Aquia Creek sandstone

Aquia Creek sandstone is a brown to light-gray freestone used extensively in building construction in Washington, D.C. in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

This sandstone is typically gray or tan, sometimes with streaks or shades of red, yellow, or buff, giving the stone a warm effect.

[1] A quarry was established at Wigginton's Island on Aquia Creek by George Brent after 1694, which provided light-colored stone for decorative trim on manor houses, churches, and gravestones in Northern Virginia.

The stone was taken on rafts down Aquia Creek to the Potomac River, where it was poled upstream to the new federal city, then dressed into smaller blocks on the riverbank, then transported by wagon inland, where stonemasons (first supervised by Collen Williamson and then master masons imported from Scotland) finished it at Lafayette Square and installed as facing on the new government buildings.

[3] British troops burned the U.S. Capitol and the President's House in 1814 during the War of 1812, which cracked and pitted the sandstone and required extensive repairs supervised by James McIntosh, one of the master masons imported from Edinburgh during the initial construction.