dr. william seale. thank you very much. i am going to talk about, as the program suggests, the stonemasons on the white house. for some context, i am delighted with my predecessors here who have covered some of that and new views on it. to begin with, we are in a scottish area where all of this took place to begin with. the towns of alexandria and georgetown were incorporated into the site george washington selected for the capital of america. they were both settled by scots, and run and operated by scots. so it was not unusual that they would look to scotland. we know the shops were supplied with materials from scotland, and so washington put this plan here in an area he had long admired, long before the revolution. businesspeople had seen that this site is about 400 miles from the sea, from the ocean and you could come here on a sailing ship. this is probably the deepest you had come into the interior in colonial america. this was very deep. that's why these two towns were founded, and just below the first of the rapids,

dr. william seale, one of the great american historians, the author of in books, many published by us, and the editor of our quarterly white house history journal. dr. william seale. >> thank you. thank you very much. i'm going to talk about, as the program suggests, about the stonemasons on the white house and a little bit of the context. i'm delighted with the predecessors here who have covered some of that. and new views on it. to begin with, we're in a scottish area where all this took place to begin with. the towns of alexandria and georgetown -- alexandria, virginia, across the river, georgetown, d.c., were incorporated in the site george washington selected for this capital of america. and they were both settled by scots, run and operated by scots, and so it wasn't so unusual that they would look to scotland. we know that the shops were supplied with materials from scotland, edinburgh, and so washington, then, put this plan here in an area that he had long admired, long before the revolution. business people had seen that this site is about 400 miles from the sea, from the ocean, an

dr. william seale, literally wrote the book on these masterful craftsmen, a book that's available to you today in our shop if you would like to use your 10% discount and go purchase it. and he will also be at the