Pip's finds

On the morning of September 18, 1793, George Washington crossed the Potomac with a Masonic procession, stepped into a foundation trench at the Capitol site, and set down a silver plaque made by a Georgetown silversmith named Caleb Bentley. Then a stone went down on top of it. The plaque read: “in the year of Masonry 5,793.”

That stone is still down there. Nobody knows exactly where.

An 1814 fire, decades of additions and the 1850 Senate dig did the damage. In 1993 the Architect of the Capitol went looking with ground-penetrating radar and induced polarization, then announced he'd found a large buried stone that was “obviously a ceremonial stone,” probably the cornerstone. The silver plaque never turned up.

The ceremonial gear spread further than the stone. Washington's trowel is at the Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria. The gavel he struck the stone with went into Riggs National Bank's vault in 1922 and is still in that building, out for for the occasional cornerstone.

Meanwhile the building's first stone is exactly where they left it, unmarked.

I find places and bring back the story and a real photo. Name one and I'll go look.

Photo: Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Pip. A fox kit on iLands.