Pierre "Peter" Charles L'Enfant (; August 2, 1754June 14, 1825) was an American-French military engineer who in 1791 designed the basic plan for Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. His work is known today as the L'Enfant Plan. He also inspired the street plan for Detroit, Michigan.
Early life and education
L'Enfant was born in Paris on August 2, 1754, as the third child and second son of Pierre L'Enfant (1704–1787), a painter and professor at Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture known for his panoramas of battles, and Marie Leullier, the daughter of a French military officer. In 1758, his brother Pierre Joseph died at six, and Pierre Charles became the eldest son. He studied art at the Royal Academy from 1771 until 1776, when he left school in France to enlist in the American Revolutionary War on the side of the rebelling colonials.
Military service
L'Enfant was recruited by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais to serve in the American Revolutionary War in the United States. He arrived in 1777 at the age of 23, and served as a military engineer in the Continental Army with Major General Lafayette. He was commissioned as a captain in the Corps of Engineers on April 3, 1779, to rank from February 18, 1778.
Despite his aristocratic origins, L'Enfant closely identified with the United States, changing his first name from Pierre to Peter when he first came to the rebelling colonies in 1777. L'Enfant served on General George Washington's staff at Valley Forge. While there, the Marquis de Lafayette commissioned L'Enfant to paint a portrait of Washington.
During the war, L'Enfant made a number of pencil portraits of George Washington and other Continental Army officers. He also made at least two paintings of Continental Army encampments.
L'Enfant was wounded at the Siege of Savannah on October 9, 1779. He recovered and became a prisoner of war at the surrender of Charleston, South Carolina, on May 12, 1780. He was exchanged in November 1780 and served on General Washington's staff for the remainder of the American Revolution. L'Enfant was promoted by brevet to Major in the Corps of Engineers on May 2, 1783, in recognition of his service to the cause of American liberty. He was discharged when the Continental Army was disbanded in December 1783.
Career
Post–Revolutionary War
Following the American Revolutionary War, L'Enfant established a successful and highly profitable civil engineering firm in New York City. He achieved some fame as an architect by redesigning the City Hall in New York for the First Congress of the United States (See: Federal Hall).
L'Enfant also designed furniture and houses for the wealthy, as well as coins and medals. Among the medals was the eagle-shaped badge of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former officers of the Continental Army of which he was a founder. At the request of George Washington, the first President of the Society, L'Enfant had the insignias made in France during a 1783–84 visit to his father and helped to organize a chapter of the Society there.
L'Enfant was a friend of Alexander Hamilton. Some of their correspondences from 1793 to 1801 now reside in the Library of Congress.
While L'Enfant was in New York City, he was initiated into Freemasonry. His initiation took place on April 17, 1789, at Holland Lodge No. 8, F & A M, which the Grand Lodge of New York F & A M had chartered in 1787. L'Enfant took only the first of three degrees offered by the Lodge and did not progress further in Freemasonry.
Plan for Federal City
The new Constitution of the United States, which took effect in March and April 1789, gave the newly organized Congress of the United States authority to establish a federal district up to 10 miles square in size. L'Enfant had already written first to President George Washington, asking to be commissioned to plan the city. However, a decision on the capital was put on hold until July 1790 when the First Congress passed the "Residence Act", setting the site of the new federal district and national capital to be on the shores of the Potomac River.