Do accounts for Morris's buildings show the use of slave laborers?

In Through a Fiery Trial, I cover the efforts of Robert Morris and John Nicholson to each build 10  brick houses just off South Capitol Street. They had to meet a deadline to prevent Daniel Carroll of Duddington from taking back the lots. Nicholson's correspondents wrote letters about their inability to pay workers and evidently they had to pay wages each day to keep laborers on the job. That might have made it difficult to hire slave. The lawyer William Cranch oversaw the building of Robert Morris's 10 houses. His few letters reveal nothing about the laborers he used, but his accounts do.

The accounts list charges for both the South Capitol Street project,  Square 651 and work in other areas like a house in Square 115 in the west end of the city. A laborer named Riley earned a $1.48 at 115 and a laborer named Carson $4 for digging a vault at 514. We can assume Riley worked alone, but Carson might have had a slave or two working for him. Some of the men listed as getting paid had a reputation for using slaves like Edward Burrows who got $10 and Robert Sutton who got $33 for digging a cellar. To me most likely indication of slave use is the $100 paid to Burrows for the use of laborers. He was paid in late November well after the shell of the buildings were done and Carroll's demands satisfied. The advantage to hiring slaves was that by tradition masters were paid at the end of the year or end of the quarter. So Burrows could hire slaves for work in August and not have to pay their masters until late November.

The accounts also give the names of contractors in 1796. Peirce Purcell, the head carpenter at the White House, was evidently selling bricks. The man who I think was the famous Philadelphia brick maker, Jonathan Kale, was also paid for something unspecified.

Foundations: positioning the "Palace"

Washington wrote a letter to his personal secretary back in Philadelphia that on his return, Hoban would "enter heartily upon the work," and he had already "laid out the foundation which is now digging." The president didn't mention the diggers. It was as if the foundation was digging itself.

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 59-60

What I quoted in the book came from a letter Washington wrote to Tobias Lear on July 30, 1792, see the letter. After I wrote the book I found a photocopy of a letter Commissioners Stuart and Carroll wrote to Commissioner Johnson describing Washington at the site of the "Palace."

He viewed the ground "particularly at the place for the Palace. It has given him considerable difficulty trouble and difficulty to fix his mind...." I am not sure I would have used that in the book in order to make more fun of Washington not saying who was digging the foundation. The larger significance of Washington's "trouble and difficulty" is that this was his first time touring the site since L'Enfant left. Was Washington's mind too brittle to grasp the complexities that L'Enfant made seem easy?

The commissioners also discuss their need for brick makers in the letter.

Did Isabella Clark see black brickmakers?

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 124

At the end of 1795 work in Washington drove one of Greenleaf’s building contractors insane and his wife wrote to Greenleaf cursing the day she and her husband were lured to live and work in the new city. Isabella Clark didn’t stint on the colorful language when describing her neighbors all trying to cash in on Greenleaf’s building projects: “Miscreant Junto of Gipsies, French Poltroons, Dolts, delvers, Magicians, Soothayers, Quacks, Bankrupts, Puffs, Speculators, Monopolisers, Extortioners, Traitors, Petit foggy Lawyers, Ham Brickmakers, and apostate Waggon Makers.”

She didn’t forget the African Americans on the scene. They were the “Ham Brickmakers.” That suggests that those supposedly black and enslaved because of Noah’s curse on his son Ham made more bricks for the contractors than the brick machine. But her colorful description doesn’t help us distinguish between slave and free brick makers

I found this letter in the microfilmed edition of John Nicholson's papers. Isabella wrote to James Greenleaf who had copies made of the letter and sent them onto Nicholson and Robert Morris. Greenleaf had hired her husband Joseph Clark, the noted Annapolis builder and Grand Master of the Freemasons in Maryland. He spoke at the Capitol cornerstone ceremonies in 1793 which is probably where he met Greenleaf.

Clarke went mad prompting his wife to write this letter. In a nutshell, Greenleaf overvalued the building materials he shipped to Clarke to make the house he contracted to make for Greenleaf. Thus while Clarke was expecting cash payment for his completed work, Greenleaf was expecting reimbursement for the materials he shipped. Greenleaf had clerks and lawyers and even a French consultant on the scene keeping an eye of Clarke and the other contractors Greenleaf hired. Plus since everyone from the President on down thought Greenleaf was a millionaire not a few small time operators tried to get in on the action was sure to create.

I apologize for not having the complete letter and better quality scans, but time, expense, and the technology of the late 80s....

As the letter indicates, the Clark did own slaves, selling three female slaves to help finance their move to Washington, but I didn't find solid evidence that he owned slave workers or hired them. However, in 1790 Clark got a friend to write to President Washington who he assumed was looking for someone to build the new capital city. In an 2 August 1790 letter to the president, A. C. Hanson of Annapolis mentioned "the attachment and obedience" of Clark's workmen.

Clearly, Clark did not hire men to make the many bricks he needed. He almost completed the three story brick row houses called Wheat Row in SW Washington. He got bricks from Greenleaf. There is another interpretation of the phrase "Ham Brickmakers." The word "ham" was just beginning to mean "amateur." 

November 28, 1795

....resources that enabled us to keep a Handsome and Plentiful Board, which ever echo'd the most Hospitable Welcome to all who were acquainted therewith. I am Sorry to say it now that our Board had too many acquaintances by all - for as you have bereft us of all our Health, Peace, Ability, Character, Credit, Money, Property and Livelihood in ten Months - I have found, that such is the depravity of Human Nature, that those Wretches that were once proud to be enrolled as our Friends, and others as our acquaintances are gone with the Property you have divested us of.

In June 1794 we Sold our House, our Store of Merchandize, Three Female Slaves, also about one half of our Household Furniture, not to pay our Debts, for we owed none of consequence, NO, but to carry the money to Greenleafs Point - we had in addition upwards of four thousand dollars in paper Money, and I had sixty one half Joes long hoarded up; All is gone since the 6th of June 1794; with a multiplicity of other valuables, and to my Knowledge, on your account; Why gone! Gracious God only knows - Hundreds beside myself, can verify that my Husband Laboured during the intire progress of his operations for you, with Body and mind with uncommon Industry, and so did all his Servants, and Workmen, with an exception of that Apostate of all vile Apostates, who you seduced to treachery.

My poor Husband losses of his property, his ability, time, and labour were trifling, compared to the Insult that was offered to him and myself - My Husband was decoy'd into an imprisonment, and was there beset, insulted and threatened with his Life by a hired Banditti. You sent an hired french fellow; a french Mutilated Aristocrat, a french Poltroon, Miscreant Ruffian, for sure none but such a one would have undertook to assault, insult and abuse me when intirely alone and in my own House, as he did.

I address you in the language of an injured, Insulted, distressed woman whom you have brought to extreme misery, to a poor Hovel in Old Town, without money, property or credit with an helpless Husband, whose intellect you have deranged, by your vile Treatment, to insanity; with seven small children, white and coloured, and two Old Faithful Servants, and no means to procure them Food. I was obliged to sell part of my Furniture to bring away the residue with my Children & Servants from that Island of Bubble, Deceit, Horror, Poverty and Desolation, vauntingly dubbed Greenleafs Point - Four fifths of my Furniture and my Trinkets I have already sold, and this day I sent a bed to vendue to raise money to buy food for my family - I have long expected an Opportunity to address you in Person, as your Reporters on Baneful Point, have yelped many months, ye were all to be there to pay your Arrearages. Had you come I would have your Eyes and Ears witness the Woes you have overwhelmed me with, in defiance of all opposition of the numerous Miscreant Junto of Gipsies, French Poltroons, Dolts, delvers, Magicians, Soothayers, Quacks, Bankrupts, Puffs, Speculators, Monopolisers, Extortioners, Traitors, Petit foggy Lawyers, Ham Brickmakers, and apostate Waggon Makers.
One of you had the impudence publickly, but when my Husband was not present, to explain "he would throw my Husband neck and heels into Jail" he had done me and my Family manyfold Service thereby, had he verified his Threat, but in lieu of that Threat, he with his Myrmydons have been ever since murdering my Husbands Intellect by Minutia. He had also the Vilainous assurance to make a public outcry against my Husbands Honesty - the Yankee wretch, the Mountain Merchant, whose honesty could not be underwrote for 100 per Cent - I know but little of him, but I know too much by all - I ask him if it was honest in him to Monopolise all the Materials that he could on Baneful Point and then Partially sell them out in the most egregious extortion. I ask him, if it is not shameful Reflection on his conduct, his understanding and his Honesty to seduce our servant to Treachery and by bribing him with the high salary of 8 Hundred Dollars per Year; Where the Servant was, at the same time, under contract to serve my Husband for less than 4 Hundred Dollars per year. I ask him if any Man who means Honest, would employ, on Baneful Point, upwards of Twenty, at a high salary, Gipsies, French Poltroons, Dolts, Delvers, Magicians, Soothsayers, Quacks, Bankrupts, Puffs, Speculators, Monopolisers, Extortioners, Traitors, Petty foggy Lawyers, Ham Brickmakers and Apostate Waggon Makers - I ask him, whether Fame says he was Honest in his Statement with his Partner (I do not mean his Wife) who fostered and fathered him - I ask him, if he did not Puff his Honesty to my Husband on that Circumstance - And I herein declare that some of his Miscreant Minions, on Baneful Point, have in my presence Puff'd his trickyness on that settlement - I have much more to wring his Wretched Heart - But let the simulating, incontinent Yankee mumble this -
However, I shall take a further Liberty, to ask him, if an Honest Man would take another Man by the Right Hand & cordially shake him and at the same time Exclaim "My Joseph Clark I believe you are an Honest and Worthy Man - Altho, at the same time, it was despicable simulation and he had in Keeping a Multitude of Myrmydons to tre---- him - I can not Help informing you, that a wretch, a William King of George Town, who my poor Husband raised from poverty and obscurity and who, at the time of our Removal to Baneful Point, owed us upwards of Twelve Thousand Dollars - Has lately, in Lieu of paying me a Dollar, rendered me a short statement bringing us in Debt, on a pretence he furnished nails, locks, hinges, tools and Chicanery & swindling only knows what, on my Husband's proper accounting & writes, he does not know Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf - Yet for many months he trumpetted publickly that Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf owed him more money than would build one Front House -
I could recite to you multitudes of such cruel instances of the depravity and vilainy of Mankind that I have experienced through you, within the last ten months, but let these suffice for the present, and I hope to hear from you & receive some supply to maintain my helpless Family, and Let me assure you, it will be no discredit to you to correspond with me. For Truth can verify that I am intitled to declare that I Boast a Chaste, Idolatrous Love to my Husband. I Boast an Unbounded, Parental Affection & Duty to my Children; I Boast Charity, Humanity, Universal Love to all the Virtuous Citizens on the Terrestial Globe; I Boast an Honest, Industrious Scotch Descent (A Ferguson) I Boast an unsullied Honour, Honesty, Sincerity - I am Void of Artifice, trick, Dissimulation & simulation - And if you wish my Maiden Character, I refer you to your Neighbour Mr. Edward Fox, Philadelphia, to whom I have taken the Liberty to Inclose a Copy of this Letter, and who I am sure, will forward to me such Relief as your Humanity, Honour & Honesty will posses him with - I am truly as you have rendered me and what this Epistle addresses & Call Relates, An Injured, Insulted. Distressed, Aggrieved and Hapless Woman with a numerous helpless Family,

Isabella Clark

PS - I am informed that among other Debts due to us at Point Bane, that, that Simmons owes Us about Two Thousand Dollars; I intend to write to Messrs Vidler & Jackson to make out the Account. It has been hinted to me that he intends to fob off payment, under the pretext that the Demand should be made on Greenleaf; who I am informed has no more to do with it than you have.

Digging clay for bricks on Capitol Hill

"In Maryland in the 1790s, most workers in the brick making business were African Americans. Irish canal diggers didn’t dig, mould or bake clay. The commissioners got Middleton Belt and Bennett Fenwick to do that, not Patrick Whalen. Both Belt and Fenwick used slaves.... After Mitchell’s brick making crews were thwarted by fevers, the commissioners ordered pits for clay dug higher up on Capitol Hill for reasons of health."

 Quote from Slave Labor in the Capitol, pages 116ff 

No one described what workers did or exactly where they did it. But Nicholas King, the newly appointed surveyor of the city, did make a map of where clay for bricks could be dug on Capitol Hill, and to what depth and which contractor was assigned to which street. Both Middleton Belt and Bennett Fenwick hired out their slaves to the commissioners so I assume they used slaves to fulfill their contracts to dig clay in the streets.

1791 letter about the brick making business

Before the commissioners hired Collen Williamson or James Hoban, they tried to hire a master brick maker. In November 1791 when Francis Cabot, a Yankee merchant left Georgetown for home, the commissioners asked him when in Philadelphia “to enquire on what terms we could get some of the most experienced brick makers to come here early in the spring.” But the report Cabot sent back made brick makers seem pretty expensive.

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 115

How essential slaves were in the brick making business is a hard to estimate. Some historians think it was the worse job they were forced to do, especially since by tradition children were used. I think brick making was probably the best way for slaves to exhibit skills that could allow them to make extra wages and thus, in time, buy their own freedom. However, I can't point to any slave who made bricks for the Capitol and White House who ever got extra wages let alone buy their own freedom. 

I can't make my case because the commissioners never hired brick workers. They used contractors to make their bricks. However, I think one of the first contractors hired in 1792, William Hill, was a free black and according to Jesuit records he was a slave in the 1760's. 

Two of the commissioners, Thomas Johnson and Daniel Carroll of Rock Creek, were slave holders who likely used bricks in their personal building project. In the 1780's a traveler said members of the Carroll family built a house with bricks that were made by their own slaves.However judging from their correspondence in late 1791, the commissioners looked to Philadelphia to find someone to run their brick making operation.

One can dismiss this as  a public relations ploy to spread the word in the then capital that the new capital was on its way, but the commissioners persisted in the quest and a Philadelphia brick maker they almost hired in 1793 did come to the city though he worked, I think, as a contractor. He even supervised the brick making for the scion of the Carroll family in the city, Daniel Carroll of Duddington. 

Certainly the man the commissioners asked to find a Philadelphia brick maker took their request seriously. The letter below describes the wage rates for the overseer of the burning and molders, and notes that laborers "conduct the rest of the business." The letter does not mention the race of the brick workers in Philadelphia. But the letter, I think, suggests the mobility inherent in brick making. Both the laborers and molders got their hands dirty and with the same clay. Only the most foolish contractor would deny an African American laborer a try at becoming a molder. If he worked in a city, a slave molder would understand the value of his labor, and finding himself the most essential cog in a manufacturing process might perhaps be able to leverage some advantages.

Below the letter from Cabot is the November 26, 1791, letter the commissioners wrote to Cabot in which they ask him to find several brickmakers.

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.

Commissioner Johnson solved problems with slaves

"The commissioners blamed Cooke and Brent for making deliveries after the hired slaves were sent home for the year."

quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 83

"The commissioners placed their next ad in the fall of 1794, angling for sawyers to work through the winter just as Hoban wanted."

quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 102

I should have written Commissioner Thomas Johnson because in the record, it appears that Johnson was alone when those decisions were made. Indeed the hand writing in the official record is Johnson's not the usual clerk's. Usually at least two of the three commissioners signed such orders.

I think this one page in the record, written by Johnson, bares his approach to work in the city. The nagging problem of amassing building materials to put in the hands of skilled workers was best solved by the use of slaves. True, the first order objects to stone deliveries after the "discharge of laborers hired by the year," but that reflects the reality. All the laborers were not slaves.

The last item on the page is a draft for a help wanted ad. It makes no mistake about the nature of the help wanted: "a number of slaves to labor in the brick yards and stone quarries for whom generous wages will be given." Not "to whom" but "for whom." Masters stood to profit not the slaves doing the work.

In the fall of 1794, getting tree trunks sawed into lumber had been a problem for almost two years. Judging from this ad, the commissioners realized that in Maryland slaves did most of the sawing. The commissioners did not like to recognize that slaves had skills. They hired them to keep down the price of labor and didn't want slave masters to think they could get more money out of them. This ad does not explicitly say "slave sawyers," but coupling sawyers with laboring slaves makes pretty clear that the audience for the ad was masters, not free workers. It also showed that grudgingly the commissioners realized that slaves had at least one skill warranting a higher wage.

Thomas Johnson, the commissioner who pushed for hiring slaves

"Knowing that Johnson had hired slaves to work for the Potomac Company, Washington and Jefferson must have suspected he would persuade his fellow commissioners to hire them too and that it was pointless to comment."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, pages 48-49

In 1792 and 1793, President Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson periodically urged the commissioners to hire workers from Europe or New England. Yet they never wrote about the workers the commissioners did hire. There are no mentions of the hired slaves working on the Capitol and White House in their letters to the commissioners or between themselves. I don't think we can simply say that it goes without saying that they knew slaves would be used. The commissioners resolved to hire slaves over a year after development of the city began. They fired white workers before hiring slaves.

I am certain that Washington or Jefferson did not instruct them to do that. Both men, who had been frequently away from their plantations, thought slavery was a problem, both for the nation and personally for themselves as they managed their personal affairs. But the commissioners they appointed thought of slavery as a solution to the problems they faced. Certainly Washington and Jefferson knew that Commissioner Thomas Johnson felt that way. They also knew that with his forceful personality he would dominate the other two commissioners.

In this blog I am trying to share documents that help describe work in Washington in the 1790s highlighting the work of slaves when I can. Thanks to Commissioner Johnson being the only man in the office one day in 1794, three orders of the commissioners were written out by him in his difficult to read scrawl and authorized with his initials.

By using "Negro" rather than "slave" whenever they wrote about the slaves they hired, the commissioners put a better light on their policy. It was better form not use the word slave in the land of the free. As the third order in the scan below shows, Commissioners Johnson was matter-of-fact. He dashed off an ad for Baltimore and Easton, Maryland, newspapers soliciting "slaves." (I've never had time to search for copies this ad in newspapers so I don't know if "slaves" made it into print.)

With publication of Slave Labor in the Capital, I took my five part essay on the use of slaves on the public buildings off the web. Below the two scans of Johnson's orders, I've copied my considered opinion of Johnson as a commissioner that is in that web essay.

To be sure, Johnson thought the policy of hiring slaves was bowing to necessity. Due to slow sales of city lots and the inability to get a loan on city lots, the commissioners did not have money to spare and needed to get laborers as cheaply as possible. But for Johnson personally there may have been more involved. As we reconstruct the lives of the men in the Founders' generation we tend to see them as men of native talent confronting the novel challenges of creating a new nation. The c.v. of Thomas Johnson seems to show just this, as he combined high political office, and brief military service, during years of revolution. Then in a period of nation building he was a lawyer, administrator, entrepreneur, and while serving as commissioner, at the time a non paying job, Washington appointed him a justice of the Supreme Court, and wanted to make him Secretary of State.

In the flux of the life of someone so evidently prized as a problem solver, it is easy to overlook his own overriding sense of entitlement. As became clear shortly before he left the commission, Johnson intended to profit from the development of the federal city. While still a commissioner he advertised the sale of almost all his property in and around Frederick, Maryland, including "several good negro foremen." He explained to the President that he wanted "to avail myself of the moment which I saw and has almost past away to benefit myself by the rise of the city to which a long friendship for Potomack and every exertion in my power in its favor fairly intitle me." (Johnson to Washington, 23 Dec 1793) In a March 13, 1795 letter, his successor as commissioner, Gustavus Scott, hoped that a favorable opinion from Attorney General against Johnson's quest to buy water lots in the city would "have the happy effect of quieting the appetite of the little man." (Thornton Papers) This suggests a motive for his antipathy to L'Enfant who not only had the original proprietors in the city worked up in a white heat of expectation, but was amassing a work force with earth moving morale even in the dead of winter. The dismissal of L'Enfant cooled the proprietors who recognized that losing someone tied so closely to the venture lessened, for the moment at least, the value of their land. Hiring slaves chilled the expectations of workers. In this cool environment, the city would progress slowly, which allowed Johnson to bide his time until he sensed the time was right to buy city property.  

The right moment for Johnson came in late 1793 after he negotiated an extensive sale of 6,000 city lots to the Boston speculator James Greenleaf. Johnson was persuaded to sell lots so cheaply because Greenleaf also offered to raise a loan for the commissioners, pay for the lots in seven equal annual installments which would pay for work on the Capitol and President's house, build 140 brick houses in the city and, in private negotiations, to buy the private lands Johnson had offered for sale. (See my Tracking the Speculators: http://www.geocities.com/bobarnebeck/speculators.html)

In tracing the genesis of the use of slaves in the city, it is clear to me that their employment was not a matter of policy initiated or even explicitly approved at the highest level, that is, by Washington and Jefferson. Our current conception of the nation's founders is one of men of grace, genius and gravitas hemmed in by the rude conditions of the times. We chaff at the idea that they could be manipulated by underlings. While Washington supported the commissioners and thought so much of Johnson that he asked him to take complete charge of the city, he never explicitly commented on the use of slaves. One might argue that their use of slaves was reassuring to a slave owner like the president, and, because of that, Johnson remained in Washington's good graces as others not interested in slaves, like L'Enfant and Ellicott, fell from favor. However, in his will Washington tried to free his slaves, which suggests that he harbored some doubts about the institution. In their book George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America, (Oxford U Press 1998) Robert F. Dalzell, Jr. and Lee Baldwin Dalzell note Washington's disgust at his own slaves. On February 16, 1794, he wrote from Philadelphia to his overseer William Pearce about them: "It appears to me, that to make even a chicken coop, would employ them all week; buildings that are run up here in two or three days (with not more hands) employ them a month or more." Combine that attitude with his constantly urging the commissioners to get emigrant workers, and one has to think that a propensity to employ slaves did not endear a man to Washington. 

Mitchell to Commissioners

"The negroes I hired from St. Mary's would not answer"

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capitol, page 120, from a letter to the commissioners from brick making contractor John Mitchell: 

This blog has obvious deficiencies as a documentary edition of the correspondence of the commissioners tasked by President Washington to ready a capital city by 1800. I had neither the time nor money to photocopy every document, and even in the case of this important letter, I saved my money by not photocopying the whole document. I won't transcribe the documents presented in this blog for two reasons: in hope that the readers eyes will become obsessed with old handwriting as a portal for discovery and to preserve the iconic potential of the document.

In Slave Labor in the Capital I explain the problems the contractor John Mitchell faced. Suffice it to say here that apart from informing my take on brick making in the city, the phrase "negroes I hired from St. Mary's" establishes a basic point in my book. Slaves hired to work on the public buildings came from as far away as St. Mary's County, Maryland. In the commissioners' proceedings it is also clear that the slaves Mitchell found one wanting had first been hired by the commissioners and sent to Mitchell who then assumed the burden to pay for them. He sent them back and I did not find exactly how that played out in the commissioners' accounts, though certainly the master or masters got their $60 a year for each slave.

The circled number 41 notes the chapter in Through a Fiery Trial where I used this letter as a source.