Samuel Hewitt, Age 16, congressional page serving under Representative James K. Polk of Tennessee. Born in Baltimore to a widowed seamstress, Samuel secured his position through a family connection to a Tennessee merchant. He has served in the Capitol for eight months.
January 30, 1835 — 5:47 AM
Mrs. Crockett’s Boarding House, C Street Near the Capitol, Washington City
The creak of frozen floorboards. Darkness cut only by a single tallow candle guttering on a shared nightstand. The smell of rendered animal fat, stale wool blankets, and the chamber pot not yet emptied from the night. The metallic taste of a dry mouth. Three other young men stir in two narrow beds pushed against walls patched with newsprint. Frost patterns creep across the single window. The distant crow of a rooster. The sound of Mrs. Crockett banging a pot downstairs—the signal. Cold so penetrating it aches in the joints.
January 30, 1835 — 6:23 AM
Kitchen of Mrs. Crockett’s Boarding House, C Street
