On Friday afternoon I left Baltimore for Washington at 3:15 & arrived at the Pennsylvania Station, Washington, at 4:10, a very quick journey, 42 miles, no stops. It’s a fine country here away, great maize fields & hulling the stalks going on, some good turnip crops too, pretty residences here & there, & good farms’ buildings, tho’ generally wood. It was a fine, sunny, bright day & the autumn tints looked very pretty, chiefly maple, the firs & willows still green & bearing their leaves. Evidently they haven’t had frosts yet, as further north where in many places the trees are bare & parks strewn with leaves. The contrasts of tints passing along the route formed quite a picture. Considerable water was laying on the land in part indicating that rain had fallen heavily hereabouts also. I was advised to go to the Howard House Hotel, only 2 minutes from the station, & found it most comfortable & convenient. Got room 65 on 3rd floor, front, & was soon settled, had a wash, & out to view forthwith while day light lasted. My first move was Capitolwards. I shall never forget the first glimpse of its stupendous dome, on entering the city, from the railway car. It is at the foot of Pennsylvania Avenue & a very imposing structure it appears. From the center of this great avenue or street, I saw the declining sun was yet glinting on the [9:43] the [sic] dome & upper structure, & fearing I might not get a better chance, I took a snap & hope it may prove a picture. The foreground is very beautiful, fine trees growing on a small park, & their foliage yet mostly complete & standing prominently out in the open space. At foot of street is a very grand monument to soldiers & sailors who fell during the war of 1861-5. In every American city I have been in is a commemorative statue moving the future citizens of America to adoration of the valiant men & heroes who gave their lives for their country’s welfare.
This fine street to which I’ve referred, Pennsylvania Avenue, is 90 feet wide from kerb to kerb, with a granolite surface, as smooth as glass. The flags on either side where they joined would be wider than Lynn St. from building to building. I strided the street before I ascertained its exact width, & I made 40 steps, well measured ones too. It hit the mark fairly at 2 ½ feet each. Darkness was now setting in, no twilight, & as I could not do more Kodak work, I returned to hotel. Supper at 6 o’clock, & about 7, I set out to view by electric light. Shops, tho’ locked up for the night, have no shutter or blinds, & as all are lit by electricity, the lights are left on & this makes the streets very cheery & attractive, & the exhibits exposed to view. It was a fine, clear night & pleasant to walk about, & I fairly well tired myself, & was not long in hotel until I retired to rest.
Saturday morning, the 12th, was a lovely morning & I meant to have a full day’s viewing. I had got a handy guide book & plan, & with a few hints from one of the hotel clerks, who evidently took to me being from the old country, as his father was a Devonshire man. I told him I could feel the taste of the cream yet, & this “went right home”.[1] I had a very good breakfast, & soon after preparing, took car – grand service here is everywhere – [9:44] & made for the greatest of all monuments to Washington, especially of the obelisk type, & its size, both at base, taper, height & interior is beyond comprehension. The guide book will interest you & others anent it. Its height is 555 feet & the only higher structure known is the Eiffel Tower. I have not been in the habit of copying any information from guide books into my diary, but here I must divert as it is worth writing to assist memory: the shaft is 500 feet high, 55 ft. square at base, 34 ft. at top, the pyramid top is 55 feet over the 500 & terminates with pure aluminium, walls are 15 feet thick at entrance & taper to 18 inches at top of shaft, pure white marble facing, foundation of rock & cement is 36 ft. deep, & 126 ft. square. Now away with the guide book. I got there a few minutes after 10. The elevator had just gone up for the 2nd time that morning – begins at 9:30 & occupies half hour each trip, & takes 30 at a time, so I had to wait with some others till it came down & you’ve to keep your place for turn as you file in, & the 31st has to wait its return. It took us 8 minutes to ascend to top floor, started at 10:25 by my watch & we were down again at 11:55. I suppose my watch was 5 slow. For a long way up you read between the cage on tablets above, so many courses, inscriptions, mottoes & crests, recording the names of states, cities, & donors who subscribed to its erection, all clearly lettered & made conspicuous. The elevator moves slowly & it is easy to note many of the inscriptions during ascent & de[s]cent. It’s a great sensation going up, up, up with apparently no end. It’s a long time, 8 minutes, to be ascending. The janitor told me it took 10 to go up, 10 to view, & 10 to de[s]cend, but I timed it & we had the 14 to view & good use I, as well as others, made of it. Several walked up the [9:45] hundreds of steps, book says how many, & it takes ¼ hour to mount the top flat, but they who walk, I venture to say, had not before doing so cut their wisdom teeth. No charge is made for either entrance or elevator. Some who went up in elevator preferred to walk down, but I took the de[s]cent “easily”. Well, to the view. Could anything be more sublime or impressive? No!! Besides, had I the making of the day & the rectifier of the atmosphere, certainly I could not have given conditions equal to it. Simply charmed me to view from such an altitude, the height of which I had never before been, & such a landscape, a combination of every feature that forms beauty. The 2 great rivers, Potomac & James[2] converging, you would think just below you, & dividing the two states, Maryland & Virginia, this to the South, a view alone that would be well worth the walking up to top to see. Then the vast city below & around with its handsome well laid out streets stretching far & away beyond the reach of the eye in straig[h]t & paralell [sic] lines while the Capitol itself was a sight worthy [of] crossing the Atlantic to view, & the fine water way from the navigable river wharves, where these fine passenger boats all start from, is seen winding its course far away beyond view & joins the Chesapeake, & on its surface you see the river craft moving. Then the lovely landscape paths, beds, fountains, statuary, trees, shrubs, flowers yet in bloom, all in the parks below & around & the great open meadow in which stands the obelisk, with fish ponds of great area, all forms a picture the like & reality of which is fairy land.
Oh, how I do regret my inability to command descriptive language. You’ve lost so much on this regrettable account, & I have often, [9:46] very often, felt ashamed & reproved myself of using so often over & over again the same words to give effect to my attempts describing scenes & objects; education, education, haven’t I suffered the lack of it during my tour, I know it too well!!
Now it is 5 to 12, time I was laying my head on the pillow, & especially as we sail tomorrow & no saying how I may take to sea life again after over 9 weeks on shore, & let me note here that this will be the last contribution to diary on foreign soil. I hope I may be able to write conveniently on board the “Majestic”.
Good night! Good night!!
[1] Devonshire cream: A clotted cream produced commercially in Devon, Cornwall, and Somerset England. A thick, rich, yellowish cream with a scalded or cooked flavour that is made by heating unpasteurized milk until a thick layer of cream sits on top. The milk is cooled and the layer of cream is skimmed off. Clotted cream has 55-60 percent fat content and is so thick it does not need whipping.
[2] William seems to have confused the Anacostia River with Jame Creek, an old tributary of the Anacostia. By 1898, the lower portion of the creek had been converted into the James Creek Canal (buried in 1916-17).