Incipient racism: Williamson's letters to Presidents Washington and Adams

 In 1794 after the commissioners fired Collen Williamson who they had hired to superintend the stone work at the White House, he tried to get his job back, even suing the commissioners for what we would call today "age discrimination." He was 65 when he was fired. In the two letters below written in 1797 he wrote to Presidents Washington, who left office in March, and Adams, arguing that he could have saved thousands of dollars for the government if he had not been fired.

I copied his letters because he often boasted of his accomplishments and denigrated James Hoban who he blamed for his dismissal. Hoban hired the man, McDermott Roe, who hired the Irish stone masons who replaced the men, mostly Scots, that Williamson had hired. Those Irish masons did the poor work which led to walls collapsing at the Capitol.

In the letter to Washington he mentions the "negro's" who attended the 30 Irish masons.

In his  November 1797letter Williamson rather expanded his attack on Hoban and this time rather than just mentioning the slaves, he denigrates them as not equal to white workers. " They likewise have among them ten or twelve negro apprentices and drawing wages for them six of them is not equale to one good hand."

Here is my transcription of  first part of the letter.

City of Washington, November 27, 1797 Honorable Sir, I should not have troubled you in writing but considering myself still in the public employ, I think it my duty to give information of what has been going on here for too long a time. There is a James Hoban, an Irish carpenter engaged as arcteck for the President's house from Charleston and soon after came acompany of thives his former associats being three in number. those men most all of them he putt in places of trust, one is made overseer of the carpenters and charge of all the lumber at the presidents house, the second foreman of the carpenters at the capitole, the third store keeper of the repository where all the white lead and oil paints nails spads and c are stored for the use of the work, the above trusties have built for themselves five or six houses mostly out of public materials which proof is as follows, and has been proven the painter stored ninety four gallons of oile, at ten shillings per gallon, out of which they stole seventy nine, the public got onlt fifteen gallons of their own oile, the painter reported to your nominal commissioners and then an investigation was mead, the oile and lumber proven I have it to the judgment of others how much the other materials has disappered, by being under such hands, they likewise have among them ten or twelve negro apprentices and drawing wages for them six of them is not equale to one good hand, the gentlemen here says it was good policy in Hoban to get me putt out of place fore then there was non to restrain them, they did as they pleasd, this man have been a recepticle for all the Irish vagbons that came in his way, there is noting here but fighting lying and stealing and will be as long as this man is in power...

Other than Williamson age and frustration, a change in the commissioners' attitude toward Hoban might account for the petty viciousness and racism of Williamson's attack. As they ran out of money the commissioners paid more credence to complaints about Hoban's management style as he superintended the construction at White House. He had full command of the facts and was the only man who give the commissioners the information they needed to persuade congress to rescue the project. But Hoban also rewarded cronies and by hiring his own slaves as carpenters or apprentice carpenters managed to make more money than a commissioner.

In an effort to clip Hoban's wings, the commissioners required better supervision of building materials and banned the hire of slave carpenters. Did the commissioners' disciplining Hoban embolden Williamson to impugn the slaves which he had refrained from doing in his earlier letters? Perhaps that, and an expectation that John Adams, a northerner, would respond to his impugning slaves.

Neither president answered Williamson letters. They were forwarded to the commissioners who ignored his letters.