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several miles inland from the Potomac River,
the quarry provided easy transportation of
stone upriver to the building sites of the
President’s House and Capitol Building.
While the labor records for the quarry’s
operation are incomplete, the records
of the commissioners and their published
advertisements suggest that enslaved people
were later hired to cut and move this stone.
Meanwhile, brick masters built kilns near the
White House building site to produce bricks
for the building’s interior structure, while
axemen felled trees in Maryland and Virginia
forests and shipped the lumber to Washington
to be used as floor and roof timbers.
As building materials were produced and
gathered, laborers constructed the building
under the watchful eye of foremen and
overseers. Throughout the construction,
most unskilled laborers earned around $0.31

This recreated map by Don Hawkins depicts Washington City in 1801. The
unbuilt streets are shown as dots. The map depicts a stark and unbuilt landscape
with most existing construction located near the President’s House and the
Capitol Building

At left: This painting depicts Georgetown and the Federal City in 1801.
Originally drawn by George Beck of Philadelphia, this engraving was done by
Thomas Cartwright of London and was published by Atkins and Nightingale.
The Potomac River is depicted in the painting. The buildings closer to the
forefront are in Georgetown, while the ones further away make up the City
of Washington.

The first mention of slavery in the commissioners’ records
per day. Skilled craftsmen like stone cutters earned closer to $1.34 per appeared on April 13, 1792, when they resolved to hire, “good
day. While there were certainly some skilled enslaved laborers, most labouring negroes by the year, the masters cloathing them well and
were probably considered unskilled and their owners were paid as such. finding each a blanket, the commissioners finding them provisions and
Although the White House was not entirely complete, most construction paying twenty one pounds a year.” This course of action was not a new
had concluded when President John Adams moved into the residence one, as many local slave owners had been hiring out their enslaved
on November 1, 1800. laborers to neighbors and businesses for some time. Owners collected
the wage while continuing to provide clothing and some medical care.
H THE LABOR H The commissioners typically provided workers with housing, two meals
per day, and basic medical care. This arrangement allowed the nascent
The decision to use enslaved labor in construction came naturally to capital to reap the benefits of labor without bearing total responsibility
the commissioners. All three of the original commissioners belonged to for the workers’ general wellbeing. If an enslaved worker did not show
the landed gentry and owned enslaved people. Some of the later up to work, the overseer simply docked the pay given to the owner.
commissioners belonged to the landed gentry and owned enslaved Many of the documented enslaved laborers worked on both the
people. Some of the later commissioners even hired out their own White House and the Capitol Building. Because these two projects
enslaved people to labor on the Capitol Building and the White House. were so closely intertwined, it is often difficult to determine which
For Example, Gustavus Scott, who began serving in the role of laborers specifically worked on the White House between the
commissioner in 1794, hired out two enslaved men named Bob and procurement and production of resources and the shuttling of labor
Kit, pocketing their wages for himself. In addition, the location of the between sites. According to meticulous research by historian Bob
new Federal City carved out of two states that permitted slavery, Arnebeck, over 200 known enslaved individuals labored on the White
Maryland and Virginia, made it convenient to hire out enslaved House and Capitol Building. You can access an index of the enslaved
individuals from nearby landowners. people currently identified at www.whitehousehistory.org/index-of-
enslaved-individuals. However, there are likely many more enslaved
The use of enslaved labor to build one of the most revered symbols of people who worked on these federal building projects and remain
unknown – their names are either lost to history or await future discovery.
American democracy, and the home of the President of the United
States, represents the paradoxical relationship between the institution of H CASE IN POINT: GEORGE FENWICK H
slavery and the ideals of freedom and liberty enshrined in America’s
founding documents. – Author Lina Mann Determining anything more than an enslaved person’s first name is
extraordinarily difficult. Their names are often denoted as the enslaved

26 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles