Washington [434]
On August 22 he returned to New York for what would prove a brief final interval for the temporary capital. Under the Residence Act, the government was set to transfer to Philadelphia by early December, yet the exodus had begun in earnest in midsummer once Congress concluded its work on August 12. Washington craved the tranquillity of Mount Vernon, where he could rest and recover fully from his recent illness, and decided to make an extended stay there before the transition to Philadelphia.
When he left New York on August 30, 1790, Washington again indulged the impossible daydream of avoiding any pageantry to mark his official farewell. At dawn he gathered his wife, two grandchildren, two aides, four servants, and four slaves for a last glimpse of the Broadway house, when he suddenly heard the strains of a band outside striking up a tune called “Washington’s March.” A glum Washington saw no surcease from the cloying adulation. Outside Governor Clinton, Chief Justice Jay, and a mass of excited citizens had shown up to tender their last respects and send him off on a barge, climaxed by a thirteen-gun salute from the Battery.
As the boat drifted off into the Hudson River, Washington stood erect in the stern, then swung around toward the Manhattan shore and waved his hat in farewell, provoking a responsive roar from the spectators. When the barge had floated halfway across the Hudson, he picked up the sprightly peal of trumpets from the Jersey shore at Paulus Hook (now Jersey City), where Governor Richard Howell and the cavalry waited to escort him on the first leg of his journey. As he traversed the route south from Newark to Trenton, across which a ragged Continental Army had retreated in defeat in 1776, Washington was cheered at every hamlet along the way.
When he reached Philadelphia, Washington beheld the new capital in the grip of unabashed Washington mania. Ascending his white charger, he trailed the cavalry as it sliced an opening through pedestrian-packed streets. At the City Tavern his burly, outgoing friend Robert Morris awaited him with an outstretched hand. The city of Philadelphia had rented Morris’s house at 190 High Street (later Market Street) near the corner of Sixth as the new presidential mansion. Surrounded by stately brick walls that afforded privacy both to the building and to a well-shaded garden, the house was a substantial, four-story brick structure with tall, handsome windows. During his short stay Washington traipsed through its rooms and cast a discerning, but also critical, glance at its appointments. “It is, I believe, the best single house in the city,” Washington told Tobias Lear, who lingered in Manhattan with Billy Lee. “Yet, without additions, it is inadequate to the commodious accommodation of my family.”19 Although Washington and his entourage headed toward Mount Vernon on September 6, the president, with his strong visual powers and grasp of detail, never stopped dwelling on the decoration of the house. Throughout the fall he peppered Tobias Lear with nine long letters, spelling out the changes he wanted, right down to the color of the curtains, once the Morrises had vacated the premises and relocated to another house down the block.
In corresponding with Lear, Washington was intent on turning the house into a showpiece for visiting dignitaries. On the first floor, which would have two reception rooms, he had the south wall demolished and installed bow windows to afford visitors a view of the clock tower atop Independence Hall. This room, with its curved windows,