17921776 Club
In the new capital, the President's House gets its cornerstone; Washington stays in Philadelphia
A brass plate naming the president, three commissioners, and the architect goes into the ground before the walls do.
On October 13, 1792, workers in the half-built capital of Washington, D.C. laid the cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion. Participants gathered first at Suter's Tavern in Georgetown, then marched in procession to the building site on the Potomac. President Washington did not attend; he was in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of government. A brass plate beneath the stone named him anyway, alongside commissioners Thomas Johnson, Daniel Carroll, and David Stuart, and architect James Hoban…
