te to L’Enfant on August 18 to notify him of his upcoming visit to Philadelphia and asking him to have his city plan made into an engraving. L’Enfant drew up a copy for the engraver and met with Jefferson in Philadelphia to further discuss it. At this time Daniel Carroll, David Stuart, and Thomas Johnson were appointed commissioners by Washington to supervise the actual construction and development of the land. The commissioners came to several agreements pending to the project and wrote to L’Enfant to inform him. They agreed that the district would be called the “Territory of Columbia” and the city name would be “City of Washington.” Thus L’Enfant must title his map “A Map of the City of Washington, in the Territory of Columbia.” They also agreed to name the streets alphabetically from north to south, and numerically from east to west of the Capitol. At this time, relations between all parties involved in the planning of the city were in good standing and L’Enfant’s plan was established. This is when problems for L’Enfant began to arise. L’Enfant’s problems began with the engraving of the plan that Washington had requested. L’Enfant made arrangements with a French engraver Pigalle to have a completed engraving of the plan before October of 1791. The Commissioners needed the engraving to sell the lots in the capital. Pigalle wrote to L’Enfant saying that it would not be possible to complete the engraving by the deadline. L’Enfant immediately wrote to Tobias Lear, Washington’s secretary, expressing his apologies and stating that he was not to blame for the situation. Thus the sale of lots took place without the engraving and Washington did not blame L’Enfant for this. However a controversy arose, as it appears L’Enfant had a personal copy of the plan but refused to make it available during the sal...
