Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 24, 1993 TAG: 9305240072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: AQUIA LENGTH: Medium
Chisel marks scar the overgrown walls of the quarry that produced the pale sandstone used to build the White House and Capitol, and the ground is strewn with cut stone that never made the 40-mile barge journey to Washington.
There is a push to name the 17-acre, privately owned site to the National Register of Historic Places this year, the 200th anniversary of the laying of the Capitol's cornerstone.
Few visitors to Washington pause to consider the enormous, expensive and dangerous engineering project the planned city represents, historians say.
Stone blocks weighing up to 3,000 pounds were hauled by hand. An uncounted number of people died building the new federal city.
"People just don't know this is even here. I guess you don't really consider where the stone came from, but it is so important as a piece of history," said Jane Henderson, who is writing a book about the quarry.
"If someone builds houses on it or something, it will be lost."
Washington planner Pierre L'Enfant bought the site, called Government Island, from a farmer in 1791 for $6,000.
Although called an island, the uninhabited land with steep cliffs is actually connected to the banks of Aquia Creek by a marshy causeway.
Washington's suburbs have pushed into the once-remote Stafford County farmland around the island in recent years, and Aquia Creek has become increasingly popular with weekend boaters.
The island's owner, Frank Eck, has not announced plans for the site. He declined to be interviewed.
"It has always been our hope that the island would never be developed," said White House curator Rex Scouten. Although inclusion on the list would not preclude development, Scouten said he hopes historic designation would encourage someone to buy and preserve the island.
Henderson said if protected, the island could be open to tourists as a well-preserved example of 18th century workmanship and engineering.
The island's few visitors
The island's few visitors now can see both the quarry and the long, sloping trough where oxen and laborers hauled enormous blocks of stone to the waiting barges.
At the height of production in the 1790s, about 30 stonecutters worked alongside slaves rented from local landowners. Slaves earned 75 cents a day, paid to their owners, while skilled stone cutters were paid up to $1.75 a day.
Overseers sometimes sweetened the wages with whiskey, hoping to encourage greater production.
In a letter to the Virginia historical review board, Scouten said the island should have been protected before now. "Fortunately it is not too late," he wrote.
The White House celebrated the bicentennial of its cornerstone last year. The mansion's 5-foot-thick foundation and thinner upper floors are the only original features remaining, Scouten said.
The interior and wooden sections were destroyed by fire in the War of 1812, and any remaining features were gutted in a major renovation during the Truman presidency, Scouten said.
The federal buildings' familiar white facades are often assumed to be marble. But George Washington and L'Enfant wanted to avoid the expense of importing stone from Europe.
They chose the nearby peach sandstone, also called Aquia stone, and added a coat of whitewash to the soaring walls and graceful columns.
by CNB