From The Writer's Almanac
It was on this date in 1793, President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the Capitol building in Washington. At the time, the House of Representatives and the Senate were meeting in the temporary capital of Philadelphia. Washington, D.C. had yet to be built. It was just a marsh along the Potomac River.
Sixteen architectural designs had been submitted. George Washington had rejected them all. Finally, he accepted a late submission from an architect named Dr. William Thornton from the West Indies, which was combined with a runner-up entry from a man named Stephen Hallet, for a building with a dome and two wings, one for the Senate and one for the House.
The president marched from the banks of the Potomac up the hill to the construction site wearing his Masonic apron. He had an umbrella for the sun, but he gave it to a woman in the crowd. He said, "I've been exposed to the sun before." He used a silver trowel to lay the cornerstone. There was a prayer and Masonic chanting and then a barbecue. They barbecued a 500-pound ox.
It was as smaller building then, the Capitol, and the public area under the dome served as a kind of flea market where there were vendors selling everything from machinery to silk. But the building expanded, the wings expanded, and then to bring the dome into proportion with the rest of the building, a larger cast iron dome was built, replacing the smaller copper one.
The completed version of the building, basically what we know as the Capitol today, was finished in the middle of the Civil War.
4 comments:
Thanks, David, for this informative piece. While it is not said within the article, this is a pagan sacrifice, much like that done in antiquity.
John W.
According to the masons themselves, the apron you mention was made by nuns from Nantes. To my knowledge, there are no nuns amongst the masons but in Nantes there were the Ursuline Nuns who were an order of Catholic nuns.
FYI
Pagan sacrifice to whom? -- Please clarify.
The culinary practice of BBQing originated in the New World:
"Barbecue" is the English word adaptation from either the Spanish word "barbacoa" or the word "barabicoa" from the Taino Native American tribe of the Caribbean and Florida regions.
The early colonists learned to cook (barbecue) whole hogs from the Native Americans and the slaves. In colonial times, barbecue meant a big, festive community gathering. This custom was described by many, including George Washington, who noted he went to a barbecue in Alexandria, Va., that lasted three days. Furthermore, when workers laid the cornerstone for the nation's Capitol in 1793, the leaders of the new Republic celebrated with a huge barbecue. [Source].
While the ritual of placing the cornerstone is indeed masonic -- and foundations were laid on many a building by the Masons -- it would take more to convince me of the diabolical origins of good old Southern BBQ.
Christopher:
My point is that ancient "sacrifices" were really what we would call "barbeques" -- slaughtered animals cooked on "altars" (grills) for public consumption and these marked public celebrations. I don't know enough about the Masons to know if it was this Southern custom, or if it had double meaning. They surely would have known the pagan practice, though I doubt if the ox would have been ritually slaughtered in the honor of a particular god in Washington DC.
I probably overstated the case in light of my ignorance -- but the parallel caught my eye.
John W.
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