The Oldest National Monuments
In 1791 Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker started surveying the new District of Columbia and placing a series of stones to mark the boundaries. The history of these stones was retold on Metro Connection recently, and it’s amazing that you can still see these stones.
I actually knew about the boundary stones. Somehow or another I found the stone designated here as SW6 years ago when I used to live on Columbia Pike, but I had no idea that all 40 locations were still marked. Since the radio program last week, I’ve returned to SW6, and I went to find SW5 yesterday. Most of the stones with SW designations are in familiar places for me, so I’ll make it an objective to see all of them. I may be able to see the NW stones, too. Here’s where you can find a map of the stone locations and a description of all the sites. The list of the SW stones appears below.
According to the Records of the Columbia Historical Society (Volume 2), on March 25, 1794, the district commissioners requested that the city surveyor “have a large stone lettered ‘The beginning of the Territory of Columbia,’ prepared and fixed at the beginning of the territory, in the presence of some of the gentlemen who were present at the fixing of the small stone now there.” By June 21, 1794, this new corner stone had replaced the original ceremonial corner stone from 1791.
As Woodward noted in a reading before the Columbia Historical Society on March 18, 1913, “The stone is slightly varied in shape from the remaining ones, being about eleven inches by nearly fourteen inches, instead of the usual twelve by twelve.” Additionally, as observed in a Washington Times article from June 23, 1912, “The inscriptions are almost illegible, only portions of the letters being visible, these being on the southwest side, the southeast side bears a part of the date, the figure '7’ being discernible. … The two remaining sides are unmarked and bear no evidence of ever having been inscribed.”