L’Enfant’s master plan for the Federal Triangle survived and has endured up to the present day. He had proposed a great triangle that would connect the the White House with the Capitol and then back to a stunning statue for George Washington, replaced by the Washington Monument. The plan and that triangle in miniature are reproduced in stone on the ground at Federal Plaza, where Katherine and Robert exit their cab to enter the Metro. Located at 14th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue, the plaza cornerstone coincidentally contains a copy of the Bible.
Just as prominent Masons such as Washington and Ellicott had been involved with the foundation and planning of the city, so too did a Mason play a major role in the creation of the President’s House, first officially called the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. Captain James Hoban, an Irish immigrant architect, who won the competition and a $500 prize, came to Washington in June 1792 at President Washington’s request to design and construct the Executive Mansion. Hoban was a Georgetown mason and later would become the Worshipful Master of Federal Lodge No. 15, inside of the District.
The cornerstone of the White House was laid October 13, 1792, in a Masonic ceremony by George Washington, Commissioner Daniel Carroll, the architect James Hoban, and Master Mason Collen Williamson, of Lodge No.9 of Georgetown. Their names appear on the brass plate laid under the stone. The White House is located at the northwest end of the triangle at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, so named because of the key role the city of Philadelphia had played in the American Revolution, the location of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. As one continues along the hypotenuse of the right triangle toward the east—the traditional Masonic move from west to east—one beholds the nation’s Capitol, still the most imposing building in Washington, D.C.
On September 18, 1793, Masons gathered on Lafayette Square just north of the White House. Along with President George Washington they proceeded to the place where the Capitol now stands. Thomas Jefferson changed the name of Congress House, proposed by L’Enfant, to recall the Capitolium of Rome. The original design was by Dr. William Thornton, who would become the first Architect of the Capitol. But the final plan represented a compromise between Hoban and Stephen Hallet. So pleased was Washington by the cornerstone gathering at the President’s House a year earlier, he led the march that was a highly publicized Masonic procession. At the site of the Capitol, Washington himself presided over the cornerstone installation. Inscribed on the silver plate placed on the original cornerstone were the names of two members of Federal Lodge, James M. Hoban, architect and superintendent, and Collen Williamson, master stone mason. That cornerstone also dated the laying of the stone in the year of Masonry 5793. (Masons date from 4000 years before Christ, A.L. “Anno Lucis,” year of the light). The event is commemorated in several artistic depictions of Washington laying the cornerstone. Langdon will refer to the one by Allyn Cox in the Cox Corridors of the Capitol on the House of Representatives side meant to complement the Brumidi corridors of the Senate. The gavel George Washington used was the handiwork of John Duffy, a silversmith and fellow Mason, and made of the same Maryland marble used in the interior of the Capitol building. President Washington presented the gavel to the Master of Lodge No. 9 of Maryland. The gavel would reappear at numerous ceremonies in United States history. It was at the cornerstone laying of the Washington Monument in 1848. At least ten presidents used or were present at the using of the gavel, including Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower. Since 1922 the gavel has been stored in a specially built box in a safe deposit vault of the Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C. The silver trowel Washington used at the Capitol was crafted especially for the occasion by the same John Duffy of Alexandria. Washington presented the trowel to the Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22. It has also been used by Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 for numerous cornerstone ceremonies. Today, it is on public display in a special case in the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia.
Triangle map of Washington, D.C.
The largely unfinished construction of the Capitol Building was first occupied by the Congress and the Supreme Court in 1800. The Visitors Center that Langdon enters was opened only in 2008. He proceeds to Statuary Hall, where his attention is also drawn to the Rotunda and the Brumidi fresco on the ceiling. The Dome itself was redone during renovations that took place in the 1850s and the years following, somewhat impeded by the American Civil War, where the battlefields came close to the Capital located at the dividing line between the Northern and Southern States. The Rotunda is the large imposing circular room 96 feet in diameter and 180 feet in height. It connects the House and Senate sides, permitting passage between the two, and is visited by thousands of people each day.
The final point of the triangle, the memorial to President Washington envisioned by L’Enfant, was never built. The land on the intended spot could not support the planned structure and so the Washington Monument today is slightly offset from the original perfect triangle created with the White House and the Capitol. Even so, an aerial view (try Google Earth) reveals the triangular structure with the magnificent National Mall bounded on both sides by the Smithsonian Institute as well as the National Archives and National Gallery of Art, both of which also face out on Pennsylvania Avenue.
FREEDOM PLAZA
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Plaza
THE ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL
www.aoc.gov
MAP OF THE CAPITOL COMPLEX
www.visitthecapitol.gov/Visit/Capitol%20Complex%20Map
STATUARY HALL
clerk.house.gov/art_history/art_artifacts/virtual_tours/statuary_hall/index.html
FLOOR PLANS OF THE CAPITOL
xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/FLOOR/cap_maps.html