A rare description of how work was done

I make the point in my book that there are few descriptions of how the work was done in the commissioners' records. I suggest that this had nothing to do with suppressing the work done by slaves because there were few description of what free workers did either. I think the reason for this lack of communication was that the skilled workers and their supervisors feared that sharing information would only lead to the commissioners butting in on business they didn't understand.

Beginning in the winter of 1792-93, James Hoban tried to educate the commissioners on the need to do work then in order to prepare for the start of the building season in the spring. The commissioners stayed with that program until the fall of 1797 when they found what they thought was evidence of workers loafing.

So in the late fall of 1798, Hoban wrote to the commissioners describing the work several carpenters were doing that he feared the commissioners might find suspicious since the carpenters were divided up to work in the many just finished rooms of the Capitol. Hoban wanted them to make temporary windows so that the rooms would be protected from winter cold and still let in the light allowing the work to continue as long as possible during the shorter winter days. Then the carpenters could prepare the walls for plastering in the spring.

The letter has nothing about the use of slaves, but learning about all workers helps us picture where the slaves did work because as laborers helping the skilled workers they could wind up anywhere even the cold dark rooms of the Capitol that first winter after they were all covered.

"to his little Negroes who carried them away in baskets...."

"Thomas Middleton, an English cabinet maker living on the President’s Square had both a little “yellow girl” and “Negro Jack” to make his life easier."

We know about Middleton's slaves because they were accused of stealing for their master, but in my book I didn't get into that. Much more important was to show how easily emigrant workers adapted to slavery. 

In the winter of 1798-99 work began in earnest on the interiors of the Capitol and White House. While it would seem there was plenty of work for everyone, the Irish coterie around Hoban looked with alarm as Joseph Middleton, an English carpenter and joiner, set himself up in a temporary house on the White House grounds. They accused him of using public materials for furniture and fittings he did for private houses.

The commissioners investigated by calling witnesses. In the letter below Commissioner Alexander White, a lawyer, summarized their findings in a letter he sent to his colleagues. Here is an abbreviated transcription of the letter.

...because it is in proof before the commissioners, that a variety of cabinet work and some carpenters work have been done in Mr.Middleton's shop while he was receiving daily pay from the public, some part of which by Middleton himself and other parts by his journeyman and apprentices... That he saw Middleton's yellow Girl carry 2 x 2 1/2 inch plank about two and two and an half feet long out of the shop when Middleton was in it..... he saw Middleton hand down from the President's house 1 1/2 or 1 1/4 inch plank about 2 1/2 feet long to his little Negroes who carried them away in two baskets... He saw mahogany chairs and tables carried from the President's house after sunset by Middleton's apprentices.... Then on Friday and Saturday before Christmas he saw Middleton's Negro man Jacob carrying public stuff out of the yard....

By the way, in this letter the "Negro man" is called Jacob. There are other letters about this from which I got the name Jack.
 

The investigations of the commissioners preserved documents I find useful, but I can't help but wonder why the three of them wasted so much time investigating the theft of building materials and did not simply arrange for a better guard or stricter accounting. There obviously was a larger game afoot. I append another letter below White's, written by Middleton accusing Hoban of desperately trying to drive him off.

But that doesn't explain why the commissioners themselves immersed themselves in investigations of the workers. I am beginning to think that they were trying to build a file on the workers' misconduct to find a scapegoat for the slow development of the city. 

Middleton's letter to the commissioners.

Hiring slaves to cut timber in Westmoreland County

The commissioners made that clear in December 1792. They bought a tract of woods called White Oak Swamp in Westmoreland County, Virginia, convenient to the Potomac so timber could be rafted up to the site of the White House. Their agent in the matter was William Augustine Washington, the President’s nephew. Young Washington found a man to oversee the operation and was advised by him to hire "twelve good Negro carpenters and ten Axe-men." Washington urged the commissioners to close the deal before Christmas, "as a Number of Negroes are generally hired out in this Neighborhood on New Year's day, after which time it will be difficult to procure them."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 32

Unfortunately all the documents I copied were stored in a rough manner since 1989. Plus the original documents were not always in the best shape and putting them on microfilm was not always done properly. The main reason I am sharing what documents I have is to inspire others to collect, copy and share all the documents properly.

The letters William Augustine Washington wrote to the commissioners in late December 1792 show how tradition dictated the way slaves were hired, around New Year's Day and for a whole year. The letter also shows how sophisticated the process was. Young Washington, a gentleman planter like his uncle, found a Captain Elliott Munroe to hire, house and feed the slaves hired.

After Washington's letter to the commissioners, I added the commissioner's letter to him which I argue shows how they tried to wiggle out of paying any hired slaves carpenter's wages. I think the letters show that white contractors like Munroe were looking to optimize the profits to masters and himself by highlighting the skills of slaves by calling them carpenters, the commissioners were bent on keeping all slaves hired on laborers' wages. 

  

"Liberty" in the yard

To get some idea of the working conditions of the slave laborers, we have to consider the working condition of free skilled workers. In 1799 the commissioners investigated reports of carpenters loafing on the job and fired several. In the letter below one of the fired carpenters asked to be reinstated. He admitted "that every man in the yard took whatever Liberty almost he pleased as the main thing was to keep time," but he worked more than others.

Obviously there was no "liberty" for slave laborers in the same sense that free carpenters enjoyed it, but it likely that the slaves at the work site also got to "keep time" rather keep up a hard pace of work. As far as I can tell, Tompkins wasn't rehired nor did he get a hearing, as was accorded to the Master Carpenter Redmond Purcell. 

April 9 , 1799

 Gentlemen, I beg leave to write a few lines to you. Informing you of my present situation Which I hope you will take into consideration. I am discharged from public service and do not know for what. I have been informed it was for not doing my duty in planing shingles. Gentlemen, I acknowledge that there might been more work done than was but it was so general that every man in the yard took whatever Liberty almost he pleased as the main thing was to keep time. But even the Charge which was against me is a very gross mistake for I believe I dressed as many shingles on the time I was at work as any man their. But I was not dressing shingles more than three or four weeks. I hope Gentlemen you will take this in your consideration that I have purchased a [building] lott of you and being thrown out of work now at this dull time it will render me unable to fulfill my contract with you and support my family and if I am discharged for not doing a full days work every day, every carpenter might be discharged for the same reason. Gentlemen you will think proper to reinstate me again I dare say their will be no more complaint against us I expect their will be more regularity with the carpenters. If the Gentlemen should not think proper to put me to work I hope they will allow me a hearing. I conceive myself as much injured although I was a journeyman as if I was the master carpenter. James Tompkins

Ethnic rivalries

"As the sawyers worked in the sawpit, twenty-one carpenters prepared the roof for rafters, working under the supervision of Redmond Purcell, who came from Ireland with Hoban. He tried to prove to the commissioners that the Englishman Hadfield was incompetent, which would have left Hoban the only man in town qualified to supervise construction at the Capitol."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capitol, page106

That there were ethnic rivalries among the workers does not necessarily tell us anything about race relations. But there are more letters alluding to the ethnic rivalries than there are letters even mentioning the slave workers. A man cannot do anything about his ethnicity just as he can't change his race. I suggest that since ethnic tensions boiled over and there is no evidence that racial tensions did, then the latter were not a problem.

Redmond Purcell wrote the letter below at the peak of his feud with Hadfield and in it he tried to regain favor with the commissioners by showing that Scots, Americans and even a Englishman supported him, as well as Irish. I share it because it shows that my discussion is not based on my analysis of the workers ethnic background. It shows that everyone then was aware of the ethnic backgrounds of the workers.

Did work plans for 1797mark a change in the role of slave laborers?

"Outlining the work program for 1797, Hadfield told the commissioners to hire 'an additional number of laborers... as the setting of stone and laying of bricks will require more hands.' Hadfield was raised in a British family with an antislavery view, but he needed good workers. Hired slaves helped drive the work...."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capitol, page 95

The words sometimes used to describe workers on the Capitol and White House were imprecise despite payrolls clearly separating the different building crafts, and separating those skilled workers from laborers. That imprecision has allowed commentators to exaggerate the exploitation of slaves. But, I think, a close look at the those imprecise words shows that workers referred to as "hands" were not necessarily slaves.

From a historian's point-of-view, the young British architect George Hadfield was too vague in his planning. James Hoban has left us plans with far more detail that make clear that he was using slaves as carpenters and laborers. The March 28, 1797, letter scanned below shows that Edwards the stone carver was the man of the hour. Hadfield wanted "one or two" stone carvers hired to join him and added that preparing the facing stone "ought not to be left to common workmen."

Here Hadfield was making a distinction between stone carvers and stone cutters. Even though the latter were better paid than masons, carpenters and brick layers, to young Hadfield they were common workmen.

His request for more laborers can be read to say that he needed more laborers to set stone and lay bricks. But it is clear from payrolls and other documents in the commissioners' records that slave laborers were used to tend stone masons and brick layers. His imprecise sentence is better interpreted to mean that more laborers will be needed because more "hands" meaning masons and brick layers will be needed. It is hard to imagine that a young British architect who dismissed stone cutters as "common workmen" would use the words "hands" to mean slaves. He was unfamiliar with slave labor and would probably not use such a familiar word to refer to slave labor.

So what I find interesting in his letter is that he doesn't distinguish slaves at all. Yet when he asked the commissioners to hire more laborers, he must have realized that he was in effect asking them to hire more slaves which leads me to believe he was confident they could well tend the masons and brick layers. He was in effect endorsing the commissioners use of slave labor, which didn't prevent the commissioners from firing him for other reasons. (In another post I will share letters showing that Hadfield had no confidence in the mostly Irish brick laying crew.)

The commissioners dis their carpenters, May 1798

"...the motley set we found here...."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 92

The commissioners had little respect for the workers they hired. In the winter and spring of 1798, the carpenters and their supervisors faced their biggest challenge: framing the roof of the Capitol. Only the challenge to framing the White House roof the year before gave them any experience. I hope to share other letters showing the demands the roof job put on carpenters. They had to buy new tools for the job and they were helpless without the muscle of the laborers, most of them slaves, but they were challenged in ordering about laborers as unfamiliar with what had to be done as the carpenters. Adding to the crisis, the carpenters had lost confidence in the superintendent at the Capitol, George Hadfield. It was at this time that the Polish tourist Niemcewicz opined that only the slaves worked at the Capitol. That reflected the low morale of the free carpenters.

The reaction of the commissioners to that crisis was to try to use it as an opportunity to cut the wages of carpenters and dock the pay of carpenters that Hadfield and James Hoban, the superintendent at the White House, thought incompetent.

The commissioners had banned the use of slave carpenters beginning in December 1797 so this letter did not reflect on them. But the letter shows that the commissioners fostered an atmosphere that did not bode well for any hired slaves. By the way, the commissioners would soon fire George Hadfield and, once the Capitol roof was done, try to fire James Hoban. It almost seems like they hoped to present the finished buildings in 1800 with no workers around so that the three commissioners would get all the credit. As far as I can tell the carpenter William Barry who delivered the letters was not hired despite the commissioners' recommendation.

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.

Skilled slaves were expensive to hire

"The commissioners got periodic lessons on how expensive a skilled slave could be. James Claggett, a local contractor, hired out his slave George to the commissioners for five dollars a month. But when the commissioners needed one of their scows repaired, Claggett sent them a crew of four men including "Negro Aaron" and "Negro Davy." They got paid as much as free white carpenters for the four-day job."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 32

I made the top portion of the account scanned below one of the illustrations in the book. I didn't include the writing at the bottom because it shows that it took Claggett a year to get paid. That gives me the impression that the commissioners at first balked at paying and Claggett got a Montgomery County justice of the peace on his side to force them to pay. 

Thanks to John Sharp's work we know that Aaron Claggett appears on an 1808 payroll at the Washington Navy Yard, as a caulker and is listed as a slave belonging to James Claggett (Page 53, Sharp's African Americans Enslaves and Free at the WNY, draft provided by author).  That shows that while many skilled slaves personally profited from slave hire and bought their own freedom, many others didn't.  Despite his marketable skills,"Negro Aaron" who was a slave in 1795 was still a slave in 1808.

The "41" on the scan is my note. The document was cited in chapter 41 in Through a Fiery Trial.

1800 receipt for hauling laborers' camps

"In December 1794 a contractor was paid to haul five logs to the 'laborers' camp on Capitol Hill.' In 1800, when slave hire ended, a man was paid to haul the 'camps' off Capitol Hill and it took his crew and wagon two days to do it."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 26

In doing my research I couldn't afford to photocopy everything so I can't show the commissioners' order sending five logs to the laborers' camp. I did photocopy a letter the commissioners sent showing the logs were used to make huts. They asked Captain Williams, the man who hired and supplied laborers, to sell the logs of a roofless hut.

 

No one ever described the camps or huts the laborers lived in but there is a receipt for what was paid to a hauler to remove them from Capitol Square:

 

It strikes me as interesting that these were called the laborers camps, and not associate particularly with "Negroes", the word almost always use to denote a slave in the commissioners' records. I think that these camps housed both white and black, free and slave laborers. In 1796 the commissioners' surveyor made a map of Notley Young's plantation along the Potomac and noted that "Houses occupied by Negro's" were colored black on the map. 

One would like better evidence but I think we obliged to use what we have. As I mention in the book, in the 1790s the powers that be did not feel compelled to enforce segregation in the lower classes.

The other items in this short receipt are interesting too. The first and fifth help us mark when the commissioners and superintendent decided work on the Capitol and progressed enough so that carpenters could concentrate on finishing the interior of the White House. Also note that while the benches and old carpenters' shop were taken to the President's House Square, no destination is noted for the camps. It took 1 1/4 days to haul the work benches, 2 days to haul the old camps, and 3 3/4 days to haul the carpenters' shop. Can that help up us estimate the size of the camps? The carpenters shop was where teams of up to six pairs of sawyers cut lumber as well as where carpenters built what ever could be pre-assembled before installation in the building. Much of the winter work was done there so it could accommodate upwards of 30 men as they worked. In 1798 the commissioners hired upwards of 120 laborers. Judging from how quickly they were hauled away my guess is that the camps the laborers slept in were not extensive. If they had been someone might have described or at least noticed them.

Items three and four, hauling Spanish whiting and lime, show how calcium carbonate and calcium hydroxide were brought together for the men doing the plastering to use. That the lime came from Dr. May is intriguing. He had been the doctor hired by the commissioners to visit sick laborers in the hospital. Since doctors in the that era often dabbled in other things to make money maybe Dr. May had access to lime that he could sell to the commissioners. But the lime he had may have been given to him when the hospital was in operation so he could make casts for laborers with broken bones.

The final item is most interesting of all. Gerry Holland or Jerry Holland was a free black hired at least by 1794 who worked as a laborer with the surveyors and then the masons and finally as the commissioners' servant. I don't think the "materials" hauled for his house were building materials but rather furniture and personal belongings that would make a small stone house vacated by stone workers habitable by Holland and perhaps his family.

Finally the man who did the hauling, Zepheniah Prater earned the commissioners' ire when he took back the slave he hired out to them. More on that, maybe, in another post. That Prater hired out a slave suggests that other slaves he owned helped him as he hauled materials.

Christmas 1794

As far as I could tell when I did research in the National Archives, overseers and foremen began consistently keeping payrolls and time roles in December 1794.  I photocopied all I could find for that month, time roles for laborers and stone carvers, and payrolls for stone cutters and carpenters.

According to the time role for laborers, the cook Thomas Smith and the overseer Bennett Mudd worked on Christmas Day, as well as a free laborer named Francis Smith. No one else worked that day. Everyone else was marked absent. Of course, time rolls give no idea if the meal Thomas Smith prepared on Christmas Day 1794 was in anyway different from what he usually did with the salt meat and Indian meal which was the laborers' and overseers' common fare.

But special or not, we learn something about the city in 1794 if we use the information we have to figure out who might have been around to partake of that Christmas dinner.

In conjunction with Obama's Inauguration in 2009, the National Archives shared a photograph of the time role of overseers and laborers at the President's house. It gives graphic evidence of the hired slaves working on the public buildings.

You can see the free workers on the top of the list and the hired slaves at the bottom. An "N" prefaces the slave's one name and the master's name comes after that. 

In doing this blog post, I stumbled on a good way to share this photo. I use the "original size" of the photo which, of course, doesn't fit into the neat dimensions of the blog. But you can scroll down and see the names of the free and slave workers at their actual size. Use the bottom bar on the blog and move it to the right and see which days the men worked. You can align the right edge of your device with "25 Thursday," Christmas Day, and see that for all but three men, it was a day off. You can also see who worked on Christmas Eve and who continued working after Christmas.

I used this time role as an illustration in Slave Labor in the Capital. It is a fundamental document about the founding of Washington. For one thing it shows that there was no work on Sunday. Work on that day was not even listed as an option. In my book, I pointed out how the information on it shows that most of the hired slaves stopped working a few days for Christmas. Their yearly hire was up. 

The few slaves who worked after Christmas likely had owners who lived nearby like Middleton Belt's Jack and James Claggett's George, The last day of three of Edward Plowden's slaves was the 22nd and they didn't work again in December. They were taken back by to St. Mary's County. (His slave named Arnold did work after Christmas. There is no telling why.)

There is another time role of the laborers for December 1794 kept by another overseer, Thomas Hardman. It shows the axemen and others who worked with the surveyors. The Archives didn't share a photo of that so a scan of a photocopy I took in 1989, when I collected documents as I researched my book Through a Fiery Trial, will have to do. There is no gap in the list between free and slaves workers, but again the slaves are marked with "N." 

Here is a close up of the portion of the time role listing the hired slaves. No one listed on that time role worked on Christmas Day.

Jerry Holland, the second name on the list below who was a free black, worked on Christmas Eve and then had 3 days offs. Scroll down from that mark on Christmas Eve and you can see that 4 hired slaves also worked then, including Peter, another of Middleton Belt's slaves. Five of the slaves had their last day on December 20th, including three of Edward Plowden's slaves who faced a long trip back to St. Mary's County. Seven of the free laborers worked on Christmas Eve.

Counting the men who worked on Christmas Eve and after Christmas, then Thomas Smith might have prepared Christmas dinner for 34 laborers including 14 hired slaves.

As far as I can tell from what records we have, the slave and free laborers worked together and ate together, or at least ate the same food. Payrolls show us another thing they shared. The free laborers were illiterate, too. When they signed for their pay, they made their mark instead, even the cook Thomas Smith.

That Christmas dinner probably included others. Another December time role that I photocopied was not so detailed. But it shows that at least one of the four stone carvers working at the President's house had to have worked after Christmas. He was marked for working 24 days. And another worked 22 1/2 days had to have been around too. (My photocopy cut off their first names, but they were all free, skilled workers and well paid.)

In 1794 Washington was little more than a work site. Hired laborers had to be fed and given a place to sleep. Slaves were hired from masters on that condition and free laborers did not make enough money to afford a home. Skilled workers who made two to three times as much money as the laborers were also given free housing. There is evidence that many of them got rations from the laborer's cook, though there is no record of how many were fed in December 1794. 

We also have the payroll of the carpenters at the President's house, and from that we can see that at least 11 of them were around on Christmas Day, including 5 slave carpenters. It would be more accurate to say two slave carpenters, Harry and Tom, and three teenage apprentices who earned just a bit more than laborers. These slaves belonged to James Hoban who superintended construction and Peirce Purcell who was the foreman at the site. Like all masters, they collected the wages of their slaves.

Then there were the stone cutters. It is fair to say all eyes were on them as they prepared the sandstone for setting at both buildings. There are 32 stone cutters listed in the December payroll. (When scanning the photocopy of this payroll that I made at the National Archives, the size of my scanner forced me to cut off 5 names: Thomas Barth, Frederick Necks, Thomas Dollar, George Jacob and David Waterston. Those 5 are listed in the appendix of Slave Labor in the Capitol where I list the names of slaves, their masters, as well as free workers.)

Of those 32 stone cutters, 20 worked enough days to suggest they were around on Christmas Day, though to suggest that skilled stone cutters would break bread with common laborers is pushing the spirit of Christmas a bit far. Then again, the laborers hauled the sandstone to the work sites. The stone cutters depended on them.

In my book, although all these documents informed my narrative, I don't mention Christmas Day 1794. But December 1794 might be a good starting point for another book about building the capital. That book could try to discover who all the men listed were and what became of them. But a key to learning more about these men is for the National Archives to photograph and share all the payrolls, time roles, and other documents, and put them on-line.

Payroll for President's House carpenters April 1798

"since 1792, there had never been a shortage of free carpenters in the city ready to be hired."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 110

In November 1797 the commissioners banned the use of slave carpenters and there are none listed on this payroll. The commissioners allowed hiring of apprentices upon their approval and six are listed on this payroll, two belonging to James Hoban, superintendent at the White House site. The lower wage and the signatures of his master shows that the worker was an apprentice. Slaves had been listed the same way except their last name, if they had one, was never on the payroll.

Payrolls are interesting apart from what they tell us about slave hire. This payroll shows that Hoban may have hired a relative, Joseph Hoban. There is a George Sandiford and Thomas Sandford, a Peter Lenox and a John Lennox. Perhaps relative changed the spelling of their last name. There are often puzzling inconsistencies on payrolls. Here Patrick Healy signed for Peter Healy's wage but it was not uncommon for an Irishman to be named Patrick Peter Healy or Peter Patrick Healy.

Facing pressure from the administration to have the White House finished in time for President Adams to move in by the fall of 1800, the commissioners did not relent and hire slave carpenters, as the payroll below of carpenters working in February 1800 shows. The person paid only 4 shillings a day, whose wages were received by Peter Lenox, was an apprentice. One of the principal jobs of the carpenters was lathing the walls so they could be plastered. Hired slaves were employed for that but by contractors and I've yet to see any payrolls they might have kept. There is mention in the commissioners' records of their boiling lime but it is not certain if they did any of the plastering, which we know by newspaper ads that some slaves were trained to do.

Payroll for Capitol carpenters August 1795

"Two slaves owned by Purcell, Tony and James, worked at the Capitol along with Hoban's Harry."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 107

When making copies of payrolls I was unable to get the whole document which meant I often didn't show who signed for receipt of wages. That is one way to tell who owned the slaves listed in the payroll.

Fortunately the National Archives put a similar payroll on-line to answer queries prior to Obama's Inauguration in 2009 about whether slaves worked on the public buildings.

The scan of that June 1795 payroll shows that Redmond Purcell signed for Tony's wages. The scan of the photocopy I made of a similar August 1795 shows more clearly that Harry's name was prefaced with "negro" which is how slaves were designated in many payrolls.

Commissioners to Hoban 11 April 1799

"thirteen sawyers for a whole year played the same game"
page 112 Slave Labor in the Capital

These are images of photocopies of the letterbook copy of the commissioners' 11 April 1799 letter to James Hoban accusing him of poorly supervising carpenters and sawyers, not preventing the theft of building materials, and thwarting Joseph Middleton's contract to make window shutters. The carpenters were free workers. The sawyers were hired slaves.