L'Enfant presented three times to the President. Once was on March 26th after having been in the area for less than three weeks. (He had arrived in Georgetown on the 9th.) The second time was on June 22 in a written report/letter accompanied by a map described as 'an Incompleat drawing'. The third time was on August 19th in a written report accompanied by an image identified in the report as 'the anexced map of doted lines'.

We know that on June 28th, after having looked at the map and the terrain, the President proclaims before a gathering at Sutter's Tavern that the 'diagonals would not be so numerous' in the finished map, and that the President's House should be moved to the west to take advantage of higher ground there. We read in the August 19 report that the accompaning map contained the revisions requested by the President in June, calling it "the Plan... altered agreeable to your direction". These facts would lead one to expect to find two L'Enfant maps, one of which features more diagonal streets than the other.

Go to the Library of Congress map collection search page and search for "L'Enfant"; choose Gallery View. You will see six copies of an image with an oval in the upper left corner and one copy of an image that is 'rotated' left. The Library of Congress labels the rotated map as the 'dotted line map' accompanied by L'Enfant's letter to George Washington of Aug. 19, 1791. Looking at the other map that is being called 'L'Enfant's manuscript plan for the city of Washington', we see that it is labeled "projected agreeable to the direction of the President". Remember that the dotted line map was described by the August report as altered agreeable to the president's direction; this would make it the transitional map in the series.

Looking closely at the manuscript plan we see that it is very 'buisy' and contains diagonals that are not in the Ellicott maps - or the current DC configuration. That is, the current configuration does not derive from this map. This is not the plan that the forward to Stephenson's book says 'has guided the design of the nation's capital for two centuries', since this is a map that was revised. This is the first map that was NOT used, the map that Nicholas Mann focuses his attention on.

Massachusetts Avenue is depicted in red below in this first draft of the map plan. This appears to be the map of which the president says that there will be fewer diagonals in the finished plan. Later maps and the current configuration show a much simpler map and a straighter Mass Ave. The question that arises is who straightened it and when.

Mass Ave Before (above) and After Map Revisions (below).

The topographic image above accompanies the August 19th letter from L'Enfant to Washington in the Library of Congress, and incorporates the map changes that have been attributed to Ellicott; in particular the straightening of Mass Ave. The LOC labels this the dotted line map. Below you can see that the March 1792 Ellicott map which reflects the current configuration is based on the DLM . Note that the manuscript plan is the only plan that does not fit the current configuration of the city.

Fewer diagonals, but the changes were introduced by L'Enfant, not by Ellicott.

The situation is simpler if you present the history of the planning map as a set of two images as David Ovason does. He suggests simply that if you compare the manuscript map to Ellicott's map it is clear that Ellicott altered L'Enfant's plan, by straightening Mass Ave etc. But if you include the dotted line map things get more complicated for those claiming that Ellicott made the changes. Since the DLM contains changes to the manuscript plan that are reflected in the current configuration, Ellicott needs to be connected to that map.

As I said, the two map model suggests that Ellicott made the changes to the map after L'Enfant left, but the above shows that L'Enfant produced a second map of his own, the dotted line map. Ellicott's map merely reflects the changes in this map, or so it would seem.

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According to Richard Stephenson, the manuscript plan with all the diagonals and Mass Ave bent was presented (not in June as I suggest, but) on or before August 26th along with the report (dated Aug 19) and the dotted line map which has been lost. Stephenson suggests that two maps were delivered then and calls the manuscript plan the 'August Plan' on page 50, inspite of the fact that the report dated Aug 19 only mentions the 'map of doted lines'. He offers no documentation for this map.

The map presented with the June report is also lost according to this timeline. The map being called the dotted line map in the Library of Congress is a December drawing made by Benjamin Ellicott on behalf of L'Enfant. (The idea being proposed is that he/Ellicott introduced the changes then.)

Stephenson claims that the first draft of the map has been lost although the report has not, and that the second map has been lost but not the second report, and that the manuscript map does not associate with any document, and that the map labeled August 19 in the LOC is really a December 1791 drawing. I challenge all of these claims.

People like Ovason and Stephenson appear to have their minds made up that the Ellicott's altered the plan and that nothing is going to stand in their way of proving that, not even the truth. Given the existence of the dotted line map which closely resembles the current configuration, the Ellicotts need to be tied to that map. Stephenson's claim is that Benjamin Ellicott altered L'Enfant's map without his knowledge in the role of draftsman for L'Enfant. This is a very weak arguement.

In his own words we read, "The plan that L'Enfant delivered to the President on or before August 26th is believed to be the manuscript preserved in the Library of Congress entitled Plan of the city intended for the Permanent Seat of Government of the United States" (page 50), and speaking of the line drawing we read, "Based on it's contents it is likely that this is the map that L'Enfant requested Benjamin Ellicott make in December to show the current status of their field work". (page 36)

In this view the manuscript map is the last L'Enfant map, not the first. That's right, the evidence that an Ellicott made changes to the map hinges on identifying the dotted line map as Ellicott's work since it contains the changes that were made to the plan. National Geographic and the Library of Congress both sponsored Stephenson's work in 1993, but the Library of Congress does not now support the conclusions of the book and continues to label the map as the dotted line map acompanying a letter of August 19 - making it the August plan.

On this web page (http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=georgetown/hpps) we see a similar opinion stated, "Although dates associated with L’Enfant’s map submissions are not certain, generally the Map of Dotted Lines is believed to be the one presented to Washington in August of 1791 and the Manuscript Map to be the one shown to Congress in December of 1791, though submitted to Washington sometime earlier". In June to be exact.

[Washington presented the manuscript plan to Congress on December 13th since there was no finished copy of the revised map with streets and lots available then. Remember that L'Enfant's task was to complete a plan and lay out the city in lots so that there would be a map to look at and something to offer at the October auction. This is the product that the commissioners sought but never got from L'Enfant. On September 9th the commisioners and T. Jefferson declared that the name of the city would be the city of Washington in the Territory of Coulmbia, the lettered streets would run one way and numbered ones the other way. What they wanted was for him to construct a final revision of the plan that would include street names and lot numbers to be used in the proposed auction of October.]

The date celebrated in the Stephenson timeleline is August 26th. He writes that L'Enfant went to Philadelphia sometime between August 19 and 25, and on or before Aug 26 conveyed to the president his written report along with the 'map of doted lines' and his presentation copy of the plan. Only the dotted line map is mentioned in the report.

Jefferson invites Madison to dinner on August 26 noting that the President had been there and left the plan. He is dating the presentation of the map by a dinner party, not the date on a document or when the President received them. By page 68 he is calling Aug 26, 1991 the 200th anniversary of L'Enfant's presentation of the plan to the President, which is not true. The report was dated the 19th, we don't know when the President received it, and the only map mentioned in the report is the dotted line map.

Note that while both L'Enfant reports have survived, Stephenson's timeline depends on loosing both the June and August drawings, but finding a drawing that does not fit a report; also on redating the dotted line map.

The Stephenson timeline is used by the Corps of Engineers in writing about the L'Enfant plan, as well as by Nicholas Mann, author of The Sacred Geometry of Washington DC. Robert Hieronimus goes so far as to call the manuscript map, 'the map labeled August 26 in the Library of Congress'. There is no map labeled August 26, 1791 in the LOC collection. The dotted line map is dated 'before August 19', which is the date of the second report.

Stephenson suggests that there were four maps produced on L'Enfant's watch - the first draft that had accompanied the June 22 report is supposedly lost, the dotted line map mentioned in the second report is lost, the manuscript plan with Mass Ave bent was presented in August and the line map with Mass Ave straighter was produced in December.

His attempt is to make us believe that the manuscript map was the product that the president and L'Enfant agreed on, rather than being the first plan that was rejected and revised. A Corps of Engineers webpage follows Stephenson's lead and proclaims that on August 19th, 1791 L'Enfant delivered to George Washington in Philadelphia two maps, one the 'map of doted lines' and the other, the "the city’s virtually completed design with its many public buildings delineated". They are of course refering to the manuscript map that required radical revisions in order to produce the current configuration. If they had looked at the dotted line map they would see that it is the revision of the manuscript plan and as such requires a later date.

We are told that the President refelected complaints about the number of diagonals in the first map in late June, and the second report stated that the new map had been altered according to the president's directions. Why is it that L'Enfant would submit a map full of diagonals in late August? Is this the plan with the diagonals (from the first 'lost' map) removed? Then Ellicott removes more later?? And Washington approves Elicott's changes to a map that he had approved for L'Enfant in August??? For what, to remove more diagonals? Then why approve the August map?

Jefferson had already written L'Enfant a letter asking him whether he or Ellicott wanted to have the map printed when it was time. It is reported that as soon as the President had approved the revised plan in August, he asked L'Enfant to see about an engraving for printing. Why would Washington approve changes to the map and ask L'Enfant to prepare for printing copies of his map in August only to have Ellicott alter it later? The map needed to reflect the real position on the ground of numbered lots which went on sale in October 1791 meaning that Mass Ave would have needed to have been moved before then.

Let me just say that the evidence does not support the notion that the changes that appear in the dotted line map were introduced by an Ellicott.

The right sheet of paper from the dotted line map bears the same watermark as both pages of the manuscript map. The paper was L'Enfant's. Stephenson points out that any work that Benjamin Ellicott was doing for L'Enfant was as a draftsman. The Big Leap is that the dotted line drawing has been lost and the map that we see is Ellicott hijacking the project - that he is the one that introduced the changes to the plan. Can I just say it? That's nuts! But the Library of Congress printed thousands of copies of it.

I repeat, Stephenson's argument, echoed by many, is that Benjamin Ellicott introduced the changes in the map like straightening Mass Ave in the line map. His claim is that the line drawing is not the map that accompanied the August 19 report and that the manuscript plan is not the one that accompanied the June report - that these maps have been lost.

On page 34 of the book, Stephenson writes that on Nov 28 Washington wrote L'Enfant reminding him of the need of correct engravings of the city before the spring sale of lots. (You will remember that he was asked to engrave copies of the map as early as August and yet the October auction had taken place without a map.) To this end, he says that L'Enfant arranged with Benjamin Ellicott to deliniate on paper all the work that had been done in the city, then he points to the dotted line map which does not even show lots, and which is labeled August 19 by the Library of Congress. Why, when everyone needed a map that depicted the real positions of city lots so that they could start selling them, would L'Enfant or Ellicott spend time producing a topographic map (the dotted line map) in December?

To show the current status of the field work? Yes. In December? No. If you look at the Aug 19 report, it reads, "The Inspection of the anexced map of doted lines being sufficiently explanatory of the progress made in the work will I hope leave you satisfied how much more has been done than may have been expected from hands less desirous of meriting your applause". That is, Stephenson is using the same language as the August report but claiming a December date.

Stephenson is confusing two events. The line map from August incorporated the changes that the President had asked for and delineated the work that had been done toward marking that on the ground. L'Enfant intended to make this map the basis of his drawing being worked on in Decemeber and later. It is generally agreed that this map was never finished, which was the reason that L'Enfant was replaced. Bob Arnebeck tells us that Andrew Ellicott checked with his brother in February and found that no progress had been made in the engraving because L'Enfant would not give him access to the definitive map.

Whether this map was intended to show 'the curent status of the field work' or whether it is a revision of the June plan (or both), it clearly shows that the diagonals were removed from the plan and Mass Ave was straightened before L'Enfant left the project. He is the one that revised the first map (just as it says in the August report), not the Ellicotts.

Even if we accept a Decmber date for the line map, it still shows that Mass Ave was straightened before L'Enfant left. (The notion that Benjamin Ellicott altered the map is too lame to entertain. These are lines on the ground and control points used by surveyors. Draftsmen don't alter plans or surveys of cities.) The configuration in the dotted line map matches the current configuration of the city and was laid down as such months before L'Enfant left the project.

Nicolas Mann, who 'buys into' Stephenson's timeline, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation when he suggests that the dotted line map was a surveyor's map that went on, in Ellicott's hands, to become the situation on the ground. The note above points out that this was already the situation of the ground, presumably in August 1791.

So, if we identify the dotted line map as L'Enfant's August topographic survey (drawn perhaps by Benjamin Ellicott) showing the changes made to the June map as well as indicating the progress on the ground, we remove any claim that the Ellicotts altered L'Enfant's plan. Next we have to deal with Nicholas Mann's notion that the first plan (which was rejected) was better, and 'they' coerced L'Enfant into changing his map. Note that while Mann likes to call the manuscript plan L'Enfant's 'original' plan, it is actually his third plan in the Stephenson timeline; the second revision.

One does not need to resort to disappearing maps, as Stephenson does. The two L'Enfant maps that were present in August were the manuscript map from June and the dotted line map from August, each of which accompanies a written report. The June map was not lost, the president had had it since June. The situation in August was the same as it would remain until March, they needed a map that was in the format of the manuscript map but reflecting the lines that were spelled out in the dotted line map and showing the lots. Ellicott produced that in March.

In June L'Enfant issues a report dated the 22nd accompanied by a plan that is described as "projected agreeable to the direction of the President". The report begins, "In framing the plan, here anexed, for the Intended federal City" and text on the plan reads, "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government". This is the manuscript plan that Stephenson doesn't associate with any document. It was not presented in August as it had already been given to the President in June. It had too many diagonals, was rejected and revised.

[Remember that inside the oval in the corner of the manuscript plan it reads, "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government", and in the June 22 report we read, "In framing the plan, here anexed, for the Intended federal City", which appears to tie these two together. The manuscript map accompanied the June report. Hopefully the Library of Congress will one day associate the two, as they have associated the dotted line map with the August 19th letter.]

In August L'Enfant issues another report, this one dated the 19th, including a map that is described as "altered agreeable to your direction", that is it was revised; the map of doted lines. This is the map that was presented in August. It joined the manuscript plan held by the President that had been presented in June. L'Enfant never produced a finished revised map.

The note below is the only text on the dotted line map. It says simply that the red line are finished and the yellow lines are expected to be finished this season. This was a progress map that refelected the changes that the President had requested in June. The red lines were 'lines on the ground' in August 1791.

In early 1792, upon L'Enfant's dismissal, the Ellicott brothers produced a pair of maps that had the outward shape of the first map but incorporated the changes asked for by the President, in addition to naming the city and the streets and numbering the lots.

"L'Enfant complained bitterly on February 17, 1792 that major changes had been made to his plans and insisted he be allowed to correct the plans before they were engraved. On February 22nd Washington asked Jefferson to let L'Enfant point out any "radical defects" that wouldn't take too long to correct."

"February 26, 1792 L'Enfant wrote Jefferson at length complaining about the Commissioners but only notes three changes to his plans: the Boundary line included Stoddert’s spring "to the evident disfigurement of the plan"; the Commission overruled his wish to have a wharf built on part of the harbour owned by Robert Peters; and the Commission overruled his plans for the construction of a canal." Note that there was no discussion of streets having been removed or straightened by Ellicott. You would think that if L'Enfant hadn't been the one to straighten Mass Ave that he would have said something about it at this point.

As I said, to prove his point Stephenson needs to put an Ellicott in charge of the line map, loose the dotted line map and move it's date back some. He does not sucessfully do this.

This means that the dotted line map forms the basis of the current configuration of the city, and that it was produced as a revision of the manuscript plan in August by L'Enfant and not by Ellicott. The idea that Ellicott straightened Mass Ave needs to be revised and the dotted line map re-examined.

The pentagram, the pentagonal knot, and the street grid that results from connecting the points of that are clearly visible in the line map. Also, New Hampshire is forming the 52 degree angle like the pyramid base angle in that map. See a large edited copy of the DLM.

In the red section the main angle is 23.5 degrees like the tropics. In the purple section it is 19.5 degrees, and the sine of 19.47 is .333. In the blue section the angle is 26.5 degrees like the passages in the Great Pyramid, and the tangent of 26.5 is .5.

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