THE ORIGINAL BOUNDARY STONES OF 

 THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 



By Ernest A. Shuster, Jr., U. S. Geological Survey 



TOURISTS when at the National 

 Capital are usually anxious to 

 visit the home of Washington 

 at Mount Vernon, and to examine the 

 many relics of the great man which are 

 exhibited there. Few, however, if any, 

 realize that in the woods and fields sur- 

 rounding the great city stand thirty-six 

 little witnesses to the energy and fore- 

 sight of our national hero and the men 

 he gathered around him when laying the 

 foundations of our government. 



These thirty-six are all that are now 

 visible of the forty original boundary 

 stones of the District of Columbia. In 

 the years 1791 and 1792 a party in 

 charge of Major Andrew Ellicott, and 

 under the general direction of President 

 Washington, were engaged in laying out 

 the limits of the "Federal Territory" to 

 surround the then embryo capital city. 



Upon glancing at the map, the origi- 

 nal District is seen to have been an area 

 ten miles square, with the diagonals run- 

 ning north and south, east and west, the 

 south corner resting on Jones' Point, on 

 the Potomac River, just below Alexan- 

 dria, Virginia. The post marking this 

 corner was set, with Masonic ceremo- 

 nies, in April, 1791. The lines were then 

 run to the east and west corners, thence 

 closing at the north corner, not far from 

 Fenwick, Md. The timber was cleared 

 along the line, and the stone monuments 

 set at intervals of a mile, except where 

 the mile fell on unfirm ground or in a 

 stream. The monument was then marked 

 with the odd distance. 



The material from which the posts 

 were cut is the Acquia Creek (Virginia) 

 sandstone, the posts being 12 inches 

 square and 24 out of ground, the corner 

 posts being 36 inches high, with the ex- 

 ception of the west corner, which is of 

 the same size as the intermediate stones. 

 Evidently a mistake was made, as there 



is a 36-inch stone at No. 3, on the south- 

 east line. The stones appear to have 

 been sawn from the rough, the saw 

 marks being plainly visible on many. 

 The words Jurisdiction of the: United 

 States, followed by the number of miles 

 from the corner at which the series 

 begins, appear on the side facing the 

 District. Passing around the stone to 

 the right, one is confronted with the fig- 

 ures 1 79 1 or 1792, according as he is in 

 Virginia or Maryland. The third side 

 reads Maryland or Virginia, and on 

 the fourth is given the magnetic varia- 

 tion at that time. 



About twenty years ago the Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey remeasured the Dis- 

 trict, and determined the exact position 

 of the monuments, with the result that 

 the four sides of the "square" were 

 found to average 160 feet long in the 

 ten miles, and the entire area is tipped 

 westward on the south corner as a pivot, 

 so that the north corner is 116 feet west 

 of its proper position. 



That part of the original District 

 which lay west of the Potomac River 

 was ceded back to Virginia in 1846, the 

 area being now called Alexandria 

 County. The line then ceased to have 

 the importance of a State boundary, and 

 for this reason, possibly, the monuments 

 on this side of the river are not as easily 

 found. 



During the summer of 1908 I had the 

 privilege of retracing the District line 

 and visiting these old monuments in 

 company with an interested relative and 

 a camera with which to record their con- 

 dition. It is, of course, impossible to 

 reproduce all of the many photographs 

 taken during the summer, but only those 

 which show interesting features. 



The south corner post lies buried be- 

 hind the sea wall at the Jones' Point 

 Lighthouse. The southeast, No. 7, is 



