Existing comment:
Boundary markers of the original District of Columbia
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The boundary markers of the original District of Columbia are the 40 milestones that marked the four lines forming the boundaries between the states of Maryland and Virginia and the square of 100 square miles (259 km²) of federal territory that became the District of Columbia in 1801 (see: Founding of Washington, D.C.). Working under the supervision of three commissioners that President George Washington had appointed in 1790 in accordance with the federal Residence Act, a surveying team that Major Andrew Ellicott led placed these markers in 1791 and 1792. Among Ellicott's assistants were his brothers Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott, Isaac Roberdeau, George Fenwick, Isaac Briggs and an African American astronomer, Benjamin Banneker.
Today, 36 of the original marker stones survive as the oldest federally placed monuments in the United States. Thirteen of these markers are now within Virginia due to the return of the portion of the District south and west of the Potomac River to Virginia in 1846 (see: District of Columbia retrocession). |