A Pennsylvania cabinetmaker named Christopher Layman built the Old Stone House at 3051 M Street in 1765, the oldest surviving building in Washington DC. It was built in 1765 by a Pennsylvania cabinetmaker named Christopher Layman — before there was a District of Columbia, before there was a United States, eleven years before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Georgetown itself predates Washington as a city. Founded in 1751 as a tobacco port on the Potomac, Georgetown was a thriving commercial town when the new national capital was being planned around it. When the District of Columbia was established in 1791, Georgetown was incorporated into it, though it retained its own mayor and city government until 1871.
The stone house operated as a residence, then as various shops, for nearly two centuries. Local legend long claimed that L'Enfant used it as his headquarters for planning the city, and that George Washington used it as a meeting point — both stories are probably false. But the building survived when countless others were demolished around it.
Walk through the small federal garden behind the house. It is maintained by the National Park Service and represents a typical eighteenth-century kitchen garden of herbs and vegetables. The stone house still has its original blue-painted woodwork inside.
Looking out from this spot in 1765, you would have seen a river port, tobacco warehouses along the waterfront, and the forest of Virginia on the far bank. Today you see M Street's shops and restaurants, but the stone footprint of what was here first.