Matthew, I agree that was a sloppy way of describing the area. "Barren" is certainly misleading, but I largely followed Constance McLaughlin Green's "Washington: Village and Capital, 1800-1878," where she writes that "In 1790 tobacco and cornfields, orchards and woods had covered most of the area. A few houses had been built in Carrollsburgh on the Eastern Branch...A few dwellings stood also in Hamburg, a tiny settlement located to the east of Rock Creek" (pp. 4-5). Fourteen years earlier, in 1776, I assume there was even less. She also describes how "a sluggish little stream, Tiber or Goose Creek, worked it way to the river through tidal flats...[a]bove the marshy estuary..." while the course of Pennsylvania Avenue was "marked by a tangle of elder bushes, swamp grasses, and tree stumps" (p. 3); that was in 1800, when the government began moving Washington, so I assume much more so in 1776. Appreciate you holding me to a more accurate description.
The site of Washington was neither barren nor swampy.
Matthew, I agree that was a sloppy way of describing the area. "Barren" is certainly misleading, but I largely followed Constance McLaughlin Green's "Washington: Village and Capital, 1800-1878," where she writes that "In 1790 tobacco and cornfields, orchards and woods had covered most of the area. A few houses had been built in Carrollsburgh on the Eastern Branch...A few dwellings stood also in Hamburg, a tiny settlement located to the east of Rock Creek" (pp. 4-5). Fourteen years earlier, in 1776, I assume there was even less. She also describes how "a sluggish little stream, Tiber or Goose Creek, worked it way to the river through tidal flats...[a]bove the marshy estuary..." while the course of Pennsylvania Avenue was "marked by a tangle of elder bushes, swamp grasses, and tree stumps" (p. 3); that was in 1800, when the government began moving Washington, so I assume much more so in 1776. Appreciate you holding me to a more accurate description.
It is easy to trip into the cliches. I'm not such a fan of Green--so many other histories have come out since hers.