British invasion in 1814, was ongoing. Congress was the principal institution in the city, but evident only when it was in session. Boarding houses for members of Congress were numerous, as were taverns and restaurants catering to the legislators. Georgetown, across Rock Creek to the west, was the center of organized local society and had been a river port before L’Enfant laid out Washington City in 1791. Georgetown boasted elegant brick homes and a social set; Washington City suffered by comparison.
When one thinks of modern Washington, D.C., with its elegant public buildings, parks, avenues, and Potomac River vistas, it is almost inconceivable that, for the first seventy years of the city’s life sporadic efforts were made to “remove” the capital from Washington or to retrocede pieces of it to Mary land and Virginia. Yet this debate was only a continuation of intense discussions prior to the selection of the site for the capital in 1790.15 Washington’s residents, who believed that the decision by Congress to site the national capital in a ten-mile square on the Potomac River would put the location debate to rest, were to be proved wrong time and again.
The starting point for Washington’s development was the original plan for the city by L’Enfant. Drawn after consultation with President George Washington, the plan envisioned an elegant, continental design imitating the grandeur and aesthetic coherence of European planning without overlooking the republican values of the new country.16 Key to L’Enfant’s plan was a vision of a capital city that would serve as both political symbol and commercial hub, reflecting the views of President Washington, who foresaw the city’s potential access to maritime traffic as well as to overland routes to the interior.17
The uneven, haphazard development of Washington during Alexander Robey Shepherd’s youth was traceable to a flaw in the planning process centered on the role of Congress, which under the Constitution wielded total authority over matters in the District of Columbia. The problem was that Congress, the “mother” of the District of Columbia, barely acknowledged its obligations to its “child” for a number of historical reasons, the most important being that members looked primarily to the interests of their home states and districts and considered Washington more as a place to visit when Congress was in session. Thomas Jefferson’s antipathy toward the creation of a major metropolis as the national capital was based on his concern that a large city would become a center of corruption and would be inimical to the agrarian American ideals he so deeply held. The famous drawing of Jefferson’s vision for Washington showed a small town he intended as the seat of Congress and the presidency rather than a capital from which the central government would dominate national life. This view reinforced the concept of multiple political-cultural-commercial centers around the county, unwittingly providing encouragement to New York City to become the commercial capital of the country at the expense of Philadelphia and other East Coast cities.18
The Young Shepherd
If “the child is the father of the man,” so it was with Alexander Robey Shepherd. Shepherd’s secretary in later years, who knew him well, described Shepherd’s father as small and his mother as large and strong, noting that Shepherd came naturally by his exceptional physical and mental powers from his two parents.19 The house of his birth in southwest Washington City was a modest, two-story home with a dormer window attic and ample grounds.20 Before the move to the farm in Washington County, from whence he rode a pony down Rock Creek Road to school in the city, Shepherd was an active boy, with an attachment to the Perseverance Hose Company, a nearby firehouse. He showed up every time there was a fire alarm, encouraging the company and sometimes participating in its conflicts with rival firehouses, bringing away occasional scars as testament to his zeal.21 He was watched over and protected by one of the family’s older slaves, Henry Magruder, whom Shepherd’s father assigned to keep his rambunctious son from getting into too much trouble.22 While his early education took place under a private tutor, Shepherd’s brief encounter with formal education ended after three years at Rittenhouse Academy School (located at what is now Indiana Avenue near John Marshall Place NW), run by the Nourse brothers, and a short term at the Preparatory Section of Columbian College (Fourteenth Street NW, above Florida Avenue).23
After Shepherd Sr.’s death, widow Susan Shepherd, Alexander, and his five siblings should have been able to continue life in the comfortable fashion to which the family had become accustomed. Nevertheless, within a year, Susan Shepherd and her six young children were confronted with the as-yet-unexplained loss of most of the estate, prob ably due to mismanagement. Susan Shepherd and local grocer Sylvanus Holmes were coexecutors of the estate, but within a year Holmes had closed his business and left Washington. There is no demonstrated link between Holmes’s abrupt departure from Washington and the failure of the Shepherd estate, but a negative implication remains. There is also no record of commentary by any member of the Shepherd family about the circumstances surrounding these events. While seriously affected financially, the Shepherd family was not destitute; Susan Shepherd is recorded as having bought and sold several properties in the years following her husband’s death.
His father’s death and the change in the family’s finances had a marked impact on ten-year-old Alexander Robey Shepherd. Within three years he had dropped out of school and gone to work to help support the family, perhaps a consequence of being the eldest child. But his course of action was also indicative of an early willingness to act decisively when the situation required. As an adult who would surround himself with the trappings of wealth, he would have remembered his mother’s swift descent from a comfortable lifestyle to becoming a boarding house keeper at her new residence at 440 Ninth Street W. (between G and H Streets N.) within a year after his father’s death.24 The collapse of family fortunes no doubt steeled Shepherd’s resolve to create a level of wealth that would protect his family from such an occurrence ever again. The questionable role of Sylvanus Holmes, who may have contributed to the family’s financial problems, could also have been a factor in Shepherd’s lifelong commitment to giving loyalty to friends and colleagues and expecting similar loyalty in return.
Young Shepherd, thrust rudely into the adult world, began work as a store clerk. Seeking a new trade after two years, he became a carpenter’s apprentice, but the restless boy became discontented with his employer and left after two years.25 In April 1852 Shepherd made one of his most important life decisions: on the recommendation of his pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church, the seventeen-year-old became an employee of J. W. Thompson’s plumbing and gas fitting establishment.26 The role of Shepherd’s pastor in brokering a clerkship at the Thompson firm suggests that the young Shepherd was an active member of the church where he, his sister Anna, and a future brother-in-law, William P. Young Jr., had been accepted in December 1848. It also implies that Shepherd was considered worthy of special attention.27 By turning his back on carpentry and accepting a position as a clerk—soon to become head bookkeeper—Shepherd demonstrated that, where opportunity presented itself, he preferred to use brain over brawn.28
In many respects John Thompson would serve over the years as the father Shepherd had lost. He was not only an employer but a social mentor and a fellow sports enthusiast and investor in local businesses. Thompson was a respected, successful businessman who opened doors for the young and ambitious Shepherd and no doubt smoothed out incidents when the hot-tempered young man offended members of Washington’s business establishment. Plumbing and gas fitting were important trades in the growing city of Washington, since piped water and rudimentary sewerage links were becoming available and sought by homeowners. Shepherd did not disappoint John Thompson, and by 1859 he had become a partner in the firm that he would eventually own.29
As Shepherd rapidly demonstrated his ambition at John Thompson’s plumbing firm, he also grew into the athletic body that would be a subject of mention by virtually every commentator. A close observer referred to Shepherd’s broad forehead as “the most impressive feature of his countenance” and described him as “an Apollo in form, a giant in strength.”30 Shepherd’s friend, personal attorney, and lifelong defender William Mattingly described him as “a magnificent specimen of manhood
