HENRY BROWN FLOYD MACFARLAND
MACFARLAND, HENRY BROWN FLOYD, as president of the board of commissioners of the District of Columbia, the representative of the executive district government, deals primarily with its largest affairs, and is its spokesman before congress. He also represents the District, as its orator, on important occasions, and especially in welcoming conventions and other visitors to the National Capital. All official communications of the district government with the national executive government, with congress, with the governments of the states and territories or the governments of foreign countries or their representatives at Washington, are made by him as the president of the Board. With one exception, that of Governor Shepherd, no one who has held the office of executive of the District has had the opportunities for usefulness that have come to Mr. Macfarland. He came into office at the opening of the period of the new development of the Capital. The large projects of public improvement with the questions as to providing the District's share of their cost, involving the whole question of the District finances, have engaged his continual attention. The development of the park system and plans for the beautification of the Capital date from the celebration of the centennial of the District of Columbia, in 1900, under the direction of the committee of which Mr. Macfarland was chairman. He delivered the centennial address at the White House, December 12, 1900. He delivered the principal addresses on District of Columbia day at Buffalo, September 3, 1901, and at St. Louis, October 19, 1904.
He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 11, 1861. His father, a journalist, was endowed with the characteristics of fidelity, loyalty, courage, persistence and tactfulness. His mother, Isabelle Floyd Macfarland, was a woman of strong intellectual and spiritual nature. Books and sports were the interests of his childhood and youth. His parents removed to Washington, District of Columbia, at the close of the Civil war, and here he was graduated from Rittenhouse academy, studied law at Columbian university law
