June 24, 2012 (San Diego) -- Ironically, the only president who didn’t live in Washington was Washington. During George Washington’s administration the nation's capital was situated in Philadelphia.

 

In 1788 Maryland and Virginia in 1789 donated a hundred square miles of land to the American government to be used for a capital city. George Washington chose the territory contributed by Maryland, and title to Virginia’s land was returned to that state. Before Washington, D.C., was established, the early congresses had met in Philadelphia, Lancaster, and York, Pennsylvania; Princeton and Trenton, New Jersey; Baltimore and Annapolis, Maryland; and New York City.