1795 September & August payrolls for stone masons at Capitol

"Criticism from the president and secretary of state prompted the commissioners to question McDermott Roe's masons. As they built their case against him, they also cleared masons who didn't seem involved in the shoddy work. They rehired them to work for wages, not by the piece."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 92-3

These payrolls for masons at the Capitol for August & September 1795. They were all white workers, many of them emigrants. The payrolls show men with Irish names who had likely been recruited by McDermott Roe working with men with Scottish names likely recruited by Collen Williamson and his son. The laborers hired by the commissioners, most of them hired slaves, "tended" the masons. That is, they moved the stones from the stone yards after the stone cutters had finished with them to the walls of the buildings and then raised them using cranes, blocks and tackles up the scaffolding, if needs be, so the skilled masons could set the stone. Laborers or in the case of slaves were paid by the month or year. These payrolls for masons show that every man worked for days wages, but the rate, in Maryland shillings, varied from 7/6 to 11/3. I found no explanation for that in the commissioners' records (which doesn't mean none is there.) There are other things in the payroll I can't explain. In September no one worked more than 17 days and in August 18 1/4 days, and several men worked far fewer days. There were some heavy rains in August which may prevented work on the walls.  When compiling my list of men who worked on the public buildings I neglected to include men on this payroll. Only two of the men on this payroll, James Stephenson and James Maitland, were included in the lists in Slave Labor in the Capital's appendix and they were listed not as stone workers but bricklayers. So add to that list of workers a man named Aston whose first name is illegible, William Bishop, Sr and Jr, Patrick Bryan, Abel Colman, James Connor, Israel? Davis, Dennis and Patrick Deveany, Anthony Even or Iven, James Gordon, ? Gowdy, William Hamilton, Matthew Holland, ? and William Lowry, Andrew McGown, James McGrath, and David Tweedy. I print out their names to make searching easier for genealogists. Also interesting is that 6 of the 21 men on the September payroll were evidently related. Bishop Sr. and Jr. earned the same top wage.