Evening star. [volume], September 14, 1930, Page 8, Image 98

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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8
Another Landmark of Capital Passes
.4
Razing of Old Building of Department of Agriculture Removes Structure Which Has Stood
on Mall Since 1868 —Henry L. Ellsworth Idas Factor in Establishment of
Department —Isaac Newton 's Service As First Commissioner.
'V.HBp
William Saunders, uho developed the
Washington navel orange.
BY JOHN CLAGETT PROCTOR.
. NOTHER public landmark has re
/ yW cently been razed, in accordance with
/ /_# the Federal plan for improving its
' / 1 housing conditions in the Capital
City, and upon this occasion the
wrecker has invaded the Mall and removed
the old red brick building of the Department
of Agriculture which has stood between Twelfth
and Thirteenth streets for a long while.
Many are still living, no doubt, who will
recall when this building was erected back in
1868, but in order to do so they must reveal
the fact that they are somewhere around three
score and ten years of age. However, this old
building has held its age well, and, if desirable,
could have rendered good service for at least
a hundred years more.
That it obscured to an extent the beautiful
marble building close by, just completed for
that department, there is no question, and
naturally there was nothing else to do but to
remove it. yet it does seem that it might have
been removed to some other site, or rebuilt
elsewhere if necessary, for, after all, it is the
first separate home the Department of Agri
culture ever had, and in sentiment no other
building can ever take its place.
It might be interesting to note that the
Department of Agriculture obtained its real
first start during the time that Henry L.
Ellsworth was commissioner of patents, back in
1836. and undoubtedly to him, more than to
any one else, is due the credit for its later
formation into a separate branch of the Gov
ernment and for its ultimately becoming a
department with a cabinet officer at its head.
/COMMISSIONER ELLSWORTH was from
Connecticut, his term of office as Com
missioner of Patents extending from 1836 to
1845, under Presidents Jackson, Van Buren,
William Henry Harrison, John Tyler and James
K. Polk. He had distinguished ancestry.
When he took office the Patent Office had
just been reorganized, having been made a
separate bureau of the Government on July 4,
1836, and by the same law the office of Com
missioner of Patents was created. At this time
the Patent Office was housed in the old Blod
gett Hotel Building, on E street between Seventh
and Eighth streets, where later was erected
the Post Office Department Building, subse-
M-''' ' lif\
id mmu-’tKt 'mMi
2§ ySM %****
Jh’nry 1.. Ellsworth, whose early in
ten st in agriculture finally resulted in
the establishment of the Department of
Agriculture. ,
THE SUNDAY STAtt, WASHINGTON, D. C., SEPTEMBER 14, 1930.
quently used as the General Land Office. On
December 15 of this year »1836) the Blodgett
Building was destroyed by fire and all the
patent models were lost in the flames.
The Patent Office sought quarters in the
City Hall, now the Court House, on Louisiana
avenue, and there it remained uhtil 1840,
when it was moved into the present building at
Ninth and P streets northwest, which it has
continued to occupy since that date.
Speaking of Mr. Ellsworth's activities in en
couraging and l'urtheiing agricultural pursuits,
James M. Swank, chief clerk of the Department
of Agriculture for some years, in 1872 said:
“Mr. Ellsworth was Commissioner of Patents
from 1836 to 1845, and one of the first sub
jects which engaged his attention after assum
ing the duties of the office was the impulse
which had been given at that day to improve
ments in the implements of agriculture, and
the aid which agriculture might derive from
the establishment of a regular system for the
selection and distribution of grain and seeds
of the choicest varieties for agricultural
purposes.
“During the administration of John Quincy
Adams, the consuls of the United States were
instructed to forward to the State Department
rare plants and seeds for distribution, and a
botanical garden was established in Washing
ton. Little was done in the collection and dis
tribution of seeds thus authorized, but to the
association of this enterprise with the Patent
Office in the State Department Mr. Ellsworth
was doubtless indebted for the hint of a more
comprehensive system of seed distribution.
“In 1836 and 1837, the first two years of his
incumbency, the commissioner, without legal
authorization, received and distributed many
seeds and plants which had been gratuitously
transmitted to him. In his first annual report,
dated January 1, 1838, he called the attention
of Congress to the subject, and strongly recom
mended that provision be made for the estab
lishment at the National Capital of a deposi
tory of new and valuable varieties of seeds and
plants for distribution to ‘every part of the
United States. He further recommended that
this depository be made a part of the Patent
Office.
“No immediate action was taken by Congress
upon the recommendations., but this neglect did
not discourage the Commissioner from con
tinuing his self-imposed task of distributing,
under the frank of friendly members of Con
gress, improved varieties of wheat, com, etc.,
the beneficial effects of which distribution were
fully shown in testimonials from all parts of
the country.
«QN the 21st of January, 1839, Isaac Fletcher
of Vermont, chairman of the Commit
tee on Patents of the House of Representatives,
addressed a letter to Commissioner Ellsworth,
requesting the communication of information
relative to the collection and distribution of
seeds and plants; also, relative to the prac
ticability of obtaining agricultural statistics.
To this letter of inquiry the commissioner re
sponded on the following day, reciting the ac
tion already taken by him to further the cause
of agriculture, and assigning many reasons why
his previous recommendations should be adopt
ed. In this communication, the commissioner
suggested that ‘arrangements could be made
for the exhibition of different kinds of grain,
exotic and indigenous, in the new Patent
Office.’
“In the closing hours of the Twenty-fifth
Congress (act of 3d March, 1839), the com
missioner was gratified by the passage of an
appropriation of SI,OOO, to be taken from the
Patent Office fund, for the purpose of collect
ing and distributing seeds, prosecuting agricul
tural investigations and procuring agricultural
statistics. Thus originated the agricultural
division of the Patent Office.
“In his annual report of the following year,
dated January 1, 1840, Commissioner Ells
worth stated that the diplomatic corps of the
United States had been solicited to aid in pro
curing valuable seeds, and that the officers of
the Navy had been requested to convey to the
Patent Office such seeds as might be offered.
As the sixth census was then about to be taken,
agricultural statistics w< re deferred until its
completion. In the next report (January 1,
1841) it was stated thst 30,000 packages of
seeds had been distributed during the preced
ing year, and that the agricultural statistics,
based upon the returns of the census, were
being compiled. ‘The importance of an annual
report of the state of the crops in different
sections, as a preventire against monopoly,
and a good criterion to calculate the state of
exchange,’ was commended to the considera
tion of Congress, and from this suggestion were
evolved hi time the annual agricultural reports.
“On the 30th of April, 1845, Mr. Ellsworth
resigned the office of Commissioner of Patents.
The facts in his official career have been given
in some detail, because he was really the founder
of that branch of the Government now em
braced in the Department of Agriculture, and
as such entitled to honorable mention in these
pages, and because the first successful steps in
the work of securing Government recognition
of agriculture deserve to be recorded. The
patience, enthusiasm and industry of Mr. Ells,
worth in this work entitle his name to th*»
grateful remembrance of American farmers."
A BIOGRAPHICAL sketch of Mr. Ellsworth
tells us:
“Henry L. Ellsworth was born at Windsor,
Conn., in the year 1790. He was the twin
brother of William W. Ellsworth, cliief
justice of Connecticut, now deceased. His
father was Oliver Ellsworth, third Chief Justice
of the United States, and his mother was
Abigail Wolcott, a relative of Oliver Wolcott, a
signer of the Declaration of Independence.
“Mr. Ellsworth was a graduate of Yale Col
lege, in the class of 1810; was a classmate of
P;of. Morse, and perhaps did more than any
other single man, when commissioner of
patents, to secure the appropriation from Con
gress to test the practicability of the telegraph,
in which he firmly believed. He studied law at
Litchfield, Conn., Law School.
“His father was both a farmer and a lawyer,
in the days when the men of mark, lived in
the country and upon farms, and he himself
was in the same way a farmer, living first at
Windsor, Conn., and carrying on the home
farm at the same time that he commenced
the practice of law at Hartford. He, however,
soon removed to Hartford and preferred to
engage in politics and various pursuits rather
than adhere to his profession.
“He was, by President Jackson, appointed
commissioner to the Indian tribes of the then
Par West and afterward commissioner of the
Patent Office. When commissioner to the In
dians, on one of his trips toward the Rocky
Mountains, Mr. Ellsworth was accompanied by
Washington Irving. As commissioner of patents
he was invited to take a seat in the cabinet.
“Mr. Ellsworth was one of the earliest to
foretell the value of prairie lands and invested
in these when others laughed at his folly, de
claring that they were so far from timber as
to be forever uninhabitable. He also interested
capitalists and public men from all sections of
the country in the same class of investments
and in some counties in the West almost the
entire lands they embraced were entered by
him for himself and the parties he represented.
“On leaving the Patent Office in 1845, he re
moved to La Fayette, Ind., to take charge per
sonally of his large landed interests. He had
already Improved wide sections, though still
residing in Washington, and now, though resid
ing in the town, he commenced other extensive
improvements. He was always experimenting
and striving after new results and probably
used the first mowing machine ever introduced
upon the prairies.
“Mr. Ellsworth was thrice married. His first
wife was Miss Nancy Goodrich, daughter of
Elizur Goodrich, treasurer of Yale College. He
was married a second time to Miss Marietta
Bartlett of Guilford, Conn., and the last time
to Miss Catherine Smith of Durham, Conn.,
who survived him. He died at Pair Haven,
Conn., December 27, 1858, having removed from
Indiana only a few months before his death,
and was buried at New Haven. Conn.”
'T'HE law establishing the Department of Ag
riculture as an independent branch of
the Government was signed on May 15, 1862,
bj President Lincoln, who appointed as the
fhst commissioner Isaac Newton, the then
chief of the section of agriculture in the Pat
ent Office, who took office on July 1, 1862.
Commissioner Newton was an enthusiastic,
wide-awake executive and made good use of'
the propagating garden at Sixth street and
Missouri avenue as well as the 40 acres lying
between Twelfth and Fourteenth streets and
B street north and B street south, all of which
he conducted as an experimental farm when
the southern part was not being used during
the Civil War by the War Department as a
cattle yard for Army supplies. The present
handsome marble building stands upon a part
of this early experimental farm.
One of the first acts of Commissioner New
ton when he took office in 1862 was to appoint
William Saunders to be superintendent of this
propagating garden, which proved to be a most
fortunate thing for the Government.
It may well be said that Commissioner New
ton died in the line of duty, for such was
almost the case. Indeed, his death was due
to a sunstroke which occurred in July, 1866,
when he was visiting the experimental farm.
According to Charles H. Greathouse, “A large
number of varieties of wheat—Tappahannock,
Mediterranean and others now in general use—
was being tried. The grain had been cut and
was lying on the ground when a thundershower
suddenly appeared. Commissioner Newton was
in his room at the Patent Ossie. He hastened
over to the farm, a mile away, to instruct the
workmen how to save the wheat free from any
injury. The sun was hot and he was wearing
a high silk hat. In moving hurriedly about
the grounds he became overheated. His son
took him to the little office on the farm and
summoned medical assistance. Restoratives
were applied and he partially recovered, but
was never well again. He died from the effects
of the injury on June 19, 1867,”
IN looking over the files of The Star for a
reference to Mr. Newton’s death, the writer
came across this item in the issue of June
20, 1867:
"Death of Isaac Newton. —A meeting of
the clerks of the Agricultural Bureau was held
in.the commissioner's room at 10 o’clock this
morning. Mr. J. W. Stokes, acting commis
sioner, was called to the chair. Mr. C. H.
Polwell acted as secretary. Messrs. Grosh,
Dodge and Saunders were appointed a com
mittee to draft and present resolutions of con
dolence. Mr. Grosh, in a few eulogistic re
marks, read the resolution drawn up by the
committee, expressing the sympathy felt by
\
%.
Gen. Horace Capron. Commissioner of
Agriculture when the old department
*building teas first occupied in 1868.
the members of the bureau for their late su
perintendent and declaring their intention to
attend his funeral in a body. The resolutions
were unanimously adopted. A committee of
five was appointed to convey a copy of the
above resolutions to the family of the deceased,
a committee of twenty to accompany the re
mains of the deceased to Philadelphia and a
committee of three to complete the arrange
ments for the funeral, upon the part of the
clerks of the bureau.”
In the same issue The Star editorially said:
‘Death of Hon. Isaac Newton.—The Hon.
Isaac Newton, commissioner of the Depart
ment of Agriculture, died in this city, at
the residence of his son, at 6 o’clock last
evening. Mr. Newton has been sick for some
time of chronic disease of the bladder.
He was bom in Burlington County, N. J., on
the 31st of March, 1800. He was engaged in
agricultural pursuits all his life, and at the
time of his death was the owner of a fine farm
in Delaware County, Pa. In August, 1861, Mr.
Newton was appointed chief clerk in the
Bureau of Agriculture, then under the protec
tion of the Patent Office. In 1862 he was ap
pointed by President Lincoln to the position
of commissioner of agriculture, which he held
at the time of his death. His remains will
be conveyed to Pennsylvania for interment and
will be taken from the residence of his son,
Isaac Newton, jr., South Washington, to the
Baltimore Depot at 2 p.m. tomorrow.”
Os interest, no doubt, to the reader are some
of the early employees of this department as
disclosed by the city directories. The one for
1863, mentions Isaac Newton as Commissioner;
R. C. McCormick, chief clerk; Royston Betts,
statistical clerk, and C. M. Witherell, M. D.,
chemist.
A more complete list is given in the directory
for 1864, which includes: Commissioner, Isaac
Newton; chief clerk, James S. Grinnell, and
disbursing clerk, Royston Betts.
Clerks —Lewis Bollman, T. jGlover, J. R.
Dodge, A. B. Grosh, L. L. Tilden, George Hel
mick, R. A. McLain, William Fletcher, C. H.
Folwell, W. E. Gardiner, Joseph Kilian, William
A. Malone, N. McCrea, Joseph C. Wiswell, W.
T. Thompson, O. A. Stafford, W. C. Choate,
A. C. Wiley, James H. Knapp, F. G. Murray,
F. O. Freeman; botanist, W. F. Saunders.
Seed room—F North between Sixth and Sev
enth West—E. H. Wood, superintendent; A. J.
Longley, J. F. C. Brownell, E. Tinkin, jr.; W.
®j .JH fa-- -
Isaac Neu'ton , /irst Commissioner of
Agriculture.