issioners met for their business has never been settled.

The tradition is that their office was The Little Old Stone House, now
3049 M Street, and known for many years as "General Washington's
Headquarters." As General Washington never had need for military
headquarters here, for there was no fighting nearby, this tradition has
persisted that this was the office of the Commissioners.

On December 13th President Washington sent a letter to L'Enfant advising
him that he must work under orders from the Commissioners.

"Then before leaving for Philadelphia to superintend the engraving of
his "Plan" personally, L'Enfant wrote to the Commissioners asking for
supplies for the winter work, as follows:

'Georgetown Dec. 25, 1791.

'Gentlemen: Mr. Roberdeau, on whose activity and zeal I rely in the
execution of what is necessary to accomplish this winter, will
communicate to you a statement of the business I committed to this
care and I have to request you will make provision for the supply of
25 hands in the quarries and 50 in the city which in all will be 75
men kept in employment besides their respective overseers.

'There is an immediate necessity for a number of wheel-barrows and
above 100 will be wanted early in the spring. Therefore I beg you
will devise the mode of obtaining that number before the 15th of
March next--These wheel-barrows ought to be made light and should be
only roughly finished, though substantial, ...'

Next we find that L'Enfant addressed a long and comprehensive Report to
President Washington 'for renewing the work at the Federal City' in the
approaching season and giving an estimate of expenditures for one year
in the amount of $1,200,000."

"We have here to do with the idealism of L'Enfant that contemplated
quite a completely built city before it was occupied and operated as a
'Seat of Government.' Unfortunately, L'Enfant did not realize the
poverty of the Treasury; and the state of mind of national legislators,
particularly of the North, who preferred to stay in Philadelphia to
moving 'to the Indian Place' on the banks of the Potomac."

"It is generally thought that the trouble concerning the Daniel Carroll
of Duddington House was the reason for L'Enfant's resignation from the
Washington work in March, 1792, and the reason for the letter from
Secretary of State Jefferson terminating his services that month. But a
close analysis of L'Enfant's