William A. GordonWilliam A. Gordon
The interesting-looking house to the east of Hamilton Dodge's, 2811 P Street, was built in 1840. That is where the Gordon family were living when William A. Gordon, junior, came back from the Civil War. Certainly, that must have been a joyous occasion, and there were happy hearts within the old walls that night. His sister Josephine (Mrs. Sowers), Margaret Robinson (Mrs. Thomas Cox), and Elizabeth Dodge (Mrs. John Beall), all exceedingly handsome women, were belles in their youth, and a trio of great friends to the end of their lives.
The family of Admiral Sigsbee were living here when the U. S. battleshipMaine, of which he was the captain, was blown up in the harbor of Havana in 1898. His wife was a daughter of Admiral Lockwood. It is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Ihlder.
At 2805 P Street lives Honorable Dean G. Acheson, now Secretary of State. For a while, in the latter part of the last century, a quaint and very well-known lady made this house her home—Miss Emily V. Mason, of Virginia, from whom Mr. Corcoran received friendly and grateful letters, thanking him for contributions to her work for "her children," as she called them. The letters were written from Europe. She evidently had groups of Southern children in various cities for whom she provided, using for that purpose money made by her writings, to which she refers. I remember how picturesque she was in appearance: a lovely face, surrounded by long, white curls, crowned by a wide-brimmed, black bonnet tied with a wide ribbon. She seemed to have quite a salon during her residence here, serving tea and substantial refreshments to all her friends who called in the afternoons.
The iron fence around these houses is made of old musket barrels, used during the Mexican War, and was put there by Reuben Daw, who owned a large part of this block.
Just across the street from Mr. Acheson used to live a lady, the widow of Mr. Hein, the artist, who like "Anna" in the Bible spent all her days in the "courts of the Lord," the Catholic Church. She always wore a long black coatand a crêpe veil to her heels, rode a bicycle back and forth to church, the long veil floating out behind. One evening she was struck by an automobile and killed instantly. The niece to whom she had left her little house had made an arrangement with a middle-aged woman living there that if she took care of "Aunt Martha" she could have the house tax free all her days. Her days are still continuing—and with all the advance in prices of houses, the niece can't do a thing about the house!
The dear little white frame cottage just above here on Montgomery (28th) Street, was built about 1840, and occupied by Benjamin F. Miller, who came from Saugerties, New York, as an engineer, to construct the Aqueduct Bridge which carried the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal across the river to Virginia. And, on the corner of Montgomery (28th) and Stoddert (Q) Streets is the last of the big Dodge houses on the corners of Georgetown. It is the one built by Robert Perley Dodge in 1850. He and his brother, Francis Dodge, junior, used practically the same plans for their houses. Robert Dodge was a civil engineer, and, I think, had something to do with the planning of the Aqueduct Bridge.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert Dodge became a paymaster in the Union Army. After the war, he became identified with the government of the District of Columbia, serving as treasurer and auditor for several years until he died. It is said he planted the enormous maple trees that adorn this block of 28th Street.
During the first World War, when this house had stood a long time untenanted and sad, it was opened up as a night club called "The Carcassonne," and postals were sent out advertising "Coffee in the Coal Bin." These werethe days of prohibition. Somebody who lived there played the piano, incessantly. The Ballengers had lived here; the Powells, and Major Gilliss; and then Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick (now Mrs. Albert Simms), lived here until she bought three houses down on 30th Street below N Street, and made them into one very attractive house with an unusual and lovely garden.
Later Honorable Warren Delano Robbins, a first cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of the ushers at his wedding, and at one time Minister to Canada, bought this house, changed it somewhat and made it very lovely in its new dress of yellow paint on the old plaster.
When he went to Ottawa he leased it to Honorable Dwight F. Davis, former Secretary of War, once Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, and also donor of the Davis Tennis Cup.
It has now for several years been the home of Mrs. William Corcoran Eustis. She is the daughter of one-time Vice-President Paul Morton.
Just across the street from here is the house that Honorable and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss bought when they gave their fine estate, "Dumbarton Oaks," to Harvard University. This house was built by Mr. Thomas Hyde and was where he and Mrs. Hyde lived till the end of their days. She was Fannie Rittenhouse and had grown up in the old house close by, known for a hundred years as "Bellevue," but renamed "Dumbarton House," when the National Society of Colonial Dames of America bought it for their Headquarters in 1928. It is one of the finest, most beautiful, and most interesting of the old places of Georgetown. It has always been somewhat shrouded in mystery, as toits builder and owner. We do know, of course, that this was part of the grant of the Rock of Dumbarton to Ninian Beall and, through his son, George, descended to Thomas, who, in 1783 made his first Addition to George Town. Thomas may have built a small house here, but this was not the house where his father, George, was living when his wife died and was "buried nearby"—that was on Gay (N) Street at the house now 3033 N Street.
In 1796 Thomas Beall of George sold this property to Peter Casanave, who, two months later, sold it to Uriah Forrest. He kept it for a year—never lived there—and sold it to Isaac Pollock. There was wild speculation in real estate at that time on account of the new Federal City being located here. After one year Pollock sold the property to Samuel Jackson.
It seems that it was then that Samuel Jackson started to build this mansion, but got into financial difficulties and it was mortgaged to two or three people and finally foreclosed. In 1804 the place was bought by Gabriel Duval, then Comptroller of the Currency of the United States, afterwards a Justice of the Supreme Court.
In 1805 Joseph Nourse, Registrar of the United States Treasury, who had been until that time living on Congress (31st) Street in George Town, bought it and lived there until 1813. He had this position from 1789 to 1829 and was in charge of moving all the records of the Treasury Department when the Government moved from Philadelphia to the new capital in Washington.
Mr. Nourse had been born in London in 1754; came to Virginia and fought in the Revolution. He was secretary to General Charles Lee and Auditor of the Board of War.His wife was Maria Louisa Bull of Philadelphia, and they had two children, Charles Joseph Nourse, who became a Major in the Army, and Anna Maria Josepha, who was a lovely girl and took part in the prominent social affairs of the new city. She is spoken of in the diary of Sir Augustus Foster, British Minister of that period.
When the National Society of Colonial Dames had this house restored, a penny bearing the date 1800 was found in one of the front walls where such an identification was often placed, and architects think that Samuel Jackson began to build this house, using perhaps the little house that was on the property as a wing, and that then Joseph Nourse took it over and was really the builder of this fine mansion. It was probably intended for entertaining for his beloved daughter, for, after her death, which occurred at one of the Virginia springs one summer, he sold the place and moved out to a small frame house on a high hill overlooking the Federal City. He called his new home "Mount Alban," because it reminded him of the place of the same name in England. It was there that the first British martyr, Saint Alban, was killed. Mr. Nourse was a very religious man and used to walk about in the grove of oak trees surrounding his house and pray that some day a House of God might stand upon that spot; that is exactly where the Washington Cathedral is now being erected.
Mr. Nourse had many famous guests visit him in his modest home there—among them: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams.
Dumbarton HouseDumbarton House
Mr. Nourse's son, Major Charles Joseph Nourse, married Rebecca Morris whose father, Anthony Morris, of Philadelphia, was an intimate and life-long friend of Dolly Madison. Major Nourse built the old stone houseout on the road to Rockville and called it "The Highlands." Tradition says that a large box bush at "The Highlands" has grown from a tiny sprig of box which Mrs. Madison plucked from her bouquet at the inauguration of her husband and gave to Mr. Morris.
"The Highlands" was a large household, for Major and Mrs. Nourse had eleven children, and Mr. Morris resided there also. They have been a very remarkable family, noted for their longevity, their steadfast, noble character, and their loyalty to the Episcopal Church. It was from the prayers and savings of Phoebe Nourse, who died as a young girl, that St. Alban's Church has risen on that ground which she wished to dedicate to the glory of God.
"The Highlands" many years later became the home of Admiral and Mrs. Gary T. Grayson.
But to return to the old house which blocked Stoddert (Q) Street or Back Street, as it was sometimes called. Mr. Nourse sold this house, his Georgetown home, in 1813 to Charles Carroll, who gave it the name of Bellevue, and thereafter always styled himself "of Bellevue." He was a nephew of Daniel Carroll, of Duddington. He also was a great friend of Mrs. Madison's, and helped her in her dramatic escape from the White House when the British were on their way to burn and plunder it. There has always been a story that Daniel Carroll brought her over the road to Georgetown, crossing at the P Street bridge, and that she stopped by Bellevue. There she is supposed to have met Mr. Madison whom she had not seen since early morning. This was the day of the Battle of Bladensburg when confusion reigned supreme. At the meeting Mr. and Mrs. Madison agreed on the routes and rendezvous of retreat.
From old letters it seems that she continued on out of town to "Weston," the estate of Walter S. Chandler, which was situated near the present junction of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues. I can dimly remember the quaint white, frame house and the legend of Dolly Madison being there. She then went on to the encampment at Tenally Town, where she slept in a tent that night under guard, and the next day crossed into Virginia.
Mr. Carroll and his brother had not long before become owners of the paper mill on Rock Creek just south of Bellevue, so that must have been his reason for making it his home.
In 1820 he leased the place to Samuel Whitall, of Philadelphia, whose wife was Lydia Newbold. Mr. Whitall was a distinguished-looking old gentleman, and used to drive around in a high, two-wheeled gig, the last of its kind in the town.
When Charles Carroll died in 1841, the place was bought by the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whitall. A daughter, Sarah Whitall, was born at Bellevue in 1822 and lived there for over seventy years. She married Mr. Rittenhouse of Philadelphia. The place remained in the Rittenhouse family until 1896, when they sold it to Howard Hinckley. In the intervening years, its appearance had been greatly changed by a coat of plaster over the old bricks, which Mr. Hinckley removed. It was very lovely, both inside and out, during the years that Mr. and Mrs. Hinckley made it their home. Some very delightful parties were given there. Then candlelight was the only illumination, and even the flowers used were redolent of colonial days. The rooms were filled with furniture ofthe right type; and I remember that the bedrooms even had the old washstands with holes in the tops for bowls and pitchers which also were exactly "right" in their period.
After that, Colonel Langfitt leased the house, and a very lovely wedding took place out of doors under an enormous tree, when his daughter married an officer of the United States Army.
In 1912 it was bought by John L. Newbold, a relative of the Lydia Newbold of long ago. After a great deal of agitation on the subject of cutting Q Street through, and putting a bridge across Rock Creek to connect with the city, the District government in 1915 moved the old house to its present location, for it had been sitting exactly in the path of progress all these years, there being a George Town Ordinance that a street could not be cut through without consent of the owner. I only wish progress could have made a circle around the old mansion and left it in its setting of stately, primeval trees.
Miss Loulie Rittenhouse, who had been born and reared there, worked untiringly for the opening of the street, the bridge, and also for Montrose Park, with the salvation of the glorious old oak trees it contains.
Slowly, very, very slowly, old Bellevue was placed on huge rollers, horses were attached to a windlass, and it almost took a microscope to see the progress made day by day, but at last it reached its present site, safe and sound. It was necessary to pull down and rebuild the wings, as they had no cellars. Of course, the wall is also new.
It was leased during World War I to various people of importance in Washington for war work, and finally, in1928, bought by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America. It has been handsomely and suitably furnished as a house of the Federal period, and is open to the public as a museum house. A beautiful house it is; the usual wide hall through the middle, with vistas through the two big doors, four rooms opening off it, the two back ones being rounded out at the northern ends.
Tudor PlaceTudor Place
LLIKE the brightest jewel in its crown of old houses, Tudor Place, now the home of Armistead Peter, junior, sits high and aloof on the heights of Georgetown. Its southern front, shown here, is the one most familiar to everyone, and it is the view that I looked out on every day of my life for more than a score of years from my father's house on Stoddert (Q) Street.
LIKE the brightest jewel in its crown of old houses, Tudor Place, now the home of Armistead Peter, junior, sits high and aloof on the heights of Georgetown. Its southern front, shown here, is the one most familiar to everyone, and it is the view that I looked out on every day of my life for more than a score of years from my father's house on Stoddert (Q) Street.
As Mrs. Beverley Kennon, its owner during my youth, was my cousin and had her motherless grandchildren living with her, some of my earliest recollections are of running round and round the old circle of box in front of the north entrance, playing "colors." I never, to this day, smell box that I am not back at Tudor Place and see the cobwebs in the old bushes bright with raindrops, as box, of course, is really fragrant only after rain. Also there were lovely times in the fall when the leaves were being raked up by old John, the colored gardener, who would let us climb on top of the brilliant load in a wheelbarrow with a crate on top of it. Such rides! Old John was a character (and one we loved dearly), not much over five feet tall, with grizzled hair and goatee, and always wearing an apron tied around his waist and a derby hat on his head.
Tudor Place was purchased by Francis Lowndes, one of the prominent tobacco merchants and shippers, in 1794,from Thomas Beall of George who made a large addition to George Town in 1783, called by his name. Mr. Lowndes started to build a mansion, but in 1805 he sold the property to Thomas Peter and his wife, the former Martha Parke Custis.
Thomas PeterThomas Peter
When the Peters moved to their new home in George Town they used the western wing, already built, with its addition on the east, as their home, and the eastern wing was their carriage house and stable. This fact has been proved by finding below the floors the signs of the old stalls, and up in the rafters the corncobs of long ago. I have known people who remembered the old yellowcoach which often stood out in the stable yard, and I've been told that if one dug deep enough its cobblestones would still be found.
Mr. and Mrs. Peter decided to use the fortune left her by her grandmother, Mrs. Washington, to build a stately mansion. They certainly succeeded. They engaged as architect Dr. William Thornton, whose plans for the Capitol had been accepted in the second competition, as the first yielded none sufficiently good.
Dr. Thornton and his wife were intimate friends of the Peters, and a beautiful miniature of him, done by her, is now in the possession of one of the family. Mrs. Thornton was with Mrs. Peter when the British soldiers set fire to the Capitol in 1814, and the two ladies sat at the window of what is now the dining room of Tudor Place—the low part between the main building and the western wing—and watched the conflagration. You can imagine their grief as one saw the work of her husband destroyed, and the other, the building which had been so much in the mind and heart of her revered grandfather.
There is in existence a very lovely painting of Mrs. Peter at about the time of her marriage; a sweet, young girl with light curls, and the embodiment of daintiness. Suspended about her neck is, I think, the miniature which General Washington had painted for her as a wedding gift. When he asked her what she wanted she replied "a replica of himself." He was much pleased that a young girl would want a portrait of an old man! The photograph reproduced of Thomas Peter is from a portrait done by him by his son-in-law, Captain William G. Williams.
Mrs. Thomas Peter (Martha Parke Custis)Mrs. Thomas Peter (Martha Parke Custis)
While on a visit to Tudor Place occurred the death of Mrs. Peter's mother, the former Eleanor Calvert. She was fifty-three years old, and had borne twenty children.
Mr. and Mrs. Peter had a family of eight children. Three of the daughters had striking names: America, Columbia, and Britannia.
When General Lafayette paid his visit to Georgetown in 1824 it was, of course, most natural that he should be entertained at Tudor Place, as Mrs. Peter had known him in her childhood at Mount Vernon. At that time America met her husband, Captain Williams, who was acting as an aide for the Marquis. In later years, as chief of engineers on the staff of General Zachary Taylor, Captain Williams was killed at the Battle of Monterey. On that same visit Lafayette presented the youngest child, Britannia, a little girl of nine, with a lovely little desk, now in the National Museum in the loan collection of her grandson, Walter G. Peter. On its under side it has an inscription in the handwriting of Martha Custis Peter, telling her daughter its history.
Britannia Wellington Peter was born on January 27, 1815. She died the day before her ninety-sixth birthday, and this editorial, fromThe Baltimore Sun, gives a fine picture of the changes in the world in the years covered by the span of her life:
A Long and Interesting LifeMrs. Britannia Wellington Kennon, who died at Tudor Place, her historic home in Georgetown, on the 26th instant, and who will be buried today, was for many years a most interesting figure in the social life of Washington. She was the last in her generation of the descendants of Mrs. Martha Washington. John Parke Custis, Mrs. Washington's son, left four children. One of his daughters, Martha, married Thomas Peter, and Mrs. Kennon was their daughter. She married Commodore Beverley Kennon, of the United States Navy, whose father was General Richard Kennon, of Washington's staff, a charter member of the Society of the Cincinnati, and a grandson of Sir William Skipwith. Commodore Kennon was killed in 1844 by the explosion on the U. S. S.Princeton, so Mrs. Kennon was a widow for more than sixty-six years.Tudor Place, Mrs. Kennon's home, was famous for the distinguished guests that were entertained there, among them being General Lafayette, who visited there in 1824. She was the center of an intellectual and cultivated society, and was always in touch with the progress of events in the world.Mrs. Kennon was born three weeks after the Battle of NewOrleans, and several months before the Battle of Waterloo. Her life spanned the period of the great advance in the appliances of civilization in this and the last century. It was very important that the news of the battle of Waterloo should reach London without delay, and yet with every appliance and speed then known, it took three days for the news to reach England. Indeed, when Mrs. Kennon was thirty-two years of age, it required eight months to travel from New England to Oregon. At the age of fifteen she could have been a passenger on the first passenger railroad train that was ever run; until she was five years old, there was no such thing as an iron plow in all the world, and until she was grown up, the people were dependent on tinder boxes and sun glasses to light their fires. She had reached the age of twenty-three years when steam communication between Europe and America was established, and when the first telegram ever sent passed between Baltimore and Washington she was still a young woman. If all the advances in civilization which took place during the lifetime of this remarkable lady were catalogued, they would make a singularly interesting list.
A Long and Interesting Life
Mrs. Britannia Wellington Kennon, who died at Tudor Place, her historic home in Georgetown, on the 26th instant, and who will be buried today, was for many years a most interesting figure in the social life of Washington. She was the last in her generation of the descendants of Mrs. Martha Washington. John Parke Custis, Mrs. Washington's son, left four children. One of his daughters, Martha, married Thomas Peter, and Mrs. Kennon was their daughter. She married Commodore Beverley Kennon, of the United States Navy, whose father was General Richard Kennon, of Washington's staff, a charter member of the Society of the Cincinnati, and a grandson of Sir William Skipwith. Commodore Kennon was killed in 1844 by the explosion on the U. S. S.Princeton, so Mrs. Kennon was a widow for more than sixty-six years.
Tudor Place, Mrs. Kennon's home, was famous for the distinguished guests that were entertained there, among them being General Lafayette, who visited there in 1824. She was the center of an intellectual and cultivated society, and was always in touch with the progress of events in the world.
Mrs. Kennon was born three weeks after the Battle of NewOrleans, and several months before the Battle of Waterloo. Her life spanned the period of the great advance in the appliances of civilization in this and the last century. It was very important that the news of the battle of Waterloo should reach London without delay, and yet with every appliance and speed then known, it took three days for the news to reach England. Indeed, when Mrs. Kennon was thirty-two years of age, it required eight months to travel from New England to Oregon. At the age of fifteen she could have been a passenger on the first passenger railroad train that was ever run; until she was five years old, there was no such thing as an iron plow in all the world, and until she was grown up, the people were dependent on tinder boxes and sun glasses to light their fires. She had reached the age of twenty-three years when steam communication between Europe and America was established, and when the first telegram ever sent passed between Baltimore and Washington she was still a young woman. If all the advances in civilization which took place during the lifetime of this remarkable lady were catalogued, they would make a singularly interesting list.
Mrs. Kennon was left a widow when less than thirty years of age, with her one child, Martha Custis Kennon. To Mrs. Kennon and her daughter Mrs. Thomas Peter bequeathed Tudor Place, having long survived her husband, and her other children having received their inheritance. Martha Custis Kennon married her cousin, Dr. Armistead Peter, the son of Major George Peter, and so the original surname came back to the place, which has never been out of the one family.
Until the death of Mrs. Kennon when they were, of course, divided, there was at Tudor Place a very large and valuable collection of Washington relics, fascinating things, among them Mrs. Washington's seed-pearl wedding jewelry and dress, a set of china made for and presented to General Washington by the French government, the bowl given him by the Order of the Cincinnati, and numberless other interesting things. In a corner of the central room, the saloon, as it is called, was the small camp trunk always used by the General. The room on the east, off of which opens the conservatory, is the drawing room; that to the west, the parlor. The saloon opens out onto the temple, the round porch on the south. The two large rooms at each side have lovely cornices, beautiful marble mantels and handsome crystal chandeliers; long group windows to the floor and very unusual doors of curly maple. At the debut tea of Mrs. Kennon's granddaughter, I was helping to serve, when, seeing two dear old ladies, one very short, the other very tall, both dressed in simple black with big bonnets and long veils, looking about in the crowd as if they were trying to see something particular, I went up and asked them if I could bring them some refreshments. They said, "No, thank you, we really don't want anything, we are just trying to see if there are the same ornaments on the table as when Britannia was married." I found out afterward that the ornaments were three beautiful alabaster groups of classic figures. The two old ladies were Miss Mary and Miss Rosa Nourse, of The Highlands.
Britannia Peter was a first cousin of Mary Custis, of Arlington, and was one of the bridesmaids at the wedding there which united the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis to the handsome United States army officer, Robert Edward Lee. The friendship was an enduring one, and General Lee visited Tudor Place when he paid his last visit to Washington City in 1869.
Britannia Peter was bridesmaid for another first cousin,Helen Dunlop, when she was married at Hayes to William Laird.
From the descendant of another one of those bridesmaids at that famous wedding at Arlington who, as a young girl, paid long visits to Mary Custis, I heard this delicious story: "There being no telephones, when the girls at Arlington and at Tudor Place wanted to get together they had a series of signals. Hanging a red flannel petticoat out of the window meant 'come on over'. A white one had another meaning. This method was not popular with the owners of the two mansions, but persisted, nevertheless." To prove this, not long ago I went to Arlington with the person who told me the story. The room there used by the girls of those days does look toward Georgetown. There is a forest of tall trees there now but trees can grow very tall in a hundred years.
When my father built his house at the foot of Mrs. Kennon's place, she told him she was so glad to have him near by, but chided him for cutting off her view of the river.
Until only a few years before her death, Mrs. Kennon sat perfectly erect in her chair, never touching the back, and I can remember her as quite an old lady, almost flying up the hill of Congress (31st) Street, always, of course, in bonnet and long, crêpe veil. She was a member of Christ Church, and once many, many years ago when a parish meeting was announced to decide some important question, the rector and gentlemen were very much surprised on entering the vestry to find Mrs. Kennon there waiting for the meeting. She said she wished to have a say in the matter, and having no man to represent her, had come herself. So she was the original suffragette!Mrs. Kennon was one of the early presidents of the Louise Home, and was the first president of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in the District of Columbia.
Before the day of country clubs there used to be a very fine tennis court at Tudor Place, on the flat part to the north of the house not far from Congress (31st) Street, and it was much used. The Peter boys were champions of the District several times. In the first administration of President Cleveland, Mrs. Cleveland, a bride, used to drive her husband in from Oak View or, as it was popularly called, Red Top, to his office at the White House nearly every morning in a low, one-horse phæton. No secret-service entourage in those days! In the evenings she came again in style in a Victoria, and frequently they would stop opposite Tudor Place and watch the game in progress. There was a good deal of intimacy between Tudor Place and "Red Top" in those days.
The only football I ever heard of being played at Tudor Place was by a team of which my youngest brother was a member. They had nowhere to play, so he walked up there one day, and being a very engaging young man of about ten years, with big, blue eyes and a charming smile, he asked the old lady for permission, which she gave. She used to sit by the long window in the parlor and watch them with great interest and pleasure. Some other boys thought they would like the same privilege and asked for it, but she told me she always asked, "Are you a friend of my little cousin?" Only his friends could play there.
Mrs. Kennon lived all her long and active life at Tudor Place, with the exception of two brief periods. The first was the year and a half when she was living at the Washington Navy Yard with her husband while he was stationed there. And the second was when her daughter was at boarding school in Philadelphia, just before the Civil War, and she leased the place to Mr. Pendleton, a Representative in Congress from Virginia. Of course, after the secession of that State, Mr. Pendleton left Washington City—but very hurriedly. Mrs. Kennon heard that her home was to be taken over by the United States government to be used as a hospital so she hastened back and occupied it herself. She took as boarders several Federal officers on the one condition that the affairs of the war should not be discussed.
The last time I saw her was not many months before her death, sitting in a chair in her bedroom and very, very feeble. When I told her good-bye, she kept saying something to me over and over, which I couldn't understand. Finally I leaned down very close, and heard, "Be a good girl." I was then the mother of two children, but to her, just a little girl and the daughter of my father and mother, of whom she was very fond.
Opposite Tudor Place, where now is a twin apartment house, was until the nineteen-twenties a simple old brick house somewhat like the old Mackall house on Greene (29th) Street, only minus a portico. When I knew it it was the home of the Philip Darneilles—and I remember hearing my mother say, "But Mrs. Darneille was a Harry!" Which meant nothing to me until I looked up the title to this place, and there I found that all this land went right back to Harriot Beall, Mrs. Elisha O. Williams, one of the three daughters of Brooke Beall, who was among those wealthy shipping merchants who were responsible for Georgetown's early prosperity.
Mrs. Harriot Beall Williams left this property, all theway down to Back (Q) Street, to her daughter Harriot Eliza Harry. Through her it passed to Harriot Beall Chesley, and then to her daughter, Emily McIlvain Darneille. The old house stood untenanted for several years until bought for the erection of the apartments.
Mr. and Mrs. Darneille had three daughters, the eldest really a beauty (the youngest inherited the old name of Harriot), and they had a great deal of gaiety there in the nineties. I remember especially the New Year's Day receptions they used to have, the many "hacks" overflowing with young men, that used to climb the hill. It was the custom in those days for the ladies of each household to receive on the afternoon of that day. Only gentleman callers came, all dressed in their very best, and left their cards for all the ladies of their acquaintance. If you weren't receiving (attired in your best, sometimes to the extent of real low-necked evening dresses, the dining room table loaded with salads, old hams, biscuits, ices, candies, tea and coffee—and always a punch bowl on the side) you hung a basket on your front door bell, and the callers just deposited their cards and went on to the next place.
What fun the children had, watching the front doors and counting the cards; and there was a real thrill when the caller happened to be an Army or Navy officer, attired in full-dress uniform with gold braid and feathers, having earlier in the day paid his respects at the White House.
On part of the Darneille property stands an intriguing frame house. It is quite an old house and stood originally several hundred feet to the eastward in Mackall Square, the property owned by Christiana Beall Mackall, who was the sister of Harriot Beall Williams. So you see one sistersold it to the other and it took a trip across Washington (30th) Street to reside on Congress (31st) Street. I wonder how they moved it in those days, for it was a long, long time ago.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dodge lived there after they left Evermay.
In the 1880's this house, 1633 31st Street, was the home of a very interesting and eminent person, John Wesley Powell, American geologist and ethnologist. I now quote from theEncyclopædia Britannica: "He was born at Mount Morris, N. Y., March 24, 1834. His parents were of English birth, but had moved to America in 1830, and he was educated at Illinois and Oberlin colleges. He began his geological work with a series of field trips including a trip throughout the length of the Mississippi in a rowboat, the length of the Ohio, and of the Illinois. When the Civil War broke out he entered the Union Army as a private, and at the battle of Shiloh he lost his right arm but continued in active service, reaching the rank of major of volunteers. In 1865 he was appointed professor of geology and curator of the museum in the Illinois Wesleyan university at Bloomington, and afterwards at the Normal university.
In 1867 he commenced a series of expeditions to the Rocky Mountains and the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers, during the course of which (1869) he made a daring boat-journey of three months through the Grand Canyon; he also made a special study of the Indians and their languages for the Smithsonian Institution, in which he founded and directed a bureau of ethnology. His able work led to the establishment under the U. S. Government of the geographical and geological survey ofthe Rocky Mountain region with which he was occupied from 1870 to 1879. This survey was incorporated with the United States geological and geographical survey in 1879, when Powell became director of the bureau of ethnology. In 1881, Powell was appointed director also of the geological survey, a post which he occupied until 1894. He died in Haven, Me., on Sept. 23, 1902."
On two panes of glass in the front windows of this old house are names etched by a diamond—on one is "Genevieve Powell," under it "Louis Hill" and under that "1884." She probably was the daughter of Mr. Powell.
On the other pane of glass is etched "Moses and Mary." To the owners of the house that means nothing, but to me it means "Moses Moore," who was not a man but a woman (whose real name was "Frank"), and Mary Compton, both of whom I knew and still know.
In the nineties it was for awhile the home of Mrs. Donna Otie Compton, who was the daughter of Bishop James Hervey Otie, first Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee. She was a picturesque figure, attired in her widow's cap and long crêpe veil. Mrs. Compton had four daughters who were great belles.
Then for a good many years it stood there looking quite deserted, for old Mr. Arnold, its owner, was almost a cripple and one rarely saw him making his way up the street with great difficulty. Now General and Mrs. Frank R. McCoy have bought it and made it a charming house with a lovely garden.
Through the alley just north of here, described in the title as "a private road," we can reach another house built on that same property of the Harry's, but just who built itI do not know. It also was vacant when I was a girl, for I remember going to a Fair there one night in the spring when it had been loaned for some charity. In 1930 the house was bought by Miss Harriet and Miss Mary Winslow, who have added a lovely music room at the rear, but have kept the old-time appearance of the house. A mammoth oak tree, the pride of the owners, stands near the house.
The next house on Congress (31st) Street has another fine oak tree in front of it, and used to have a companion even larger on the other side of the walk. This property also came through Mrs. Harriot Beall Williams to Mrs. Brooke Williams, senior, and her daughter, Mrs. Johns, who lived there with her family.
A romantic story is told of how Captain William Brooke Johns, of the United States Army, one day saw at a picnic the beautiful Miss Leonora de la Roche, and fell in love with her immediately. But, since it was not considered good form in those days to be presented to a lady at a picnic, he watched her from a distance all day. The next afternoon he went to call. It was a case of love at first sight for both, and the wedding soon followed, with all the military splendor. As was told before, when the Civil War came he left the Union Army. Captain Johns had quite a talent for carving, and did a very good medallion of General Grant, who continued always to be a true friend to him. He also invented a tent which was used during the Civil War by the Northern Army.
This house was, for more than a generation, the home of Colonel and Mrs. John Addison.
At that time it was a two-story house, with quite adifferent roof. It was a big, merry household with four sons and four daughters. The daughters were reigning belles in those days, and the old custom of serenading was much in vogue. One lovely moonlight night four swains with their guitars stationed themselves under the windows of the handsome old house and sang plaintive love songs for an hour or more. Finally a shutter was pushed open very gently, and the four hearts went pitter-patter, anticipating the sight of a lovely young girl's face. Instead, appeared an old, black one, capped by a snowy turban, and these words floated down: "I'se sorrie, gen'le-men, but de young ladies is all gone out—but I sure is pleased wid you-all's music!" The quartet was composed of Summerfield McKenney, Frank Steele, and a young Noyes, of the family now for many years identified withThe Evening Star, and another whose name I do not know.
It was while the Addisons were living here that Commodore Kennon was so tragically killed on thePrinceton.
One afternoon the youngest member of the Addison family, a little girl, was swinging in the yard when a carriage came up the street and turned in at the gate of Tudor Place, across the street. In it she saw her older brother, John. Much mystified, she ran to her mother, telling her how strange it seemed for "brother John" to be coming up the hill in a carriage, and not coming home. It turned out that he had been sent to notify Mrs. Thomas Peter of the sudden death of her son-in-law.
In later years Brooke Williams, junior, lived here and, still later, George W. Cissel. The chapel of the Presbyterian Church on West (P) Street is named for this family.The house is now the home of Mr. Alfred Friendly, the well-known newspaper man.
Next door, where there is now a big apartment house, used to be a large, double brick house, which was for many years the home of Abraham Herr, who with the Cissels conducted an important flour-milling business in Georgetown. His son, Austin Herr, was a fine figure of a man, and was, I think, a promoter. I distinctly remember as a little girl his return from a trip to China and the tales of all the treasures he had brought back with him—not so common then as now.
At No. 1669, in the eighties lived one of the oddest characters—Mrs. Dall. She had come from Massachusetts many years before to teach at Miss English's Seminary. While there she received frequent visits from young Mr. Dall who was an assistant at Christ Church while finishing his course at the Episcopal Seminary near Alexandria. The gentleman stayed so late sometimes—probably until eleven o'clock—that Miss English had to ask him to mend his ways. The courtship resulted in a marriage, but before long the bridegroom went off to India as a missionary to convert the heathen. After some years the news came that, instead, he had been converted to Hinduism. At last he was coming home. It was in the spring and, of course, there had to be a spring cleaning, which took several days. One night about twelve o'clock, when the peace of the old-time world, minus the automobile and blaring radio, lay over old Georgetown, the clop-clop of horses' hoofs was heard coming up Congress Street, stopping in front of Mrs. Dall's. Then there was a great knocking on the door—a window was raised and a voice called: "Who is that?" "It's Henry." Came back from the wife: "Well,I'm in the midst of house-cleaning. Go on down to the Willard and stay until I send for you." A warm welcome, and one not approved of by the neighbors who had heard the conversation through their windows.
Mrs. Dall was not very popular in Georgetown, it being overwhelmingly Southern in its sympathies and she being an abolitionist. I can dimly remember her padding down 31st Street, for so her progress might be called from the form of footwear she wore, it had no form—the queerest, high, shapeless boots. She wore a little close-fitting bonnet and a long, loose, grayish cape. She was a most particular person in some ways. A lady who lived there as a housekeeper said she was never allowed to leave her thimble on the window sill for a few moments; and it was well known that when a caller rang the front door bell the maid who answered had orders to scan the costume closely. If there was "bugle trimming" among its adornments the caller was shown into the parlor on the right side, where the furniture was all stuffed and no harm could be done, but if the clothes were devoid of the shiny, scratchy gear, she might safely be allowed to enter and sit upon the polished mahogany of the room on the left of the hall. She used to have a sort of salon for long-haired scientists and exponents of all sorts of "isms."
Another story I've heard was about her going out to Normanstone to stay for a rest. One morning after breakfast, having had a plentiful helping of oatmeal with lots of cream, her hostess remarked to Mrs. Dall how well she looked. "Yes," she said, she "felt well," and ended up with "a little starvation is always good for one." Is it a wonder she wasn't greatly beloved?
Lloyd BeallLloyd Beall
A very handsome and imposing old gentleman, Mr. JoeDavis, who was a bachelor, lived here in the nineties. I remember him always, in his frock coat and high silk hat. This was where Mr. and Mrs. Fulton Lewis lived for many years and where their son, Fulton Lewis, junior, the noted radio commentator, grew up.
The house has been for several years the home of the Honorable and Mrs. Francis E. Biddle. He was the Attorney-General under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mrs. Biddle, whose pen name is Katharine Garrison Chapin, is an eminent poet.
Adjoining Tudor Place on the north live the Bealls, descendants of Lloyd Beall, who sold his patrimony in southern Maryland and converted the proceeds to equipping and sustaining his company during the Revolutionary War. He was adjutant on the staff of General Alexander Hamilton and was wounded at Germantown. Later he was captured by the British, but escaped by swimming the Santee River. The effect of this performance is shown by the water-logging on his commission which he carried in his pocket.
After being mustered out of the army he came to live in Georgetown, but just where his home was I cannot discover. He served as mayor of the town three times—in 1797, 1798 and 1799.
Upon the reorganization of the army he was reinstated, and died in command of the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. The Bealls who live here are also descended from Francis Dodge and from William Marbury.
In the seventies Frederick L. Moore came in to Georgetown from the country and built his home next door, so as to be between his two friends, John Beall and JosephH. Bradley. The Bradleys no longer own this house nor their ancestral estate which was Chevy Chase, where the club of that name now is. Abraham Bradley came with the government from Philadelphia, as Assistant Postmaster-General. He made his home in Washington City and then bought Chevy Chase as his country estate. He was living there in August, 1814, when the British came to Washington. It is said that several members of the cabinet took refuge with him there during those two or three dreadful days and brought with them valuable records. His old house was mostly destroyed by fire several years ago.
His grandson, Joseph Henry Bradley, built the house at number 1688 31st Street. At the time of Lincoln's assassination he was living out in the country near Georgetown. He bore a remarkable resemblance to John Wilkes Booth and on April 15, 1865, the night after the tragic event in Ford's Theater, he was driving home in his buggy along a lonely road when he was held up by policemen and arrested. When he protested, he was told that he was John Wilkes Booth and was taken to jail. He insisted he was not, but to no avail. After a good while he got in touch with friends who identified him and he was released and went home. His wife had thought that her colored servants had been behaving strangely all day, but though living not more than five miles from the scene of the great tragedy, she herself had no knowledge of it.
In later years Mr. Bradley and his father, Joseph Habersham Bradley, who practiced law together, served as counsel in the famous John Surratt trial.
This house is now the home of Robert A. Taft, Senator from Ohio.