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By Don Audette Special to the Rappahannock News
Piart 1 (which appeared in the August 9 issue) told how in 1804 an American Prime Meridian was established by surveying a true north-south line through the middle of the White House (then called the President's House). So, did surveyors use it?
One scholar, Joseph Hyde Pratt, found that, “A great many maps based on the Washington meridian were drawn in the closing decade of the eighteenth century and throughout the first half of the nineteenth.” Another expert, Craig B. Waff described his research into early American maps and whether they used the new American Prime Meridian. He notes that a few local mapmakers used it up to the 1820s and 1830s, but most used a dual system, keeping the Greenwich prime meridian either at the top or bottom of the map. Even the maps of the Lewis and Clark Expedition kept Greenwich.
In the long run, it was a losing battle for a number of reasons: people didn't like to change things; states were leery of anything coming out of Washington; science and technology was advancing and an observatory was needed; etc. For astronomic purposes, in 1850 Congress shifted the American Prime Meridian from the White House to the old Naval Observatory in D.C. Then in 1893, to the new Naval Observatory. Finally, on August 22, 1912, Congress sanctioned Greenwich Prime Meridian for use as the prime meridian for the United States. Sic transit gloria.
You mean the
markers are gone?
Silvio A Bedini in his book “The Jefferson Stone: Demarcation of the First Meridian of the United States,” tolls how the markers delineating the line through the middle of the President's House met : their end.
For example, the Jefferson - Sterne on the Mall, pinpointing ' where L'Enfant wanted an equestrian statue of George " Washington to be erected,-.took 'a beating. Being at the edge of Tiber Creek and later a canal, it was used as a mooring post for scows and barges, and as a benchmark for local plat sur■ veys and maps.
When the concept of the Washington Monument replaced the equestrian statute idea in 1833, the rite at the Jefferson Stone was bypassed: the soil was too weak In November 1848, though, the _ Jefferson Stone did serve as a measured benchmark to judge whether the Washington Ikfnmiment during its start and stop construction phases (18481856, 1876-1884) ever sank. A ponfil sketch from 1851 shows the Jefferson Stone in decrepit jwwtitinn as construction on the Washington Monument began (Figure 1).
In 1876, a study noted one corner of the Washington Monument had sunk almost nim> inches, but this could not be verified. Individuals working for the Commissioner of Public Buildings on improving the Monument grounds had removed the Jefferson Stone in
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