benjamin baniker was a free black and he and andrew ellicot were good friends. if you go looking for these boundaries today, the ones most accessible happened to be in the state of virginia. one is in jones point park in alexandra and two others are in parks in virginia. if you go to those particular boundary stones, you'll see how far into virginia the district of columbia once reached. but in 1846, virginia reclaimed the land that it had donated and today the district of columbia is on land districtly donated by the state of maryland. so george washington turned to pierre lafon to design the city of washington that would house our federal government institutions. and pierre lafon was a frenchman who had come here in the passion of the revolutionary war. we had much support from the french. pierre lafon was one of them. it is based on democratic principles. first of all, he selected the highest point in the city of washington to serve as the site as the legislative branch. this was important. afterall our founding fathers had rebelled against the monarchy of ki