The rat-infested basement, where the kitchen and the servants’ quarters were located, had “the air of an old and unsuccessful hotel,” according to Stoddard. In 1864, Commissioner of Public Buildings Benjamin Brown French reported that during the previous summer “the effluvia from dead rats was offensive in all the passages and many of the occupied rooms to both the occupants of, and visitors to, the Presidential mansion.” A British caller noted that the house “is rendered very unhealthy by the accumulation of refuse and garbage, which the tide washes to and fro between the piles of the long chain-bridge.” Commissioner French recommended that the president should have a new residence in a less unhealthy location, like the heights of Georgetown.
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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