_Third Street, Beall (O) Street, West (P) Street_
On the southeast corner of Third (P) Street and Frederick (34th) Street,
the attractive, low, white frame house is where Doris Fleeson lives, who
writes such interesting articles for _The Evening Star_.
At 3327 is a fine tall old brick house painted yellow, which has for
many years, until very recently, been the home of Hon. and Mrs.
Balthasar Meyer. On the second story it has a lovely long music room
used for dancing and by Sylvia Meyer, their daughter, the talented
harpist of the National Symphony Orchestra.
Some of the Key family lived here years ago, I suppose, of course,
relatives or descendants of those two famous lawyers here, Philip Barton
Key and his nephew, Francis Scott Key. And nearby lived another _real_
Marylander named Mary Ritchie.
And speaking of names, the strangest woman's name turned up in the title
of 3321, which in 1818 was owned by Harry McCleery. He had five
daughters and in his will left $3,000.00 to each of four of them; among
these, one named Zerniah. To Clarissa, the fifth, he left the house he
lived in (this house) and the stone houses on the corner adjoining, with
all thereto belonging to be held in trust for her by her two brothers. I
wonder if Clarissa was an invalid or if it was the law that, at that
time, a woman could not hold property!
This house later on in the eighties and for twenty years or more was the
home of the Humes. Mr. Thomas L. Hume and his wife, Annie Graham
Pickrell left a large family of children when they died early.
Mr. Hume also owned a place a little way out of town. One day when
General Grant, who was a friend of his, was there Mr. Hume said he
couldn't think of a name for the place. General Grant looked around and
noticing the walnut trees said, "Why not turn walnut around and call it
"Tunlaw"?" And so Tunlaw Road came into being, back behind Mt. Alto
Hospital.
Just to the east of 3321 P Street was the old Lutheran burying-ground.
About the time of the Civil War it seems to have been abandoned and the
records lost. And near here stands the Lutheran Church, the fourth
building on this site, for this church dates back to 1769, when it was a
little log building. According to tradition, Dr. Stephen Bloomer Balch
preached his first sermon here when he came to be Pastor of the
Presbyterians. A prized possession of this church is a very old German
Bible printed in Tuebingen in 1730. Another treasured possession is the
bell, over a hundred years old, which, at one time, was purchased by a
congregation in West Virginia, but after twenty-five years, was
reclaimed and brought back by a faithful church Councilman and housed
under a small stone structure of its own. It is believed to have been
cast in Europe.
Crossing High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) and cutting down to Beall (O)
Street, one comes to what used to be Hazel's stable--his initials, "W.
C. H." are in the bricks up in the peak at the top of the building. Here
the doctors kept their carriages, here "hacks" were hired when needed
for parties or funerals, and here was kept for a month or so every fall
and spring my little bay mare, _Lady Leeton_, and the red-wheeled
runabout which was brought in from Hayes for my use.
I can see Mr. Hazel now in his buggy, he weighed about three hundred
pounds and his side of the buggy almost touched the ground as he drove
about town.
At 3131, at the home of his daughter, is where General Adolphus Greeley
was living several years ago when a very interesting event took place
one spring afternoon, in 1935. I was walking down 31st Street when I
heard the strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner." I wondered if I was
hearing a radio but when I reached the corner of O Street I noticed a
policeman and an Army sergeant chatting in the middle of the street and
coming up O Street was Justice of the Supreme Court, Owen J. Roberts,
bareheaded, with a lady, to whom he said, "They are probably saying,
'Some old geezer named Greeley'!" So I glanced west down O Street and
there, drawn up along the southern sidewalk, was a company of U. S.
Cavalry, red and white guidon of Company F from Fort Myer. Then I
realized that it was the day of days for General Greeley. At last, on
his ninety-first birthday, he was being decorated with the Congressional
Medal of Honor. It had been many a year since his fateful expedition to
the Arctic in search for the North Pole.
Just across the street from here now lives Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and
a little farther on, the old house up on a low terrace is where the
Lancastrian School was opened in November 1811 under Robert Ould. In a
few weeks there were 340 boys and girls under tuition, and in 1812 an
appropriation was asked for an addition to accommodate 250 more
scholars.
[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH]
The Lancastrian School was sustained by private contributions and
municipal aid for thirty-two years. The name came from Joseph Lancaster,
a Quaker, who started this system in England of coeducational schools,
free to those who could not pay. Lancaster had a school of one thousand
pupils in Southwark, but disagreements arising with some of the
authorities, he emigrated to America in 1818. He died in New York in
1838.
About 1840, Samuel McKenney, whose house adjoined this property on the
south, bought it and gave it to his daughter who had gone to southern
Maryland to live, and so she came back to Georgetown. Her descendants,
the Osbournes, lived there until just a few years ago when the "cult"
for old houses in Georgetown began. When a garden was made there
recently, some of the old foundations of the schoolroom were uncovered.
Almost next door is the Linthicum Institute, which still conducts its
night school for white boys, and above it is the hall where the old
Georgetown Assemblies are still held. Here also Mrs. Shippen has her
Dancing Classes, and here now my grandchildren are learning where I had
my first lessons in the same art. The old hall looks just as it did in
my day.
Then at 3018 is Christ Church Rectory, where I happened to be born; it
was not the rectory then.
Christ Church, as you recall, was founded in 1817 in Thomas Corcoran's
house. The illustration shows the first church building of the three
which have stood on this spot. It was begun May 6, 1818, and the first
service held at sunrise on Christmas Day that same year, the rector
being the Reverend Ruel Keith, who was Professor of Theology at the
College of William and Mary, and later, in 1823, with Dr. Wilmer,
founder of the Theological Seminary, near Alexandria.
Among the founders of Christ Church were Thomas Corcoran, William
Morton, Clement Smith, Francis Scott Key, John Stoddert Haw, John Myers,
Ulysses Ward, James A. Magruder, Thomas Henderson, and John Pickrell.
The present building of Christ Church was erected about 1885. The
windows which were made especially for it in Munich, Germany, are very
beautiful. The big one in the north end was put there by W. W. Corcoran
in memory of his father, Thomas Corcoran.
I have heard from the daughter of one of the belles of the fifties,
whose family were Christ Church people, that in those days the beaux
might join a lady after church and escort her home, but under no
circumstances did they entertain callers on Sunday. All of the food for
Sunday use was prepared on Saturday.
It was during the fifties that Dr. William Norwood was the rector of
Christ Church. He was a Virginian and very outspoken in the expression
of his political views in that day of heated opinions. So violent was
the feeling that, although he had a brilliant mind and a saintly
character, he was obliged to resign. He returned to his native State and
was for many years the revered rector of St. Paul's, Richmond. I
remember hearing that as a young man he had a classmate at college,
Clement Moore, who one night came into his room, saying, "Norwood, I'd
like to read you something I've written to see what you think of it." He
sat down and read to him "The Night Before Christmas," that beloved old
poem without which Christmas hardly seems like Christmas to me, even
now.
Dr. Norwood was followed several years later by Reverend Albert Rhett
Stuart, under whose leadership the present church was built. I remember
the big basket which was carried around by a fine-looking, tall colored
woman with articles for sale for the benefit of the Ladies' Aid Society
of Christ Church.
The interesting white house over on the northeast corner was at one time
the home of the Godeys, then of the Curtis family. When they lived
there, "music filled the air," for a son and a chum of his used to sit
out on the long, side gallery and play for hours on the violin and
'cello. It was for several years the home of Justice and Mrs. Owen J.
Roberts.
Only two houses on this block are of any age. The little white cottage
near the corner of Washington (30th) Street was the home of three Miss
Tenneys and their sister, Mrs. Brown, who had a school for small boys
and girls. Then the garden ran to the corner. The father of these ladies
and of William H. Tenney had come to Georgetown from Newburyport,
Massachusetts, in the early part of 1800.
Just across from it, the large yellow mansion was the home of Commodore
Cassin, built by him, I think, in the early 1800's. In 1893 Mr. and Mrs.
Beverley Randolph Mason, of Virginia, opened here their school, Gunston
Hall, named, of course, for Mr. Mason's ancestral home, which continued
in Washington as a flourishing boarding school for girls for fifty
years. After that, this building housed the Epiphany School, an
Episcopal institution.
The property along 30th Street here was all owned at one time by the
Matthews family. Henry Cooksey Matthews came to Georgetown some years
before 1820. He had been born in 1797 on the farm near Dentsville, in
Charles County, Maryland, where his forbears had lived for four
generations. He married his cousin, Lucinda Stoddert Haw, whose home,
you remember, was on Gay (N) Street, and they built the large house on
the southeast corner of Washington (30th) and West (P) Streets.
Mr. Matthews and his wife were devoted members of Christ Church and
named their son for one of its rectors, the Reverend Charles McIlvaine,
who later became Bishop of Ohio. Mr. Matthews used to play the flute in
the orchestra in Christ Church.
Mr. Charles M. Matthews also married his cousin, who was a daughter of
Thomas Corcoran, junior, and niece of W. W. Corcoran. Mr. Matthews,
until his death, managed the estate of Mr. Corcoran. He built his home
on the southern part of his father's lot at the northeast corner of
Washington (30th) and Beall (O) Streets.
Back in the eighties Miss Charlotte and Miss Margaret Lee came from
Virginia and opened The West Washington School for Girls, sponsored by
several of the gentlemen of Georgetown, in the old home of Henry C.
Matthews. There, in the last year of its existence, I learned the
beginnings of the three R's.
Nearby, at number 3014 P Street, in the fifties and sixties, William R.
Abbott conducted a well-known school for boys. At that time it was only
a one-story building. Mr. Abbott was the son of John Abbott, whose home
was on Bridge (M) Street. The Abbotts lived in the house on the west
next door to the school. In later years it was occupied by the Lyons,
Hartleys, and Parris families.
In one of these houses was the school for boys founded by Dr. David
Wiley and continued for twenty more years by Dr. James McVean.
There is a fine row of houses just beyond here where have lived, at
various times, the Magruders, the Kenyons, the Yarnalls, and, long ago,
in the early 1800's, Colonel Fowler, who came from Baltimore and whose
wife was a sister of Dr. Riley's wife, made his home at number 3030 West
(P) Street.
For many years this house was used as the rectory of Christ Church.
There lived Dr. Norwood and his large family of daughters, all of whom
left their impression on the City of Richmond in after years. Also, Dr.
Walter Williams, and Dr. Albert Rhett Stuart, of South Carolina, who was
for twenty-five years rector of Christ Church.
The end house was the Morton's home for a great many years. Four
unmarried sisters lived there long, long after their parents had gone.
But parental influence was strong in those days, for one of them in her
late seventies was still "engaged" to the love of her youth, disapproved
of by her father. Once a week she met him and had lunch with him down
town. He came sometimes to Sunday dinners, swathed in his long, black
cape.
During the fall great droves of cattle and flocks of sheep from western
Virginia were driven through the streets and gathered at Drovers' Rest,
two miles west of town. Some days many thousands filled West (P) Street
from morn to eve, and, occasionally, a wild steer ran amuck and then
there was great excitement. Also, large flocks of turkeys, hundreds of
them, were driven up from lower Maryland and passed through the streets
to pens on the outskirts of town, where one could go and pick out his
own bird.
Across the street at number 3019 is the house Mr. Linthicum built in
1826. Thomas Corcoran, junior, made it his home from then until 1856,
when it was bought by John T. Cochrane for his sister, Mrs. James A.
Magruder, who brought up there her three nieces and one nephew. Two of
the nieces, Miss Mary Zeller and Mrs. Whelan, lived on there all their
lives. Miss Mary used to tell me many tales of old-time days and ways.
The old house remained entirely unchanged until about twelve years ago,
when it was bought and done over inside. It had a lovely stairway and
dignified, square rooms.
The row of three quaint little brick houses here seem to be an unknown
quantity to even some of the oldest inhabitants and nearest neighbors.
In number 3021, long ago, lived Horatio Berry, the brother of Philip
Taylor Berry. In number 3025, the quaint locks on the doors all have on
them a small, round brass seal, bearing the coat-of-arms of Great
Britain, the lion and the unicorn rampant, also the name "Carpenter &
Co.", and in the cellar are crossbeams hewn by hand.
Next we come to a pair of cottages, changed from their pristine
loveliness--now the "Mary Margaret Home," for old ladies. The one at
3033 P Street in my girlhood was the home of Mrs. James D. Patton, the
former Jennie Coyle. She gave me piano lessons for four years, but she
gave me much more! She formed a group of girls into a King's Daughters'
Circle, "The Patient Workers," which met at her house on Saturday
mornings when we sewed and made articles which we sold at a Fair in the
Spring. The proceeds were divided between the Children's Country Home
and the Children's Hospital. There is still a brass plate in the
hospital bearing the name, "The Patient Workers" for a bed we named.
The two big houses on the northeast corner of West (P) Street and
Congress (31st) Street were built by Joseph H. Libbey, a well-to-do
lumber merchant. They continued to be in his family for a long time. The
one on the east now is the Catholic Home for Aged Ladies. In front of it
is the largest and most beautiful elm tree in Georgetown. The two houses
at 1516 and 1518 Congress (31st) Street, Mr. Libbey built about 1850 as
wedding gifts for his two daughters, Martha, Mrs. Benjamin Miller,
becoming the owner of number 1516. It is still owned by her descendants.
Number 1518 has changed hands several times. It was where Richard V.
Oulahan, the well-known newspaper correspondent, lived until his death
several years ago. At that time it was said of him: "He gathered news
like a gentleman and wrote it like a scholar."
Back in the eighties, a party was given at number 1518 one night for the
young niece of two maiden ladies whose home it then was. The guests were
about sixteen and seventeen years old, and the boys had all just arrived
at the age where their most treasured possessions were their brand new
derby hats. When the party broke up and the guests trooped upstairs to
get their wraps, the young gentlemen found, on entering their dressing
room, that on one of the beds reposed the crowns of all their derbies,
while on the other, neatly laid out, were all the brims. The culprit was
never caught. Only the other day one of the long-ago guests was told by
the offender that he had been the originator of the diabolic idea.
If you look west along the next block of West (P) Street, you notice how
different are the north and south sides. Along the south side are houses
of an absolutely different period. All those on the north side were
built in the seventies or later, including the Presbyterian Church,
except the one on the corner of Congress (31st) Street, which was the
residence of General Otho Holland Williams, a Revolutionary officer, who
was in the same company with General Lingan. His house has, of course,
been completely changed and made into two houses. It was never
beautiful, but it was a dignified old mansion, with high steps leading
up to a quaint doorway.
Across Congress (31st) Street, at number 3108 West (P) Street, the house
with the high steps going up sideways was built by Judge Morsell about
1800. For a while, the Barnards lived there. Then the Marquis de
Podestad, Minister from Spain to this country, made it his residence.
After the Civil War, General George C. Thomas resided there. Next door
is where the Shoemakers have lived for many years.
The house with the nice, old hipped roof was at one time owned by a
Captain Brown. In the eighties and nineties the Misses Dorsey of
Virginia had here a school for girls called "Olney Institute."
Afterwards, Reverend Parke P. Flournoy, once a chaplain in the
Confederate Army, lived here up into his nineties with his family.
Still a little farther on, and incorporated with the old Tenney house,
now owned by Mrs. Stephen Bonsal, is where Miss Jennie Gardiner had a
school for little children about the same time as the Dorseys' school.
For some time before the Civil War it was the home of the Reverend Mr.
Simpson, whose wife was Miss Stephenson from near Winchester. Her
father, whose home was Kenilworth, near there, made her a present of the
house. Following the Civil War, it was for a long time the home of
William H. Tenney, who had a prosperous flour mill.
Just across the street from it, the imposing looking yellow house with
the mansard roof is the one that Elinor Glyn bought and "did over," and
then never lived in, as she decided to go back to England to her mother,
who was in delicate health. Later it was the residence of Mrs. Isabella
Greenway, Representative in Congress from Arizona.
A block from here just above Q Street on what is now dignified by the
name of 32nd, but will always remain to old Georgetonians, Valley
Street, lived a very interesting character, still remembered by some
people in Georgetown as "The crazy man of Valley Street."
Among other shabby houses, one which was quite different in appearance
and stood a little back from the street, with a tree in its tiny patch
of a yard, was where he lived. It looked as if it had a story--and it
had. It was told me not long ago by an old friend. I call him a friend,
for whenever I went to the institution where he was a doorkeeper, I went
back in memory to the years when he was our postman. In those days your
postman was your friend. You thought over what your Christmas gift to
him would be as much as a member of your family. Not like it is
nowadays, when he drops your letters through a slit in the door. You
don't know his name, you don't know what he looks like, you don't even
know whether he is white or colored.
This is the story of "the crazy man of Valley Street." During the Civil
War, Captain Chandler was in command of a United States vessel cruising
in the Chesapeake Bay searching ships carrying contraband. He was
accused of making a traitorous remark and dismissed from the service.
His family was living at the Union Hotel, but they left and went to New
York to live. He took his savings and built for himself the little house
on Valley Street. Its interior was made to resemble exactly the cabin of
a ship.
My friend told me that his first encounter with the old gentleman was
one Monday morning about nine-thirty when, having been changed to this
new route, he stopped to open the gate to deliver a letter. It was
locked. He knocked. At last a window was thrown up and the old man's
head emerged. He said the captain looked very much like the pictures of
General Robert E. Lee.
Seeing it was the postman with a letter, he said he would open the gate,
so he pulled a rope--and presto! open it flew. He said he never opened
it until ten o'clock in the morning and wanted to know if his mail could
be delivered after that, which the carrier obligingly offered to do, by
changing his route somewhat.
After that, for years, Mr. Postman was a friend to the old man, though
he never really entered the house. Each month a check for twenty dollars
would come from a nephew in Chicago, which the postman would take to Mr.
Berry with a note from the captain, asking to have it cashed, and
specifying the number of dollar bills, fifty-cent pieces, quarters,
dimes, nickels, and pennies. A little colored boy who lived nearby was
commissioned occasionally to purchase necessary food, but the old man
himself never went out except after dark.
Finally, one day when the little boy came to do the errands, he could
get no answer to his knock, so he got a man to lift him up where he
could peer over the high board fence at the side and look into an open
window. Through it he saw the old gentleman, sprawled out in a big
chair, immovable. They broke into the house and found that he was
paralyzed. He could not speak, but shook his head when they said they
wanted to call help from the police. He was laid on a mattress on the
floor, and before long, all his troubles were over.
His nephew came from Chicago, bought a lot in Rock Creek Cemetery and
had the old gentleman decently buried. But not long after, his son in
New York, reading of it in the paper, came down and had his father
reinterred in the family lot in Oak Hill. So, in death, the old
gentleman was accorded the honor of two funerals.
[Illustration: _Courtesy Frick Art Reference Library_.
WASHINGTON BOWIE]