David Burnes' Cottage David Burnes, one of the <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/94">original nineteen proprietors of land that created the District of Columbia</a>, lived in this humble cottage overlooking today's <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/311">Constitution Avenue</a>. Burnes owned <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/247">700 acres encompassing the heart of downtown</a>, including the future sites of the <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/66">White House</a> and <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/20">Ellipse</a>. Contemporaries characterized Burnes as an argumentative, controversial Scotsman. Despite great wealth (reportedly the equivalent of $14 million today), he never replaced his original home. His daughter, Marcia, married New York Congressman John Van Ness, later mayor of Washington. A close friend of Dolly Madison, she built a magnificent home behind Burnes's cottage which became a center of social life in the capital. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012646630/">View original</a>. 1894 <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Pre-1800s">Pre-1800s</a>