its collections. During 1791–1792, Ellicott also surveyed the future city of Washington, which was located within a relatively small area at the center of the Territory of Columbia along the northern bank of the Potomac River at the confluence with its Eastern Branch (known today as the Anacostia River). Ellicott also served under the Commissioners' supervision in this effort. He first worked with Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant, who had prepared the initial plans for the future capital city during the early months of 1791 and had presented one of these early plans to President Washington in August of that year (see L'Enfant Plan). During a contentious period in February 1792, Ellicott informed the Commissioners that L'Enfant had not been able to have the city plan engraved and printed as a map on paper and had refused to provide him with an original plan that L'Enfant was then holding. Ellicott, with the aid of his brother, Benjamin Ellicott, then revised the plan, despite L'Enfant's protests. Ellicott stated in his letters that, although he was refused the original plan, he was familiar with L'Enfant's system and had many notes of the surveys that he had made himself. It is therefore possible that Ellicott recreated the plan. Ellicott's revisions realigned and straightened the diagonal Massachusetts Avenue, eliminated five short other radial avenues and added two others, removed several plazas and straightened the borders of the future Judiciary Square. As the conflicts grew between the contending parties shortly thereafter, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant. Ellicott gave the first version of his own plan to James Thakara and John Valance of Philadelphia, who engraved, printed and published it. This version, printed in March 1792, was the first Washington city plan that received wide circulation. After L'Enfant departed, Ellicott continued the city survey in accordance with his revised plan, several larger and more detailed versions of which were also engraved, published, printed and distributed. As a result, Ellicott's revisions became the basis for the capital city's future development. When he later quit the City of Washington project, Ellicott was relieved to escape the political pressures surrounding that venture. In 1794, Ellicott accepted a commission from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to plan the city of Erie on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, giving the Keystone State a future port on the Great Lakes and its increasing trade. He spent the next two years with this task, plotting