commissioners' rules at that time meant they were temporary and had to be torn down by 1800. Greenleaf's contractors built three tenements, one as big as 57 by 24 feet, several modest houses of 450 to 500 square feet and several two room shacks of less than 200 square feet. There was also an 18 by 30 foot edifice made by nailing planks on stumps left in the ground. In my book Through a Fiery Trial, I speculated that this flimsy edifice was surely meant for slave labor, but I'm not so sure now because there is no mention of slaves working in the crews of Greenleaf's contractors.

As far as I know Greenleaf's papers have never been organized. In 1989 his account books at the Pennsylvania Historical Society were in the collection but not in the catalog. On the day I was allowed to spend with them, I didn't make much sense out of his accounts with his Washington employers and contractors. In 1795 Greenleaf sold out to Robert Morris and John Nicholson, and those speculators inherited his headaches with the builders he hired. In John Nicholson's papers, I found a letter addressed to Greenleaf from the wife of Joseph Clark complaining about the treatment of her husband. It provides a feel for what those contractors' operations were like.

Clark seemed destined to make a major contribution to the city. In 1793 as Brother Joseph Clark, Rt. W.G.M. --- P.T. of the City of Washington's lodge of Freemasons, he officiated as at the cornerstone laying ceremony for the Capitol. Greenleaf likely met him there. Clark had made his career in Annapolis, Maryland, and when hired by Greenleaf, he moved to Washington. He joined Leonard Harbaugh to start the Architects and Carpenters Society of the Territory of Columbia. Within ten months of getting to work on what is now known as Wheat Row in southwest Washington, he was in disrepute, and soon, by testimony of his wife, insane. (His trajectory suggests that a tight circle of Freemasons did not control the design and construction of the city at this period.)

For the purposes of this essay, Mrs. Clark's letter shows how a builder who owned slaves could be destroyed by the way of doing business in the 1790s. Despite Greenleaf's purported wealth, a shortage of cash crippled operations and allowed all sorts of in-kind transfers to substitute for cash payments. Clark appears to have been fooled by the illusion of Greenleaf's wealth, and thought money was no object as he carried on the work. Clark advanced his own money to buy materials and pay hands. In a matter of months Clark exhausted his own cash and asked Greenleaf for $72,000. Perhaps to emphasize his connections to international money markers, Greenleaf hired two French emigrees to help oversee his Washington operations. They were able to balance the account with Clark in Greenleaf's favor. Clark owed him money. That Clark had not finished the houses he contracted to build, despite what Greenleaf claimed were handsome advances of cash and material, didn't help Clark's standing in the dispute and community. (See Morris to Cranch, February, 16, 1796, mentioning Clark's unfinished houses in the Morris Papers, Library of Congress.)

Greenleaf had contracted to build seven brick houses annually, and demanded prompt fulfillment of his contract with Clark. Evidently, if Clark owned slave workers (I haven't checked the 1790 census which might give us a clue), he did not have enough to do the job. As the commissioners' experiences with hiring slaves at the Aquia quarry demonstrated, around the City of Washington, at least, there was not a ready supply of skilled slaves for hire. And then, why should Clark wait to hire slaves to obviate a cash problem he did not anticipate? Why not pay top wages to the best free workers ready to work, since he was working for a financial wizard reputed to be a millionaire?

It is likely that Clark owned male slaves. As we learn from his wife's letter, to raise money for his move to Washington he sold three female slaves. Clearly he did not own enough slaves to carry on the work. His wife described him as having "servants and workmen," but from the letter it is clear that some of the servants were white indentured laborers. When creditors began hounding him, there was no mention of his having to sell slaves, something his wife likely would have mentioned in her letter. She did mention having to care for "colored" children along with her own. As for hiring slaves, if Clark had done so, those slave masters would be among his angry creditors, and his wife doesn't mention that.

I am missing the first few paragraphs of the letter in which Mrs. Clark described their good life before their association with Greenleaf. The letter does not prove that Clark used slaves, but the letter does reaffirm one of the major themes of this essay: whites in the city were so busy exploiting each other that their exploitation of slaves seemed rather small in comparison. Mrs. Clark twice excoriated "the numerous Miscreant Junto of Gipsies, French Poltroons, Dolts, delvers, Magicians, Soothayers, Quacks, Bankrupts, Puffs, Speculators, Monopolisers, Extortioners, Traitors, Petit foggy Lawyers, Ham Brickmakers, and apostate Waggon Makers" at Greenleaf's Point. She didn't mention slaves, slave overseers or slave masters. But in the phrase "Ham Brickmakers," she may be using ham to mean black, that is to say, bearing the same curse as Noah's son Ham. However, I'm inclined now to think it meant amateur brickmakers. Evidently amateur entered the English language in 1786 and it eventually was corrupted into hamateur from which the phrase ham radio operator comes from, and before that ham telegraph operator.

November 28, 1795 ....resources that enabled us to keep a Handsome and Plentiful Board, which ever echo'd the most Hospitable Welcome to all who were acquainted therewith. I am Sorry to say it now that our Board had too many acquaintances by all - for as you have bereft us of all our Health, Peace, Ability, Character, Credit, Money, Property and Livelihood in ten Months - I have found, that such is the depravity of Human Nature, that those Wretches that were once proud to be enrolled as our Friends, and others as our acquaintances are gone with the Property you have divested us of. In June 1794 we Sold our House, our Store of Merchandize, Three Female Slaves, also about one half of our Household Furniture, not to pay our Debts, for we owed none of consequence, NO, but to carry the money to Greenleafs Point - we had in addition upwards of four thousand dollars in paper Money, and I had sixty one half Joes long hoarded up; All is gone since the 6th of June 1794; with a multiplicity of other valuables, and to my Knowledge, on your account; Why gone! Gracious God only knows - Hundreds beside myself, can verify that my Husband Laboured during the intire progress of his operations for you, with Body and mind with uncommon Industry, and so did all his Servants, and Workmen, with an exception of that Apostate of all vile Apostates, who you seduced to treachery. My poor Husband losses of his property, his ability, time, and labour were trifling, compared to the Insult that was offered to him and myself - My Husband was decoy'd into an imprisonment, and was there beset, insulted and threatened with his Life by a hired Banditti. You sent an hired french fellow; a french Mutilated Aristocrat, a french Poltroon, Miscreant Ruffian, for sure none but such a one would have undertook to assault, insult and abuse me when intirely alone and in my own House, as he did. I address you in the language of an injured, Insulted, distressed woman whom you have brought to extreme misery, to a poor Hovel in Old Town, without money, property or credit with an helpless Husband, whose intellect you have deranged, by your vile Treatment, to insanity; with seven small children, white and coloured, and two Old Faithful Servants, and no means to procure them Food. I was obliged to sell part of my Furniture to bring away the residue with my Children & Servants from that Island of Bubble, Deceit, Horror, Poverty and Desolation, vauntingly dubbed Greenleafs Point - Four fifths of my Furniture and my Trinkets I have already sold, and this day I sent a bed to vendue to raise money to buy food for my family - I have long expected an Opportunity to address you in Person, as your Reporters on Baneful Point, have yelped many months, ye were all to be there to pay your Arrearages. Had you come I would have your Eyes and Ears witness the Woes you have overwhelmed me with, in defiance of all opposition of the numerous Miscreant Junto of Gipsies, French Poltroons, Dolts, delvers, Magicians, Soothayers, Quacks, Bankrupts, Puffs, Speculators, Monopolisers, Extortioners, Traitors, Petit foggy Lawyers, Ham Brickmakers, and apostate Waggon Makers. One of you had the impudence publickly, but when my Husband was not present, to explain "he would throw my Husband neck and heels into Jail" he had done me and my Family manyfold Service thereby, had he verified his Threat, but in lieu of that Threat, he with his Myrmydons have been ever since murdering my Husbands Intellect by Minutia. He had also the Vilainous assurance to make a public outcry against my Husbands Honesty - the Yankee wretch, the Mountain Merchant, whose honesty could not be underwrote for 100 per Cent - I know but little of him, but I know too much by all - I ask him if it was honest in him to Monopolise all the Materials that he could on Baneful Point and then Partially sell them out in the most egregious extortion. I ask him, if it is not shameful Reflection on his conduct, his understanding and his Honesty to seduce our servant to Treachery and by bribing him with the high salary of 8 Hundred Dollars per Year; Where the Servant was, at the same time, under contract to serve my Husband for less than 4 Hundred Dollars per year. I ask him if any Man who means Honest, would employ, on Baneful Point, upwards of Twenty, at a high salary, Gipsies, French Poltroons, Dolts, Delvers, Magicians, Soothsayers, Quacks, Bankrupts, Puffs, Speculators, Monopolisers, Extortioners, Traitors, Petty foggy Lawyers, Ham Brickmakers and Apostate Waggon Makers - I ask him, whether Fame says he was Honest in his Statement with his Partner (I do not mean his Wife) who fostered and fathered him - I ask him, if he did not Puff his Honesty to my Husband on that Circumstance - And I herein declare that some of his Miscreant Minions, on Baneful Point, have in my presence Puff'd his trickyness on that settlement - I have much more to wring his Wretched Heart - But let the simulating, incontinent Yankee mumble this - However, I shall take a further Liberty, to ask him, if an Honest Man would take another Man by the Right Hand & cordially shake him and at the same time Exclaim "My Joseph Clark I believe you are an Honest and Worthy Man - Altho, at the same time, it was despicable simulation and he had in Keeping a Multitude of Myrmydons to tre---- him - I can not Help informing you, that a wretch, a William King of George Town, who my poor Husband raised from poverty and obscurity and who, at the time of our Removal to Baneful Point, owed us upwards of Twelve Thousand Dollars - Has lately, in Lieu of paying me a Dollar, rendered me a short statement bringing us in Debt, on a pretence he furnished nails, locks, hinges, tools and Chicanery & swindling only knows what, on my Husband's proper accounting & writes, he does not know Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf - Yet for many months he trumpetted publickly that Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf owed him more money than would build one Front House - I could recite to you multitudes of such cruel instances of the depravity and vilainy of Mankind that I have experienced through you, within the last ten months, but let these suffice for the present, and I hope to hear from you & receive some supply to maintain my helpless Family, and Let me assure you, it will be no discredit to you to correspond with me. For Truth can verify that I am intitled to declare that I Boast a Chaste, Idolatrous Love to my Husband. I Boast an Unbounded, Parental Affection & Duty to my Children; I Boast Charity, Humanity, Universal Love to all the Virtuous Citizens on the Terrestial Globe; I Boast an Honest, Industrious Scotch Descent (A Ferguson) I Boast an unsullied Honour, Honesty, Sincerity - I am Void of Artifice, trick, Dissimulation & simulation - And if you wish my Maiden Character, I refer you to your Neighbour Mr. Edward Fox, Philadelphia, to whom I have taken the Liberty to Inclose a Copy of this Letter, and who I am sure, will forward to me such Relief as your Humanity, Honour & Honesty will posses him with - I am truly as you have rendered me and what this Epistle addresses & Call Relates, An Injured, Insulted. Distressed, Aggrieved and Hapless Woman with a numerous helpless Family, Isabella Clark PS - I am informed that among other Debts due to us at Point Bane, that, that Simmons owes Us about Two Thousand Dollars; I intend to write to Messrs Vidler & Jackson to make out the Account. It has been hinted to me that he intends to fob off payment, under the pretext that the Demand should be made on Greenleaf; who I am informed has no more to do with it than you have.

Although slaves are not mentioned as workers in Mrs. Clark's letter, it is clear that having them would have provided no cushion for Clark because he was soon without money enough to feed his own family, and creditors were still demanding money from him. Greenleaf claimed that he advanced Clark $36,000, which Nicholson, who hated Greenleaf and would as gladly have stuck him with a bill rather than Clark, verified. Clearly the contractor accustomed to building in Annapolis, a small state capital too near to Baltimore and the Federal capital to have any pretensions, could not adapt to the cut throat way of doing business in Washington in the 1790s, methods that by and large ruined all its practitioners. James Greenleaf, Robert Morris and John Nicholson, all had spectacular bankruptcies.

The villain of the letter, other than Greenleaf himself, is Lewis Deblois, who Mrs. Clark calls the "Yankee wretch." He had come to the city from Boston to run a store for John Nicholson and join his father-in-law, Tristram Dalton, the former Senator from Massachusetts who had formed a partnership with Edward Lear of New Hampshire, President Washington's former private secretary (a job he took again after his bankruptcy.) When Greenleaf sold out to Nicholson and Robert Morris, Deblois became their man at Greenleaf's Point. Mrs. Clark wrote her letter to Greenleaf, who sent it on to Nicholson, which was unfortunate for the Clarks.

Even though he was imprisoned with around eight million dollars in debts, there are few people who associated with Nicholson who in that worthies' accounting did not wind up owing him money. The state of Pennsylvania took control of all of Nicholson's business papers. Nicholson was a prolific writer, using letters bearing his promises almost like currency. The men who worked for him in Washington returned that wealth with a wealth of letters of their own begging for money. While James Greenleaf relied on professional builders like Joseph Clark to build houses, Nicholson relied on store keepers to both oversee building and create a community. As important as a head carpenter was a baker to provide bread to the workers hired for his projects. Paying carpenters with free rent or city lots struck Nicholson as far more progressive than haggling over wages. Of course, Nicholson's lack of ready cash encouraged him to make a virtue out of paying in kind and with property. Ironically, such a paternalistic way of handling a free work force did not seem to mesh well with the use of slaves.

Judging from his letters to Nicholson, all of Deblois's workers were men he had brought from New England and most of them soon wanted to go home. On Novemeber 12, 1794, he wrote to Nicholson:

I have been so much engaged in getting my goods housed from the weather & perplexed with my workmen, that I have not yet opened store, nor had time to write my friends as I ought to have done, having a great deal of outdoor work to do, I am obliged to attend to that while the weather continues good - My New England men who have been here since my last, expecting more from me than I think the business will afford, I have concluded to discharge them all & as they have had very little on acct. it calls for a considerable sum to pay them off. I will thank you to send me about two thousand dollars for my own use (say paying off People & c.) & twelve hundred and six dollars for your draft on me at 60 days in favor of Murray.... p.s.... I have got a good baker, blacksmith of the first rate, & a painter from Boston, the painter wishes your Co. business, he is highly recommended to me & means as soon as he can get back to Boston & settle his affairs to move here, the blacksmith goes back to Boston for his workmen and tools, the Baker remains here & I am prepairing a house & oven for him in my neighborhood -

Deblois began working for Nicholson before the speculator joined Morris in buying out Greenleaf. While Nicholson seemed to pride himself on brevity in business correspondence, resulting in thousands of letters, very few worth quoting, his partner Robert Morris was a master at painting the big picture and has left us with hundreds of letters well worth reading, though only half worth believing. Morris decided to hire Greenleaf's brother-in-law and Washington factotum, William Cranch who was also the nephew of President Adams who was both a friend and tenant of Morris's in Philadelphia.

Nicholson hoped Deblois would manage the larger responsibilities of now overseeing his half of Greenleaf's extensive properties, cooperating but not working together with Cranch who ran Morris's half of the operations. Hearing little good about Joseph Clark and James Simmons, Morris and Nicholson relied on another architect-builder, William Lovering, who had just come over from England and had been hired by Greenleaf. In an August 1795 letter to Lovering, written in Morris's style, a complete description of the Washington situation is provided. Of course, that there is no mention of the use of slaves does not necessarily prove that slaves were not expected to be used. All three men had colored servants when in the city. But it is clear from the letter that just as Greenleaf didn't, Morris and Nicholson didn't expect their employees to adapt to the labor policy of the commissioners. There is no hint that by hiring slaves the demands of free workers could be kept "cool." There is no suggestion that certain tasks such as brickmaking or sawing could be handled by slaves. I quote the letter in full as it appears in Morris's letterbook at the Library of Congress:

Philadelphia 17 August 1795 William Lovering Architect at City of Washington Sir, We observe by the contents of a letter from Mr. Cranch Esq dated at the City of Washington the 23d July last to Robert Morris that you had received the original contract made with us & Mr. Greenleaf & had entered into another whereby you engage to become the Undertaker of Superintendant for as many Buildings in the City of Washington as we shall direct for which you are to receive a salary of fifteen hundred dollars/per annum the contract being for eighteen months from its date. This contract we agree to being now the sole proprietors of those lotts and houses which were formerly the property of Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf - we now desire that you return immediately to the said City of Washington & on your arrival there, you are to consider and consult with Mr. Wm Cranch and Mr. Lewis Deblois as to the best mode of getting the houses which have been begun completed so as to make the same tenantable in as short a space of time and at as little expense as possible. Mr. Henderson is as we understand under contract to finish six houses which he had begun on square no 74 at a certain price and in a certain state pointed out by description annexed to the contract and to be compleated by the 19th September. It will be best that Mr. Henderson should compleat these houses, but as he has not received money agreeably for the terms fixed for his payment he may probably on that account require longer time to compleat the house and reasonable time should be granted on that account - you are however to see that these houses are built in workmanlike manner agreeably to the contract & description annexed thereto, and you will urge Mr. Henderson to accomplish the same as soon as he can. Mr. Cranch tells us that Clark has built eight three story houses on Square 503 & 504 which are almost finished - We desire that you will consult with Mr. Cranch & Mr. DeBlois, examine the houses and take immediate measures for having the whole compleated & made habitable as soon as practicable and at the smallest expense that circumstances will admit of, finishing first those which are most advanced - upon looking more closely into Mr. Cranch's letter we find that only four of these houses are nearly finished and that the other four are but carcasses or bare walls - Clark had also built 14 small wooden buildings part of which were inhabited - If anything is wanting to make the rest habitable you will have it done, that they also may be tenanted - Clark has also expended a considerable sum in opening foundations for six houses on square 166. This must not be lost, Mr. Cranch, Mr DeBlois & you must consider this object and determine what is best to be done, whether to contract immediately with a Master Builder to erect these houses this summer or any part of them or whether to leave it until next summer. You have erected seven houses three stories high on squares 502 & 503 all of which may soon be finished & for which we understand that every measure necessary to compleat them is ready - These houses will command your immediate attention and you will have them finished as soon as you can, so that the whole may become occupied and bring in rent - we understand that the wooden buildings erected by you are all tenanted and consequently nothing further to be done in regard to them. Mr. Simmons has begun six houses on lotts bought of Mr. D Carroll which were to have been finished by the 16th of September next and were to cost 8000 dollars whole - Mr. Simmons we suppose has quitted this business and as our contract with Mr. Carroll calls for the expenditure of 8000 dollars in buildings upon these lotts by the time mentioned above, it follows of course that your attention must also be called to this object respecting which you are to consult Mr. Cranch and Mr. DeBlois and whatever shall be determined on you will see to the execution upon the most economical principles. We prefer to have all our buildings done by contract to any other mode, and we suppose that you are more competent to judge of the terms and prices upon which reasonable contracts ought to be made. Consequently we expect from your zeal that you will take care in making the bargains and forming the contracts that we shall not in any instance pay more than what in reason and justice we ought to pay. We expect also to be indulged with as much time for making the payments as the contractors can possibly allow consistently with their respective abilities to perform the work - when contracts are made a description of the buildings as to dimensions, thickness of walls, size of timber plank & c & c a manner of workmanship should be annexed to the contract & referred to therein and you to be made judge of the materials & workmanship so that you may inspect and see that everything is done agreeably to the original design - The payments should be fixed by instalments at the stated times so that we may know what we are to pay & when. We desire that you may avoid contracting with men of ill fame or bad character altho they should offer cheaper than others, for we wish only to employ honest, industrious men, such as will do their work faithfully and who wish to acquire reputation by the buildings they erect. We shall write to Mr Cranch and Mr DeBlois respecting the payments that are to be made in consequence of these productions, and altho we are now struggling under a want of ready money in consequence of heavy engagements, yet as we have taken and are now taking measures to obtain supplies we hope they will be obtained so as to enable us to push on the City of Washington with reputation and spirit - Should any occurence require explanation of or addtion to these orders, advise us & we shall write what may then appear to be proper and necessary, We are your friends & servts, Robert Morris, John Nicholson

Morris and Nicholson continued to struggle under a want of ready money in consequence of heavy engagements. One of Deblois letters to Nicholson describes how workers pestered him for wages. There is no mention of masters pestering him for the payment for slave hire. Deblois also described how he tried to feed Nicholson's work force, and in that context no mention was made of slaves. He did have a garden, where he claimed he grew 100 bushels of potatoes, and possibly he used slaves for that. The garden was next to the brick yard where the workers were taking his fencing to burn in the brick kilns. He only described those workers as "they," and one would think if slaves were taking his fences, he might have made some comment apropos that.

Lewis Deblois to John Nicholson, September 25, 1795 I have recd. Your several favors for eight days past, but I have been so deranged & harrassed out of my life for want of money that I much fear I shall loose my senses. I would not for the whole City of Washington go on as I have done for the last three months, I cannot look at a single man on my works, but what looks back on me with a dunning eye & some use very unpleasant language to me. Mr. Duncanson put his cash into my hands as his Cashier, say 1000 dolls and has drawn it all out but about 100 Dolls. & the last fifty he drew for, I was oblig'd to send an express to Georgetown to borrow it of Mr. Dalton [his father-in-law] & if he should draw for the balance god only knows how I shall get it. I could take 100 dollars a day in the Store if I had goods; I was to be supplied with 5000 Ds for my Store by you, in lieu of which, my dear sir, I have supplied my Store chiefly with my own Credit & now my debts remain unpaid & my Credit so much Injured that I cannot obtain a new Credit, which is doubly mortifying having got my store in such Credit as to have several Customers from Georgetown & all from the Point, Presidents house & Capitol & pay off my old debts, (I don't owe 500 dolls in the world but for this concern) Get the Store well supplied & then I can go on finely having the conveniences of Storage & c. & The Millers want me to purchase wheat for them on Commission which I could do with half goods & half cash but I have neither - My Brother wants to come on here from Boston. I cannot help him. I have a Clerk at near 300 Ds a year to tend Store. I must dismiss him if I am not immediately supplied - It is agreed on by every one that I have done more good for the city than any other man, & indeed more then the Co. has done. (?) For the convenience(?) Of my people & the neighbourhood ; a needle, an egg 1/4, butter, hogs lard, 1 pt soap, 1/4 soap, pint of milk, gingerbread, /2 peck potatoes & in short not the meanest thing that I have not condescended to do for the good of the place. I shall raise near one hundred bushels of potatoes & all my fencing is my cord wood for Brick Kilns. I must soon take up my crop as they are burning up my fences at the Brick yard. I have supplied the neighborhood with Beans & potatoes & out of my garden all summer & have exerted myself to the utmost & can go thro' any thing in this world but the want of money, The want of that unfits for all business. I dream in the night that people are at the door dunning me - I have drawn on you in favor of Messrs Dubs & Mar-----ant for 1200 Dollars & I had rather give up the business than that you should not pay this bill punctually as they have used me like a Brother, their money was due them 6 months since for mercy sake pay it - perhaps you could get Messrs Whelen & Miller to ship me 2 or 3000 Dollars worth on your account....

When Lewis Deblois exhausted his own credit and looked to Nicholson for help, he trembled at the prospect of making a final account, because, as he wrote to Nicholson, of all the borrowing & lending, buying & selling & shifts oblg to be made for want of Money that it was impossible to attend to regular accts. I quote the letter below merely to demonstrate the complexity of keeping accounts for Nicholson and to raise the question, wouldn't it have been easier to simply employ slaves that only had to be housed and fed?

Lewis Dublois to John Nicholson, December 11, 1795 I take up my pen in hopes of answering your several favors in a few lines, as I do not feel calm enough to sit long at my pen - Mr. Greenleaf & Co's accts. I applied long since to Mr. Cranch [Greenleaf's lawyer] for, & last week renewed my call; he told me there were people [Greenleaf's Frenchmen] about bringing them to a close & as soon as they were finished you should be furnished with transcript - All the accounts have been so blended together that it would save much time in settlement of them if they went together, the Board Yard & Brick Yard they have endeavored to keep separate, but they have not been kept entirely so, many charges on each have been carried to a Genl Charge acct with the other charges - the Board Yard was rather a profitable business, the Brick Yard I think must have been a loosing one, if the Brick Machine is not taken into the Brick yard business, the loss on the latter will not be (I think) much more than the Gain on the Boardyard - Mr. Prentiss [another Nicholson factotum] is going on but how I do not know. I feel so mortified that he has a Large Shop of goods, & driving on when I who have beaten the Bush should be forsaken & suffered to sink & dwindle away, my exertion and attention to the business have deserved it. Mr. Law [Thomas Law who bought lots from Greenleaf] told me this day that he, Prentiss, was throwing away money in carting Bricks at 5/ from Carrollsburgh [South Capitol Street] when they ought to have been had at the Point [Greenleaf's Point just to the west at 4th and N Street SW]. I have once before wrote you that I had found it impossible to keep accounts here that I had thrown everything into the Genl Concern in order to facilitate the business it would have taken ½ doz. Clerks to have kept Regular accounts, such has been the borrowing & lending, buying & selling & shifts oblg to be made for want of Money that it was impossible to attend to regular accts. The accts of the numerous workman & shop accounts are as much as I have had in my power to attend to....

At first blush the use of slaves would seem to mesh well in this world of creative accounting. Clark, Deblois and Prentiss would only have to feed, clothe and house the slaves they owned or hired. The masters of hired slaves were paid quarterly, not weekly as free laborers were. Indeed, as William Cranch would demonstrate in 1796, with hired slaves, labor costs could be deferred at least three months. But the slaves Cranch hired did no more than dig cellars for houses, a job lasting a few days.

Perhaps the answer to the question is this: leveraged operations like Greenleaf's, Morris's and Nicholson's relied a great deal on promises of payment and property to get more out of workers. Those workers had to be free, for only free men could fall for such inducements. The only way slaves might have been used in that way, is for the developers to promise to buy them and set them free at the end of a certain period of time, all the while paying their masters for their monthly or yearly hire and feeding and housing them. Such an approach would have required an outlay of money the developers didn't have and saddle their workforce with men of doubtful skills who would not simply go away, or go insane in Joseph Clark's case, when the developers couldn't pay them.

That said, as far as I've been able to tell, none of the northerners or Europeans expressed any opposition to slavery, and many, if not most, soon purchased or hired slave house servants after their arrival in the city. We know Deblois had one because on February 17, 1796, he placed an ad in the local newspaper offering a reward for the return of his slave:

Thirty dollars reward Ran away from the subscriber on the 19inst, an indented servant named PEMBROKE (commonly called Harry) a light complexioned Negro, the property of .... Lewis Deblois City of Washington February 17, 1796

William Prentiss replaced Deblois as overseer of Nicholson's operations in the city, and to him was entrusted Nicholson's share of the most heroic building project in the city, the construction of twenty, two storey, brick buildings to fulfill Greenleaf's purchase agreement for lots south of the Capitol that he bought from Daniel Carroll of Duddington. During the summer Prentiss wrote often to Nicholson who was in Philadelphia. I have a partial file of the letters. They all struck the same chord -- Prentiss needed more money to get the job done. He frequently contrasted his troubles with the smoother time Cranch and Lovering had fulfilling Morris's end of the bargain. He mentioned his brick makers and brick layers. In Part Two of this essay I explained that one of the commissioners' contractors, Joseph Mitchell, used slaves in his brick making operations. It's not clear if Prentiss does. On July 22, Prentiss wrote to Nicholson:

...I have 5 gangs making bricks on the spot at 10 to 12,000 a day in good weather.

The word gang certainly suggests that slaves were used, but a little over a month later Prentiss wrote that his brickmakers quit and then by paying a part of their wages, they came back:

I wrote last post that 7 brickmakers had left me - by borrowing money and making part payments I have got them all at work again with full expectation of money coming this post - now I am quite disheartened and am almost sure every mason must quit on Saturday - Most of the carpenters have left but their work is in such forwardness that I care little about it - as there is plenty that can be got at any time.... (Prentiss to Nicholson, 17 aug 96)

Again, I suggest that only free workers would submit to this manipulaton. The day before Prentiss wrote:

16 aug 1796 ....Mr. Morris's hands going on well - mine all leaving the works - I kept all going until last night (assuring them Monday's post would relieve me) but some have left, however I shall not wholly give up until Saturday - if we fail now, we fail in any credit forever in this place..... In consequence of you not answering my letter of 29th July, Mr. Lovering has determined on pulling down the workshop - the fence around it & c to compleat Mr. Morris's houses with plank & c - Its a great pity for at present there is not a good workshop in the city with glass windows compleat through it - yesterday (Monday) I had 20 masons at work - 7 have left me....

As the September 16 deadline for completing the buildings approached, Prentiss wrote to Nicholson that he had "about 120 hands to pay daily." It is hard to imagine a work force of 120 men in the summer months in Washington not including some slaves, but slaves need not have been paid on a daily basis unless they worked on Sunday.

It is possible that I am being too respectful of the tradition and laws that forbade slaves from hiring themselves out, or their simply claiming they were free. As noted above in her ad for a runaway slaves a Mrs. Adams suggested he might be hiring himself out on river. And as we shall see in Part Five of this essay, in 1800 slaves hired themselves out as house servants. Undoubtedly the number of African Americans in the area grew. In 1795 nearby Georgetown made rules to regulate their behavior. A group of slaves loose in the city "exceeding the number of six" would be punished. The slaves getting up to 39 lashes and the masters fined 5 pounds. (August 4, 1795, newspaper notice.) However, it wasn't until Morris and Nicholson went bankrupt in 1798 and many of their houses fell into ruin, that African Americans, presumably free, readily found places to stay in the City of Washington. In a July 4, 1800, to his wife Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott wrote,

Greenleaf's point presents the appearance of a considerable town that has been destroyed by some unusual calamity. There are fifty or sixty spacious houses, five or six of which are inhabited by negroes and vagrants, and a few more by decent looking people; but there are no fences, gardens, nor the least appearance of business. (see an image of the full letter in Part Five)

Judging from a letter William Lovering wrote to Nicholson on November 5, 1798, blacks had moved in by then as he reported, "The work shop is partly destroyed by Negro people at the point.... I am afraid if not taken away the whole will be destroyed this winter." I think we simply have to trust in the details Nicholson's correspondents packed in their letters from 1795 through 1797. In those letters slaves are rarely mentioned.

William Cranch who was overseeing Robert Morris's share of the building, did hire gangs of slaves that were provided by and presumably overseen by Robert Sutton and Edward Burrows. I've found no letters in which Cranch described how the slaves were used, but that they were used is apparent in a review of his accounts for payments in late November through mid-December, 1796, payments made well after the work done by the slave gangs in August and September. Cranch did note to Morris that one virtue of using slaves was that the account with the man who provided them could be settled later. There was no need to have cash on hand every Saturday to pay the workers. One of the last notes Deblois sent up to Nicholson before he left his employ explained that free workers hired to dig had to be paid on a daily basis since it was the only way they could survive as they eked out a day by day existence:

...digging the foundation must be paid daily in cash as it is done by the lower order of people that has nothing before hand. (July 4, 1796, Lewis Deblois to Nicholson)

I include all of Cranch's accounts that refer to paying workers and put the accounts with Burrows and Sutton in bold letters. I assume they used slaves because they both hired out slave crews to work for the commissioners. (By February 2, 1799, Robert Sutton evidently tried to get out of that business. On that day he advertised that he was "selling negroes large and small.")

Statement of money paid by Wm Cranch from 17th Nov to the 5th December 1796 Cash paid to the following persons 19th Daniel Caffry money lent $4.20.... Riley a labourer on the house at Square 118 $1.48; Carson for digging a vault at the houses on square 584 $4; Edw Vidler on account of work on Mr. Morris's houses on square 651 & 118 $11; Thomas Jones on acct on houses on square 584 & 651 $20; ...23rd Connolly for carting lime to Houses in sq 118 $20.10; P. Purcell on acct of brick for the same houses $200;...24 Edw Burrows on acct of houses on Squares 651 & 118 $10; ... W. Giberson on acct of houses on Square 451 $20; Jno Kale on acct of house on Square 118 $20 26th Hugh Champlin on acct of work on house on square 503...$13; 27th Robt Sutton in full for digging on square 651 $33... C. McNantz on acct $100 ( Mr. Morris was indebted to McNantz for his labor on dividing materials & c between Morris & Nicholson, for work done for Morris and Nicholson on a two story brick building on Sq 562 commonly called Macomb's house and on Mr. Morris's house on sq 584 and on the house on N Street no 13, 14 & 15); 30th Heath for half a cargo of Lumber for sq 118 114.22...Edw Burrows for Labourers at sq 118 $100

The men getting small sums of money, Caffry, Riley, Carson, Vidler, Jones, Giberson, Champlin, were free workers likely being paid for recent work. Connolly who delivered lime, Purcell who delivered bricks, and Heath who delivered lumber, may well have used slaves.

After Prentiss left, Nicholson hired an English tavern keeper William Tunnicliff. He was not a builder but as he ran a hotel at 6th and Pennsylvania Street Southeast for Nicholson, he kept tabs on the men still working on Nicholson's building projects, and tried to arrange for the in-kind payments that Nicholson favored. Tunnicliffe kept a diary that he periodically sent up to Nicholson in Philadelphia. For the purposes of this essay, what is striking is how little slaves seem to be a part of the scene save for Tunnicliff's use of his own man and boy, who both seemed to be slaves. On December 27, 1796, Tunnicliffe placed an ad, "Wanted A number of Ax-Men, to cut a large quantity of wood by the cord, apply to William Tunnicliff, Eastern Branch Hotel," timed perfectly to get slaves hired out for the year. But in his diary which began keeping soon after he never mentioned these axe-men, so he probably needed men for no more than a few weeks.

In doing research for my book Through a Fiery Trial: Building Washington 1790 - 1800, I didn't copy Tunnicliff's complete diary but what I have for the winter of 1797 affords a unique glimpse of the chaotic state of building operations then. The basic problem was that the workers were not being paid. This was especially difficult for skilled workers with contracts and it meant that when Tunnicliff had to hire laborers, he had to have the cash on hand to pay them. In the context of a developing city short on cash, slaves were not the lowest order of people. Their masters provided for them, or sold them or hired them out. A slave was someone's investment with value, a free laborer unpaid was an object of pity but free to move on and find opportunity elsewhere.

I will quote the portions of Tunnicliff's diary that I have in full, and highlight those portions that pertain to the use of laborers and skilled workers. Tunnicliffe also wrote letters to Nicholson, and one he wrote on March 1, 1797, helps give some context to the diary entries. It was quite lonely six blocks from the Capitol and cash was in short supply. Tunnicliffe planned to build a race course, which he did, to attract business:

1 March 97 Tunnicliffe to Nicholson: Herewith you will see the present demands for money which I conceive you will Judge cannot be less than what I foresee is and will be in demand at least for the present time, say Bread per Week 50 dols Nail per week 25 Laths and Sundries 25 Cash also say to amount of 50 Doler per week will you know go but a little way with the workmen, if I have it, it shall be faithfully distributed amongst them to the best of my Judgement. - Mrs. T and family are well. She is lately extremely low - nobody comes near us except those that are ready to devour us; frets much at the selfishness of the people around us, there meanness is beyond description. - We are abt to make a Race Course opposite my house, theres as good ground for it as any in the continent for a one or two mile course. Kail will engage to plough the ground & make it complete, what say you and Mr. Morris if we can get a good subscription to it for the first year. It may be a means of some future good - we will make it complete - The Ice House is covered with soil & nearly completed have had two men at work a long time & not yet done intend to make many improvements about the House & Garden to please my wife the expence I don't care who pays it, and by direction of Mr. Morris have provided good Beds, good Cook, good Wines and good everything but all the world does not come to see us.

The diary gives us a blow by blow account.

Memoranda in the Diary since my last 1797 Feb 13 A whole banditti of Cormorants presented themselves this morning with Mr. Prentiss at the head & chief orator to the whole - he still persists that you owe him mo[ney]. and concluded by declaring that he would seize on the Houses & materials to indemnify himself in short he was very abusive and noisy.... 1797 16 Feby Peter Mill has given me 24 Dolrs to Mr. Debloise for his stable - quere, was it his to sell - Went to your Wharf, a strong SW wind prevailed which surged almost all over the wharf, a large balk was swimming away, I got my man Tom up to the middle in water & secured it with a cord, the new made ground is very much worn away since you & I was at it & several pieces of timber gone, in short there is a deal of work with two carts wanting to be done, perhaps I can procure timber from your own ground - Lewis Williamson called, he has taken an account of your bricks & lime in Sq 118 informs me that Wm O'Neal is carrying your lime by an order from Mr. Lovering to G Scotts - Mr. Boone called, says had he been at home when his deputy served you, he had more to amt of 28,000 Dolrs but they must now be served in Philad.

Since Tunnicliffe had recently arrived from England it is possible the his "man" was a white servant but wading into water in February certainly sounds like something a slave might be forced to do. One also supposes that William O'Neale himself did not carry the lime to Commissioner Scott's house site, but Tunnicliffe gave no clue as to the race of men who did. In the February 18 entry below it's clear the free laborers built the ice house since they were paid promptly when the job was done. If this had been a case of black slaves hiring themselves out, I assume Tunnicliffe would have mentioned that arrangement somewhere in his copious correspondence with Nicholson.

18 Feb Employd in carrying broken bricks down to your wharf - it would take 30 or 40 loads and make good work -- Paid Gridley the Blacksmith 2 Dolrs for mending yr carriage -- Paid 3 labourers 8 dol 75 cts on finishing the Ice House and moving soil -- John Kail called, wants the house No 82 (now vacant) for a family that lives with him, they bid 50 dollrs per anm. I saw 5 Dolr pr month -- sold a pair of socks val 3/9 19th Sunday went to W Bailys Esq Blue Plains with your letter, says you are mistaken, seems as if he would take time before he examines his papers so that I cannot yet get the cash, paid at the the ferry 12 cents 20th went to commis wharf early this morng saw your sail boat loaded with fish. I met Mr. Debloise, who had just given orders before a number of people, not to give up the boat to any one but him that he should retain it till he was paid in short he says everything disrepectful of you -- hawled timber out of the water on the wharf by Crawfords team 21st Wm Thompson called, wants money, have given him an order for beef and orders for a regular supply of bread from P. Miller. Went to commis's office with indenture. Mr. Scott says it will take some time before it can be examined after that they will sign it -- Saw Mr.Pollock who is going to Phila in a few days. Mrs. T yesterday ordered our boy Sandy to take the blue Cloth out of your coachee it was omitted being done & next morning it was stolen, we on the same day found that a parcel containing hair seating & brass nails that we brought with us to cover our chairs is also stolen, from this she immediately took down the curtains in the front room, otherwise for the want of shutters they might be moving also

I assume that Sandy was a slave servant. As far as I know the Tunnicliffes did not have children and that the boy was ordered suggests that he was a slave not a relation. Here there is a gap in the file I photocopied

25 John Barnett called wants nails, gave him an order for 20 lb of flooring brads and an order for two loaves of bread per day. Mr. McKnight called wants bread gave him an order for nails on Mr. Shanks says he has paid for a good many out of his own pocket. Went to the Point distributed some money, obligd to steal away otherwise was in danger of being devoured with complaints. Am in fear of giving too many orders for nails. I wish Mr. Lovering would return, so as to avoid your property being embezzled 26 Sunday Consulted with P. Miller abt the quantity of bread your workmen would take per week. we find upon the lowest calculations to amt to 50 Dolr per week! This sum must consequently be reimbursed to the Baker at least every fortnight, his funds you know will not admit of any longer delay & to stop this supply would be cruel indeed, the last stoppage was severly felt by many, for on the Monday after you left the Baker found the familys waiting. Tea things set & ready to begin their Breakfasts when lo there was no bread to be had as usual, with tears & the most pitious requests both Husband, Wife & Children all have joined in begging for bread, how can this be denied and how can I proceed long in this supply without I hear from you to effect it. Mr. McNantz wants 200 Dlrs he declares he never was in more need, begs I would write you his case

There is no better proof that Tunnicliffe was dealing with a community of free white workers than his report that he Went to the Point distributed some money, obligd to steal away otherwise was in danger of being devoured with complaints. If African Americans had been involved in these complaints the community at large would have been alarmed. As for workers lining up for breakfast, the failure of the commissioners, for example, to feed the slaves they hired, poor as that food might be, would have shocked the wider community. Nicholson's failure, which affected whole families, was the consequence of a failing business which, it seemed, was nobody else's concern.

March 9 Michael Shanks called wanted money to buy iron the lst being insufficient, paid him 10 Dollars. Mr. McNantz called wanted money had it not in my way to give him a single Dollar. James Knight called, wants money had none for him. Mr. Lund Washington called to know when you would be here again wishes to know the results of your idea about building him a house that you each had in contemplation. Mr. McNantz called again, went with him to look at your sail boat which is now in my possession at your wharf, says it will not do any good for the accomodation of passengers. she is so small that she is only fitting for the purpose of fishing or a market boat. McNantz gave me a schedule of the necessary pieces of timber the expences of falling, squaring, and lashing them in their places on your wharf No. 2. Wrote Wm Baily Esq for the money due to you. Mark Ward is returned without the cash. Went to George Town to get in some straggling debts due to me to relieve some of your workmen, could get but 10 Dolrs tho I was all day at it. Called on Mr. Morsell the papers will now be soon done, as he received no pay till they are. Mr. Duncanson starts to philad[elphia] in a day or two, perhaps I may send them by him. Called on the printer with you advertizemts. for his paper. Mr. Cranch was there he persists that there's no part of the property intended to be sold at George Town belonging to you. Therefore says that he shall give the usual answers as have before appeared in the public papers.... 11th James Knight called wanted money, he begged hard said he was in very great want, paid him Five Dollars; John Barnett called wanted money, would have been satisfied with one Dollar but could not give it him, we do not scarce take that much in the House in a Week; Went to Square 118 8th June - Was obliged to take in an additional man this day to fill gravel otherwise carts must have waited. 10th Paid 6 Dolrs & 66 cents to two men filling gravel five days at 5/ per day. Paid 2 Dolrs & 66 cents to one man filling gravel 4 days at 5/ per day.

Unfortunately, Tunnicliffe doesn't use the words slave or Negro is these diary entries so we don't know if he distinguished between "men" and black workers. But I assume the prompt payment meant that he was dealing with free workers. Indeed given Nicholson's record of not paying his workers, I assume no one would work for his agent Tunnicliffe without seeing the money. So while the commissioners endeavored to build with less money by hiring slaves, Nicholson demonstrated that one needs free workers who can be fed with promises to build without money. Building without money was the only chance he had to save his real estate. The only two people Tunnicliffe could rely on to work without showing money were his man Tom and his boy Sandy, both likely slaves.

As the operations of Morris and Nicholson failed, a few other men tried to take up the slack. Thomas Law bought lots around the Capitol from Greenleaf, as well as the first brick house built by Greenleaf's contractor James Simmons. Law built another mansion for himself on New Jersey Avenue, as well as buildings suitable for boarding houses. Law was a well educated, and well connected Englishman who made a fortune working for the East India Company in India. He had liberal views and was eager to invest in America. He won the hand of Martha Washington's granddaughter Elizabeth Custis and they settled in the City of Washington. The Thomas Law papers in the Library of Congress make interesting reading less for the gossip than Law's poetry and his high minded ideas about economics. He was an indefatigable promoter of the city he had invested his fortune in, and was responsible for the renewal of work on the Washington canal that eventually ran south of the Capitol and White House. I was unable to find any documents detailing his building projects or accounts for them and so don't know if he used slaves.

From what we learned of Greenleaf's, Nicholson's, and Morris's operations, it is tempting to suggest that developers who didn't come from the South shied away from the use of slaves for the building projects. But by 1800, John Templeman, who came from Boston in 1792 to invest in the city, owned twenty-five slaves. As already noted, he hired slaves from the commissioners. I think he centered his shipping operations in Georgetown and he began building at least one house in the city in 1800. I get the impression that Templeman was noted for both his good treatment of slaves and his ability to get work out of them. As already noted, slaves asked to be hired out to him. The other bit of evidence I base my evaluation on is the reaction in the Georgetown newspaper to a boating accident in the Potomac. One of Templeman's boats capsized and the March 21, 1800, article noted the "melancholy event" in the Little Falls lock in which a "few stout and valuable negro men drowned."

I don't think developers from the north avoided using slaves. They simply found it difficult to hire or buy them and also found that they did not have the requisite skills. Perhaps more interesting than trying to figure out if northern developers used slaves is understanding exactly how southern slave owners who built in the city used them. When Daniel Carroll of Duddington began developing some of his lots near the Capitol, he apparently did not rely on his own slaves nor on the slaves of his many relatives in the area. On March 14, 1800, he placed an ad in the local newspapers soliciting contract proposals from carpenters and joiners to build a house near the Capitol that would serve as a tavern. He wanted proposals only in writing and submitted by April 10th. At the same time, the men he contracted for to make bricks, Carter and Kale, placed an ad for 40 to 50 hands for brickmaking. The ad did not mention a wage which may mean that it was aimed at hiring slaves whose wage was, after eight years of slave hire in the city, well known.

One of Carroll's relatives, Bennet Fenwick, who had hired out slaves to the commissioners over the years, made clear in ads he placed, as the tried to raise a work force to build a house near the Treasury office, that he wanted slaves. The January 2, 1800, sought ten or fifteen "Negro men" for "hire or purchase," and five boys from ages 14 to 17. He also solicited a "contract for inside work." This gives the impression that the slaves were to dig foundations, and make and set bricks, and experienced white contractors would do the insides of the houses. I have not found any evidence indicating how many slaves Fenwick bought or hired, save that in January he hired out four laborers for two days for work at the War Office and earned 4 shillings six pence per day for each slave. (Return of Days Wraught by Labs at the War Office Jany 1800, already quoted in Part Three of this essay).

The most intensely studied private building in the city from this period is the Octagon House. A 1989 monograph, Building the Octagon, includes a chapter on the contractors and workers. The author Orlando Ridout V describes the arrangements Tayloe made with contractors like William Lovering. There is no mention of Tayloe using his own slaves. Ridout notes one receipt in Tayloe's papers that mentions slaves.

James Claggett of Georgetown submitted a bill in May 1800 for "30 days work by Aaron.... 29 [days] Bob... [and] 6 1/2 [days] Harry." These are doubtless the three slaves listed as Claggett's in the census of 1800. Their time was charged at 15 shillings per day, equivalent of $2.00, a top wage even for a skilled white artisan." (pp 84-5)

This is similar to a bill Claggett submitted to the commissioners in 1795, that I noted in Part Two, in which two slaves and two men with last names, received high wages, 11 shillings, for repairing a scow. The slaves then were Davy and Anson (perhaps Aaron, if I misread the handwriting.) Stone had to be shipped from Virginia to the Octagon building site and it is possible that once again Claggett could charge a high wage for his workers because they were repairing or maintaining the scows used. In appendix B of his book, Ridout notes that Tayloe took Claggett to court over the bill, and the court sided with Claggett. I get the suspicion that the high wages Claggett got for slaves reflects more on the wiles of Claggett than the skill of his slaves.

Ridout reckons that slaves did much of the unskilled work. For example he thinks the cellar was dug

by a large crew of semiskilled and unskilled workers laboring by hand. These were almost certainly slaves and most likely were provided by Patrick Connolly, who submitted a bill that included one curt entry for 'Cellar... L119.12.6.

Ridout also notes that Connolly billed Tayloe for $1 a day "for 807 days of unspecified labor." That's likely a typo for 87 days. As I noted above, William Cranch paid Connolly for carting lime in 1796. It is not difficult picturing Connolly bossing slaves who carted lime for Cranch and dug a cellar for Tayloe; but that pictures gets clouded if there is receipt for Connolly only getting $1 a day circa 1800 when common white laborers were getting 80 cents a day for some of Tayloe's contractors and $1 a day under Smallwood at the navy yard. (That said Fenwick's slave only got fifty cents for his slaves at the War Office.) One would think that a man owning and bossing slaves must ask for more than $1 a day for his own services. Smallwood eventually earned $2 a day from the commissioners for overseeing slaves. Unless we can find something showing that Connolly used slaves, as is the case with Sutton and Burrows who Cranch paid for digging cellars, we can't credit slaves for digging the Tayloe cellar. It could just as likely have been Connolly and some Irish emigrants, probably more likely because using slaves, as the commissioners learned, entailed the added burden of feeding them and housing them. Slaves were not easily employed as day laborers. Sutton for example sold his slaves and in 1800 was listed on the payrolls as a carpenter working on the Capitol.

In Appendix A of his book Ridout reprints the account book of William Dorsey who disbursed the funds for the Tayloe building. There are several payments to two men known to use slaves. Bennett Fenwick , who collected the wages of four slaves doing some work for the commissioners, was paid $96 in November 1799, $81.40 in December 1799, $13 in April 1800, $6 in June 1800, and $63 also in June 1800. In 1798 Rentzell was hiring out four slaves to the commissioners. Dorsey paid him $62.25 in May 1800, $27 in July, $41.60 in December 1801, and $21.10 also in December 1801. These payments seem consistent with Dorsey paying Fenwick and Rentzell for the use of their slaves. Plus when payments to Fenwick end, those to Rentzell begin. If from 1799 through 1801, Dorsey paid those sums for slaves, then now many slaves were involved? The total paid was about $411. If slaves earned fifty cents a day for their masters, that amounts to 822 days of work, which over the two and a half years of the project could have easily been accomplished by just 4 slaves.

The account does note one instance of what was likely slave hire. In November 1801, Dorsey paid T. Beall $5.50 for the "hire of mason." Of course, that could have been a white indentured servant hired out. Ridout also supposes, without clear evidence, that slaves assisted the stone masons. "Semiskilled laborers, possibly slaves, hauled stone, mixed mortar, and built scaffolding." Perhaps that was what Fenwick's and Rentzell's slaves did. But that presumes that the contractors hired to do the stone and brick work didn't make their own arrangements for "semiskilled laborers," which often provided employment for sons and relations. We can't just place slaves in jobs we now think they were likely to do. It was simply not that easy to move slaves around. There is no evidence that Patrick Farrell and Shaw and Birth, who did the brick and stone work, owned slaves. If they hired them who did they hire them from? How did they feed and house them? Wouldn't it have been easier to hire free workers attracted by the calls for workers in the new city? Men like Sutton, Burrows, Claggett, Rentzell and Fenwick did do odd jobs with their slaves, but they never seemed to use more than four for the jobs they contracted to do. Only the commissioners organized and maintained a system that created for them a large pool of slave labor, almost 100 at one time. Privately, that was never replicated. Men like Fenwick didn't seem to have the capital to manage it, and contractors like Lovering, or paymasters like Dorsey, or men like Tayloe did not want the headaches of hiring and providing for slaves.

Ridout does not estimate the total number of men who worked on the Tayloe house, nor did he estimate the number of slaves. He thinks there had to have been at least a dozen carpenters, and several masons. As for slaves, Ridout writes: "Slave labor was almost certainly used to produce the bricks for the Octagon and for many of the general labor tasks. Highly skilled slaves also played a role." But Ridout can only cite Claggett's bill that Tayloe disputed as the only evidence of skilled slaves. Judging from the commissioners' records there was generally at least one laborer employed for every skilled worker. However, there seems little evidence that Dorsey paid for 20 or so slave laborers to work at the Tayloe house.

The only evidence that slaves made the bricks is a 1799 ad placed in the newspapers by William Lovell, from whom Tayloe bought bricks, soliciting:

Negro's that have been used to the Bricklaying business, amongst which must be four good moulders, temperers, & boys as off-bearers for which generous wages will be given.

Ridout notes that in 1800 Lovell himself only owned one slave. So the slaves he employed must have been hired out by their masters. But a newspaper ad is a projection, not a description of Lovell's brick making operation. As it turned out Lovell only supplied about half the bricks. Did that mean that he was not able to hire the slaves he needed to supply bricks for the Tayloe house being built by his sometimes partner William Lovering? Of course we can project that Carter and Kale who supplied the rest of the bricks, and who also advertised for "hands," race unspecified, hired more slaves and made more bricks. But if supplying bricks was that competitive, so that Lovell could not even supply the bricks for one house, how likely would slave masters be to hire out slaves who might be sent back home in a matter of a few weeks? How easily did slave labor respond to the demands of a free market? That said, Lovell's ad provides the best evidence of the importance of slaves in brickmaking and bricklaying since it assumes that a good number of them have been used in the trade.

I don't mean to be critical of Ridout's effort which in many ways is more valuable than mine. One can see the building that remains, while this essay can at best but leave the bitter taste of the seeds of American racism. And Ridout's inclination to emphasize the use of slaves mirrors exactly what I did in my book published shortly after his. There is this tendency to make the most of the use of slaves simply because the national capital was built between two slave states. This allows a telling recital of how slave masters exploited African Americans while at the same time including those victims as playing a crucial role in the panorama of American progress. But it bears noting that if they indeed played a crucial role, few contemporaries noticed and little evidence of their contributions remains. Racism accounts for that in part, but there is ample evidence of who did the skilled work which rather crowds out suggestions of a major impact by slaves.

The closest any slave owner came to impressing the skills of his own slaves on the building of the capital community was when George Washington planned to build a house near the Capitol suitable for renting out. If any slaves were used to build the Octagon, it was clearly at the behest of the contractors Tayloe hired. No one has suggested that Tayloe even thought of using his own slaves. After two full terms as president, Washington retired to Mount Vernon in March 1797. In late 1798 he contracted to build a house in the City of Washington on Capitol Hill. From the beginning Washington had shared in the vision widely held by friends of the city, that prominent men would build "seats" in the city, at least to be housed comfortably when Congress was in a session and then, once the commercial potential of city was realized, to live there permanently. Washington was now too old for that dream and only built as an example and to rent the house out.

The commissioners arranged for their former chief stone mason George Blagden to negotiate a contract with the former president. William Thornton, the commissioner who was also an amateur architect, served as a liaison between the two. Washington was taken aback by Blagden's estimate, $12,982.29 (Commrs to GW 3 October 1798,) and hoped that by using his own slaves to do some of the work, he could lessen expenses. Blagden could do the masonry and his people would do the carpentry. The first step, he told Thornton in an October 18, 1798, letter, was for Blagden to send the specifications for the lumber needed, and the slaves at Mount Vernon, "my own people at this place," would get to work preparing it:

I should have inclined more (although my wish is to have no trouble with the buildings) towards engaging Mr. Blagden's undertaking the Masonry, agreeably to his estimate; doing as much of the wood work myself, as my people are competent to, and employing others to do the remainder of it; the Painting, Plastering &ca; to the offer that was made Mr. Blagden, for compleating the whole; and furnishing every thing as therein expressed (except Painting, Glasing and Iron mongery): and if he boggles at that offer, I must proceed in this manner, to the Execution of the Work; and would be glad to have a contract entered into with him accordingly. If this mode is adopted, I shall expect from Mr. Blagden, and without delay, a compleat Bill of Scantling and Plank; enumerating the quantity and quality; and the length, breadth and thickness of both scantling and Plank, to suit the different parts of the buildings, that I may take measures for obtaining them in the manner you have suggested. The length, width and thickness of the flooring plank ought to be specified; and whether Sap and knots are to be excluded. In short great particularity and exactness must be observed in making out the Bill, that every thing proper and useful may be had, without superfluity or waste. It would be expected of him too, to give the mouldings, and dimensions of such parts of the Work as would be prepared by my own people at this place.

Given the reputation that the well run plantation has gained over the years, where well treated slaves responded to paternalistic care by exhibiting those skills necessary to maintain the structure and infrastructure of the plantation, Washington's plan seems quite reasonable, even intriguing. While designed to save money, it promised to showcase the woodworking skills of slaves in the new capital. However, while Washington used skilled slaves for building at Mount Vernon, he made it clear that they were subordinate to skilled whites. In a 1789 letter he explained that to Thomas Green, a white carpenter he hired:

Whilst the Negro Carpenters work at the same spot where you are, they will be subject to your inspection and orders; and at other times if it should be found necessary to put them under yr. care it will be expected that you see that they do their duty.

A September 28, 1794, letter to Alexander Hamilton, principally about the Whiskey rebellion in western Pennsylvania, Washington also thanked Hamilton for arranging for a skilled worker to do some repair work at Mount Vernon. Washington was careful to say that he preferred that the skilled white man not bring his workmen, because his slaves could assist him:

...I have met with a man in this city (just arrived from Scotland) who from his character, professional knowledge, and the recommendation he brings, will, I conceive, answer my purpose in all respects except his unacquaintedness with negros, and the method of manageing of them. I have, nevertheless, employed him, as he is said to be skilful in making Carts, Plows, farming impliments, and wheels of all sorts. I will add, if in consequence of the letter above alluded to, you have entered into any engagement with the person in your neighbourhood, he may come on; notwithstanding my contract with the Scotchmen; as he will be much more competent to overlook my Negro Carpenters than the latter, who may be employed principally, if not altogether, in making and repairing the articles I have enumerated. I should be better pleased, however, if he should come singly, than with his workmen; as I shall be rather overdone by the whole.

It seems Washington preferred that his slave carpenters work under a skilled white carpenter, and that he preferred that arrangement to the expense of hiring a head carpenter along with a carpentry crew of free workers. But even with those arrangements, I don't think Washington was interested in perfecting the skills of slaves, though some did eventually do specialized woodworking tasks without a white master carpenter's instruction. When trying to hire "Negro Carpenters" from his nephew William A. Washington, he seemed to prize the character of the carpenters, wanting orderly and well disposed people, over skill. In 1793 he wrote:

Do you hire any of your Negro Carpenters by the year? or do you know who is in the habit of doing, or would do it? Having work on hand and in the prospect that I wish to have compleated as soon as it is conveniently possible, I would hire two, four, or Six if they are good common workmen and who are orderly and well disposed people. Your answer to these queries, with the precise terms on which they could be obtained, if to be had at all, would very much oblige Your etc.

Given these sensibilities it should not have surprised anyone that four days after charting out his ideas to use his slaves for his Capitol Hill house, he changed his mind, even though he was sure he could save a thousand dollars by using his slaves

Mount Vernon, October 22, 1798, Gentlemen: Your favor of the 18th. instt, enclosing a letter from Mr. Blagdin of the same date, came duly to hand, and although I am perfectly satisfied by doing the Carpenters and Joiners work with my own People, by a correct Bill of the materials required, and obtained from a reputable Mill on the Eastern Shore to suit the buildings, that I could save a thousand dollars under that head alone, yet, to avoid trouble to myself, to avoid disputes between workmen, having no controul over, but acting independently of each other; to avoid sending Negro Carpenters to the City, and having them to provide for there; and above all, taking into consideration what may, eventually, happen next year, and my employment in consequence. I have resolved to agree to Mr. Blagdin's terms: that is, to give him Eleven thousand dollars to build the two houses, according to the plan agreed on, and agreeably to the specification which has been presented to me; and must be produced and refered to, as the criterian by which the work is to be judged. I, taking upon myself the execution of the Painting and Glasing; and furnishing the Iron Mongery agreeably to the Bill which he exhibited; the quantity of nails not to over-run the specification; that is, by allowing him the amount of that item, he is entitled to no further call upon me for an increase.... see letter

His reasons for not sending his slaves reflect: first, his dislike of a confused chain of command, to avoid disputes between workmen, having no controul over, but acting independently of each other; second, his worry about how living in the city might affect his slaves; and, third, he would have to provide for their lodging and subsistence. Finally, his timidity in placing the slave economy toe-to-toe with free labor in his effort to save money could be hidden by an obvious, if not glorious excuse. Once again duty called. Adams had appointed him to organize and command an army being formed to ward off a French invasion. Blagden built the house without using any of Washington's slaves, and the painting was done by contractors hired in Alexandria.

Slaves who played such a large role in building plantations and the plantation economy proved unsuitable for building the City of Washington, save as laborers assisting skilled workers building the Capitol and White House. There seems to be no evidence to suggest that the commissioners did not employ more skilled slaves simply because those skilled slaves were hired out to work for private contractors who paid higher wages. Yet, while we have no statistics on the number of slaves in the city year after year, their number undoubtedly increased, but not so much because of a need for their unskilled labor. White people wanted black servants.

Part Five: Use of slaves as servants