Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/772281
the remainder of his congressional service, although they had moved by October 1803 to 13th Street NW either a block north or south of Penn- sylvania Avenue. As he had done with the King family, Cutler became concerned about the private lives of the Speake family, commenting on Mary Ann Speake's poor health after the death of her son. Cutler seemed to understand that his con- cern for other humans on the periph- ery of his life in Washington was a manifestation of his emotional sepa- ration from his family and isolation from his congressional colleagues during his second term in Congress. "Here I feel myself interested in the little concerns of families, neighbor- hoods, and the town, which, if I were at home, would never occupy a second thought," he wrote his son-in-law. He rejoiced when he was sent news of his Massachusetts neighbors. 14 Pennsylvania Sen. Jonathan Roberts (Twelfth Congress, November 1811 to August 1812) had a similar experi- ence at the boarding house kept by former Pennsylvania Rep. Samuel Smith, also in Carroll Row. "It may be right to say, that my residence in Mr. Smith's family, was the most agreeable, I ever spent in public life. No where else, could I have gotten so profitable schooling, at the com- mencement of my career in Wash- ington. We liv'd like a family, bound by stronger ties, than a mere chance meeting. Mr. Frost's family lived next door, & the youngest daughter Charlotte, hardly at woman's estate, had a piano, & a fine gift as a per- former. She was at all points a very fine girl. Mrs. Smith used to have the instrument brought into her house." 15 Cutler's commentary about the Capitol itself is informative. After "the Oven" was dismantled and beginning with the Sec- ond Session of the Eighth Congress (5 November 1804 to 3 March 1805), members convened back in the North wing, in the long rectangular room intended for the Library of Congress, overlooking the Mall. (B.H. Latrobe's House chamber was not finished until 1806). In their temporary quarters, they were "cooped up in a chamber…which has afforded no room for ladies to attend the debates." He joked that he was thus unable to describe for his daughters the latest fashions in "head-dresses, shawls, [and] bonnets." In February 1804, as part of the celebration for Washington's Birthday, seventeen cannon were installed on the north side of the Capitol. "The air being very serene, the reports were extremely loud and heavy. Our seats trembled, and the whole THE COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION 28 THE CAPITOL DOME Fig. 4. Anna King would have played an organized piano similar to this one in the collection at Colonial Williamsburg (see footnote 11 for more information). (Museum Purchase. Conserva- tion of this instrument is made possible by a gift from Constance Tucker and Marshall Tucker in memory of N. Beverly Tucker, Jr.)