From the Archives: Building a Capital

The Hill has been turned on its head this week and it has us thinking about simpler times, when our town was just being built.

In the summer of 1800, John Adams had the federal government pack up and move from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. The move was part of The Residence Act, a plan to appease pro-slavery states who feared a northern capital would be too sympathetic to abolitionists. (But I mean, is D.C. the south?)

At the time, there were only about 125 federal employees (compared to almost two million today). However, D.C. wasn’t totally ready for governing yet. The Capitol was still under construction.

Construction on the Capitol began in 1793. It was a time-consuming process as sandstone had to be shipped in from Virginia. It was also hard to convince skilled workers to leave their homes to come to the relative wilderness of Capitol Hill to work on the project.

Enslaved laborers were therefore rented from their owners, and were involved in almost every stage of construction. They quarried the stone used for the floors and columns, sawed it, and became skilled in brick making and laying.

The most well-known enslaved worker was Philip Reid. He figured out how to separate the five-piece plaster model of the Statue of Freedom using a pulley and tackle system that had stumped everyone for weeks.

Construction wasn’t fully complete until 1830, and since then, the Capitol has had several phases of construction, including the dome, to make it look like it does today.