The Institute's membership at various times also 

 included Vice President John C. Calhoun; the Marquis de 

 Lafayette; fifteen United States Senators; twenty-eight Mem- 

 bers of the House of Representatives; thirteen Cabinet secre- 

 taries; Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Charles Bulfinch, and 

 George Hadfield, all of whom were involved in the design 

 or construction of the Capitol; as well as James Hoban and 

 Robert Mills, architects of the White House and the Washing- 

 ton Monument, respectively. In addition, there were distin- 

 guished representatives from the architectural and medical 

 professions, business community, clergy, judiciary, local 

 politics, the Army, and the Navy. 32 



Despite this glowing list of Washington luminaries, 

 financial support from Congress was almost nonexistent. 33 

 A room was assigned for the Institute's use in the Capitol, 

 but no other assistance for the organization was ever 

 extended. 34 Also, the Institute's membership remained 

 quite small throughout its twenty-one year existence, and 

 it never was able to attract enough members to support its 

 aims. The proceeds from dues were scarcely sufficient for 

 incidental expenses. Numerous plans for raising addition- 

 al funds, such as holding a lottery, selling public lots, solicit- 

 ing contributions from citizens, and obtaining congressional 

 support, were devised, but none was ever carried out. 35 



32 A discussion of the Institute's membership is found in Rathbun, The 

 Columbian Institute, pp. 18-23; and Pinkett, Early Agricultural Societies 

 in D.C., p. 40. 



33 One particularly unfortunate occurrence took place in this regard in 

 1837 when John McArann of Philadelphia offered to sell the Institute a 

 collection of exotic and indigenous plants including a coffee tree, night- 

 blooming cereus, sago and palm trees, sugar cane, cinnamon tree, and 

 a great variety of botanically interesting specimens. Although McArann 

 had the written support of forty members of the Horticultural Society 

 of Pennsylvania as well as the support of the Institute's membership, Con- 

 gress refused to provide the necessary funds for the transaction to be 

 completed. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Public Buildings, House 

 Report No. 290, 24th Cong., 2d Sess. Washington: Blair & Rives Printers, 

 1837, 5 pp. (Serial No. 306). 



34 Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan, A History of the National Capitol, 2 vols., 

 New York: Macmillan Company 1916, v. 2, p. 30. 



35 Pinkett, Early Agricultural Societies in D.C., p. 41. 



