Peter Waddell, Tiber Creek: The Bathers, oil on canvas, 48 x 72.

Despite its later reputation as a swamp, the Tiber Creek, which in the nineteenth-century ran along where Constitution Avenue runs today, was idyllic with extensive plants and wildlife including the now extinct Carolina Parakeet. President John Quincy Adams liked to swim in its quiet waters. During this particular adventure with his son, John, and servant, Antoine Giusta, the boat carrying the party was leaky and began filling with water, leaving the president fighting for his life in the river! Luckily he reached the opposite shore, only to wait several hours for rescue.