Andrew Ellicott

Preface

It has Ions; been the desire of the descendants of Andrew EUicott that a record of his life and work should be made in the definite and permanent form of a biography. This has been felt to be a I'ecognition which is justly due to the useful and enduring nature of most of his public work.

Except for a brief statement of the main facts of his life given in the Genealogy of the Fox, Ellicott, and Evans families ; a short but excellent biographical sketch in StuarCs Civil and Military Engineers of America ; and a few stray newspaper articles relative to his work on the surveys and plans of the city of Washington, no really adequate account of Major Ellicotfs cai-eer has hitherto found its way into print, and thereby, into public notice. This book therefoi-e presents foi- the most part entirely new material, and is taken largely from a mass of valuable and interesting papers, letters, diaries, and docunients of various sorts, which are in the possession of Mr. Ellicott D. Curtis and other of Major Ellicotfs descendants, and which have ne\er before been published.

Especial mention should be made of Mrs. T. K. Alexander of Washington, D. C, who, besides the many papers and journals of Major Ellicott which are in her possession, has collected many documents relative to his part in the surveys and plans of the District of Columbia.

The thanks of the author for kindly advice and assistance given are due to Mr. Henry W. Lanier of Doubleday, Page & Co., to Mr. John B. Church of Geneva, N. Y., and to Dr. Richard B. Coutant of Tarrvtown, N. Y.

New York, January, 1908.

Contents

Chapter Page

I. Parkntage and Early Life. 1754-1784 .... 3

Birth — Education — Inherited Mechanical Ability — Marriage — Commission in KIk Ridge Battalion — P.arly Surveys — Appointed to complete "Mason and Dixon's Line" — Receives Degree of M. A. from the University of Williamsburg.

Chapter I Parentage And Early Life

1754-1784

There is a growing tendency on the part of the present generation toward an increasing appreciation of the men — whether they were soldiers or statesmen, pioneers or settlers, men of science or men of letters — who in the early days of the nation made of their lives, their courage, their aspirations, and their talents, stepping-stones to the greatness of the America of to-day. The growing interest in what these men accomplished, and how they accomplished it, shows a realization, full of hope for the country's future, that the strength and worth of individual effort is the test of the nation's worth as a whole.

The latter half of the eighteenth century was exceedingly rich in its men. The list is long of the soldiers, statesmen, jurists, men of public affairs, who came forward as their country had need of them. It was less rich in scientific men of distinction, and for this reason, the names of such men as Franklin, Rittenhouse, Priestley, Elhcott, and a few more hke them stand out on the annals of that half-century with a pecuHar prominence, and the biographies of these men hold the attention quite as closely as those more brilhant pages which record the trimnphs or the defeats of the military and naval heroes of the nation.

" The memoirs of Andrew Ellicott," wrote the president of an American college, " will form a valuable addition to the history of our country, taking us away from the beaten ground of battle-fields and Senate Chambers and Cabinets, to the services which science can render in the settlement of a new country." It was justly said. Andrew Elhcott was among the first of those men whose scientific and mathematical attainments were used for the public benefit, and whose work was of permanent value to their country. He was a surveyor, an astronomer, a mathematician, and when the nature of his pubhc work so required, he was a soldier and a diplomatist as well. Even in his youth receiving appointments of importance, " without the help or favor of any one " (as he was proud to record in a letter written in his thirtieth year), he early succeeded in inspiring a complete confidence in his ability, exactness, and integrity. He was employed throughout his whole life, by both the Federal Government and the individual States, to settle vexed and difficult questions of boundaries and State lines, to lay out to\\Tis and cities, and to survey new roads through the wilderness, at a time when a highway had all the importance of a railroad of to-day. The boundary work required tact and diplomacy as well as the most exact mathematical knowledge, while the laying out of future cities necessitated that he should possess not only judgment and practical common-sense, but also a fine foresight as to possible conditions, which, even though non-existent in his day, must nevertheless meet with his most careful consideration.

The problems he was required to solve were many and difficult, and the record he has left behind him is one of hard work well and often brilliantly done. Whether what he accomplished for the Government is read of in the histories of the United States or in the unassuming words of his own letters and diaries, this one fact is equally impressive, that the country has always had need of the man of science, and that, without the services he has always been able to render her, she would be far from having the solidity she can boast to-day.

It has been said that genius which implies a combination of high faculties tends to be inherited, and in view of Andrew Ellicott's indisputable possession of a combination of high faculties, it is not surprising to find that his father, Joseph Ellicott, was remarkable in his day for a variety of mechanical and scientific attainments, and that the whole Elhcott family as far back as 1600 had shown in each generation a marked inventiveness and a knowledge of mathematics above the ordinary.

The account of the setthng of Andrew Ellicott's progenitors in America is brief though romantic. In 1731 one Andrew Ellicott of Devonshire, England, an influential member of the Devonshire Society of Friends, meeting with some business reverses at home, came with his eldest son, Andrew, to make a visit in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.^ It was by no means the intention of the elder Elhcott to settle in this country, and when his wife,

* Bucks County was one of the three original counties established by William Penn in 1682, whom family tradition describes as a woman of great

goodness and intelligence, wrote the following lines on

their departure, she Httle thought that she was not to

see her husband again. Her verse, in reality a prayer,

runs thus:

" Through rocks and sands

And enemies hands

And perils of the deep.

Father and son

From Collosston

The Lord preserve and keep."

Andrew Ellicott's reason for making this visit to America is not known, although it is alleged that it was to be a visit only; but while here the younger Andrew, then about twenty-three, met and loved Ann Bye, daughter of a landed proprietor of Buckingham township. Being, so runs the story, overwhelmed with grief at the thought of leaving her, he persuaded liis father to remain on this side of the water, and they chose for their future home a place of about fifty acres on the main road between New York and Philadelphia, about five miles from Doylestown, the county seat, and very near Buckingham Meeting House, where, romance being triumphant, the younger Elhcott married Ann Bye in 1731. His choice was wise. Ann Bye was a woman of remarkable character, of fine physique, and possessed of a superior mind. She had a skill in medicine, a valuable possession in those days, which brought her no little fame in the surrounding country. She became the mother of five sons, all men of intelligence and fine appearance. Joseph, her eldest son (father of the Andrew Ellicott with whose life we are occupied), was perhaps the most gifted of the five, though

H

S o

O t~

S

H

OJ

K

H c3

<1

Z

77^ z o p^

&c

K s:

H

O

J5 cr.

CC hJ o h^

1— 1 o

o tf ct

W

Ph

P p-

O p o -r o p they all appear to have shown great mechanical skill and business ability.

Joseph Elhcott was born in 1732. He " attained to some degree of eminence in the arts and sciences," and he possessed a knowledge of mechanics, together with a decidedly clever abiHty to turn that knowledge to practical account. He was High Sheriff of Bucks County in 1768-69, was a member of the Provincial Assembly, and enjoyed the friendship of Franklin and Rittenhouse. Added to his skill in mechanical contrivance of other sorts, he had a talent for clock-making, and had seriously studied this delicate art while on a visit to England in 1766. On his return home, he constructed a wonderful musical clock, from the making of which he derived much pleasure. This clock is still in existence.

Joseph Ellicott married early in life. His wife was Judith, daughter of Samuel Bleaker. Owing to an inheritance of land in England, which he sold at a large figure, he was placed in very comfortable circumstances, and enabled to give his children a somewhat better education than he had himself obtained. But he could bestow nothing on his son Andrew so valuable as the gift for mathematics and science which was to raise him to such eminence in his profession.

Andrew Ellicott was born January 24, 1754, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and it is probable that he secured the rudiments of his education at the little Quaker school in the township of Solesbury. Later he studied in Philadelphia and under Robert Patterson,^ to whom he affec-

* Robert Patterson, born in Ireland in 1743, came to Pennsylvania in 1768. He served in the Continental Army during the Revolution. In 1779 tionately refers at a later date as " the preceptor of his youth and at all times his disinterested friend."

While it is unquestionable that Andrew Ellicott was fortunate in being even for a time under Robert Patterson's guidance, he owed most of his success to the quahties which were his inheritance. The genius for mathematics, the good judgment, the strong family affection, and, not least, the fine physique which stood him in such good stead in the vicissitudes of climate to which he was more or less exposed throughout his life, all came to him from his father, Joseph Ellicott.

The tastes of father and son ran in like channels always, and before Andrew was fifteen his father was trusting him to assist in the making of the musical clock. This complex specimen of clockmaking art is described as having " a case of mahogany, in the shape of a four-sided column, about eight feet high, each side of which is neatly finished ; on the capital of this pillar is the clock, with four faces, being designed to set in the middle of the room.

" On one face is represented the sun, moon, earth, and the planets, all moving in their different orbits as they do in the heavens. On another face are marked the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years (the years representing one century), all having their different hands pointing to the true time. Also the image of the moon, by which its age and apparent light are registered. On

he was elected Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, and occupied that chair for thirty-five years. In 1805 he was appointed Director of the Mint by President Jeiferson. He was President of the American Philosophical Society from 1819 until his death in 1824.

a third face are marked the names of twenty-four musical tunes, being favorite ones of the times before the American Revolution. In the centre of this face is a pointer, which being placed against any named tune, repeats it. The smaller cylinder plays a tune every hour, the larger one every three hours. The smaller cylinder before striking the hour, the larger one after striking the hour. On the fourth face is to be seen, through glass, the curious mechanism of the clock."

It is easy to imagine the interest of Joseph Ellicott's flock of children (he had nine in all, of whom Andrew was the eldest) in the wonderful clock and the astonishing way in wliich it could play " The Lady's Anthem," " Ballanca's Strain," " The Lass with the Delicate Air," " Captain Read's Minuet," " The Hounds are all Out," and " Willingham's Frolic," together with eighteen other tunes, all equally popular at the time. But the really remarkable thing is that a lad of fifteen was trusted to assist at so intricate a piece of work. It argues no little faith in Andrew's ability on the part of his father, and is an assurance that he must early have given proof of the trustworthiness, exactness, and skill which so distinguished him in after life.

The agricultural hfe of Bucks County ^ offering no opportunity for the use of the peculiar mechanical ability of the family, Joseph Elhcott and two of his brothers, in 1760, made a horseback trip through the middle States, with a view to locating mills on some advantageous site.

* A curious and interesting account of life in Bucks County at the time of Andrew Ellicott's birth is to be found in Day's " Historical Collections of Pennsylvania," pp. 155-157.

Ten years later they bought a large tract of land in Maryland, on the Patapsco River, about ten miles west of Baltimore, and established there extensive mills, known respectively as Ellicott's Upper and Lower Mills. In a division of the property, the Upper Mills fell to Joseph EUicott, and he built himself a mansion (which he called " Fountain vale "), furnished it handsomely, and surrounded it with a large and beautiful garden. In this garden was a fish pond, as well as a constantly flowing fountain, the water for which was conveyed underground in iron pipes from an unfailing spring on higher ground. From this fountain the place took its name.

Much that was of lasting public benefit is ascribed to the clever and inventive Ellicott family, who never sought to protect by patent the many useful devices their ingenuity suggested. Their flour mills were quickly followed by cotton mills, the cotton mills by an iron foundry. They opened offices in Baltimore and owned a wharf there. Quick and easy transportation becoming a necessity of their prosperity, they interested themselves in the promotion of the Baltimore and Fredericksburg Turnpike, the building of the bridge over the Monocacy River, and the Cumberland Road, — this latter a turnpike of considerable importance. They built school-houses for the children of their employees, and a Friends Meeting House at Elk Ridge Landing.

One of the family, John Ellicott, put up the first rolling mill and blast furnace erected in Baltimore, and he is said to have been the first person in this country to utilize the waste heat arising from the gases evolved in the blast furnace as an agent for the economical genera-

< 2

H tn

i>

-^ -5

-I

o >s H O

w .a tion of steam. This John Ellicott was of the opinion in 1789 that the time was approaching when " roads would be so constructed and adapted to machinery that steam cars would roll their rapid wheels from city to city " ; and about the same time he was actively interested in the construction of a steamboat of his own invention. Unfortunately for him his experiments in this direction came to an untimely end, — the exploding of the boiler of this boat resulting for the inventor in the loss of his right arm.

The first experiments ever made in this country in the use of plaster of paris as a fertilizer were made by the ElHcotts at the Upper Mills. They introduced the use of the " elevator," the " conveyor," and the " hopper boy " in milling. They also substituted marking by stencil plates for the old method of branding by hot irons. Practical inventions and the general progress of science and mechanics seem to have been of absorbing interest to them always, and Andrew Ellicott was brought up in an atmosphere which did much to foster his unusual talents.

Having secured his education and feeling himself able to establish a home of his own, Andrew Ellicott was married, December 31, 1775, at Newtown, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to Sarah Brown, whose father was a prominent " Friend," and a cousin of Jacob Brown, the "Fighting Quaker" of the War of 1812. The young couple went at once to the Ellicott colony in Maryland.

In 1778, although military service was in direct opposition to the principles of the Society of Friends, Andrew Ellicott was commissioned by Governor Johnson of Maryland, first, Captain, and later, Major, in the Elk Ridge Battalion of Militia. That he accepted this commission is not the only thing that goes to show that, while respecting the Quaker principles, he was not in entire sympathy with their outward manifestations. He never used the "plain language" (thee and thou), in either speech or writing, never dated his letters First or Second Month, as is the Quaker usage, and after attending the Quaker Quarterly Meeting in 1786, he writes : " Our meditations were only interrupted once. Mine turned upon that easy sum for the Quadrature of a Circle found out by Mons. Leibting," naively implying that the one interruption was to him a hindrance to mathematical reflection instead of an aid to spiritual meditation.

Where the question of war was concerned, the elder Ellicotts were tenacious of their peaceful principles, yet in the Revolution, " they early espoused the cause of Independence in heart and soul. No Tory blood ran in the veins of a single Elhcott. Although they belonged to the peaceful Society of Friends, and were not expected to march to the bloody field, yet in all the ways that a peaceful citizen can serve his country in time of war, they were ever among the foremost in the land." This testimonial to their patriotism adds that "Andrew Elhcott, the son of old Joseph Ellicott, transgressed the principles of Friends to serve his country by becoming a Major under General Washington."^

Many years after the Revolution, Andrew Ellicott, David Rittenhouse, and Bishop Madison of Virginia became engaged in a lively discussion concerning the doc-

^ From the Howard District Press, 1847.

trine of Friends in regard to war, in which Major EUicott (by tliis title he was always known in later hfe) insisted that in regard to defensive war the Friends were all wrong. The incident seems to show that his maturer judgment approved his years of military service, and his joining the Elk Ridge Battalion appears to have been the deliberate expression of his personal convictions, rather than a hot-headed impulse of his youth.

From the time of his marriage in 1775, Andrew Ellicott's life became publicly active and crowded with work and responsibility. One survey of importance after another occupied him, and his long life of usefulness was to know but little leisure.

Toward the end of the year 1781 he published " The United States Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1782; Being the Second after Leap-Year, and the Sixth Year of American Independence." " By Andrew Ellicott, Esq." is below in type modestly small, and the little publication contains much information of various sorts, with facts, weather, and verse curiously mingled, after the engaging fashion of the almanacs of the period. It refers, on one page, to " our last year's Almanack," but of this latter, or its predecessors, if any, no trace remains.

As may be imagined, American Independence being yet so young, many of the Almanack's historic dates and facts deal with British defeats and American victories, and not the least clever and curious of its varied contents is the " Prognosticks, &c. of the Allegany Philosopher."

" This great Sage," it begins, " as mentioned last year, lives on the other side of the Allegany Mountain, a place favourable to longevity, where he enjoys the most perfect health. Tho' he has counted ninety-nine revolving years, his judgment is nervous and sound, and his ideas of philosophy unimpaired.

" This Sophist informs us, that Mrs. Britain, at tliis time, continues in a very low, lingering, languishing condition; her pulse, indeed, sometimes beats high, but the strongest efforts which she makes to keep up her importance, seem to arise from a sudden flow of animal spirits, and like the spasms of convulsion, are to be considered as injurious to the machine which is agitated by them. The disorder in her bowels, with which she has been for some years afflicted, gains ground; but she is most alarmed at the inflamed state of her extreme parts; and, indeed, they have so unpromising an aspect, that it is doubtful whether all the coohng medicines prescribed by her ablest physicians will be able to prevent amputations. The old lady exhibits the most striking symptoms of an inward decay, and is, evidently, hastening to her dissolution, though the precise moment, by the planets, cannot be ascertained. Her constitution is so much debilitated by severe shocks of various kinds (and particularly injured by that dreadful distemper the King's Evil,) that it is impossible she can survive them, without a miraculous revolution in her favour. With a broken constitution, and a bad habit of body, she must never expect to do what she has done. His sentiments concerning her recovery are every hour more and more confirmed, when he thinks of the frequent application which has been made of the lancet; for though phlebotomy may be highly serviceable in certain circumstances, the stoutest patient in Christendom may, hke a devoted pig, be blooded to death.

" He farther informs us that, by the most acute observation of the planets, she will be forced to acknowledge this year, in the fullest manner, the Independence of these United States, which will be recognized by all the powers of Europe; when heaven-born Peace, with her balmy wings, will pervade this con^allsed country, and heal the desolations that war has made."

Month by month the Almanack goes quaintly on ; we learn on the same page that they were to " expect hard thunder " on the 13th of June, and that " The tears of compassion are sweeter than dewdrops falling from roses on the bosom of the Spring."

In December we are told that:

" As all to change and dissolution tend, Poor Almanacks, even they must have an end."

And so, with a recipe for pickling hams, a brief sermon on the text of Job v. 7, and a hst of the justices of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, the Almanack of Andrew EUicott Esq. for the year 1782 comes to a close.

Records of his earlier surveys were not kept, and it is not until ten years after his marriage that we have the first of those letters and diaries which tell the story of his life so simply and so unassumingly that the biographer cannot do better than to let them speak for him. They form a clear and fascinating picture of the men and manners, the country and the State of Andrew Ellicott's day, while through even the briefest of them, shines out the character of the man himself, in all its simphcity, integrity, and kindliness. Between the lines of almost every scrap of manuscript he has left behind him, may be traced the quiet, sensible courage, the quick and keen observation of men and things, the tremendous capacity for hard work, and the complete indifference to the lures of wealth or fame, which seem to have been recognized by all who came in contact with him as the most characteristic qualities of the man.

In the summer of 1784 he was at work upon a boundary survey of importance, and he writes to his wife from the " Very Border of the Wilderness " — in the first letter of his which is preserved to us : ^

"DeAuSai^LY "July 2d 1784.

As my Health is thy first concern, I have the Pleasure of informing thee of my good State at present, I am as Hearty or more so than ever; but I do not hke the Country— I shall write a long Letter in the Course of a few days— I saw Abraham Doan and his Cousin Hetty brought to Goal,^ with two other Robbers they have committed notorious acts of Villany on the Frontier, one of their Company was Killed in Robbing a House in the neighbourhood, where I was — Give my kind respects to Mammy Brother and Sisters, and beheve me to be with' the greatest Esteem thy Loving

Husband."

^ This is the only letter in which Major Elhcott used the " plain language." In none of his other letters or manuscripts does the "thee" and "thou" appear.

^ The Doanes were a noted family of outlaws at the time of the Revolution; the father was a Quaker and a respectable man, but his six sons as they grew to manhood became a gang of desperate outlaws and cattle thieves, notorious upon the frontier for outrages of all sorts upon their neighbors. — Day's " Historical Collections of Pennsylvania," p. 160.

ANDREW ELLICOTT IT

" On the Summit of Moxint Welcome July 30*11 1784. " My Dear

We have finished our Houses and are now living very comfortably on the Top of the highest Mount in this part of the World ; our Observatory is in good order, and Well Stored with Instruments ; my Companions are vei-y agreeable Men, and I think we enjoy all the Happiness that people in our Situation could expect— It is now one month since we left the inhabited part of the Country— . . . The following is a True Picture of Our living We brakefast between 6 and 7 Observe the Sun's Altitude between 7 and 10 Dine between 12 and 1 after which we always drink our two Bottles before we leave the Table Then Observe the Sun's Corresponding Altitude— At 6 we have a large Bowl of Wine Sillybubb — This rule we never break- We have each of us a Coxa—

We drink our Tea about 7— And sometimes observe the Heavens greatest part of the Night. You and our Dear Children are never out of my mind, ^and I remember with the greatest pleasure that companion of my Bosom, whose chief study hath ever been to make me happy— . . . About the last of October I shall set off for Home— every day, till that Time will be as long as a month spent with you

I am Dear Sally thy Lo^^ng

Husband."

The companions whom he mentions as " agreeable " were Dr. James Madison, President of William and Mary

College, and later the first Bishop of Virginia ; Robert Andrews, a man of prominence in public affairs, and John Page, a friend of Jefferson, and afterwards Governor of Virginia. These three, together with himself, had been appointed by the State of Virginia to complete the survey of the boundary between that State and Pennsylvania, carrying on the line of Mason and Dixon (famous later as the dividing line between slavery and freedom), which Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon had been forced by the Indians to abandon, unfinished, in the summer of 1767.^ Confusion between the people of the border, as to where Virginia began or Pennsylvania ended, as well as to the more important question of under whose laws and jurisdiction they held their homes, had reached such a state in 1779 that Commissioners met in Baltimore, and as a result of the meeting, recommended that " Mason and Dixon's Hne be extended due west five degrees, to be computed from the river Delaware for the southern line of Pennsylvania, and that a meridian line from the western extremity thereof to the northern limits of the said state be the western boundary of Pennsylvania forever." This was made a law, and stands to-day.

After some lines, not entirely satisfactory, had been run by local surveyors, four Commissioners of prominence were appointed by each of the two States in 1784 to settle the affair in good earnest: by Virginia the four

' The Indians complained " that ah-eady a great path came from the Northward, with many people, wagons, and horses, another big path came from the East by the rivers, and if a path were made over the mountains to the Westward, the game would go with it, and the Indians would suffer." They were, as well, greatly alarmed at the strange instruments of the EngUsh astronomers which they thought " bad medicine."

mentioned above, Madison, Andrews, Page, and Ellicott, while Pennsylvania sent as her representatives. Dr. John Ewing, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, John Lukens, Surveyor General of Pennsylvania, Thomas Hutchins, afterwards styled " Geographer of the United States," and David Rittenhouse, already distinguished in Europe as well as at home for his astronomical genius. That Andrew Ellicott, a young man of thirty, not a resident of the State which appointed liim, and who was able to say he had not the help or favor of any one, should have been chosen to act with these seven eminent men shows that his ability was early recognized.

Dr. Madison and Mr. Page having left the field after a certain portion of the work was at an end, the boundary line was carried to completion by Mr. Andrews and Major Elhcott. It was for the latter's skilful accomplishment of his share of the work that the College of William and Mary ^ gave him the degree of Master of Arts, mentioned in his next letter to his wife.