A Portrait of Old George Town Part 16

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.

d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k, 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 Lincolns.h.i.+re, 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 s.h.i.+ps. It also carried off a young sister, f.a.n.n.y, 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 Justices.h.i.+p 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed, 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 Lips...o...b..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 fas.h.i.+onable again, and on first coming to Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.body 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 j.a.panese 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 a.s.sociation. 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 circ.u.mstances attending a domestic affliction she has suffered makes it impossible for her to come to Was.h.i.+ngton."

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 sc.r.a.ps.

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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 dest.i.tute of amus.e.m.e.nt 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 Was.h.i.+ngton has ever had, and inaugurated the tremendous gifts to schools and colleges that have since become the fas.h.i.+on 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 Linthic.u.m, 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: