A Portrait of Old George Town Part 9

In 1835 a.n.a.lostan Island was purchased by William A. Bradley, nephew of the Abraham Bradley who came to Was.h.i.+ngton with the Government in 1800 as a.s.sistant Postmaster General. For many years it was a wilderness, with only traces showing of its once famous house, but not long ago it was purchased by the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial a.s.sociation.

Robert Peter's house stood on High Street (Wisconsin Avenue), about where Grace Church now stands. He owned the whole block between Congress (31st) Street and High Street (Wisconsin Avenue), up to Bridge (M) Street. It was called Peter's Square. At the age of forty, after he had lived nearly fifteen years in George Town, he married Elizabeth Scott, the daughter of George Scott, High Sheriff of Prince George County. They had eight children.

Their eldest son, Thomas, was married in 1795 to Martha Parke Custis, the second granddaughter of Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton. The bride was sixteen, the groom twenty-seven. The wedding took place at Hope Park near Fairfax Court House, where Martha's mother, the former Eleanor Calvert (Mrs.

John Parke Custis), had been living since she became the wife of David Stuart, one of the Commissioners laying out the City of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Soon after their marriage, Mr. Peter gave to Thomas and his wife one of the six houses he had built for his sons on lots across Rock Creek in the new city. The one he gave them was 2618 K Street, and is still standing. It was there that General Was.h.i.+ngton stayed with the young couple so often. Martha was very lovely in appearance, and very devoted to her step-grandfather, and he, apparently, to her.

Robert Peter's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was married in 1787 to her cousin, James Dunlop. Mr. Peter's mother had been Jean Dunlop of Garnkirke. To this couple, the father also gave a house situated not far from his own, a block away, up High Street (Wisconsin Avenue). There they reared a large family.

No more interesting figure looms out of the mists of early George Town than the Reverend Stephen Bloomer Balch, the founder and first pastor of the Presbyterian Church. But, far more than that, he seems to have been pastor, "Parson," as he was affectionately called, for the entire community. It was in his church edifice that each denomination met until they procured their own.

Born on his parents' place in the Susquehanna region, graduated from Princeton in the same cla.s.s with Aaron Burr, Dr. Balch went to Lower Marlboro, Calvert County, Maryland, to take charge of a cla.s.sical academy in October, 1775. For two years he taught, drilled the students in military training, and studied theology on the side. His books were borrowed from the Reverend Thomas Clagett, who afterwards became the first Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, and now lies buried in the Was.h.i.+ngton Cathedral, not very far from his pupil in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Not very long after Dr. Balch was licensed as a preacher, he came to George Town, about 1778, the only place of wors.h.i.+p at that time being the Lutherans' small building, where their new church now stands on the corner of the present Q Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The lot was given in 1769 by Colonel Charles Beatty. Dr. Balch preached there on Thursday night and again on Sunday. He did not remain at that time, but, a year or so later, asked to come back, and at first used a little frame house on the north side of Bridge (M) Street, which was occupied on week days by a school. Just about this time he was made princ.i.p.al of the Columbian Academy, and the next year he married Elizabeth Beall, the daughter of George Beall. I wonder if he had, by any chance, met her on his first visit, and the memory of her bright eyes had followed him on his journeys down into the Carolines and lured him back.

At the wedding of Dr. and Mrs. Balch in 1782, tea was served in cups not much larger than thimbles. The ladies of George Town would not drink tea at all during the Revolution, and it was still not plentiful.

He was of a susceptible nature, for, after his wife's death in 1827, he was married the next year, when he was eighty-two, to another Elizabeth, one of the King family. She lived only eighteen days, and a little more than a year later, he again embarked on the sea of matrimony, this time with a widow, Mrs. Jane Parrott. By his first wife he had eleven children, the usual number in those days.

In 1783, one year after his first marriage, he built his home on Duck Lane (33rd Street), which he called "Mamre," from the Old Testament.

After Abraham and Lot had separated, Abraham giving Lot the first choice of location, "the Lord told Abraham to look over the whole land which He would give to him and his seed forever, and Abraham moved his tent and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, and built there an altar unto the Lord."

In 1799, when a street was graded through, it completely ruined his property and he was obliged to take refuge with neighbors. One of his neighbors was James Calder, who was a trustee of his church, and Mr.

Crookshanks lived near by. Dr. Balch had an island on the river called "Patmos." This time he went to the New Testament and named it for Saint John's abode, where he wrote the Book of Revelations. This island supplied wood for his fires. He had, also, a little way out of town, a farm of ten acres.

One Fourth of July, his son, Thomas, aged eight, as he tells us in his _Reminiscences_, wanted to deliver an oration which he had prepared--in Scotch Row, near by his home. All of his comrades had gone to see Captain Doughty's Company on parade with the fife-and-drum corps. But the little boy was not to be deterred. He went up on Bridge (M) Street, hunting an audience and a distinguished one he brought back with him. If small in number, it made up in quality, for he had General John Mason and Monsieur Pichon, a "bland and elegant" Frenchman sent by Napoleon to receive the $15,000,000 for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Mr.

Pichon was a Huguenot from the city of Lyons and lived, while here, near the Bank of Columbia. This son followed in his father's footsteps as a minister and did not have to go out always for his audience.

A short while after the death of General Was.h.i.+ngton, Dr. Balch gave notice that he was going to speak on the life and services of the great statesman. He preached in the open air to more than a thousand people.

The last years of Dr. Balch's life were spent at number 3302 Gay (N) Street, where a bad fire destroyed many valuable papers and the records of his church. He wrote to a friend: "Only the Parrott (his wife) remains!" Apparently, he never lost his sense of humor. Perhaps it was that which helped to make him so universally beloved.

Dr. Balch died on the 7th of September, 1833. Every house in town was hung in black, all the stores and banks were closed and the bells tolled as his body was carried to the church.

One block westward of Dr. Balch's original house lived another man, very influential in the religious life of the town in addition to his large business activities. Henry Foxall, a native of Monmouths.h.i.+re, England, was born in 1760. He went to Dublin, where he was put in charge of extensive iron works and where he became a Methodist. On coming to this country, he first settled in Philadelphia, where, in 1794, he was a partner in the Eagle Iron Works of Robert Morris, the great financier and signer of the Declaration of Independence.

When Thomas Jefferson became President, he thought it advisable to have at the seat of government an ordnance plant, so Morris recommended Foxall, who came here in 1799 for that purpose. He built his foundry on the western outskirts of George Town, just behind Georgetown College.

He built also a large brick house, two stories, with dormer windows on Frederick (34th) Street, between Water (K) and Bridge (M) Streets. It was quite a pretentious house for that time, with its high ceilings, elaborately decorated cornices of minute workmans.h.i.+p, and mantels of carved wood. It had ample grounds, and in front stood two tall and graceful Lombardy poplars. He had also a summer home, a little farther out and higher up, called "Spring Hill," from whence he had a fine view of the Potomac and the Virginia hills.

A warm friends.h.i.+p sprang up between him and Thomas Jefferson, as they had many tastes in common. Both were performers on the violin and used to accompany each other, and both were fond of tinkering. Jefferson, you remember, was of a very inventive turn of mind. During this time he thought of an air-tight stove and got Mr. Foxall to make some according to his ideas, but they did not work out to please him.

Thomas Jefferson lived for a while in George Town on the little street bearing his name, between Was.h.i.+ngton (30th) and Congress (31st) Streets, running south below Bridge (M) Street, in a house demolished a few years ago. It stood immediately south of the Ca.n.a.l on the east side, and was in appearance much like the home of Francis Scott Key. It must have been during the time he was Secretary of State in John Adams's administration that he occupied this house.

Mr. Jefferson was never happy living in a town. I found this interesting little tidbit about him in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_: "For eight years he tabulated with painful accuracy the earliest and latest appearance of 37 vegetables in the Was.h.i.+ngton market, and after his return from France for 23 years he received from his old friend, the superintendent of the JARDIN DES PLANTES, a box of seeds which he distributed to public and private gardens throughout the United States."

So I think we might easily call him the founder of the Garden Clubs of America, certainly of the Georgetown Garden Club.

Mr. Foxall was a convert to Wesleyanism, and a lay minister. He was in the habit of entertaining the members of the Methodist Conference at this home, and was once good-humoredly twitted by one of them in regard to his inconsistent roles of "proclaimer of the gospel of peace and forger of weapons of war." To this he replied: "If I do make guns to destroy men's bodies, I build churches to save their souls."

At this foundry (then the only one south of Philadelphia), cannon were cast for the American troops during the War of 1812. The artillery and indeed all the military arms of this country were then very imperfect.

Foxall was the only founder in America who understood the proper mode of manufacture. Here began the first manufacture of bored cannon in this country, being vastly superior to the old ordnance. The abandonment and recasting of the old-style guns speedily followed.

Commodore Perry would have no others on the little fleet he built at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie. The battle of Lake Erie was deferred until Foxall could fill an order from the government for guns, and transport them over the mountains on carts drawn by ten or twelve yoke of oxen to the scene of the engagement. From the deck of his flags.h.i.+p _The Lawrence_, manned by these guns from George Town, Perry sent his famous message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY FOXALL]

In 1814, when the British entered Was.h.i.+ngton and burned the Capitol and the White House, this foundry, upon which the country depended so largely for its supplies, was in imminent danger, and its owner vowed that, if G.o.d would spare it, he would build a church to His glory. The enemy had their face set in its direction when a sudden and violent storm turned them from their course. An old letter, written by George Bleig, afterwards Chaplain-General of the British Army, says: "On the 25th a hurricane fell on the city which unroofed houses and upset our three-pound guns. It upset me also. It fairly lifted me out of the saddle, and the horse which I had been riding, I never saw again."

True to his vow, Henry Foxall built the Foundry Methodist Church at the northeast corner of 14th and G Streets. It was sold some years later and the Colorado office building erected there. With the proceeds the very handsome grey stone church was built on 16th Street above Scott Circle.

The trustees of the Foundry Church were Isaac Owens, Leonard Mackall, John Eliason, William Doughty, Joel Brown, John Lutz, and Samuel McKenney.

Methodism at that time was in a struggling condition. The first visit by a Methodist preacher had been one by the tireless Francis Asbury. He was an old friend of Foxall, had visited him often in Philadelphia, and preached in George Town December 9, 1772. But it was twenty years before regular services were held, and then only by a preacher who came up from Alexandria. It was not until after the arrival of Henry Foxall that any Methodist preacher was stationed in the District. William Watters was so appointed in 1802.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOME OF HENRY FOXALL]

Mr. Foxall was instrumental in the erection of no less than four churches, the old church at George Town on Rock Creek, one at the Navy Yard known as Ebenezer, a colored chapel, and later, the Foundry Church.

In 1814 was organized the first Bible society in the District of Columbia. Among its founders were Henry Foxall and Francis Scott Key, near neighbors.

Mr. Foxall was three times married, his first wife was Ann Harward, whom he married in England in 1780; his second was Margaret Smith, married in Philadelphia in 1799; his third, Catherine, whom he married in 1816 in England, while on a visit home. He had only two children and they were by his first marriage--a son who died when twenty-five years old and daughter, Mary Ann, who became the wife of Samuel McKenney, and for whom he built a lovely home.

In the summer of 1823 he went to England for a visit, and there in December of that same year he died, quite suddenly, in great peace. "He served well his country, his generation, and his G.o.d."

Mr. Foxall was said by one of his old employees to have been honest and just in his dealings, and although he did a large business, employing many people, he owed no man a dollar. He was prompt in paying off his workmen, usually making coin payments. He was a conscientious, earnest Christian, a real enthusiast in his religion. During his term of office as mayor in 1819 and 1820, the ordinances for the town which provided against profaning the Sabbath, were strictly enforced.

The old Sunday Laws (so-called Blue Laws), which George Town inherited from Maryland, were decidedly severe, and it took a man of Mr. Foxall's force of character to enforce them. A few of the offenses against which he waged relentless war may be mentioned. Five dollars was the penalty for gaming, hunting, and fis.h.i.+ng on the Sabbath. No trading was allowed on the Lord's Day, except the selling of "fresh fish, milk, and other perishable goods." c.o.c.k-fighting and drinking, when indulged in by free men, were punished by a fine of $5.00, but when a slave was the offender, he received thirty-nine stripes on the bare back in a public place.

The old gentleman was fond of buying slaves whom he would set free after teaching them a trade. Long years after, one of his old slaves boasted of having driven the Marquis de Lafayette to visit his old mistress, Mrs. Catherine Foxall, on his visit in 1824.

When the Potomac Ca.n.a.l was taken over and reorganized as the Chesapeake and Ohio Ca.n.a.l, a great celebration was made of the event.

On Friday, July 4, 1828, President John Quincy Adams, accompanied by heads of Federal Government Departments, members of the Diplomatic Corps, the president and directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio Ca.n.a.l Company and authorities of the three cities of the then District of Columbia: Was.h.i.+ngton, Alexandria, and Georgetown, a.s.sembled early at the Union Hotel. The procession formed and, to the music of the United States Marine Band, marched to the High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) wharf, where, on board the steamboat _Surprise_ and other boats, they moved up the Potomac, until they reached the termination of the old Potomac Ca.n.a.l, landed, and marched a few hundred yards to ca.n.a.l boats prepared to receive them. They glided along until they reached the point of destination where the old powder magazine stood. On landing, they formed a large circle. The president of the C. & O. Company addressed President Adams in a brief speech and handed him a spade. After making the speech, he attempted to run the spade into the ground, but struck a root. He tried it again, when a wag in the crowd cried out he had come across a "hickory root," (allusion to Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory," and their political campaign).

He then threw down the spade, ripped off his coat, and went to work in earnest. People on the hills around raised loud cheers until their Chief Executive overcame the difficulty.

On July 4, 1831, water was let in the ca.n.a.l from the first feeder to the Columbia Foundry. The loan of $1,500,000 was obtained in Holland through Richard Rush on the credit of the citizens of Was.h.i.+ngton, Alexandria, and Georgetown.

It is said that, with the probable exception of General Was.h.i.+ngton, he took more interest in the affairs of the District of Columbia than any other president. He was largely identified with its material prosperity; he owned and operated a flouring mill on Rock Creek, but the project he was most zealously interested in was the Chesapeake and Ohio Ca.n.a.l. Of course, Mr. Adams had been here some during his father's presidency, though he was a man in his thirties then and was much abroad on diplomatic missions. He was also Secretary of State in Monroe's administration, and after his own term of office as President, served as a representative in Congress until his death.

A flouring mill which stood at the point where the ca.n.a.l of the old Potomac Company entered the river, was owned by the Edes family. The fish caught there were much larger than those caught elsewhere.

On the bank of the ca.n.a.l opposite the mill, lived Bull Frizzle, noted for his enormous strength. One time, after there was an accident at the Little Falls (Chain) Bridge, he crawled under a large beam and prized it up by the strength of his back, saving the life of the man pinned underneath.

Chapter VII

_Along Bridge (M) Street_