ri;iss pXPZ. 
 
 isook Q;^ Az.5 
 
 fk>f,si;nti-;u dy 
 

 ON BEHALF OF THE CORPORATION OF GEORGETOWN, TO THE HON. A. 
 G. BROWN, CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE 
 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, TOUCHING THE ME- 
 MORIAL OF CAPT. B. S. aOBERTS. 
 
 polkinnohn, ph., • it. iit. ith t 7th, washinoton. t\ ., ' 
 
 i 
 
 • y ■ 
 

 Vi^shingt o nl e tf Hi 
 
 Gill 
 
 W. JL. Shoemaker 
 
 I I '06 
 
To Hon. Albert G. Brown, 
 
 Chairman of the Senates District Committee : 
 
 Sir : I have been requested by the Corporate Authorities of 
 Georgetown to reply to and expose the extraordinary and in ex- 
 cusable mistatements, and egregious blunders, which are con- 
 tained in a memorial which has lately been presented to Con- 
 gress by Capt. B. S. Roberts. It is true that he has secured the 
 signatures of twelve other persons to that remarkable paper, 
 but it is well known that the whole thing is a novelty of his own 
 invention, and it is more of an act of simple justice than a flat- 
 tering compliment, to hold him responsible for its authorship. 
 
 The memorial is little else than a mass of incongruous state- 
 ments, reckless assertions, and gross perversions of facts and 
 history, as if for the express purpose of deception. 
 
 He prays that you will deprive our Corporation of about 
 one-tenth of its limited and already diminished territory. The 
 reasons which he has allowed himself to urge in behalf of his 
 preposterous proposition are as follows, viz : 
 
 First. 
 
 " Your petitioners are so far removed from the business part 
 of the town as to derive no benefit from its regulations, or have 
 the slightest protection to property or persons through its 
 police." 
 
 That statement is simply untrue in the whole of its particu- 
 lars. He lives within half a mile of the most populous part of 
 the town, and is as much within the sphere of its municipal 
 safeguards, and its inherent advantages, as any other person 
 whose premises are within our corporate limits. 
 
 Second. 
 
 "Your petitioners' property, mainly in large lots and parcels 
 of land, of little value compared with lots in the business 
 
town, is generally taxed for corporate purposes on a valuation 
 excessively beyond its real value ; and the application of this 
 tax goes wholly to the improvement of the business streets in 
 which your petitioners have no interest." 
 
 It is true that some of the petitioners have large lots, but, to 
 beget the idea that they are farms or plantations, he choses to 
 designate them as ^^ parcels of land," when he knows that they 
 are the mere seats of palatial residence, carefully selected from 
 the large bodies of land which their original proprietors " hum- 
 ble/ prayed" to be taken in our corporate limits. Yes, sir, 
 more than sixty-five years ago did those original proprietors 
 approach the Legislature of Maryland in the manner set forth 
 as follows : " Whereas Thomas Beall, son of George, of Mont- 
 gomery County, (in which Georgetown was then located,) by 
 his humble petition to this General Assembly, hath set forth 
 that he is seized of a part of a tract of land called and known 
 by the name of the ' Rock of Dunbarton,' adjoining Greorge- 
 town, containing sixty-one acres, which he is desirous of an- 
 nexing to said town, and therefore prays that a law may be 
 passed for that purpose ; and it appearing to this General As- 
 sembly, that to extend and enlarge the limits of said town will 
 greatly contribute to promote the trade and commerce thereof." 
 And, for these reasons, Mr. Beall's "humble petition" was 
 granted in the year of grace 1783. In the year 1784, that 
 same Assembly spoke as follows : " Whereas Robert Peter, 
 Wm. Deakins, Jr., Charles Beatty, and John Threlkeld, by 
 their humble petition to this General Assembly, have set forth, 
 that they have agreed to lay out, as an addition to Georgetown, 
 twenty acres and eighteen thirty-seconds of an acre of ground," 
 and their "humble petition" was granted. The value of all 
 these lands was greatly enhanced by being thus annexed to our 
 town, and the larger portion of them have long since become 
 densely populated. These agreements conferred reciprocal ad- 
 vantages, has been honorably observed by all parties, and was 
 intended to be as permanent as " the Rock of Dunbarton," 
 itself. That is the venerable compact, built upon a " Rock," 
 
and which has been stable foi more than sixty years, which a 
 mere stranger, a resident of recent induction, seeks clandes- 
 tinely to violate and trample under his feet. All this he has 
 sought to do under guises entirely too thin to conceal the cu- 
 pidity of his motive. Nor did he hesitate to strive to uphold 
 his proposition by slanderously charging the authorities of the 
 town with misapplying, unlawfully, and dishonorably, the taxes 
 which were imposed upon his property. Where is his proof 
 that the " application of the tax upon his property goes wholly 
 to the improvement of the business streets in which he had no 
 interest?'' The assertion is utterly untrue, and its author de- 
 serves to be reprobated for his insolent recklessness. 
 
 It is wholly untrue that the land of the petitioners is " of lit- 
 tle value compared with lots in the business town," or that said 
 lots are " generally taxed for corporate purposes on a valuation 
 excessively beyond its real value." There may be exceptions, 
 but "generally" the property within this complaining region 
 could not be bought at its assessed value. Mr. Roberts, as I 
 have just stated, says that the " application of this tax goes 
 wholly to the improvement of the business streets, in which 
 your petitioners have no interest." So far from that tax being 
 applied " wholly " for the purpose stated by him, it is not so 
 at all. Every street in town is improved out of taxes specially 
 levied upon the property binding on the same. In cases of 
 small repairs, which are made occasionally for the preservation 
 of the streets, the expense is sometimes paid out of the General 
 Treasury, and no where is that oftener done than within the 
 limits sought to be excluded. Having, myself, for twelve suc- 
 cessive years superintended the improvement and repairs of 
 our streets, I make this statement upon my own personal 
 knowledge of the facts. 
 
 Third. 
 
 "Again, there is no prospect of any such renewed prosperity 
 or growth of Georgetown as to require any portion of your pe- 
 titioners' property for its corporate purposes, or to give facility 
 to its trade or commerce, and they therefore respectfully ask 
 
relief from a system of taxation without advantage to their 
 property, for nearly a century, and which in its effects depreci- 
 ates it and impoverishes the owners," 
 
 While our assessments and taxes are impartially rated and 
 imposed, as they always have been, there need be little appre- 
 hension that they will carry " depreciation and impoverish- 
 ment " to the exclusive and imposing abodes of an opulent and 
 highly perfumed aristocracy. 
 
 And Mr. Roberts must be again reminded of " the Rock of 
 Dunbarton," and the solemn compact which was built upon it. 
 We think that the Bealls, and Threlkelds, and Deakins, and 
 Beattys, and the other old fathers of Georgetown, were wiser, 
 in all such matters, than the children now walking about in 
 men's garments, and writing memorials in which truth is dis- 
 carded as a homely ingredient. They were the giants of those 
 days, and standing upon the " Roek of Dunbarton," in the ful- 
 ness of a sagacity which penetrated the vista of a distant futu- 
 rity, they saw and foretold " that to extend and enlarge the 
 limits of Georgetown will greatly/ contribute to promote the 
 trade and commerce thereof," and the assembled wisdom of 
 Maryland endorsed and signalized that declaration by a solemn 
 and imposing act of legislation. We trust that it is not too late 
 for Mr. Roberts to contemplate that act of wisdom with profi- 
 table humility. 
 
 As it will not be possible for me, in these brief limits, to 
 show how absurd are the fugitive notions of Mr. Roberts, and 
 to what extent our town would be deformed should they be 
 adopted by Congress, I will place a map of the town in your 
 hands upon which shall be appropriate illustrations of a misera- 
 ble proposition, which has found countenance only from thir- 
 teen persons out of a population of more than ten thousand. 
 You will perceive, on inspecting that map, that Mr. Roberts 
 proposes to leave within our corporate limits that portion of our 
 town which lies nearly a mile's length in the rear of his own 
 premises. Should you grant his petition you would of course 
 put his property outside of the city limits, but would leave him, 
 
at the same time, just about midway between the remaining 
 northern and southern boundaries of the town. If his own lot 
 is too distant from "the business town " to be properly subject 
 to " the operation of municipal laws," why is not that too dis- 
 tant which lies nearly a mile in his rear ? 
 
 He forgets, too, to tell you that he is attempting to force 
 some people out of the town entirely without their concurrence. 
 
 Mr. Roberts has some obscure and confused notions in his 
 head about a certain " natural road." "A natural road " must 
 be appended to the catalogue of new ideas, merely, as it can- 
 not, in anywise, be patented as an invention. I was not aware 
 that "roads " were original fixtures, or of the growth of times 
 and seasons, nor do I find any mention made of them in the first 
 two chapters of the book of Genesis. It is generally thought 
 that they are made by man's hands, when he has the right and 
 means of making them, and that he locates and directs them 
 according to his own ideas of necessity and convenience, with- 
 out regard to valleys, plains, or mountains. But whether Mr. 
 Roberts' "road " be a natural or an artificial one, is of but lit- 
 tle importance, as, from his own description of it, it can claim 
 no resemblance, in any of its particulars, to any other "road" 
 over which it has been the luck of man to travel. It is but fair 
 that that learned gentleman should be allowed to describe his 
 own " road " in his own words, as followeth : 
 
 "To have the natural road along the base of the heights 
 through Stoddert street, continued in an easterly direction to 
 Rock Creek, and west in front of the premises known as " Tu- 
 der Place " to its west line, following that line until it is inter- 
 sected by the continuation to Seventh street, thence along the 
 said last street to Frederick street, declared by law the north- 
 ern boundary of said Corporation." 
 
 The people of Georgetown will readily understand what all 
 this means as soon as they read it, but you can only compre- 
 hend its meaness and absurdity by referring to the map and 
 the deep black line which indicates the beginning, continuation, 
 and end of Captain B. S. Roberts' " natural road." 
 
In conclusion, sir, I beg leave to state that our Corporation 
 now owes a funded debt of more than $200,000, which was 
 contracted by making improvements of vast importance to the 
 whole town, and which have imparted great additional value to 
 " the heights." The whole of our property, " the heights " in- 
 cluded, is bound for the payment of the interest upon that debt 
 as well as for its ultimate extinguishment. It fully comports 
 with Mr. Roberts' convictions of moral honesty to withdraw 
 one-tenth of our territory from all just responsibility for that 
 debt, and to saddle the whole of it upon his neighbors, thereby 
 increasirg the value of his own property and inflicting a corres- 
 ponding depreciation upon others. 
 
 We brand it as a disreputable proposition, and feel that it 
 will be indignantly discountenanced by Congress. 
 
 With great respect your obedient servant, 
 
 H. ADDISON. 
 Georgetown, D. C, May, 1858.