Wooden pin dish made from David Burnes’ cottage, Washington, DC

1894

Much of the land on which Washington, D.C. was built originally belonged to David Burnes, who lived in a brick cottage near the present day intersection of 17th Street between R and S Streets, N.W. When the location of the Federal city was determined in 1790, President George Washington personally negotiated with the “obstinate Mr. Burnes,” as Washington described him, for the sale of the land. Succumbing to the pressures of development in 1894, Burnes’ cottage was taken down and demolished. Lewis James Matthews, who dismantled it, saved a piece of a rafter that he fashioned into a commemorative “pin dish” of his own design.