Original Patentees Memorial

See the White House Grounds Tour web page for a map and links to other attractions on the grounds of President’s Park.

The Original Pantentees Memorial in President’s Park is located just east of the Boy Scout Memorial at the sidewalk along 15th Street. If you are walking down 15th you can’t miss it, but when walking the White House Grounds Tour it is hard to spot.

The memorial’s name is difficult to comprehend today. First off, “original” does not mean that there were subsequent Patentees Memorials and that this was the first—this is the only Patentees Memorial. Second, the word “patentee” is somewhat foreign in today’s vernacular. We think of inventions when we hear the word “patent,” but the definition of the word patent when used as a noun is an official document granting a right or privilege. In the olden days, if you purchased or were given a piece of land, you were said to have been “granted a patent” and your name went into the government land ownership records. The patentee was the person who was granted the patent on the land. Plural of the word is patentees. Thus, the Original Patentees Memorial is dedicated to the eighteen men who originally settled the land that became the District of Columbia.

The monument stands seven feet tall and is made of limestone. On the four sides of the column are relief sculptures of a wild turkey, corn, tobacco, and a Potomac herring, vital staples for life and commerce in the early colonial days. One side of the base is inscribed with the memorial’s purpose, and the other three sides with the names of the eighteen original patentees. The main inscription reads:

TO THE ORIGINAL PATENTEES
PRIOR TO 1700 WHOSE LAND
GRANTS EMBRACE THE SITE OF
The FEDERAL CITY. This MONU
MENT IS ERECTED BY THE
NATIONAL SOCIETY OF The
DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN
COLONISTS, APRIL 25. 1936.