from Connecticut, describing Washington as it appeared to him on his arrival there, wrote as follows:
"Our approach to the city was accompanied with sensations not easily described. One wing of the Capitol only had been erected, which, with the President's House, a mile distant from it, both constructed with white sandstone, were striking objects in dismal contrast with the scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues and streets portrayed on the plan of the city, not one was visible unless we except a road, with two buildings on each side of it, called the New Jersey Avenue. The Pennsylvania, leading as laid down on paper, from the Capitol to the Presidential mansion, was then nearly the whole distance a deep morass, covered with alder bushes, which were cut through the width of the intended Avenue the then ensuing winter. . . . The roads in every direction were muddy and unimproved; a side-walk was attempted in one instance by a covering formed of the chips of the stones which had been hewed for the Capitol. It extended but a little way, and was of little value, for in dry weather the sharp fragments cut our shoes, and in wet weather covered them with white mortar; In short, it was a new settlement. The houses, with two or three exceptions, had been very recently erected, and the operation greatly hurried in view of the approaching transfer of the national government. A laughable desire was manifested by what few citizens and residents there were, to render our condition as pleasant as circumstances would permit. Not-
