Existing comment:
Washington's Early Waterfront:
After the City of Washington was laid out from 1791 to 1792, Tiber Creek was transformed first into the Washington City Canal and later into the B Street Sewer. The canal would allow goods to easily reach the interior of the city, facilitating commerce and building construction. The canal connected the Potomac and Anacostia rivers by joining Tiber Creek and James Creek, providing easy passage between Georgetown and the deepwater ports on the Anacostia. Construction of the canal progressed slowly, hampered by a lack of funds, but it ultimately linked to the C&O Canal in Georgetown. In the downtown area the canal simply followed the existing channel of Tiber Creek. The Lockkeeper's House that now stands at the corner of Constitution Avenue and 17th Street, NW, was built in 1832 when the City Canal was extended to Georgetown.
The 17th Street Wharf:
The wharf at 17th Street was a prominent feature fo the nineteenth-century landscape, and archaeologists believe that remains of the wharf may be still preserved beneath 17th Street. Construction of the 17th Street Wharf was authorized by the City Commissioners in 1806, and it was completed in 1807, probably by slave labor. Slave labor was commonly used in the building trades, including wharf construction, and slaves were often used as dockworkers.
The original structure was built with white oak timbers and filled with bluestone and earthen fill. The wharf quickly became an essential entry point for building materials for the growing capital city. The wharf eventually grew to a length of almost 1,200 feet. In its early years dockworkers unloaded building materials (planks, shingles, laths, stone, sand, bricks, and house frames), produce (grain and hay) and household necessities such as soap and candles. Coal and wood were the major commodities that arrived here in the 1840s and 1850s, and in the 1880s the wharf was used primarily as a landing for sand and gravel. During the Civil War, the 17th Street Wharf assumed a brief military function when the USS Pawnee occasionally stood at anchor, ready to evacuate government officials in case of an attack on the city. Among the warehouses on the wharf was a small lunch room operated by Henry Heill, an African American. Most, if not all, of the dockworkers were African American, a tradition that seems to have been established during the days of slavery. |