Just north of the convent grounds is the site of the estate of Berleith, which had been built by Henry Threlkeld. He had, in 1751, married Mrs. Mary Hopkins, a daughter of Dr. Gustavus Brown of Maryland, and widow of Reverend Matthew Hopkins. Henry Threlkeld died in 1781, his widow in 1801. Their one child, John, was married in 1787 to Elizabeth Ridgely, of Maryland. Two years before his marriage he visited England, one object of his trip being to secure a legacy which he converted into gold and brought back with him. He landed in England at Dover, which he described as being "about the size of George Town," the voyage having taken nearly two months—from October 6th to December 3rd. In his journal he wrote of having gone to the House of Commons to hear "Mr. Pitt open the budgett, Mr. Fox followed, and then Mr. Sheridan replied to Mr. Pitt."

Of John Threlkeld, an old paper states that "he was well and very widely known as a fine scholar and a man of great benevolence." He was mayor of George Town in 1793 and a personal friend of Thomas Jefferson. He was remembered as a handsome figure on horseback, even in his late years, and his love of following the hounds is a family tradition. The comments made by him in this connection during his stay in England are interesting. After describing the journey by coach past fine estates with "one-half the fields as green as spring with grass," he added, "and but one horse have I seen in the course of thirty miles at pasture, and here I must take notice of their boasting in America of their hunters leaping the five-bar gates." He goes on to explain how the measurements were taken, and concludes, "but still their horses vastly surpass ours."

John and Elizabeth Threlkeld had four children, but the only son died in infancy, so the name disappeared, and the family is represented only by the descendants of their daughter, Jane, who married John Cox.



Chapter IX

Along First Street (N) from Cox's Row to High Street (Wisconsin Ave.)

On the northeast corner of First Street (N) and Frederick (34th) Street stands the row of houses which John Cox built. Colonel Cox was for many years most prominent in all the affairs of Georgetown, serving as its Mayor longer than any other one man from 1823 to 1845—22 years. John Cox was of English descent. He was born in 1775 during the Revolution, was the youngest of four children, and being left an orphan as a small child, was raised by an uncle who was a banker in Baltimore. He later lived for a while in Philadelphia, and from there came to Georgetown. He first married Matilda Smith, a sister of Clement Smith, well known as the first cashier of the Farmers' & Mechanics Bank, later its president. They had three children, one of whom was named Clement. By his second marriage to Jane Threlkeld he had seven children.

In the War of 1812 he served as a Colonel. He was a large property owner in Georgetown, besides being a well-to-do merchant. He built the row of houses on First (N) Street, called by his name and lived for a while in the house on the corner. That must have been during the period of his first marriage, for after Jane Threlkeld became his wife they built a lovely house on part of the Berleith estate, next door to the old Threlkeld which had been burned, and called it The Cedars. It stood where the Western High School now stands, and it is difficult to realize now that there, in my memory, was a home surrounded by a mass of trees and vines and was most delightfully private and charming. It was a quaint and lovely old cream-colored mansion, a portico on its north front, two long piazzas as usual, along the south side of the house. In later years I myself went there to the private school kept by the Misses Earle, whose father, George Earle purchased the place.

Colonel Cox was celebrated as a dandy. "He would saunter down town in silk stockings and pumps, not getting a spot upon himself, while other men would be up to their ankles in mud, for in those days there were no pavements." Stepping-stones were placed at the corners of the streets standing rather high above the roadway to facilitate the pedestrians.

Colonel Cox had moved up to The Cedars when, as mayor in 1824, it fell to his lot to act as host for Georgetown to the Marquis de Lafayette, when he made his famous visit.

A new arrival was imminent in the Cox family, so it was not advisable to have the party, which he wished to give, at his home. Consequently, he used one of these houses which was vacant at that time, number 3337; had it furnished from top to bottom, his eldest daughter, Sally, acting in her mother's place as hostess for the distinguished party invited to meet the hero of the hour.

It is said that one young lady in her enthusiasm fell upon her knees before the Marquis and impressed a kiss upon his hands. There was a fashion in those days of decorating the floor by painting a pattern around the edges with colored chalks—garlands of roses entwined with the flags of the two countries. A marvelous supper was served; it is said it included 600 reed birds. It is to be hoped it also included other things more substantial than this high-sounding but sparsely covered game.

The coach of Colonel Cox was at the disposal of the honored guest during the period of his stay. When he made his formal entry into the District of Columbia, having come by way of Baltimore, he was escorted by a troop of cavalry from Montgomery County commanded by my grandfather, Captain Henry Dunlop, a Georgetonian, then farming the family plantation, Hayes, seven miles north of town.

Tradition says that number 3337 had a tunnel leading to the river. Some such large opening was discovered when the owner excavated recently to make a pool in the garden. In 1860 this house was the home of William A. Gordon, for many years chief of the quartermaster's department. It was from here that his eldest son of the same name left to enter the Confederate Army. William A. Gordon, senior, born in Baltimore, had gone to the Military Academy at West Point, and while there a terrible cry arose about the poor quality of food furnished for the cadets. Mr. Gordon was one of the three young men selected by the corps to go to Washington to interview the President on the subject. The answer he gave them was that he would see that conditions at the Academy were remedied, but his advice to them was to send in their resignations immediately, as there would be no career there for them after this.

From about 1865 to 1892 Mr. and Mrs. William Laird, Jr., made this house their home. Mr. Laird was for forty years cashier of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank, and was greatly respected. When he resigned he was presented by the officials with a very handsome silver punch bowl, ladle and tray and a large silver loving cup. He died suddenly a month or two after giving up his business and his widow did not survive him long. Mrs. Laird was Anna Key Ridgely, a charming person. They had no children, nor had his brother, who never married, so this name, long so honored here, has disappeared from Georgetown.

To return to the corner house. It was for several years the home of Commodore Charles Morris, one of the eminent officers of the early U. S. Navy. He made a remarkable record in the War with Tripoli, his earliest achievement being on the occasion of the recapture and destruction of the frigate Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli in 1804. Midshipman Morris, then nineteen years old, volunteered for the service and was the first to stand on the deck of the Philadelphia and commence the work of destruction. At the beginning of the War of 1812 he held the rank of lieutenant—and became executive officer of the Constitution, Captain Isaac Hull being in command.

On the 17th of July, 1812, a very calm day, the frigate met a fleet of British vessels, and the enemy thought they had an easy prize, but by a combination of towing and kedging by means of the Constitution's boats and anchors, an extraordinary escape was made which, as Captain Hull stated at the time, was conceived by Lieutenant Morris. Its successful execution commanded the admiration of his countrymen and won the applause even of the British officers.

Commodore Morris was chosen to escort Lafayette back to France on the U. S. S. Brandywine, and while on a visit to the general his portrait was painted by Amy Shaffer and sent back to Mrs. Morris as a gift from the Marquis.

In 1842 the property was bought by James Keith who was a great friend of General Washington, Mr. Keith's daughter married Mr. Forrest, and their son French Forrest was an officer in the United States Navy, but like many others in this part of the world, went into the Southern Navy during the Civil War. At the time of his funeral W. W. Corcoran, who was a very intimate friend, was a pall-bearer. In those days it was the style for the mourners to wear a long streamer of crepe around their hats and hanging down a foot or two. Little Douglas Forrest, the son of the deceased, began to cry, saying he "wanted some funeral on his hat." Mr. Corcoran took him in hand and insisted that he should have his wish and be arrayed like the other mourners.

In the other houses of that row lived, at number 3335, just before the Civil War, a family named Semmes from New Orleans who had several daughters considered very beautiful. Cora Semmes became the wife of Colonel Joseph Ives, a brilliant young engineer officer of the United States Army, who, although of Northern birth, espoused the Southern cause. He was put on General Lee's staff, and later transferred to be aide-de-camp to Jefferson Davis where, in Richmond he and his wife became prominent and useful in entertaining distinguished foreigners, as she was noted for her charm as well as her beauty.

In number 3333 Judge Robert Ould resided. His father had been one of the founders of the Lancastrian School. Mattie Ould, whose name still is a synonym for grace, beauty and wit, spent her childhood here. After the Oulds went to Richmond this house was for a time the home of Henry Addison, while he was mayor. Later on the Cropleys lived in it.

William Hunter lived for a great many years in number 3331, when he was Assistant Secretary of State. Women of my generation still remember him for his love of little children and his gifts to them of toys and goodies.

Across on the southeast corner of First (N) Street and Frederick (34th) Street at 3340 is the house which Harry Hopkins, the great friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, bought and moved to with his new wife and his daughter Diana, when they left the White House where they had been living for a year or more. This was his home at the time of his death.

On this street used to live the Marburys before they moved to The Heights, and also the Wheatleys of whom there were several households in Georgetown in the latter part of the last century.

A block eastward on the same side of the street is another row of charming old houses, built about 1800 by Colonel James Smith, "lately returned from the Revolutionary War." In the one on the corner of First (N) and Potomac Streets used to live Mrs. Gannt and her daughter Clare and Mrs. Gannt's sister Mrs. Smith. I think they were descendants of the builder of the row. Their old home was for a time occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Blair Thaw, the former a poet, the latter an artist.

Third from the corner at 3259, in the middle of the 19th century lived Dr. Lewis Ritchie who had an extensive practice. I think he was the son of Dr. Joshua Ritchie. This house was the home of Hon. and Mrs. Lewis A. Douglas when he was the sole representative in Congress from Arizona. Later he was Director of the Budget and within recent years Ambassador to the Court of St. James. This house is now the home of Mrs. McCook Knox who is very well known in connection with the study of Early American Portraits and has been connected with the Frick Art Reference Library of New York since its inception. In the front room of the attic of 3259 were doors of rough hewn wood with old iron bolts leading into rooms of the two adjoining houses. The story is that in the War of 1812 this row of houses used to be watched. A soldier would be stationed on the corner, but the "questionable person" never emerged, he could escape through the attic rooms and come out at the end of the row.

No. 3257 is now the home of Hon. and Mrs. Richard B. Wigglesworth of Massachusetts.

The old home of the Shoemaker family was at 3261. While he was Assistant Secretary of War it was the home of Hon. and Mrs. F. Trubee Davison and is now the home of Hon. and Mrs. James J. Wadsworth of New York.

All of this part of Georgetown west of High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) used to be called Holy Hill, because of the great number of Irish who dwelt in the neighborhood. On Saint Patrick's Day there were parades and fights, and all kinds of excitement.

There were also a good many respectable colored Catholics, and near here, on Potomac Street, dwelt a family of Coakleys. Magdalen Coakley thought she was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. She got herself up to look like the Virgin, in sweeping white robes and a sky-blue veil and cloak. She was not a very dark negress and had a fine countenance and striking figure. She used to go about the streets blessing little children and wanting to baptize them, followed, of course, by a string of boys making fun of her. She would go up to Trinity Church and stand by the door; but once she wanted to help the priest give Communion, so they had to forbid her coming. Of course the poor soul thought she was being persecuted, but she took it in a Christian manner and prayed all the harder, on the street and everywhere. She lived to be an old woman still wearing her picturesque costume.

Her sister, Frances, was nurse for three generations for the Hein family whose home was at number 3249 N Street, now entirely changed by its modernized roof and steps.

Samuel Hein had emigrated from Koenigsberg, Germany, as a young man, and had become an American citizen. He was fifty-six years in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, retiring as its disbursing officer. He was an ardent Union man, and during the four years of the Civil War kept the Stars and Stripes flying from one of his windows. All through the two terrible days after the Battle of Bull Run, when the Northern troops were streaming through Georgetown, Mr. Hein maintained a soup kitchen for the soldiers in his back yard. His wife was the daughter of John Simpson who lived on the corner of High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) and West (P) Streets. Her brother, James Alexander Simpson, was a rather well-known portrait painter. They were quite a musical and artistic family.

One son Charles Hein was an artist and had his studio in a little frame house still standing on 31st (Congress) behind another house, opposite the post office. There he took pupils. He was very picturesque in appearance, tall and dark, wore a drooping mustache, low collar with flowing black cravat and wide-brimmed black hat and cape.

Another son Col. O. L. Hein in an interesting book called Memories of Long Ago tells this story:

One day in the spring of 1861, as I was passing the residence of the pastor of St. John's Church, The Rev. Mr. Tillinghast, quite near our house, I was attracted by the sight of a dashing young Cavalry officer, who was showing off the paces of his handsome black charger to the Minister. I lingered nearby, greatly enjoying the equestrian performance, and upon its conclusion I was informed by the clergyman, that the name of the young officer was William Orton Williams, and that he was the military secretary of Lt. General Winfield Scott.

In the following year I was shocked to read in a local newspaper the account of the trial and conviction of Williams and his cousin, Lt. W. G. Peter (resident of Georgetown) as spies under the assumed names of General W. C. Auton and Major Dunlop, of the Union Army, by a drumhead Court Martial, and their conviction and execution by hanging. In recent years I was informed by my wife's mother, Mrs. Ross, that she remembered Williams quite well, and that he was engaged to Miss Anne Lee, the daughter of General R. E. Lee; but that she died, on the outbreak of the Civil War. Mrs. Ross was a cousin of General Lee, and a freqeunt visitor at Arlington before the secession of Virginia.

Williams was of distinguished ancestry, the son of Capt. William G. Williams, a graduate of West Point of the class of 1822, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Monterey, Mexico, while serving on the staff of General Zachary Taylor, and his mother, America Peter was the daughter of Thomas Peter, a prominent citizen of Georgetown, whose wife Martha Parke Custis was the granddaughter of Mrs. George Washington and an aunt of Mary Custis the wife of General R. E. Lee.

Just next door to this house is the site where, even before 1780, stood the Columbian Academy of which Mr. Rogers was the principal and of which Dr. Balch became the head in 1781. It was a large, two-story frame building, having a high entrance porch, where hung the bell. It stood on a hill which commanded a fine view of the river from the study rooms upstairs. Adjacent to the schoolroom was a large garden in the middle of which was a jessamine arbor. Two of General Washington's nephews were students of the school and lived with the principal.

Here was housed the Columbian Library which was opened in 1803. In later years the present building was erected but having a very different appearance. Here lived Hugh Caperton a well known lawyer.

I myself lived here as a very small child when I was two or three years old and one of my very first memories is being dared by my brothers and sisters to jump off the stone wall fronting the street, about four feet high. I felt as if I had to jump from the Washington Monument, but I did it, with no ill effects.

It was after that the home, for many years, of the Barbers. Old Mrs. Barber moved there with her grandchildren when she sold her home where the United States Naval Observatory now stands. She was the daughter of Major Adlum whose home was The Vineyard where the Bureau of Standards is now. His place was well named for he was a great horticulturist, the first to domesticate the Catawba grape. It grew wild in North Carolina.



Chapter X

Gay (N) Street—East to Rock Creek

Across High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) along Gay (N) Street on the northwest corner of Congress (31st) is the Baptist Church which has just celebrated its 75th anniversary. It was originally a small frame building, up on a bank. The present building was erected in 1890.

On the southwest corner of Gay (N) and Congress (31st) Streets stood, not so very many years ago, an attractive old white house with long porches, tiers of them, across the back overlooking a garden. I think the present building is what it was converted into in the period that did the best to rob Georgetown of all its charm.

Here, in 1795, Dr. James Heighe Blake built his home. He was a very eminent citizen, a member of the first vestry of Saint John's Church, one of the very first to advocate schools of the Lancastrian system and a reformatory, and the very first person to suggest a health officer for the City of Washington. He moved over to the city and became its third mayor from 1813 to 1817. His daughter, Glorvina, married William A. Gordon, senior, of whom I have already spoken.

Here, at one time, lived Judge Walter Cox, grandson of Colonel John Cox. His wife was a daughter of Judge Dunlop. Still later, the school of Miss Jennie and Miss Lucy Stephenson was here, which was well attended in the seventies and eighties. In the spring of 1875, a romantic elopement took place. A young girl of sixteen, an orphan, who was said to be "an heiress," went off to Baltimore very early one morning with the son of a minister who taught Latin in the school.

When the pupils came that morning, they sensed the excitement and gathered in groups in the gallery. Eventually, the news leaked out and the chief topic was that the young lady took no baggage, not even a nightgown, in her flight.

Just below here, on Congress (31st) Street, in the latter part of the last century lived a lady much beloved by rich and poor. She was the first person to conceive the idea of a diet kitchen for the needy. She had not much of this world's goods, so she went daily to the different butchers who gave her scraps of meat which she cooked, and had continually on hand jars of "beef tea." All the doctors knew where to apply when they had patients who were in need of it. She was the widow of Captain Charles Carroll Simms, an officer of the old navy who went with the Confederacy, and at the famous battle in Hampton Roads, was second in command of the Merrimac, and in command after the chief officer was killed. She was Elizabeth Nourse, daughter of Major Charles Joseph Nourse, of The Highlands.

Next door, below Mrs. Simms' house, stands the Methodist Protestant Church which not long ago celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. The lot for it was purchased in April, 1829, but the founders for a year or two previous to that had been worshipping in the Presbyterian Church building, Saint John's or the Lancastrian schoolroom. It is now a Christian Science Church.

Across the street from the church, next door to the Post Office, the tall brick house is where a family lived which in the nineties was a mystery to Georgetown—the Oueston family—father, mother, and daughter. No one knew what was the father's business, and no one ever saw the mother out, but it was rumored that she came from South America, was of royal blood, and had a throne on which she sat, dressed accordingly. The daughter was known then, and for many years afterwards, as "the girl of a thousand curls." She was tall and slender, and her magnificent suit of dark hair was a mass of curls, making her head look like "a bushel basket." She wore ankle-length dresses of a style totally different from what every other girl wore: white stockings, when all of us wore black, and black slippers, laced up with narrow black ribbons.

And then up to the northeast corner of Gay (N) and Congress (31st) Streets, to the tall yellow house, now an apartment house. For many years it was at the home of the Snyders. Dr. John M. Snyder died at the age of 36, in the enjoyment of a fine reputation in his profession, of an unusual accident.

The story is told by Dr. Samuel Busey, in his Personal Reminiscences:

Dr. Snyder had bought a farm called "Greenwood" a little way out of town toward Tenallytown, and one afternoon at Dr. Busey's home, "Belvoir," now the Beauvoir School, was telling Dr. Busey how he was enjoying pruning the old oak trees on his place of dead wood. Dr. Busey warned him that he was engaging in a dangerous amusement and related the story of how a hired man of his, doing such a job, had had a bad fall, but, fortunately, without injury.

Two or three days later, Dr. Busey was summoned to "Greenwood," where he found Dr. Snyder dying from just such an accident. The branch of the tree he had been sawing off was hanging by a splintered sliver, too weak to support its weight and, in swinging to the ground, had knocked away the ladder on which Dr. Snyder was standing.

His wife was Sophy Tayloe, a member of the well-known family of the Octagon House in Washington, and beautiful old Mount Airy in Virginia. As a widow in her old age, she had a steady admirer, a general, who came every afternoon at the same time in his Victoria, and took her to drive. I can see her now, a small, slight figure in her cape, and little black bonnet tied under her chin, and holding one of those quaint little ruffled sunshades to keep the sun out of her eyes.

She had one daughter, Miss Annie, who had the loveliest rosy cheeks (no rouge in those days), who never married. One son, Bladen, was an artist, and he used to be a familiar sight with his camp-stool and easel on the streets, painting.

Georgetown was not so "arty" in Bladen Snyder's day, unfortunately, so he was considered very "odd."

The other son, Dr. Arthur Snyder, was a fine surgeon, and an ardent horseman.

Not long ago I was being shown photographs of belles and beaux of the eighties and nineties in Georgetown. Among them were several pictures of the crews of the Columbia Boat Club, and one of the "four" was young Dr. Snyder, whose home this was.

There were two boat clubs in those days which were great rivals. The Columbia was at the foot of High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) and the Potomac was at the foot of Congress (31st) Street. I have more recollections of the latter, especially the dances held there on summer evenings, and the porch overhanging the river, with the moonlight on the water.



We used to have tug parties, starting from there, going several miles down the Potomac and back, eating our supper on board and singing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," and "On the Road to Mandalay," which at that time was quite new.

Across the street, at number 3038, is the house that I have always heard called "old Dr. Riley's." It was sold on the 24th of March, 1812, by James S. Marshall to William S. Nicholls and Romulus Riggs. Mr. Riggs owned the house until 1835. He was born near Brookeville in Montgomery County, Maryland. He was married in 1810. Somewhere between 1812 and 1835 he went to live in Philadelphia where he was a prosperous merchant and influential citizen. I think it probable he lived in this house during some of that time and sold it to Dr. Joshua Riley.

Dr. Riley had several students of medicine whom he taught. Among them was Dr. Armistead Peter, Alec Williams, "the handsomest man in town," and the two nephews of Baron Bodisco, who also spent much time here. His office, a quaint little one-story brick building, on part of his lot, was torn down a few years ago, to the great sorrow of us old-timers, for Georgetown had lost one of its most distinctive antiques.

Dr. Riley practiced medicine for 51 years and died beloved in the community at large as well as by his patients. He had a good word and pleasant salutation for everybody. He was a man of marked personal appearance, tall, slim, gaunt, awkward in manner, with a quick emphatic style of speech.

Dr. Riley had married a daughter of Colonel Fowler, who lived on West (P) Street, and on the 10th of June, 1851, his wife's niece, Juliet Murray was married in this dear old house to John Marbury, Jr. Dr. Riley's daughter, Miss Marianna, and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Riley, occupied this house for many years until her death, when it was sold for almost "a song." Since then it has been resold several times.

Across the street, at number 3043, now the home of Vice-Admiral Laurence Du Bose, was the home of another well-known admiral, Theodore Wilkinson, when he returned from the Pacific. He and his wife started off on a motor trip. At Norfolk, Virginia, as they were landing from a ferry, his car got out of control; he signaled to his wife to jump and her life was saved, but he and the car ran off into deep water and he was drowned.

The cream-colored brick house with wings out on each side, now number 3033 N Street, is one of the very oldest houses in Georgetown. It was the home of Colonel George Beall, son of Ninian Beall, and bequeathed by him at his death in 1780 to his daughters, Elizabeth and Ann, the same Elizabeth who became the wife of Dr. Stephen Bloomer Balch shortly after her father's death.

Adjoining the house on the east was the garden. All the land between this house and the one at 3017, built by George Beall's son, Thomas Beall of George, as he always styled himself, was made his two "Additions to Georgetown," was part of this estate. Many years afterwards, the little summer house and the fruit trees were still there. And, as was the custom in those long-ago days, here was the family burying-ground. I know people who remember it. Among the gravestones removed to the old Presbyterian burying-ground were two which bore these inscriptions: "Here lieth Colonel George Beall, who departed this life March 15, 1780, aged 85." And the other, "Here lieth the body of Elizabeth Beall, who departed this life October 2, 1748, aged about 49 years." She was Elizabeth Brooke, daughter of Colonel Thomas Brooke and Barbara Dent.

In 1809 these two sisters sold this house to John Peter, and the next year he sold it to Mrs. Robert Peter, who was then a widow. She came here to live with her younger daughter, Margaret, who had become the wife of Thomas Dick, of Bladensburg. Here Mrs. Peter lived until her death in 1821, at the age of seventy-eight. Mrs. Dick's husband had died while on a trip to the West Indies and had been buried at sea. She lived on here the rest of her life with her only child, Robert, and he lived there many years and died there—an old bachelor. He was buried in Oak Hill on Christmas Eve, 1870. During these years there was a much-beloved old cook, Aunt Hannah, who was famous for her gingerbread and cookies. I have seen her photograph "all dressed up to have her picture took."

Robert Dick had a big black dog who always came to the gate to greet the newsboy and took the paper in his mouth to his master.

After Robert Dick's death, Thomas Cox bought the place and it was the home of his family for a good many years. The eastern wing was put on at that time and used as a conservatory. Since then the house has changed hands many, many times, and the western wing been added.

The two houses at numbers 3025 and 3027 were built in the seventies by Oscar Stevens for his family and that of his brother-in-law, Dr. John S. Billings. Their wives were sisters, and very dependent upon each other. Dr. Billings was a pioneer in the introduction of indirect heating in buildings, and became an authority on that subject, and on ventilation. His textbooks on the subject were used in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and when Johns Hopkins Hospital was built, he was consulted. Because he had made such a fine record in creating the Army Medical Library, he was asked to come to New York and create the new Public Library there from the Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, which were consolidated.

Across the street, at number 3032, where now is a large, modern brick house, there used to be, before I can remember, a quaint, frame structure. It was supposed to be one of the first houses built on the grant of the Rock of Dumbarton, and was intended for the "overlooker" of that part of the grant. It was a very plain but comfortable house, and was the home in the early part of the century of Hezekiah Miller who, like many of the gentry in those days, was in charge of government work. His department dealt with the Indians, and he had the distribution of money and supplies to certain tribes to whom he went from time to time, and also looked after them when they came to Washington. They always called him "Father Miller." Mr. Miller's wife was Miss Middleton, from Brooke Court Manor, in Maryland. Hezekiah Miller was a devout member of Christ Church. His daughter became the wife of the Reverend George Leakin, an Episcopal clergyman of Baltimore. She was to have been a bridesmaid at the wedding of Harriet Williams and Baron Bodisco, but was prevented by the sudden death of her brother by drowning. He was one of twins, born just at the time of General Lafayette's arrival on his visit in 1824, who were named Washington and Lafayette at the request of the townspeople. It was the latter young man who drowned, at the age of twenty-five.

Number 3028 was the home, for a long, long time of the Reads, three sisters. One married Dr. Post, who was a missionary to Syria, but Miss Jane and Miss Isabella lived here many years after. The house next door still has its old-time doorway, but, unfortunately, one owner in the eighties spoiled its quaintness by adding a corner tower. It was here, I think, that Dr. William Barton Rogers, first President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lived at one time.

The two big houses, numbers 3014 and 3017, standing opposite each other on this block are very closely connected in their history. The early part is all tied up together. Although number 3017 has been somewhat changed in appearance, it is still, I imagine, a good deal like it was when Thomas Beall built it in 1794. Of course, the street has been cut down and left it higher up than it originally was, and also the old bricks have been covered with paint, and now a modern addition has hidden its lovely little wing.



The building of this house was evidently quite an event in those days, for in old advertisements of the sale of houses, many of them are "Between the Union Tavern and Thomas Beall's house on Gay Street." John Laird had a frame house on the lot, immediately across the street, now number 3014, but he was becoming exceedingly prosperous and wanted a handsome house. He married first, Lucinda Dick, sister of Thomas Dick, of Bladensburg, and, after her death, her elder sister, Mary. While he was building his brick house at number 3014, he rented and occupied Thomas Beall's house. No reason is given as to why Mr. Beall was not occupying it himself.

About 1800 Mr. Laird moved into his own new mansion. At that time only the central part of the large building was there. Several wings have been added and the little portico at the front door. John Laird's eldest daughter, Barbara, married James Dunlop, Junior, the eldest son of James Dunlop; and his only son, William Laird, married two of James Dunlop's daughters at Hayes, first Helen, by whom he had three children, William Laird, Jr., James Dunlop Laird, who went to California in 1848 and never married, and Helen Laird, who also never married. After the death of his first wife, William Laird, Sr., married his sister-in-law, Arianna French Dunlop. She was very lame, and the marriage took place only a short time before her death.

The miniatures reproduced of John Laird and James Dunlop represent them both in scarlet coats, with lace ruffles and powdered hair.

John Laird was always very much interested in the Presbyterian Church and its affairs, and his descendants have remained so.

He came to this country at the age of seventeen and was active in Georgetown from its early days, and it is a pity that none of his children had a son to carry on his name.



His son, William Laird, Jr., who had children, but no grandchildren, was clerk of the town for a great many years, longer than any other man. He is said to have had no superior as an accountant in this country.

After John Laird's death in 1833, his house became the property of his daughter, Margaret. She never married, and lived there for a great many years with her aunt, Miss Elizabeth Dick. They were always known as "Miss Peggy" Laird and "Miss Betsy" Dick. My mother, as a little girl, remembered them. They used to sit by the front windows a great deal, and the turban which Miss Betsy wore on her head was, of course, very intriguing to a young girl in 1850. They were both almost always dressed in Scotch gingham of such fine quality that it seemed like silk. They were both ardent supporters of the Presbyterian Church and workers for the Orphan Asylum. Miss Betsy Dick died first, of course. Thomas Bloomer Balch dedicated to her one of the lectures he gave in Georgetown in the fifties called "Reminiscences of George Town."

When Miss Peggy Laird died, she left the house to her sister, Barbara, Mrs. James Dunlop. They had been living on the southeast corner of Gay (N) and Greene (29th) Streets. From that time on, number 3014 was always known as the Dunlop house.

Judge Dunlop was always very prominent. As a young man he was secretary of the Corporation of Georgetown, which fact is recorded on the keystone of the little bridge on High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) over the canal. He was for some time a law partner of Francis Scott Key, and later was appointed Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia. He was holding this office at the outbreak of the Civil War and, being a Southerner in his sympathies, was, very naturally, removed from office by President Lincoln. An interesting thing is that about 1915 this place was bought from the heirs of Judge Dunlop's son by Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Lincoln.

An anecdote is told of a dinner party long ago where Judge Dunlop was a guest, when one of the other guests was making puns on the names of all those present. Judge Dunlop said, "You will not be able to make one on my name." Quick as a flash came back the rejoinder, "Just lop off the last syllable and it is dun."

Judge Dunlop and all of his brothers, except one, were graduates of Princeton College, he being valedictorian of his class. A portrait of him hangs in the courthouse in Washington. His son, William Laird Dunlop, lived for many years as a bachelor in the old house before his marriage to his cousin, Miss Sallie Peter, in Rockville. An interesting story is told of their neighbor, Dr. Tyler, coming home one evening and saying to his wife, "I'll have to go over and see what is the matter at Mr. Dunlop's; the house is lit up from top to bottom." When he returned, he was laughing heartily. "It's only that Mr. Dunlop is going to be married and is inspecting the house thoroughly." The bride he brought there was a very lovely person and very much beloved.

William Laird Dunlop always kept up his custom of keeping his own cow and killing his own hogs in the fall. The little square, brick building covered with vines between the house and the stable was the meat house. It is in the garden of this house that the only remaining stone marker used in laying off the original George Town stands, protruding about eighteen inches from the ground.

Now to return to number 3017 across the street. In 1811 this house was bought from Thomas Beall by Major George Peter. He was the youngest son of Robert Peter. He was born in George Town on the 28th of September, 1779. When only fifteen years old he joined the Maryland troops against the Whisky Insurrectionists (1794), but his parents sent a messenger to camp and General Washington, hearing of the matter, ordered him home. His youthful ardor was gratified five years later in July, 1799, by his appointment as second lieutenant of the Ninth Infantry, United States Army, by President Adams, and he enjoyed the distinction of receiving his commission from the hands of General Washington at Mount Vernon. While in command at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, during the administration of President Jefferson, he organized the first light-horse battery formed in the United States service, and he always referred to his "Flying Artillery" with a special pride, in that he was specially selected by President Jefferson for that purpose.

In April, 1805, Lieutenant Peter accompanied General Wilkinson to the West and took part in the organization of the Territorial Government of Missouri. Arriving at St. Louis on the Fourth of July, he established the first cantonment on the banks of the Missouri at Bellefontaine and fired the first salute on the return of Lewis and Clarke from their expedition to the Pacific. He also served under General Wilkinson during Governor Claiborne's administration before Louisiana was admitted to the Union and he was present as a witness at the trial of Aaron Burr.

At the beginning of the War of 1812, President Madison tendered him a brigadier-generalship, which the condition of private affairs compelled him to decline, but in 1813 he volunteered his services and commanded a battalion of "Flying Artillery."

Among the privates in this battalion were George Peabody and Francis Scott Key, besides others who afterwards became distinguished citizens. In writing of this battalion, W. W. Corcoran says the list of its membership represented the wealth, worth, and talent of the town at that time.

In 1815, he was elected to Congress from the Sixth District of Maryland, but his seat was contested on the ground that he was not a resident of the Congressional District. At that time he was a resident of Georgetown and a member of the Town Council, but had large farms in Maryland. The House of Representatives, however, decided in his favor, and admitted him to take his seat. He was the first Democrat ever elected to Congress from the Sixth District of Maryland and was re-elected in 1817, and again in 1828. He served several terms in the State Legislature and in 1855 was elected by the Democratic Party a Commissioner of Public Works for the State of Maryland.

He was a man six feet in height, straight as an arrow, and of splendid physique.

He was married three times. His first wife was Ann Plater, daughter of Governor Plater of Maryland; his second, Agnes Freeland, and his third, Sarah Norfleet Freeland of Petersburg, Virginia.

Major Peter was one of the largest landowners and farmers in Montgomery County and carried on those farms up to the date of his death, which occurred at Montanvert, near Darnestown, June 22, 1861. He was nearly eighty-two.



His three sons by his third marriage were: George, who became an eminent lawyer in Rockville; Alexander, who lived and farmed near Darnestown; Armistead, who practised medicine many years in Georgetown; and Walter Gibson Peter, who met the heroic and tragic death I have already spoken of. Dr. Peter had been sent to Georgetown to live with his aunt, Mrs. Dick, to receive his medical education under Dr. Riley.

In 1827 George Peter sold this house, 3017 N Street, to John Laird, evidently for his son, William, who made it his home until 1834, when it was bought by Miss Elizabeth Dick, but she apparently changed her mind and decided to live with her niece, for she sold it the same year to William Redin.

Mr. Redin was an Englishman from Lincolnshire, who had come to America about 1817. He was an attorney, and I have heard very old people refer to him as "Lawyer Redin," and speak of the green baize bag which he always carried back and forth to his office, the forerunner of the present-day brief case, and I know an old lady who can remember him in his pew in Christ Church. He had five daughters and one son. The young man, Richard Wright Redin, soon after his graduation from Princeton, fell a victim to cholera, that terrible disease brought to George Town in its ships. It also carried off a young sister, Fanny, who was a little beauty, and only about eighteen.

Mr. Redin was a friend of Henry Foxall, and named his youngest daughter Catherine Foxall.

During the Civil War, Mr. Redin was a Union sympathizer, and when President Lincoln removed Judge Dunlop from the bench, he offered the Justiceship to Mr. Redin, but he refused to take the office of his old friend and neighbor across the street. In 1863, he was made the first Auditor of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia.

One of his married daughters was living, during the Civil War, not far from Culpeper, Virginia, almost on the battlefield. She died when only thirty-seven, from the fact that no medicines could be gotten for her; nor could a minister be found to bury her, so her eldest daughter, seventeen, read the burial service over her mother.

There were seven of these motherless children left—the eldest three all very pretty girls. It was quite impossible for them to remain in their home, so their grandfather got permission for them to come to Washington. They came, wearing sunbonnets, and traveling all day long in a box-car from Culpeper to Alexandria, a distance of only fifty miles. There they had to spend the night at a hotel until they could pass through the lines. The Union officer in charge of them slept outside their door that night.

Not very long after their arrival, Martha Kennon, of Tudor Place, came to see the eldest girl. They had been at school together a few years before, at Miss Harrover's. She suggested that they should go "over to the city" together. On the way down to Bridge (M) Street to take the omnibus, they found they had no small change to pay their fare, so Martha said: "Never mind, I have a cousin in a store near here. He will change our money or lend us some." They went to him and she introduced my father to my mother!

This was the old Vanderwerken omnibus that ran along Bridge (M) Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, which became the Capital Traction Company, and now the Capital Transit Company.

I have often heard my mother tell of how the Southern girls would not walk under the Stars and Stripes hanging out from the hospital in the Seminary. They would cross to the other side of the street, and when the Union officers passed, they held aside their skirts. She has also described to me how the city was hung with black when Abraham Lincoln was killed.

Mr. Redin bequeathed his house to his only unmarried daughter, Catherine. She married later, and sold the house in 1873 and regretted it bitterly, to such an extent that she went into melancholia and committed suicide by taking poison. For a while it was Miss Lipscomb's School for Young Ladies, then it was bought by John D. Smoot, and his family lived there many years.

In 1915 Colonel W. E. P. French purchased the property. He leased it during the World War I to Honorable Newton D. Baker, then Secretary of War. At that time Georgetown had hardly begun to be fashionable again, and on first coming to Washington and hunting for a house, Mrs. Baker told a friend she was discouraged trying to find one with a yard where her three children could play, and that she thought they would have to go to Fort Myer. The friend answered in a tone of deep commiseration, "Too bad! You will have to pass through Georgetown!"

Another anecdote of somewhat the same tone was told me by an old lady who has lived all her life in one of the loveliest old Georgetown houses. Many years ago, while the street cars were still drawn by horses, she was in a car sitting opposite two women, one of whom was pointing out the sights to the other. They passed Dupont Circle, where she showed the Leiter house, etc., and as they crossed P Street Bridge, she said, "Now we are coming into Georgetown where nobody lives but colored people and a few white people who can't get away."

On the next block east is a little house, entirely changed now, which used to be very quaint in its appearance when it was covered with white plaster and approached by a sort of causeway from the sidewalk. It had belonged to Henry Foxall, though, of course, he never lived there.

On the southwest corner of Gay (N) and Greene (29th) Streets stands the house that was originally the property of John Davidson. Then Mrs. Williamson, a daughter of old Dr. Balch made her home here, followed by her daughter, Mrs. Hasle. Next door, on the west, lived the son, Joseph Williamson, whose wife was Marian Woods. Then the Howell family lived there, and from them, Colonel Harrison Howell Dodge, who was superintendent of Mount Vernon for over forty years, got his name. Later the house was rented to Mr. and Mrs. John Worthington, whose daughter, Lilah, married Mr. Henry Philip in April, 1865. She went to live at 3406 R Street.

A few years ago a gentleman who was an artist bought the house and changed the windows on the first floor front—to give more light for his studio, I was told.

The picturesque house on the northeast corner is always called "Admiral Weaver's house." The back portion is very old, and "they say" there is a ghost somewhere about. In the spring the hedge of Japanese quince here is a thing of beauty with its flaming color.

On the next block eastward at number 2812 is the house with a very beautiful doorway and a very interesting association. It was built in 1779, and was at one time the home of Judge Morsell, but it was called the Decatur house. There is the Decatur house on Lafayette Square in Washington, but we know that Admiral Decatur's widow left it after he was killed in the duel with Commodore James Barron, near Bladensburg, on March 22, 1820, and came to live in Georgetown. Tradition has persisted that this was the house she lived in. These parts of two letters written by Mrs. Basil Hall, in 1827, are from a volume called The Aristocratic Journey, being her letters home to her sister in Edinburgh:

January 4: ... I had a note to-night from a lady whom I had considerable curiosity to see, Mrs. Decatur, the widow of Commodore Decatur. I brought a letter to her from Mrs. MacTavish at Baltimore and sent it yesterday along with our cards. In this note she acknowledged the receipt of it, but excuses herself from calling upon me, "as peculiar circumstances attending a domestic affliction she has suffered makes it impossible for her to come to Washington." She asked us to spend the evening of the tenth with her, or any other evening that suits us better, a very kind note, in short, and we have promised to go on the eleventh. I knew that she would not return my visit before I came. The reason of this peculiarity is that her husband was killed in a duel, and she fears if she were to go into company either morning or evening she might meet his second, who she considers as having been very much to blame, or his antagonist. Now all this is very natural, and I only object to it because somehow she appears to have made her reasons too much the subject of conversation, which is very unlike real feeling. She sees a great deal of company at home. Her note smells so detestably of musk that it quite perfumes the room and was like to make me sick, so we had sealed it up in an envelope, but it shall go along with the next of the scraps.

January 6: We have had today weather much more like June than January, most extraordinary for this climate, where at this season there is generally severe frost and snow. I went out with a cloak on but speedily returned and exchanged that for a silk handkerchief tied round my throat, which was as much as I could bear. Yesterday, the fifth, we walked off by eleven o'clock to visit Mrs. Decatur, who lives at Georgetown, which is separated from Washington only by a little creek, across which there is a shabby enough tumble-down looking wooden bridge. There is so thick a fog that we could not see three yards before us, "quite English weather," as our friends here tell us, but not disagreeable to my mind as it was very mild. At the door of Mrs. Decatur's house we met General Van Rensselear, "the Patroon," who with his wife and daughter is now here. He went in with us and introduced us to the lady of the mansion, who we found dressed in very becoming weeds, and she gave us an extremely cordial reception. She is a pretty, pleasing-looking person and very animated, with no appearance of woe except the outward sign of cap and gown. We sat some time with her and walked home....

If only Mrs. Hall had been able to say where the house was to which they walked from across Rock Creek on that balmy day in January!

These other letters which follow are written to a young man then beginning to make his way in the world, who certainly was possessed of a most attractive personality, and it is not surprising that the widow might have been rather "setting her cap" for him.

My dear Mr. Corcoran:

If you should find yourself destitute of amusement this evening, while the belles are at church, I beg you to come and listen to some of my lamentations.

Yours sincerely, S. DECATUR.

My dear Mr. Corcoran:

I am happy to say that I can take you under my wing today, on the way to heaven, and I pray you to call for me at ten o'clock.

Yours sincerely, S. DECATUR.

Union Hotel, Monday morning.

My dear Mr. Corcoran:

The Iturbides have deferred their visit until Wednesday evening and I hope you will be able to come and meet them, with your sister and Colonel Thomas.

Yours sincerely, S. DECATUR.

If you have a moment to spare this evening I pray you to come and tell me how your brother's family are after this dreadful alarm.[A]

[Footnote A: The destruction of Mr. J. Corcoran's dwelling by fire.]

As we know, it was of no avail, for he seems to have remained "fancy free" until he met and married Louise Morris.

About 1828 Mrs. Decatur became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church through her close acquaintance with the Carroll family, it is thought. The latter part of her life was spent in a frame house on the brow of a hill about one hundred yards from Georgetown College, which she rented from Miss Hobbs. Here she died about 1860.

Among the souvenirs of the college is the portrait of Commodore Decatur by Gilbert Stuart, his ivory chess-board and men, and his jeweled toothpick box. The grave of Mrs. Decatur was discovered some time ago in the cemetery of Georgetown College. It had been overgrown and neglected and forgotten.

So had this part of Georgetown, until Admiral and Mrs. Spencer Wood bought 2808 and brought it back to its pristine glory. This house was built by John Stoddert Haw, nephew of Benjamin Stoddert, one of the founders of Christ Church, of which many of his descendants are still pillars. When the Woods lived here, there was at the back of the house a very lovely, unusual green garden, which gave a feeling of restfulness not always produced by a riot of glorious colors, opening off a paved area under a wide porch, like so many houses used to have.

The old house at 2806 is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Walker. He is the curator of the National Gallery of Art. Thomas Beall of George sold the land to John M. Gannt in 1804, who may have built this lovely house. It was purchased by Elisha Williams in 1810; also owned by Thomas Robertson and Thomas Clarke in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In the 1920's it was the home of Mrs. Hare Lippincott.

Across the street, at number 2723, a good many years ago, was where Thomas Harrison and his sister lived for a long time. Miss Virginia kept a little school for several years and her brother was a translator at the Naval Observatory until he was well up in his eighties. When he was over ninety he used to go out calling on Sunday afternoons, as spry as could be, and with his cheeks as rosy as pippins. They were a couple much beloved and typical of old-time days.



Chapter XI

The Three Philanthropists

George Town produced three eminent philanthropists: one whose benefactions were solely to Georgetown; a second, who became the greatest benefactor the City of Washington has ever had, and inaugurated the tremendous gifts to schools and colleges that have since become the fashion among men of great wealth; the third started his gifts at home, then crossed the ocean and made enormous contributions to the largest city in the world.

The first one, Edward Magruder Linthicum, had a hardware store on the northwest corner of High (Wisconsin) Avenue and Bridge (M) Street, the business hub then, as now, of Georgetown. He was a trustee of the Methodist Church and member of the Town Council.

He built the home at number 3019 P Street, which has such a beautiful doorway, and lived there until in 1846 he moved up on the Heights to The Oaks, for which he paid $11,000. William A. Gordon, in his book Old Houses in Georgetown Heights, says of him:

Mr. Linthicum was a prominent and prosperous merchant of the highest type, a man of great civic activities, and deeply interested in everything which tended to beautify the community. In his will by a legacy of $50,000 he provided for the endowment of a school for the free education of white boys of Georgetown in useful learning and in the spirit and practice of Christian virtue being, as he expressed it, convinced that knowledge and piety constitute the only assurance of happiness and healthful progress to the human race and devoutly recognizing the solemn duty to society which develops in its members, and entertaining a serious desire to contribute in some manner to the permanent welfare of the community, amongst whom my life has been spent.

As a commentary on the length to which partisan feeling went in the years succeeding the War Between the States, it may be stated that efforts to have the Linthicum Institute incorporated by Congress were prevented by Charles Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, for the reason that the benefits were confined to white youths.



The Linthicum Institute began its career in the lower floor of one side of the Curtis school building on P Street, opposite Saint John's Church. The name in large gold letters used to be there. The present building was erected about 1890 on the south side of O Street near 31st, the school occupying the lower floor, and Linthicum Hall, considered by the belles of the nineties to have the "best floor 'par excellence' for dancing anywhere," being the upper portion. I have been told it was the first night school in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Linthicum was a very imposing looking gentleman, was married, but had no children. He and his wife adopted a daughter, Kate, who became Mrs. Dent, and I think it was in honor of her or her son that the little street called Dent Place, just below R and between 30th and 31st Streets was named when that part of Georgetown, then nicknamed "Cooke Park" was developed.



William Wilson Corcoran, the third son of Thomas Corcoran, was born in George Town on December 27, 1798, in his father's home on Bridge (M) Street. He attended Mr. Kirk's school, later Reverend Addison Belt's, in between, having been for a while a day scholar at Georgetown College.

Contrary to his father's wishes for him to complete a classical education, at the age of seventeen he went into a dry goods store belonging to his brothers, James and Thomas. Two years later they established him in a small store of his own on the northwest corner of High (Wisconsin Avenue) and First (N) Streets. Again, two years later they all purchased a two-story brick house on the corner of Bridge (M) and Congress (31st) Streets and commenced a wholesale auction and commission business.

In the depression of 1823, when very many firms went to the wall, they too had to give up and settled with all their creditors for fifty cents on the dollar.

I think the aftermath of this story (which is the reason I have given it in detail) is most encouraging to this generation, struggling in the grip of the present depression, for the young man of twenty-five, after giving up four or five years to taking care of the business of his father, who was growing old, finally became connected with the Bank of Columbia, and in 1837 began a brokerage business in Washington in a little store 10 x 16 feet on Pennsylvania Avenue near 15th Street. He was so successful that he eventually took into partnership George W. Riggs, also of Georgetown, and changed the name to Corcoran and Riggs. In 1845 this firm purchased the old United States Bank on the corner of 15th Street and New York Avenue. And so the Riggs National Bank, today one of the strongest banks in the United States, was born. A little later George W. Riggs retired and Elisha, his brother, was made a junior partner.

In 1847 Mr. Corcoran sent to all people to whom he had been able to pay only 50% in his failure of 1823, the full amount due them, with interest, amounting to about forty-six thousand dollars, to their great surprise, as evidenced by letters I have read from them to him. Of all his great benefactions, this seems to me to have been the very finest thing he ever did.

He must have been a man of very remarkable personality, witness his going to Europe, the first of the very, very many trips he made in his life, on one day's notice, and against much discouragement, persuading Thomas Baring of the great London banking firm of Baring Brothers, to assist him in a sale of five millions of government bonds. At that time the firm of Corcoran and Riggs took, on its own account, nearly all the loans made by the United States.

On his return to New York he was greeted by everyone with enthusiasm, as this was the first sale of American securities abroad since 1837—eleven years.

In April, 1854, Mr. Corcoran withdrew from the firm, thinking he had made enough money, and spent the rest of his long life of ninety years—forty-five years more—spending his money in a manner unknown before that time.

Apropos of his money-making faculty, I have often been told by my aunt how her father, Henry Dunlop, when a boy, was walking along the street with young Corcoran, just his own age, when Henry, whose family was rather well-off in those days, seeing a penny lying on the pavement, kicked it ahead of him in his stride, as boys will do, but young Corcoran, stooping down, put it in his pocket saying, "Henry, you will never be a rich man." That prophecy came true, for Henry spent his life in farming, and you know what that means!

Among Mr. Corcoran's very first benefactions were gifts to the town of his birth. First of all a fund of $10,000 to be spent for firewood, etc., for the poor. It was left to the town authorities, but was administered by the Benevolent Society.

In 1849 he gave beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery, lying along the northern limit of the town. To me no other cemetery that I have ever seen in this country or abroad has the same natural beauty of slopes and trees—in the spring bedecked like a bride in flowering white shrubs; in the fall its towering oak trees aflame with shades of crimson.

I suppose what impressed on him the need of a cemetery for Georgetown so deeply was the death of his beloved wife in 1840. It had been a very romantic marriage. She was Louise Morris, the daughter of Commodore Charles Morris. Mr. Corcoran met his wife when she was sixteen and he was thirty-six. On the 23rd of December, 1835, they eloped, accompanied by Mr. Corcoran's sister-in-law, Mrs. James Corcoran, who later became the second wife of John Marbury, senior, and to the day of her death was greatly beloved by Mr. Corcoran. When she was lying in her coffin on 14th Street, he came there and although somewhat lamed by paralysis and nearly ninety years of age, he insisted upon climbing the long flight of stairs to the room where she lay, saying over and over as he toiled up the many steps: "I must see Harriet once more!" I suppose in his mind he was living over the great event in his life when she helped to secure for him the only love of his life. And so pitifully short a time he had her, for only five years afterwards, when she was twenty-one, she died of tuberculosis. In those short years she had had three children, Harriet Louise, Louise Morris, and Charles Morris. Of these the middle child, Louise, was the only one to grow up.

Although Commodore Morris had greatly disapproved of his daughter's marriage, which was very natural as at that time he was one of the most eminent officers of the United States Navy, and Mr. Corcoran had not then entered on the career which eventually made him the most distinguished private citizen of the capital of the nation, he grew to greatly admire and respect his son-in-law. For there are preserved in A Grandfather's Legacy, a collection of letters received by Mr. Corcoran, and compiled by him before his death, several letters from Charles Morris, showing the deepest trust and affection.

I suppose there was never a daughter more beloved and petted than Louise Morris Corcoran. Her father seemed to expend on her all the affection of his great big heart, and she seems to have been a very lovely character. When she was about ten years old she fell overboard from a vessel and was only saved from drowning by the quickness and skill of Gurdon B. Smith. Among these letters are several in regard to this incident, for Mr. Corcoran, in his gratitude for this merciful deliverance, sent through an agent, $1,000 to Mr. Smith, an artisan, who was very grateful and considered he had received a fortune. But, not satisfied with that, Mr. Corcoran secured an appointment as lighthouse keeper for Mr. Smith at a point not far from his home, a life position with a good salary, but Mr. Smith refused it as he seemed perfectly satisfied with his circumstances.

Mr. Corcoran's money doubled and trebled and quadrupled, and the following letter shows how his judgment was sought on political as well as financial questions:

My dear Sir:

I wish you would come to my house about 8 this evening and tell me, in five words, what are the best reasons to be given to friends of the administration for not passing the sub-treasury bill at present.

Yours, D. WEBSTER.

He had a close friendship with Edward Everett, senator from Massachusetts, who was frequently his guest. He and ex-President Fillmore traveled abroad together. The letters he received from many of the great of the earth make very interesting reading. By the middle of the nineteenth century this Georgetown boy of rather modest parentage was living in a very fine house in Washington, in great elegance, entertaining everyone of any importance who came to the capital. There is on record now a letter from a gentleman in England, bringing to his attention the coming of the new Minister and his wife from Great Britain, Lord and Lady Napier. Although, as he had said "he knows he will receive a great deal of attention, yet he wishes Mr. Corcoran, particularly to honor them." He was consulted by presidents for his opinion on financial matters. Baron Humboldt, the great German geographer, kept up a correspondence with him to the day of his death.

After a brilliant girlhood, Louise Corcoran had married the Honorable George Eustis of New Orleans, representative in Congress. When the Civil War came and shattered all existing social ties, Mr. Eustis, of course, took the Southern side, as did Mr. Corcoran. Mr. Eustis, who had been appointed Confederate Secretary of Legation at the same time that the Honorable John Slidell was appointed Minister to France, after being held a prisoner in Maine, went over to France, where he was joined by his wife. Neither ever returned to this country. They made their home there, their three children were born there, they died there, were finally brought back and buried in Oak Hill under the beautiful little Doric temple Mr. Corcoran had erected for his first Louise.

Those three grandchildren then became his pride and joy. But more and more he absorbed himself in his benefactions. It is impossible to tell all of them. Beginning with his gift of Oak Hill to Georgetown in 1849, in 1850 a loan to the Roman Catholic Church there which, like all of his loans, he eventually turned into gifts; in 1851 he gave an organ to the Lunatic Asylum in Staunton, Virginia, saying he knew of nothing better than to give music to those whose souls were so troubled. About this time he gave the lot for the Washington City Orphan Asylum, and a little later the one for the Y. M. C. A. For many years he had been collecting painting and sculpture, both on his trips to Europe and from the various persons who wrote to him soliciting his patronage. These were at first kept in his own house, but then he decided to build a gallery and give them to the City of Washington, so he erected the building on Pennsylvania Avenue at the corner of 17th Street, directly opposite the State, War and Navy Building. It was just nearing completion when the Civil War began and was taken over by the United States Government as an annex to the War Department, so that it was not until 1869 that it was opened as the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1897 the collection was moved to the beautiful new building lower down on 17th Street and was formally opened on February 22nd by a brilliant reception at which were President and Mrs. Cleveland and all of their Cabinet.

Above the doorway of the old building, in the stone, is still seen a carved medallion with W. W. C. intertwined.

Just about that time, also, Mr. Corcoran began to build another of his beneficent gifts to the city. His beloved daughter had died, and the city and the country was filled with ladies who had been made penniless by the cruel fratricidal war. In 1871 he turned over to the trustees the Louise Home on Massachusetts Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets, as a home for gentlewomen, the only requirements being enough money to furnish their own clothes and their burial expenses, even lots in Oak Hill were reserved for them after the Louise Home failed to suffice. It was very natural that for a long time its clientele was largely made up of Southerners, as there were very, very many more of them impoverished at that time, and also Mr. Corcoran was himself in sympathy with the Confederates. It is said he saved his house from confiscation by renting it to the French Minister.

Many, very many, were the letters he received thanking him for the help he had sent to widows and orphans of soldiers of the South. He founded homes of that kind in Charleston, South Carolina, and in other places, besides rendering assistance most tactfully in many private cases. Many of these letters are very touching in their gratitude.

His friendship for James Mason, of the Mason and Slidell affair, was close, as was his very real association with General Robert E. Lee, witnessed by letters from General Lee during his life in Lexington, Virginia, after the war, and from Dr. William Pendleton, General Lee's rector there, and from Mrs. Lee in regard to General Lee's death.

He and General Lee spent several summers at the "Old White," as the Greenbriar White Sulphur Springs was then affectionately known. As the years rolled on, Anthony Hyde, a Georgetown man, was kept busy administering the benefactions of his employer. He has told how during a trip through the South after the war, with Mr. Corcoran (he was his secretary), he had difficulty in keeping Mr. Corcoran's gifts within bounds. I was told not long ago by a man in the employ of Oak Hill, how an old street-car conductor had described to him the sight of Mr. Corcoran going to his office, and on the sidewalk in front of it each morning was a line to which he always dispensed "green money," as the old man called it.

The business of his life then was judiciously giving away his money. Here are some of the ways he did it: colleges had always appealed to him, and he was for many years Rector of Columbian University in Washington, now renamed George Washington, and gave freely to it. His name is now borne by one of their largest and best buildings, Corcoran Hall. He gave to the Maryland Agricultural College, to the College of William and Mary in Virginia, loaned money to the Virginia Military Institute and when the bonds came due, tore them up—a little way he had. To Washington and Lee University, also in Lexington, he gave $20,000 besides the library purchased from the widow of Nathaniel Howard, thus, it helped in the getting as well as in the giving.

His portrait hangs in the little chapel in Lexington where lies the body of his friend, Robert Edward Lee. To the University of Virginia he gave $100,000 which endowed two chairs, also giving $5,000 to resuscitate the library which had suffered during the war and the period following, from being unable to procure any new books.

He was one of the first people to subscribe to the fund being raised by certain ladies to purchase Mount Vernon, after the Washington family found themselves unable to keep it up and offered it to the United States Government, which refused to buy and preserve it.

The Episcopal Church of the Ascension on the corner of 12th Street and Massachusetts Avenue was built almost entirely with his money. William Pinckney, its rector when it was begun, was very devoted to Mr. Corcoran. He afterwards became Bishop of Maryland. It worried him exceedingly that Mr. Corcoran had never become a confirmed member and communicant of the church. Many are the long and eloquent letters he wrote to him on the subject. Finally, in his old age, the old gentleman did come forward and be confirmed. The friendship between these two seems to have been very sweet. The Bishop was a simple soul, a great lover of flowers and birds. He was always sending gifts of grapes to his wealthy friend, from Bladensburg. He now rests not far from his friend in Oak Hill. The inscription on his stone, which is surmounted by his statue reads thus:

WILLIAM PINCKNEY, D. D., L L. D.

APRIL 17, 1820 JULY 4, 1883

Guileless and fearless.

All through his life Mr. Corcoran was a very sociable person. He always loved to play whist and in the last years of his life his nephews and nieces and great-nephews and great-nieces used to go often to play with him and pass the long evenings. A friend of mine remembers being taken as a little girl, with her grandmother, to call on him. She was fascinated by the room where he sat, which had medallions of children's heads, set at intervals into the paneling of the walls. She said he told her they were his grandchildren. She loved looking at them and was distressed when told to go out in the garden to play.

That garden to the house where he lived for many years and where he died, stood on H Street at the corner of Connecticut Avenue. Daniel Webster had lived there before him. The flowering trees in the spring hung over the high brick wall on the Connecticut Avenue side and gladdened the hearts of all who saw them. It was a sad day for Washington, historically, when that whole square was reconstructed. If only one could endow old houses!

At last, on the 24th of February, 1888, W. W. Corcoran, as he was always known, was laid to rest in his own beautiful Oak Hill. I remember as a little girl standing at the window of my home facing 31st Street and hearing the bell of near-by Christ Church toll ninety strokes as carriage after carriage passed slowly up the hill. My brother and I counted them, and there were ninety-nine.

George Peabody, the third of my trio of philanthropists who got their start in Georgetown, was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, on February 18, 1795. He was descended from an old yeoman family of Hertfordshire, England, named Pabody or Pebody. At eleven years he was an apprentice in a grocery store, and at fifteen, by his father's death, he was left an orphan and was cheerfully helping to support his mother and sisters. He soon after left Danvers and became an assistant to his uncle in his business in Georgetown. When he was seventeen he served as a volunteer in the War of 1812 in the artillery company of Major George Peter against the British, which is interesting, as in later life he was offered a baronetcy by Queen Victoria, which he refused.



After the war, when he was about nineteen, he became a partner with Elisha Riggs in a dry goods store in Georgetown and through his energy and skill the business increased tremendously. They moved to Baltimore, and when his partner retired, about 1830, he found himself, according to The Encyclopaedia Britannica, at the head of one of the largest mercantile concerns in the world. About seven years afterwards he established himself in London as a merchant and money-broker at Wonford Court in the city, and in 1843 he withdrew from the American business.

He was never married. He was a very intimate friend of Mr. Corcoran's, and in several letters to him speaks jokingly of himself as a confirmed old bachelor, and in one flouts the idea that he is attentive to a certain lady, saying that he never but once seriously thought of marriage.

Of course, he and Mr. Corcoran were near the same age and were both making their way as young men here in Georgetown at the same time, and it is very interesting to follow, from many letters, how their friendship continued through all their lives.

Mr. Peabody made frequent visits to his homeland, and used often to visit Mr. Corcoran at his home in Washington, and to spend the summers with him at the White Sulphur Springs.

When hearing of the beginning of the great gifts of his friend on this side of the water, he wrote in October, 1851:

However liberal I may be over here, I can not keep pace with your noble acts of charity at home; but one of these days I mean to come out, and then if my feelings regarding money don't change and I have plenty, I shall become a strong competitor of yours in benevolence.

He certainly made good his words. In London he entertained in princely style. The following letter is one of the many telling of his parties there:

London, May 16, 1853.

My dear Corcoran:

On the 18th I am to give a grand banquet to the American Minister and about sixty-five English and eighty-five American ladies and gentlemen, and have invited about fifty more for the evening. Mr. Van Buren will be of the party and I hope to make it the best dinner party I have ever given, as I have the Star and Garter, Richmond, and the proprietor has no limit. I enclose you the programme of music during and after dinner.

I have taken the house—Star and Garter—for a Fourth of July dinner to gentlemen only, and expect about 150. I hear from Mr. Ingersoll that your friend, Mr. Buchanan, will leave in June. Now, although I only know Mr. Buchanan from his high character and what you say of him, particularly as he is unmarried, and I would like to invite the party for the fourth of July to meet "the American Minister, Mr. Ingersoll, and the new Minister, Mr. Buchanan." Will you confer with Mr. Buchanan on receipt of this and try to get me permission to give the invitations as I propose? If Mr. Buchanan leaves 13th or 16th June, he will arrive in ample time.

Very truly,

GEORGE PEABODY.

In 1867 he gave $15,000 to found the Peabody Library in Georgetown. A large donation was given by him to the second Grinnell Arctic Expedition. The museum in Salem, Massachusetts, called by his name, is a fascinating collection of historic relics. To his birthplace he gave 50,000 pounds ($250,000) for educational purposes; for the Peabody Institute in Baltimore 200,000 pounds ($1,000,000.00); to the trustees of the Peabody Educational Fund to promote education in the Southern States (part went to Washington and Lee University in Lexington). A dear old cousin of mine has told me of his visit to the White Sulphur to confer with Mr. Corcoran and Mr. Peabody on this subject. The thing he is remembered for in London is the erection of a huge block of model houses for working people at a cost of 500,000 pounds ($2,500,000). I suppose it was then that Queen Victoria wished to do him honor.

His true nature remained untainted by success, and Gladstone said of him: "He taught the world how a man may be master of his fortune, and not its slave."

In 1867 the Congress of the United States awarded him a special vote of thanks, and two years later, when he died in London on the 4th of November 1869, his body was brought home to America on a British warship, to be buried in Danvers, the town of his birth, now renamed Peabody in his honor.



Chapter XII

The Seminary, Washington (30th) Street and Dumbarton Avenue

Nowadays, all to the east of here bordering on Rock Creek has been made into a park and playground, and some attractive houses built overlooking them.

On the southeast corner of Montgomery (28th) Street and Dumbarton Avenue, the large brick building now used as a colored Temple of Islam was where Henry Addison, who had been mayor, was living when he died in 1870.

This house later was the home of General Christopher Colon Augur. One night he came out on his porch to remonstrate with a crowd of negroes gathered on this corner and making a disturbance. He was promptly shot by one of them.

Just east of here on Dumbarton Avenue at number 2720 is the home of the Alsop brothers, the well-known columnists, and a new Roman Catholic Church has been built for the colored people. There are six colored churches in the region hereabouts: This Catholic one, three Baptist churches, and two Methodists. Mount Zion Methodist on Greene (29th) Street is over a hundred years old. In the nineties, there were two men in the choir there, one an exceptional organist and the other, who had a very fine bass voice; he later went to Paris.

From this point to Rock Creek is the district that was known as Herring Hill, a synonym in the minds of old residents for the negro district. It got its name from the fact that in the spring great quantities of herring came up this far into the creek from the river, and were caught in large numbers.

I think this account, by Mr. William A. Gordon, of some of the customs of the negroes in the years gone by is very attractive and interesting:

Christmas was the great time for the negroes. Ordinarily, they were not allowed in the streets after the town bell rang at nine o'clock at night, but at Christmas this restriction was removed, and as midnight approached, bands of them would go through the streets singing hymns and carols before the houses of their white friends. The next morning the leader of the band called at the house and received a token of appreciation in the way of small coin.

On May Day there was a parade of the negro drivers; many drove carts, drays and wagons, for on that day they had holiday, and paraded with wagons and horses adorned with ribbons, flowers and bright papers, the drivers wearing long white aprons, and headed by a band. They would then go to the woods and feast, dance and sing.

At the southeast corner of Dumbarton Avenue and Greene (29th) Street, the four little yellow houses made into one make the home of Drew Pearson, the widely-known columnist and commentator—co-author with Robert S. Allen of the original "Washington Merry-Go-Round."

A block west, on the southeast corner of Washington (30th) Street is a fine old house where Mrs. James Cassin lived as a wealthy widow during the 1850's. She was Tabitha Ann Deakins, of that old family so prominent in the making of the town.

James Cassin had come from Ireland to the City of Baltimore when he was about twenty years of age, on account of religious troubles, the motive which sent so many emigrants to the new country. He then moved over to this thriving seaport, married and settled, leaving his wife a very young widow with three sons. One of them, John, went far from home to live, and his mother's letters to him contain a great deal of interesting gossip. In one she tells that Margaret McVean has gone to Baltimore to buy her wedding dress, and, horror of horrors, has allowed the groom, Dr. Louis Mackall, to accompany her. Of course a chaperone was in the party, but what an indelicate thing for the groom to know anything about the wedding clothes! She ends with, "What are the young people coming to?" How often have we heard those same words in recent years. Of course in those days, a bride went into deep retirement for a week before the fateful day, not going out into the street at all, and as for seeing the groom on the day until she met him at the altar, that was simply unthinkable!