Hoban's Peter, Purcell's Tom and the bridge over Tiber Creek

"Were the slaves' skilled hands contributing to the work, or were Hoban and Purcell padding their salaries?"

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 108

Payrolls tell us little about what workers actually did. Even the rate of pay doesn't necessarily indicate the relative skill of workers when slaves were employed since we must assume that slaves were paid less and thus earned less for their masters out of respect for racism of free workers. In a nutshell that is the problem in evaluating the role of the slaves owned by the superintendent of building, James Hoban, and the foreman of carpenters, Peirce Purcell. Both men controlled how their slaves were employed and hence how much they paid themselves for their slaves' work. However, since the commissioners signed off on every payroll they had to pay plausible wages to their slaves. In January 1795 while most free carpenters were paid 8 shillings 4 pence a day, Peter and Tom earned 6 shillings 6 pence.

In January 1795 the speculator James Greenleaf offered to pay for the construction of a wooden bridge over Tiber Creek. The payroll below shows the six carpenters Hoban sent to do the job, including Peter and Tom. This could be taken as evidence of the slaves' skill especially since they were paid a shilling more a day than they usually got. (The free carpenters got 10 shillings a day.) The wage increase was probably justified since building a bridge in the winter was harder than doing indoor carpentry work at the Capitol or White House. When I first saw this payroll some 25 years ago I thought it proved the skill of the slave carpenters. But I've had plenty of time to think about it.

There is a cynical way of looking at this. Hoban was a salaried worker and might not have viewed this extra job, which would cost Greenleaf a little over $100, as something he could not superintend without some compensation. Likewise Peirce Purcell who was paid 15 shillings a day as foreman of carpenters at the White House would lose money if he switched to the 10 shilling a day job, but he could send his slave.

I confess that I can't make up my mind about this, whether Hoban inflated the bill sent to Greenleaf and made a little bit for himself, or he sent his best men to do the job to impress the speculator who promised to shower the city with money. However, if Hoban was gaming the system, Peter and Tom clearly had to have a level of skill to make their role in it credible.

The pencil marks on the photocopied payroll are mine.