19 May 2009
 
The W.A.

(Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs)
 
Engineering Technian Carl is a man who likes his work. I suspect he thought Jason and I were just another couple Stone Junkies, on a wham-bam mission to count coup on the stone in the deep woods at the top of the Decarlia Reservation.
 
I explained that I had made my initial assaults on the stone from the north, coming down the hill from Westmoreland Circle. The directions are a little vague, referencing only the fence and a creek off the parkway, since the road network abandons the straight-lines of the District there. The Decarlia Parkway curves away with the topography of the land, curling down to the Hospital and eventually to MacArthur Boulevard.
 
“There is no place to park. I had to find a cul-de-sac off the circle and leave the car behind to plunge into the trees. I got all turned around and could not see anything through the fence.”
 
Carl nodded. “It’s a little bit of wilderness here in the city,” he said. “I lost hte Stojne for an hour one time. It’s all about what happened in 1863,” he said, nodding at the brick tower behind him.
 
“What was that?” I said, thinking hard. That was a bad year in the very middle of the Civil War. The nation’s capital was incomplete, a public work interrupted. The Dome of the Congress was incomplete, and the shaft of the Washington Monument stopped a third of the way up. The city was ringed with earthen fortifications that bristled with cannon.
 
“General Meigs did it,” Said Carl. “the most famous Quartermaster General in the Corp’s history, and the Washington Aqueduct.”
 
“I’ve never heard of it that way. It sounds like something from ancient Rome,” I said, and Carl just nodded. He handed Jason a Xerox copy of a color photo of an odd stone. It was not one of the ones we were looking for. Much smaller, but clearly intended to convey something important. Two letters were chiseled in the side with authority: “W.A.”
 
“I was in the bushes up by the Cabin John and nearly twisted my ankle on this,” said Carl. It did not penetrate to me that the reason the two stones on the Army property were in such good shape was they have been protected by the Corps of Engineers for over a hundred and fifty years, and that what this was about was typhoid and cholera and the putrid water that the people in Washington drank.
 
We clambered into the white sedan and Carl drove to the gate. His magnetic card presented to the box on the stanchion caused the chain on the bottom of the gate to engage, and herky-jerk it open.
 
That is why I had serous doubts about the claims in the Post about visiting all the Stones in six hours and thirty-four minutes. There is no way that Carl would have come in on a Sunday.
 
“Before cities began treating drinking water, including disinfecting it with chlorine, thousands died every year from cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery and hepatitis,” said Carl. “That is why they had General Meigs come in and build the Aqueduct. He worked on it for sight years before the war, and did he get into it with the politicians.”
 
 I knew a little bit about Meigs, since he is still famous for his brickwork. His Civil War Pension Building downtown (now the Building Museum) was built using more bricks than any other structure in the world, before or since. His free-standing masonry columns in the courtyard a re also the tallest in the world, but that is not Carl’s job.
 
“The nine-foot-wide culvert under MacArthur Boulevard belongs to the Corps, too, and it is a good thing there is nothing historic down there besides the bricks, and who needs fans trekking through the city’s water, you know? We do it twice a year, and it takes two days to walk it.”
 
“How do you get out? How often is there a man-hole?” I asked.
 
“”Every fifty yards or so,” said Carl pensively. “Biut we only open three of them for air and to get out in the middle. If you popped up in traffic it would be dangerous.”
 
Jason and I thought about being in the dark in a nine-foot culvert under the city.
 
“Few years back we had to go and hack out the roots and stuff that grew in over the years. The funny thing is we cannot do the work they did back in the day. No craftsmanship of that kind left in the world.”
 
The Corps of engineers is a funny institution, and very conscious of its public image. Hence their kind treatment. We crossed MacArthur Boulevard and I saw a quaint, boarded-up little house with a mansard roof. It appeared to be on federal land and I asked what it was.
 
Carl said it was the Colonel's house, the one where the officer in charge of the Aqueducts of Washington was billeted. Once there were four of the small stately homes, which must have dated to the days of Decarlia's construction.
 
 
“Was that where General Meigs lived?” I asked.
 
“Dunno. It was sure the Commander’s place. It would make sense. Do you want to see it?”
 
“Hell yeah,” I said. Carl wheeled up the gravel road across from the Sidley Hospital and we crunched into the lot.
 
The house is in tough shape. Imagine the Adam's Family residence shrunk down to two stories. Clearly of historic significance, the Corps had replaced the roof a couple years ago in a re-creation of the original copper cladding. It must have been quite handsome, the gleaming gold not begun to tarnish into its green patina.
 
“The plan was to sell the house to a private concern with the proviso that the buyer would restore the structure to something like the original,” said Carl, as we clambered out to take pictures.
 
“Imagine our surprise when a watchman noticed lights at the place on night, and a tarp, and all the copper sheeting being stolen for scrap.”
 
Now the tar-paper is curled, and the water must be flooding down inside the structure. It might be too late to save, but who knows. I'm pretty sure there will be no new roof in historically proper materials placed on it, not while scrap is going for the price it is these days.
 
“The scavengers don’t care much for history,” said Carl sadly. “Now let me show you the new sludge settling pond.”
 
It was pretty clear that Carl was enjoying an afternoon outside his cubical, and when someone gives you a sedan and a man like that, you have to go with it, even if District Stone NW 5 is waiting at the top of the hill.

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com