It’s that most magical time of year again. No, none of those holidays you have been celebrating for the past month or so. No, much more important: Copyright Day! Yes, it’s that day that another year’s worth of cultural items loses their copyright protection, and can now be copied, re-mixed and reused to your hearts content.
As always, we celebrate by looking at a book with a Capitol Hill connection. Today, that is The Diary of Elbridge Gerry, Jr. No, not Vice-President and namesake of the Gerrymander Elbridge Gerry who is buried in Congressional Cemetery, but his eldest son.
The younger Gerry lived from 1793 to 1867, so he was a young man during his father’s time in Washington, and spent some time in the nation’s capital. The diary are his notes of one of his trips from his home in Massachusetts that extended from early May until July of 1814, including about a week here. One place he visited a number of times during this sojourn was the Navy Yard, which he describes with these words:
After dinner I took a hack and called for [Pennsylvania Senator] Mr. Leib, and we went to Mr. Deblois, from which we proceeded to the navy yard (sic). It is on an elegant construction, and has a very handsome monument erected in the center to the memory of some departed officers. [] When we had sufficiently reviewed everything and see the workmen 2 or 300 collect to receive their week’s pay we rode to Mr. Dalton and drank tea.
Another couple of visits are given a brief synopsis a few days later:
In the afternoon, father and myself went to the navy yard and called on Com. Fringry [sic – that should almost certainly be Tingey] and lady, and then spent the eve with Mr. Dalton, where we saw the Miss Deblois’s and other ladies six in number. We had a fine time here, and came home with a tipsy coachman. On Saturday morn, I rode to the navy yard to see a barge launched, and Mr. Pople and myself looked at different wors and then we came home.
During his time in Washington he went as far afield as Alexandria, Georgetown and Bladensburg. He becomes swept up in the fear of a British attack, and indeed temporarily joins the militia in order to protect the city. However, his main interest seems to be in the young women that were plentiful in Washington at the time. He spends multiple pages describing one particularly amusing evening in which he plays some parlor games with a series of beauties.
In the end, he seems to have left shortly after the Fourth of July, so well over a month before the British arrived. His diary also ceases at this very moment, with the last few pages dedicated to a listing of his expenses – as well as a list of all those who he met in Washington. The vast majority are of the female persuasion.
In short, this book is of great interest if you want to learn more about how a young rake handled himself in D.C. in the days before the British attack. If, on the other hand, you want to learn about what the city itself was like, I urge you to check out any of the other guide-books I have written up in the past.