A Portrait of Old George Town Part 27

Miss Eleanor Ann Was.h.i.+ngton, the daughter of the house, was skilled in painting and did miniatures of her mother and of other members of her family. She also used to sketch in the beautiful woods north of her father's home, which soon after became Oak Hill Cemetery, and she was the first person to be buried in its grounds.

George Corbin Was.h.i.+ngton married a second time, a girl who had been almost like a daughter in his house, Ann Thomas Beall Peter, of whom his wife had been very fond. Both of the wives of George Corbin Was.h.i.+ngton were descended from the Reverend John Orme, a distinguished clergyman of Maryland in colonial days.

After the death of Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton the place was sold and became the home of Senator Jesse D. Bright, of Indiana, who was deprived of his seat in the Senate during the Civil War because of his sympathy with the South.

For a long time this place belonged to Columbus Alexander, but in recent years it has changed hands several times. It had been leased by the Honorable Dwight Morrow to be his home while Senator from New Jersey, but his sudden death the summer before of course changed that arrangement.

During World War II it was the home of General William (Wild Bill) Donovan, head of OSS, and is now the home of Mr. Philip Graham, publisher of the _Was.h.i.+ngton Post_.

All of this property of The Heights belonged, as I have said, to Thomas Beall, and after 1783 it was rapidly being "developed," as they say nowadays. It is interesting to follow out how it all happened and how relatives wished to live one another.

Directly across Was.h.i.+ngton (30th) Street, a large piece of land was sold by Thomas Beall in 1798 to William Craik, who was the son of that Dr.

Craik who attended General Was.h.i.+ngton in his last illness. He evidently intended to build a home here, but Mrs. Craik died and he soon followed her. She was Miss Fitzhugh, a sister of Mrs. George Was.h.i.+ngton Parke Custis, of Arlington.

How I wish there were in existence a picture of the house which David Peter built in 1808 when he bought this piece of land. The house must have stood among handsome trees, for it was called Peter's Grove, and we can look at the oaks still standing in near-by places and visualize those which surrounded this house.

David Peter was a son of Robert Peter. He married Sarah Johns, and had two daughters and one son, Hamilton. After his death Mrs. David Peter married John Leonard, and the place was sold, in the thirties, to Colonel John Carter, Representative in Congress from South Carolina. His wife was Eleanor Marbury, one of that large family of girls in the old house on Bridge (M) Street. The house was then renamed Carolina Place.

For a while it was occupied by the Honorable John F. Crampton, Minister from England. It was during this time that a treaty was settled by him with Daniel Webster concerning the Newfoundland fisheries. A little later Count de Sartiges, the French Minister, lived here.

About that time the house was destroyed by fire and the land was sold by John Carter O'Neal, of the Inniskillen Dragoons, son of Anne Carter who had married an Englishman, to Henry D. Cooke.

The western part of this square was bought in 1805 by Mrs. Elisha O.

Williams. She was Harriot Beall, daughter of Brooke Beall, the third of these sisters to settle on The Heights, and she also bought her home with money inherited from her father's estate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOME OF BROOKE WILLIAMS]

Six months after buying the property Mrs. Williams was left a widow. She built a home and lived there with her small children, and thirty years later gave the northern part of her land to her son, Brooke Williams and his wife, Rebecca. It was on the spot where the Home for the Blind now stands.

Mrs. Rebecca Williams was a very beautiful woman and all her children inherited her beauty. The daughter who was named Harriot Beall for her grandmother became the most famous girl who ever grew up in Georgetown.

The romantic story of her marriage to Baron Bodisco, the Russian Minister, runs thus:

It all started with a Christmas party which the baron gave for his nephews, Waldemar and Boris Bodisco. To this party all of the boys and girls were invited, and great bonfires lighted the way, for there was little gas in those days.

Among those who came was Harriot Beall Williams, the beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter of Brooke Williams, senior. Baron Bodisco, a bachelor of sixty-three, became completely enamored of Miss Williams that evening, and it is said that the next morning he walked up the hill to meet and escort her to school--the school, of course, being the same Seminary of Miss English.

My story is copied almost entirely from Miss Sally Somervell Mackall's _Early Days of Was.h.i.+ngton_, for nothing could improve on that:

Miss Williams' family were much opposed to the marriage, and at one time the engagement came near being broken. She told Mr. Bodisco that "her grandmother and everybody else thought he was entirely too old and ugly." His reply was that she might find someone younger and better looking, but no one who would love her better than he did.

They were married in June, 1849, at four o'clock in the afternoon, at her mother's home on Georgetown Heights. Only the immediate relatives and the bridal party witnessed the ceremony, after which there was a brilliant reception. The wedding party formed a circle and just back of them on a sofa sat a row of aged ladies in lace-trimmed caps, among them her grandmother, Harriot Williams and her three sisters, Mrs. Benjamin Mackall, Mrs. William Stewart, senior, and their cousin, Mrs. Leonard Hollyday Johns, senior, all of whom were between seventy and eighty years of age.

The mariage ceremony was performed by her cousin, Reverend Hollyday Johns, the second. Her trousseau came from abroad, and her bridal robe was a marvel of rich white satin and costly lace which fell in graceful folds around her; the low-cut dress showed to perfection her lovely white shoulders and neck. On her fair brow and golden hair was worn a coronet of rarest pearls, the gift of the groom. The effect was wonderfully brilliant. As her father was not living, her hand was given in marriage by Henry Clay.

The groom wore his court dress of velvet and lace. All the bridesmaids, seven in number, were beautiful girls about her own age. Their gowns were figured white satin, cut low in the neck with short sleeves and trimmed with blond lace; their hair was simply dressed without ornaments. The bridesmaids were: her sister Gennie Williams, Sarah Johns, Jessie Benton, Ellen Carter, Eliza Jane Wilson, Emily Nichols, Mary Harry, and Helen Morris, daughter of Commodore Morris. Each bridesmaid was presented with a ring set with her favorite stone. The groomsmen were Henry Fox, the British Minister in scarlet court dress; Mr. Dunlop, Minister from Texas; Mr. Martineau, Minister from the Netherlands; Mr. Buchanan, who had been Minister to Russia, and was then Senator, and afterwards President of the United States; Baron Saruyse, the Austrian Minister; Martin Van Buren; Mr. Kemble Paulding, whose father was Secretary of the Navy at that time; Mr. Forsythe, whose father was Secretary of State. Each minister had his own carriage and attendants dressed in livery. The house and grounds were thronged with noted guests, strolling amid sweet-scented flowers and lemon trees hanging with rich golden fruit.

Among the distinguished guests were President Van Buren; Daniel Webster; all the Diplomatic Corps and a host of other notables, including James Gordon Bennett of _The New York Herald_.

The bride was taken to her new home in Mr. Bodisco's gilded coach with driver and footman in bright uniform, drawn by four horses. The same afternoon, Mr. Bodisco gave a dinner to just the bridal party.

At nine o'clock the same day he gave a general reception for the families of the attendants. The morning after the wedding the bridesmaids took breakfast with the bride and, girl-like, as soon as breakfast was over, went on an investigating tour. In her boudoir they found many beautiful things, among them an old-fas.h.i.+oned secretary, with numerous drawers, one was filled with ten dollar gold pieces, another with silver dollars, another with ten-cent pieces, another with the costliest of jewels, and still another with French candy.

The next week Mr. Bodisco gave a grand ball, on which occasion Madame Bodisco wore her bridal robe. Shortly after the wedding, President Van Buren gave a handsome dinner at the White House in honor of Madame Bodisco and Mrs. Decantzo, another bride. To this dinner all the bridal party were invited. Madame Bodisco wore a black watered silk, trimmed with black thread lace and pearl ornaments. President Van Buren sent his private carriage and his son, Martin, to escort Ellen Carter (an adopted daughter of Jeremiah Williams who was an important s.h.i.+pping merchant of the town) to the dinner. The President thought Miss Carter like her Aunt Marion Stewart of New York, to whom he was engaged while Governor of that State. At the dinner table he drank wine with her, and again in the reception room. Miss Carter afterwards married Paymaster Brenton Boggs of the United States Navy.

On another occasion at one of the diplomatic dinners given at the White House, Madame Bodisco wore a rich, white watered silk, the sleeves, waist and skirt embroidered with pale rosebuds with tender green leaves. Her jewels were diamonds and emeralds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADAME BODISCO]

Alexander de Bodisco was born in Moscow on the 30th of October, 1786, and died at his residence in Georgetown on the 23rd of January, 1854, having filled the post of Russian Envoy to the United States for about seventeen years. He was in Vienna in 1814 during the famous Congress which settled the affairs of the continent, and was afterward charge d'affaires at Stockholm. At his funeral his two nephews, Boris and Waldemar, both very handsome and dressed in white uniforms, marched on either side of the hea.r.s.e, accompanied by attaches of the legation and members of the household in uniform.

All during my childhood the Williams house stood gaunt and untenanted, the personification of a haunted house. If only a place with such a history could have been renovated and kept, instead of disappearing entirely from Georgetown.

On the next block at 3238 R Street is the house, now somewhat changed, where lived General H. W. Halleck, chief-of-staff of the army during the Civil War. After the war General U. S. Grant made it his home until he became president. Later, until about 1900, it was the home of Colonel John J. Joyce, a picturesque figure with his leonine head and long white hair and mustache and black sombrero. It was said he had been the Goat of the Whiskey Ring. In the last years of his life a lively dispute arose between him and Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x as to which was the author of the lines

Laugh, and world laughs with you, Weep, and you weep alone!

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOUNT HOPE. THE WILLIAM ROBINSON HOUSE]

It was much discussed in the newspapers at the time. Colonel Joyce's tombstone in Oak Hill bears a likeness of him carved upon its face.

In the early days of the New Deal this house was rented by a group of young men, among them Tommy Corcoran and Ben Cohen, who were responsible for helping to frame much of the legislation of that eventful time. It was known then as the "Big Red House on R Street."

The southwest corner of Road (R) Street and High (Wisconsin Avenue) was the land owned by Thomas Sim Lee, who had been Governor of Maryland.

Every winter he came from his estate, Needwood, to spend several months in Georgetown, in his house on the northwest corner of Bridge (M) Street and Was.h.i.+ngton (30th) Street, which was for a long time the headquarters of the Federal Party. He died in 1819 before he could build here the mansion he contemplated.

Until about 1935 the old reservoir sat here, high up like a crown, until the Georgetown Branch of the Public Library was built.

The little street below here which runs west from Valley (32nd) Street, now called Reservoir Road, was originally named the New Cut Road, due to the fact that it was cut through to connect with the Conduit Road, now renamed MacArthur Boulevard which covers the conduit bringing the water from Great Falls to Was.h.i.+ngton.

On the southwest corner of Road (R) Street and High (Wisconsin Avenue) stood the imposing mansion of Mr. William Robinson, who was a very fine lawyer in the middle of the nineteenth century. He was a Virginian who had settled in Georgetown. He called his home Mount Hope and a wonderful situation it had, commanding a view of the entire city and the river. At that time the western wing was the ballroom, with domed ceiling circled by cupids and roses.

Mr. Robinson's beautiful daughter, Margaret, married Thomas Campbell c.o.x, son of Colonel John c.o.x, and they lived at Mount Hope until they moved to Gay Street. I remember Mrs. c.o.x as an old lady, still beautiful, and regal in bearing. The Weaver family lived there after that until the early 1900's, when this place was used as the Dumbarton Club. It had very good tennis courts, and for a while a nine-hole golf course where the suburb of Berleith is now.

Then Mr. Alexander Kirk, Amba.s.sador to Egypt, bought the place and made a good many changes, including the addition of a swimming-pool.

Afterward Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean purchased it and renamed it Friends.h.i.+p, after the former estate of the same name out on Wisconsin Avenue, where many famous parties had been given. Here she continued her lavish entertainments and during World War II contributed generously to the pleasure of members of the armed services.

The large house, number 3406, in the middle of the next square, was built in the early 1800's by Leonard Mackall, one of the two sons of Benjamin Mackall of Prince Georges County, Maryland, who came to Georgetown. He married Catherine Beall, another daughter of Brooke Beall. Mr. Beall, as seems to have been the custom in those days, had given this square to his daughter and her husband. The place was bought by Dr. Charles Worthington's family when they left their home on Prospect Street and was held by his descendants, the Philips, for many years, although the latter part of the time none of them lived there, but rented the place.

It has been for a good many years now the home of Mrs. Frank West, who has made a beautiful rose garden and christened it Century House. The house itself has charming rooms, all opening to the south, as so many old-fas.h.i.+oned houses had, and several porches.

I have spoken of Colonel c.o.x and the row of houses he built on First (N) Street and Frederick (34th) Street, where he lived for a while in the house on the corner. That must have been in the period of his first marriage to Matilda Smith, who was a sister of Clement Smith, well-known as the first cas.h.i.+er of the Farmer's and Mechanic's Bank, later its president. Colonel and Mrs. c.o.x had three children, one of whom was named Clement.

After his marriage to Jane Threlkeld they built a lovely house on part of the old Berleith estate next door to the old Threlkeld home, which had been burned. They called their home The Cedars. It stood where the Western High School now stands, and it is difficult to realize that there, in my memory, was a home most delightfully private and charming.

Turning back eastward along Road (R) Street just opposite Mount Hope, the pretty old light brick house is where the Marburys lived after they moved up on The Heights. He called himself Mr. John Marbury, junior, to the day of his death, in spite of having a long, white beard. Although his family never moved from this house, in the course of a few years they had three different addresses. At first they were living on the corner of Road and High Streets, then on the corner of U and 32nd Streets, and finally on the corner of R Street and Wisconsin Avenue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OAKS (NOW DUMBARTON OAKS)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTROSE]