Page:The New England magazine (IA newenglandmagazi1891bost).pdf/392

The farm itself stretched away from the river front northwardly, to include the ground upon which are now the White House, the Treasury, the State, War, and Navy Departments, Lafayette Square, and a large part of what is now known as the "West End." A barn stood near where the White House was after wards built, and down to 1805, Lafayette Square was known as the "Burns Orchard"; in one corner of it was the parish burial-ground of St. John's Church.

The original land patent of the Burns holding bears date 1681, and in the quaint phraseology of that day describes the property as "the Widow's Mite, lying on the cast side of the Anacostin River, on the north side of a branch or inlet in the said river, called Tyber."

The chronicles are silent as to whether David Burns were of Whig or Tory proclivities during the Revolutionary troubles, but it is certain that his patriotism did not extend to the point of willingly surrendering his ancestral acres to the furtherance of a scheme which doubtless seemed visionary and unpromising to his practical Scotch judgment.

In this day, after a century's growth. and prosperity, it is well-nigh impossible for us to conceive just how uncertain, unreal, and intangible must have seemed the personality of the new "Government," with whose fortunes the candy, cautious Scotsman was invited to cast in his worldly all. Notwithstanding Maryland had surrendered him to the new and stranger power, he utterly refused to acquiesce, and so sturdily stood out against the great Washington himself, as to cause the latter to write him down for future history as "the obstinate Mr. Burns." The doctrine of eminent domain was doubtless new to poor David, and although in this instance it brought golden fortune to his door, it quite failed to assimilate with his ingrained ideas of meum and teum. At last the patience of Washington was exhausted, and he intimated to the testy freeholder that the government would take his farm whether he consented or not, and concluded his emphatic remarks by inquiring, "On what terms will you surrender your plantation?" And the humbled Scotchman, seeing he had reached the end of his