Jaybird's Jottings

Update

Howdy folks.

Well, I should have already taken care of this bit of business, but I have not.  

So, just a quick note to say that I have shifted from posting here to doing so at Facebook.   It's a different experience, of course, and there are certainly tradeoffs.   I often feel the restraints of space, but on the other hand, the interaction is great.

So thank you for sticking with me.  Hope to see you on Facebook, and I will continue to post occasionally here.  

Thank you so much!

Piscataway

I’m a place south of Washington.  Tall ships, hogsheads of tobacco, and Scottish merchants are part of my early history.   I have an historic district and proud to know George Washington lived just a few miles away.

Too easy, right?

Well, yes, Alexandria is correct, but did you know that the above also applies to Piscataway?

Piscataway, both an unincorporated community and the smaller historic district within it, came across our radar screen when I was reading, “Along the Potomac Shore, in Prince George’s County.”   The book was written by the Tanta-Cove Garden Club, a group of caring members whose community-minded organization began in 1966.    

Note:  Piscataway, which is located east of Fort Washington, is not to be confused with Piscataway Park, which lies south of Mount Vernon.   They do share the history of being where the Piscataway peoples lived. 

As an historic village, Piscataway is not exactly a one-of-a-kind place.  Northern Virginia has the time capsules of  Millwood, Buckland and Waterford.   But from Alexandria, you have to invest some time to get there and back.  This one is just a half dozen miles south of National Harbor.

Piscataway is part of four mile stretch south of National Harbor that is rich in historical assets.   However, it’s a mixed bag.  Although one can visit Oxon Hill Manor, St. John’s Church, Fort Washington, and the Colonial Farm at Accokeek, some of the others stand in limbo.   

I have to confess I knew next to nothing about Piscataway until I read about it in this book.  As they say, half the fun is getting there.   Let’s take the plunge…

 

Almost a half-century before Alexandria was founded in 1749, signs of English life began to emerge on the Maryland side of the Potomac.   Around the first part of the eighteenth century, both Broad Creek and Piscataway got their start as tobacco ports.  Planter Thomas Addison built a brick mansion on top of Oxon Hill, long an early landmark in this part of Prince George’s County until fire took it down in the 1890s.  The site is the MGM Resort, just north of Oxon Hill Manor, built 1920s, in the above map).   

In terms of shipping activity and a place of some commerce, Broad Creek would not prosper like Piscataway.   But some of the first stories of that part of Prince George’s County took place there.   The parish vestrymen built the first of several churches, whose site is at or near the current St. John’s Church, about three miles north of Piscataway.     

An older sign in Piscataway says, “Established 1640.”   Perhaps that refers to “the Baptism of the Piscataway Chief Kittamaquund by Fr. Andrew White, S.J.”   Of course, the history of the Piscataway peoples here goes way back.   On this land they knew so well as their home, the new port town of Piscataway was founded.   Unlike Broad Creek, it emerged as one of Maryland’s four major ports (Annapolis, Upper Marlboro and Port Tobacco).  Like so many other ports, including Dumfries and Colchester, the ships would eventually stop coming to Piscataway.  The American Revolution rang the death knell and silting finished them off.   

Piscataway, however, had a hey day as a port and then held on as a hamlet with farming, some fishing, being a cross roads place, including the post office.   The village had a tavern, stores, a church, a school, and the post office.  The Maryland Gazette and Alexandria Gazette covered some of its shipping, steamer, and estate news, as well as obits.  Sadly, the coverage included ads for the selling of enslaved humans and reward notices for their return.   

Like Alexandria, Dumfries, Colchester and others, Piscataway provides windows into the area’s colonial past.   As Alan Virta points out in “Prince George’s County:  A Pictorial History,” Piscataway was a thriving little place.”   

The Scottish shipping firm of John Glassford & Company had trading stores in a number of ports in Virginia and Maryland (One of the great losses in Alexandria was the (1915) demolition of the company’s commodious brick and stone store at the corner of Lee and N. Fairfax).   The company was the Walmart of its day, with stores in Alexandria, Colchester, Dumfries, as well as Port Tobacco, Upper Marlboro, Piscataway and elsewhere.   The triangle of trade involved mostly tobacco from the Chesapeake, sugar and rum from the Caribbean, and the household goods from England.  Sadly, enslaved humans were part of the economic flows.   

Bringing some of the Piscataway story back to life is Thomas W. Cuddy and his book, “Revolutionary Economies.”   He first tells us about Ebenezer Cooke’s “infamous tale,” The Sot-Weed Factor, Or a Voyage to Maryland” (1708).  The setting for the long, satirical poem was “Piscato-way.”   

The port town seemed to get the last laugh.  It prospered and became a “substantial community.”    George Mason was a regular customer.   James Marshall, Alexander Hamilton (no, not that one!) and Thomas Clagett ran the trading stores so vital to the life of the planter community.    

Piscataway, closer to Mount Vernon than Alexandria, was in the orbit of George Washington.    With a good number of entries, Washington’s diary reflects his interest in Piscataway.   On May 13, 1762, he wrote:   “Got a Cask of Leith Ale from Mr. Marshall Piscataway.” 

That same month he wrote to the London-based Robert Cary & Company, another major shipper of tobacco.

The Tobacco’s of most of your friends upon Potomack (or that Ships from thence) lies within 15 Miles above & below this place, and as good, or the best harbour (Piscataway) is within sight of my Door.  It has this great advantage besides good Anchorage & laying safe from the Winds that it is out of the way of the Worm which is very hurtful to Shipping a little lower down & lyes in a very plentiful part of the Country.

Another future President and Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, dined at Piscataway (August 4, 1775).  

The town was connected with the Virginia side of the Potomac by a ferry ride to Clifton Landing, modern day River Farm.  Martenet’s Map of the county in 1861 shows a road running northeast up to Upper Marlborough.  The modern day equivalent is roughly Piscataway Road/223 past Clinton.   

Horse racing was popular in Maryland and Piscataway held days for races and the accompanying festivities.   The  village did not make the cut for Eshelman’s “A Travel Guide to The War of 1812 in the Chesapeake,” but the townsfolk surely felt high anxiety during the British campaign and some may have heard the sound of gunfire during the Battle Of White House Landing at Belvoir.

At first thought, it’s tempting to say not much happened in Piscataway during the Civil War.   That is relatively true, but then we came across the story of Thomas Harbin (1833-1885).  He lived in Piscataway and was a Confederate agent.   At the beginning of the Civil War, Harbin was the proprietor of the hotel Harbin House, which later became Piscataway Tavern. 

Forgotten is the role he had in helping John Wilkes Booth and David Herold as they fled southward from Washington in April, 1865.   The military commission decided not to prosecute Harbin.  He later lived in Washington and worked as a hotel clerk.   In 1884, George Alfred Townsend, the famed chronicler of the war, interviewed Harbin.

Townsend wrote:

On one occasion he concluded to go into Piscataway, where he had once kept a hotel, and about all persons in the town knew him, and all knew that he was the chief Confederate in that part of the country. The bar-room was full of Federal soldiers, and a whole regiment was stationed in the neighborhood. He walked to the counter and asked them all to drink - soldiers and citizens. The citizens stood trembling for fear he would be arrested or informed upon. Harbin himself reflected a moment that he had better be cautious, so he had his horse sent to the neighboring house of Dr. Dyer, from which he departed.

After the Civil War, the African-American community of Chapel Hill emerged just north of Piscataway.   Like elsewhere, larger plats of land became smaller ones for farms.  

GM Hopkins map of Washington 1879 shows Piscataway as one of 14 districts in Prince George’s County.  The southern border of Oxen Hill was Broad Creek.  Piscataway ran from there down to Mattawoman’s Creek, about a mile south of Accokeek.  Names dotting the district included Dr. Hurttt, Dr. Edelen, Joseph Hostetter, and Joseph Hatton.  

The short lived Baltimore and Potomac RR (1872-1892) ran about five miles to the east.  That was too far away to make an impact for Piscataway.   In the other direction, perhaps young boys popped a blade of grass in their mouth and wandered over to the Potomac to wave at the steamboats or skip stones across the waters of the creek.    Maybe some climbed the step hill up to Fort Washington to get a better glimpse of Mount Vernon.

Memories can be sweet, but Piscataway was on a slow fade away from its former glories.  In 1905, a visiting writer with the Evening Star described it as “a shabby hamlet.”  Nevertheless, it still had its setting in “an amphitheater of splendid hills” and “a proud long past.”  The writer pointed out the main feature of Piscatway was the St Mary’s Catholic Church.  It was just one year old and had been erected on the site of a church in 1838.

In the 1920s, Prohibition gave a few in the village an opportunity.  In his indispensable guide, "This Was Potomac River," Frederick Tilp recalled “Piscataway Corn,” was a big hit in the Alexandria speakeasies during Prohibition.   

The post office in Piscataway closed in 1943 (became Clinton).  In the 1950s, Highway 210 gave motorists the faster, divided highway option.   For those hoping the highway would not portend the end of Piscataway's rural nature, they could be pleased that post war growth in Washington did not overtake this part of the region in the sometimes overwhelming way it did in other parts of the region.    

In 1992, however, Wayne Hardin ("Uneasy Times for Nice Little Village," Baltimore Sun) wrote a story about Piscataway.  Mary Forsht-Tucker, Piscataway Citizens Association president, said, “We’re tremendously threatened by development.”

Twenty years later, a new set of homes, Preserve at Piscataway, was built east of Piscataway Road.   The archaeological investigations there near the Edelen House (2445 Bailey's Pond Road) enabled Cuddy to pair the artifacts (12,793) with the Glassford records.    This helped further tell the story of the great reach of the Glassford company and also shined a light on the Edelen family.    

For now, there’s been no further encroachment.   The dozen contributing buildings along Floral Park Road provide a unique and special place.  

Below are our photos.   The final three are not part of this historic district but we include them for reasons noted.

St. Mary's Church

 

St. Mary’s Church is a striking landmark, rising tall in the Gothic style.  Catholic congregations here go back to the 1770s.   The convent and school were built in 1961.   

The cemetery holds the passed souls and reveals names of the past.

 

 

Contributing Buildings on Floral Park Road

Miller House, 2312 Floral Park Road 

Dr. Edgar Hurtt House, 2308 Floral Park Road 

Gallahan-Davis House, 2306 Floral Park Road

Hardy Tavern, 2305 Floral Park Road

Bond Bungalow, 2209 Floral Park Road 

Clagett Store/Harbin House, 2208 Floral Park Road

Stanton-Bladford House, 2207 Floral Park Road

Piscataway Tavern, 2204 Floral Park Road

Sarah Underwood House, 2004 Floral Park Road

Thomas C. Underwood House, 1908 Floral Park Road

 

 

 

 

Farmington Landing

Steamboats ferried passengers to and from here.  By the 20th century the landing had fallen out of commercial use due to the rapid accumulation of silt, but the spot remains a favorite for local fishers and kayakers.   Close your eyes and imagine George Washington sliding by.

 

 

St. James Hill

St James Hill lies on a small hill about a half mile south of the historic district.  It is also known as the Hostetter House.   The name of the dwelling might have come from a plantation of the same name.  Reverend John Fraser, the first rector of Piscataway Parish, owned the 700-acre tract.   This would have been around the 1710s and was where the Piscataway had lived south of the creek.    

In “Along the Potomac Shore, in Prince George’s County,” Pauline Collins shows a long list of owners and neglect.   Perhaps the most famous was Dr. Benedict Semmes (1789-1863), who married Emily Edelen.  He served at the House level in the State and then the US.

The build date is uncertain.  A Digital Maryland document shows the original frame part as mid eighteenth century.  The two and a half story brick is early 19c.   Collins tells us Lorena Boswell and her brother restored it in 1936.   They added a hyphen that connects to the brick part.  In 1976, Mr. and Mrs. Briesmaster acquired the home and restored it.  They added a wing. 

 

Piscataway House

This is a fascinating story, one touched on by the nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places for Piscataway.  Charles Wallace Collins (1879-1964), a lawyer, writer and librarian with the Library of Congress, acquired Harmony Hall in 1929.  He and his wife lived there.

Around the same time, he also purchased one of the homes in Piscataway.  It was a Tidewater-style framed house that was going to be demolished.   He had it moved brick by brick to a spot north of Harmony Hall.  Collins also dredged part of the canal to help facilitate the move by water.

 

 

Newspaper Pioneer: Emily Edson Briggs

The pioneers who won recognition for women in the National Capital were not women lawyers, doctors or even educators, but the women who, in the early days of city life here, kept pace with men in the newspaper profession. — Vylla Poe Wilson, “Anne Royall, Pioneer Woman Publicist,” The Washington Post, May 10, 1931

Whether it’s Jenn White (NPR), or Christine Amanpour (CNN), or Robin Roberts (ABC), or Norah O’Donnell (CBS), or Judy Woodruff (PBS), or Sally Jenkins (The Washington Post), or other great journalists, the landscape for news reporting is fully enriched by these and many other women. 

Much, of course, is owed to the pioneers such as Margaret Fuller, Nellie Bly, Ida B. Wells and Mary Ann Shadd Cary.

We recently came across another trail blazer, Emily Edson Briggs (1830-1910).   From 1861 to 1881, she was a regular correspondent for the Washington Chronicle and the Philadelphia Press.   Let’s take a brief look at her life.

Life for Emily Briggs began in 1830 in the rural town of Burton, Ohio.  Missouri had become the 24th state in 1821, with Ohio no longer on the edge of the western frontier.   

Emily's father Robert and mother Mary raised her and her three sisters.  Robert bent metal as a blacksmith.  Emily taught school and in 1854 married John R. Briggs, who had a brief run as publisher of the Daily Whig in Keokuk, Iowa.   John and Emily had two children, John and Arthur.  Only John survived infancy and worked in real estate.

The path of so many Americans was changed by the Civil War.   In 1861, after President Lincoln appointed Briggs as assistant clerk for the U.S. House of Representatives, the couple moved to Washington.  The city was still one of “magnificent distances,” but the population during the four-year conflict swelled from 75,000 to 200,000.   There were stories around every corner.   

For most women, their fate was sealed by the societal norms of the day.   Some made the news, but rarely did they write the stories.  There were, however, a few remarkable exceptions in Washington before the Civil War.

Jane Swisshelm (1815-1884) blazed trails as not only one of the first women journalists (National Era), but also as publisher of the short-lived Reconstructionist.   Sarah Jane Lippincott (1823-1904) turned heads, writing with the pen name Grace Greenwood.  Not to be forgotten is Anne Royall, who published the Paul Pry from 1831 to 1836.  Margaret Smith (1778-1844) knocked down barriers as a writer for the influential National Intelligencer.

Emily Briggs began her career in 1861.  After seeing prejudice against women who worked as government clerks in Washington, she fired off a letter to the Washington Chronicle.    John W. Forney (1817-1881), edited the Sunday paper.   Forney knew talent when he saw it, and hired Briggs.

What was the news scene like during Emily’s time?

Fred A. Emery (“Washington Newspapers,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, DC, 1937) and Donald A. Ritchie (“Press Gallery, Congress and the Washington Correspondents”) fill us in.

At the dawn of the Civil War, the Washington Chronicle was one of four major papers in the city.  In a situation that could never happen now, but was not uncommon at the time, Forney, the paper’s publisher, was Secretary of the Senate (1861-1868).  The other major newspapers were the National Republican, the Evening Star, and the National Intelligencer.  The pro-abolitionist National Era had shut down in 1860.   Paul Dickson tells us the National Intelligencer was the main city paper and a leading one in the nation until 1870.

The newspaper buildings, the Western Union telegraphic office, and the Willard and the Ebbitt hotels dotted the streets north of Pennsylvania, east of 14th, south of F and west of 7th.   Some time after the war, 14th Street between F and Pennsylvania earned the nickname “Newspaper Row.”   

The website, "DC Writers Homes" tells us Briggs lived in the National Hotel at Pennsylvania and 6th.   That put her just a short walk from the Chronicle and gave her more time for her work. 

Ritchie describes the reporters covering Washington after the Civil War as "hard-drinking, nose-for-news types."  They were middle-class and well-educated professionals.   Reporters wrote in long hand and type was set by hand.

Breaking into the inner circles of this all male club of cigars, liquor, and spittoons was impossible for women.   But that did not stop Emily from covering the news.   The Notable American Women website tells us she was the first woman to regularly go to the White House for news.

Emily’s male counterparts were an impressive group that included George Adams (New York World), H. A. Preston (New York Herald), Crosby Noyes (Evening Star), H.V. Boynton (Cincinnati Gazette), George Alfred Townshend (Washington Capitol), and Frederick Douglass (North Star).

It’s hard to know if Emily ever met Douglass, but in her columns, she mentioned him in a good light.  Writing about Senator Revels, she said — “he is a good man, but not great after the manner of Frederick Douglass.”

Readers of her columns in the Washington Chronicle and the Philadelphia Press knew Briggs as “Olivia.”   She began by writing book reviews and descriptions of the city during the war.

One of them read:

Washington is a Southern city in every sense of the word.  Slavery is dead, it is true, but the black man is not a citizen….  A bookstore has a set of pictures — General Washington being in the center, Jeff Davis on one side and Jesus Christ on the other.

Briggs penned her reports and observations for over twenty years.   For the Philadelphia paper, a messenger would hop on the train and deliver her column for publication in the morning paper.   

According to Ritchie, Briggs became one of the first women correspondents to use the telegraph for “spot news,” a sudden flash of important and late-breaking information."  He writes her “real talents laid in her colorful descriptions, her keen eye for social and fashion trends, and her witty style of writing.”   

Emily accompanied her husband when he reported to President Lincoln, and was a favorite of the First Family.  

About the President she wrote:

At that time, as all Americans know, Lincoln was the most jovial of men and the contrast in his appearance when I saw him at the levee was startling….  he stood there in perpetual fear of a dagger thrust or a bullet, and the warning notes of internecine strife sounding from the South. Every line in his face evidenced the kind, rugged character of the man, and every pose of his gigantic figure indicated Democratic nobility.

Of Mrs. Lincoln:

She reminded me very much of a very dear friend at home.  She was graceful, modest and kind to everybody.

Martha Joynt Kumar ("Origins of the White House Beat," White House Transition Project, 1997-2017) writes that:

One of the best known social correspondents was Emily Briggs.  She cast a wide news net, including her copy information on the operation of the WH.   Her approach became standard operating procedure for all WH correspondents, not just those tracking social receptions. She provided early institutional coverage of the WH in addition to her reporting of receptions.

The “Rambler” (Evening Star), a pioneer of sorts himself, gave Briggs her due in 1927.   He pointed out she and her husband initially lived at “Casparis House.”  Its site is near the Capitol and can be seen in “Early photographic view of Washington, D.C. from the Capitol, looking southeast.”  The address was at 11 A (Independence) Street, SE.  This location was close to the Capitol, but a long walk from the beating heart of the newspapers, downtown hotels, and the White House.

Briggs had a flair for writing about Washington society, but she wrote many a piece on politics, woman suffrage and even world affairs.  Her columns were typically about 1,200 to 1,800 words.   She covered Reconstruction, including a piece titled, “Delegates from the Southland.” In it, Briggs gave the following description of John Mercer Langston (1829-1897).

The smooth, handsome sentence of Professor Langston fell from his tongue like coin from the mint, each word having an appreciable value.  Like all of his race at the capital, he takes the deepest interest in the welfare of the freedmen farther South. 

Emily no doubt admired the women campaigning for suffrage.  In one of her pieces, she wrote:

In attendance were Elizabeth Cady Stanton — majestic and beautiful as a snowy landscape, Mrs. Pauline Davis, another exquisite picture of snow, Susan B. Anthony — hard, obdurate, uncompromising,  Josephine Green — best among women.

Emily also covered world affairs.   Her June 20, 1868 column was titled, “Anson Burlingame, His Triumphant Capture of the Inhabitants of the Flowery Kingdom.”

From 1862 to 1867, Burlingame, who had represented Massachusetts in Congress from 1855 to 1861, served as Minister to China.  The relationship was a good one, leading to the signing of the landmark Burlingame Treaty.   The agreement fostered trade and encouraged Chinese immigration to the US.

Briggs wrote:

A new and startling drama is performing on the world’s stage.The Occident and the Orient are at last united.Gray-bearded China, after being hermetically sealed during the long ages, opens her arms to embrace Young America. A countryman of ours has shown what genius and courage can accomplish in the great field of diplomacy. 

Whilst this Chinese panorama was unfolding, a graceful woman for a moment was pictured on the canvas — Mrs. Burlingame, the only woman who accompanies the party.There was a gleam of a pair of dark, lustrous eyes, a shadow cast by the heavy coils of black, wavy hair, something blue and films as Oriental gauze enveloped her fine figure: a side door opened, and the vision was gone.

Emily wrote until 1882.  She might have written even more, but as Ritchie tells us, male-dominated newspapers squeezed women out by not giving them the full time work that would have allowed them to have the credentials.  In desiring to remove lobbyists from the press, a reform movement in the late 1870s set standards.    

Banished, Emily turned her time and talents to other meaningful projects.  In 1882, she was elected founding president of the Women’s National Press Association.  

Emily must have been very proud of herself in 1906 when a collection (84) of her columns (“The Olivia Letters”) was published.   She covered many topics, including, A Plea for the Negro, At the Impeachment Trial, President Grant’s Inaugural, Woman Suffrage, Sessions of Congress, Charles Sumner, Georgetown Aristocracy, and Kate Chase Sprague.

In 1872, Emily and John acquired a notable large dwelling about six blocks south and east of the Capitol (619 D Street, SE).   It was initially known in the newspapers as Maple Square before being called The Maples. 

With the purchase, John and Emily (sadly, he died six months later) had some serious bragging rights.  William Mayne Duncanson, an early investor in the city of Washington, built the Georgian-style house in 1796.   Helen Betts points out “Duncanson, a British Army officer, could look from his house down to the Anacostia River to see ships sailing along the river.”

Other owners included Francis Scott Key, Major Augustus Nicholson (US Marines), Senator and Secretary of State John Clayton, and Count Louis Francois de Pourtales.    The house became associated with Key, but he and his family may not have lived there except for brief stays.

The house and property certainly stand out from the norm.   It is one of the oldest on Capitol Hill and still includes a strip of greenery that is uncommon in the row-house neighborhoods.   

The Rambler wrote this description in 1927:

The garden of the house, co-extensive with the square, was set with maple trees and the place had the name Maple Square.

A 1930 article in the Washington Times described Maples as:

… roomy house of colonial style, surrounded by spacious grounds, in which large maples grow.  The rooms are full of old furniture and relics of bygone time.  In the library, the bibliophile would find a thousand treasures in rare old books.   

Emily lived out her life there.   She joined that grand Washington tradition as hostess of teas and events.  The newspapers reported on her activities from time to time.   In 1899, the New York Tribune wrote about Baltimore hosting the ninth annual convention of the International League of Press Clubs.   The article highlighted Emily as well as Belva Lockwood.   Other women attending were Mrs. Juliette Babbitt and Abbie G. Baker, both special correspondents.

In the summer of 1918, with the US forces still fighting in World War II, Emily hosted an Independence Day celebration.  John Clagett Proctor, who wrote articles with a bent towards history in the Evening Star, read the Declaration of Independence.   

The following summer the papers told its readers:

Mr. and Mrs. J Edson Briggs announce the engagement of their daughter, Flora Amelia to Mr Charles K Hoover, formerly of Winchester now of Washington.  Marriage will take place at home of the bride, Maple Square.

Flora and her husband made The Maples their home.  They had acquired it from Flora’s father, and Emily’s son John Edson Briggs (1850-1928).  He passed away at Maples in September, 1928.   His obituary in the Evening Star pointed out he was one of the first presidents of the National Amateur Press Association, as well as a member of the Oldest Inhabitants of the District of Columbia.   A graduate of Georgetown, he became a real estate developer. 

In 1937, the Hoovers sold the home and lot 801 to the Friendship House Association.   Emily likely would have been pleased.   The Friendship House was a settlement house, designed to “help organize the poor to advocate for themselves and create community” (Johanna Bockman, “The Lost Connections of the Friendship House”).     

In 1940, the D.A.R. unveiled a bronze tablet affixed to the home.  The thinking at that time was that George Washington might have stayed over, but a review of his diary does not reflect this.   

In 1954, Catherine Harrington wrote an article in The Washington Post (“Friendship House Door Has Been Open 50 years”) about the organization.  A guiding light was Lydia Burklin, who shepherded Friendship House starting in 1909.  Though the years, a number of events were held there to support charities.

Emily’s grandson, Edson W. Briggs, made the news a few times.  Like his father, John Edson Briggs, he worked in real estate.  Briggs took things to a higher level, developing a number of neighborhoods, including Colonial Village in the upper reaches of the District near Silver Spring.

Edson W. Briggs was first married to Minnie Louise (1886-1955). Jessie Fant Evans told her readers ("First Woman White House Correspondent," Jul 1952, Evening Star):

“The tree etchings of Minnie L. Briggs, now Mrs Henry Raul, are familiar to devotees of the old rotogravure section of the Star, in her series (1938) Washington Trees and later one, in 1942, “Tree Companions of the Road.”

In her 2019 article, “Mary Nimmo Moran and Minnie Briggs Raul,” Frances Williams details some of Minnie’s story.  Her second marriage was to Harry Lewis Raul, a noted sculptor and Art Curator with the Department of Interior.  She founded and served as the VP of the Society of Washington Etchers.   

Emily lived long enough to see the birth of her great grandson, Vernon Mason Briggs (1908-1987).  With Anne, he had two sons, Robert and Vernon Mason Jr.  They lived in Catonsville, Maryland.  Like his father, Edson, he, too, worked in real estate.

Emily Briggs passed away in 1910.   As a resident and a reporter, she had seen many things take place in the nation's capital.    Perhaps she was proud of the two newspapers that were thriving, the older Evening Star and The Washington Post.   

Emily was mourned locally and then laid to rest beside her husband in Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago.   We all have our thoughts on what she would think of today’s world.  There are still inequities for woman journalists and they continue to endure harassment, prejudice and double standards.  

Personally, I think Emily would tell them to continue to push forward, and that she would be pleased to see the gains women have made.   They probably don’t all know of Emily Edson Briggs, but they would surely be proud to know she blazed trails for them.   

 

Note: 

In 1850, the book, "Ellen Parry, or Trials of the Heart" was published.  The author is listed as Olivia.   Apparently this was Emily, but I could find no indications in the newspapers.   The Wilmington Journal (North Carolina) wrote:  "This work is written with much vivacity, and delineates the influence of the misfortunes and trials of life to unfold the virtues and graces of woman’s lovely spirit."  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: George Washington Parke Custis: A Rarefied Life in America's First Family by Charles Clark

For those who have spent time looking into the history of the Parke Custis family, we've long felt it a paradox that there had been no biography on George Washington Parke Custis.  Although as Clark  honestly points out, that Custis was “not a great man,” there is a ton of material on his life that spanned from the birth of the republic to the year before the Civil War. 

Custis has received much attention as the step grandson of George Washington.   But there was more to his life than just that.  His forefathers were famous politician-planters, a multi-generation long Virginia tale of aristocracy and very sadly, ownership of large numbers of enslaved humans.   His mother was a Calvert, a family steeped in colonial fame as barons and proprietors on the Maryland side of the Potomac.

Of the four Parke-Custis kids, it has been Eleanor, the beloved Nelly, that has drawn eyes and authors.  “Wash,” the only male and last born, also saw a lot in his life, including the Mount Vernon years with George and Martha, and at Arlington House, the landmark home he built and lived in with his two Mary’s.   Famous people such as Marquis de Lafayette visited Custis, whose three Parke-Custis sisters were inaugural members of Washington’s elite “Cave-Dweller” club.

From his lofty perch overlooking the city of Washington, a panorama that included Georgetown, Alexandria, and the Potomac River, Custis witnessed much of the nation’s capital’s first half century.   In a variety of ways, the multi-talented Custis also participated in some of it.     

Ok, so I apologize for the long overture, but it’s been a long wait.   To the rescue is Arlington’s own, Charles Clark, whose new book is titled, “George Washington Parke Custis: A Rarefied Life in America's First Family.”

Let’s make no mistake.  Custis has a lot of baggage as a slave holder and many will not be interested in reading about the father-in-law of Robert E. Lee and antebellum Virginia.  Nevertheless, there are stories to be told here and Clark tells them well.   

Footnoting is outstanding.   Alexandrians will enjoy the handful of mentions about the seaport, including Custis orating in 1820 to the “Silver Grays,” an Alexandria-based militia, and his donation (parts of Washington’s tent) to the Masons.  As Clark points out, “Most of the Custis family’s social and commercial intercourse took place in Alexandria…”   He frequented bookstores and portrait studios. 

Unlike the irritating practice of books without or having very few images (remember the old saying — A picture is worth a thousands words?), this one has a good number.   One I had not seen before is Custis and Nelly circa 1789 by unknown artist, and his own “The Battle of Monmouth.”  Ephemera from the vaults includes his marriage deed and a haunting “Laissez-Passer” required of enslaved persons to leave Arlington House.

A nice bonus is “In the Footsteps of Custis,” as well as a thoughtful Afterword by Matthew Penrod, a retired National Park Service ranger and historian at Arlington House.   He touches on the ways we are grabbling with the past as seen through the lenses of our time.    

What isn’t nice is the part of Custis’s life that involved, as Clark puts it, “Hidden Interracial Sex.”   The author pulls no punches here.   He also acknowledges, the racism Custis "shared with his privileged peers,” as well as his condescending attitude toward enslaved persons.

The one and only one oversight, which does absolutely nothing to distract from this terrific book, is -- “John Custis IV who would build the importantly named Arlington Plantation on Virginia’s Eastern Shore…”   In fact, his grandfather, John Custis II built it.   Custis IV did build his own mansion in Williamsburg.

As a lover of historical markers, we hope this book will spark interest in one being erected for George Washington Parke Custis in Alexandria.   Quite frankly, we probably won’t see one for a while, but that’s ok.   Seekers of information on GWP Custis are used to waiting...

Note:  I read the Kindle version of the book. 

 

 

 

 

Carlyle Neighborhood: More History Than You Might Think

The most fascinating history of a neighborhood in Alexandria?   Carlyle, believe it or not, is certainly in the conversation. 

Note:  The area for our coverage is, at least on planning maps, called Eisenhower East.   Carlyle is a part of it and the more used name, and more developed, so we used it.

After being a backwater for many years, Rip Van Winkle woke up in the 1990s and began  a mercurial rise.   But even during those slow years, there were a variety of stories.   The one older marker in the neighborhood touches on the village of Cameron, but as the timeline shows, there are other candidates.   

From time to time in the past ten years or so, we have written about Carlyle.  “Rising” is the word we used to describe it.   Although the full buildout is still a distance away, the neighborhood is now a mature adult.  For many who whizz past the city on I-95, Carlyle’s impressive building scape might be their main visual take away.

In a piece (1990) in The Washington Post, Roger Lewis, Washington’s longtime architectural critic, had great things to say about the plans for the Carlyle neighborhood in Alexandria:

“Carlyle represents a significant, positive step in the evolution of urban design theory and practice, public land use policy and entrepreneurial initiative…  Alexandria has wisely sanctioned a durable, understandable, compelling urban design.”

We thought it a good idea to pay tribute to the neighborhood with some photos and the following timeline.  The most remarkable thing about Carlyle is just how long it remained a backwater.  Having said that, there was activity here.

For future hopes, we would like to see the construction of the “Old Cameron Run Trail,” a pedestrian and bicycle trail still on the planning boards.   A mural or two three would be great.  One idea we have is a transportation mural.   Through the years, the land that is Carlyle has seen a number of transportation stories, including horses and carts on old paths, the tall ships coming in from the Potomac, railroad tracks and yards, metro, automobiles and its infrastructures.

Note:  We give a big thank you to all the archaeologists who have conducted their studies and published their reports on this part of the city.

 

 

Timeline for Carlyle/Eisenhower East Neighborhood

 

1730s

The village of Cameron (site probably near I-95 and Telegraph Road) lies at the junction of the road to Colchester/Potomac Path (Telegraph Road) and Great Hunting Creek.

1749

Alexandria founded.  A road runs northeastward from Cameron to the seaport.

1754

Hugh West (1705-1754) buried in West Family Cemetery (vault) near village of Cameron (site on western portion of Carlyle Crossing).

1760

John West, Jr. owns 25 enslaved humans near Cameron. 

1786

Col. George West buried in West Family family cemetery.

1787

Sybil Harrison West (1705-1787) buried in family cemetery beside husband, Hugh West.

1790s

A pair of mills and a mill race built near West Family cemetery.

Early 1800s

West End rises up, teeming with the activity of “butchers, tanners, millers, carriage maker, tavern keepers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, soap and candle makers.  Later came the selling of enslaved humans, glassmaking, brewing beer, selling dry goods and food, providing water, as well as growing flowers."

1810

Bridge built over Great Hunting Creek at modern day Route One.   Gives quicker access to Alexandria than the Cameron path.

1848

Rueben and Robert Roberts, Quaker brothers from New Jersey, acquire land and mill. 

1851

Roberts brothers sell eastern mill to the Alexandria Water Company. Continue to farm the land.

1850s

Mention is made of “Cameron Valley” in the Alexandria Gazette. 

The Orange and Alexandria RR inaugurates its service.  The line runs under a tunnel on Wilkes Street and eventually reaches Gordonsville.  

1861-1865

Fort Lyon overlooks and protects Alexandria.   Soldiers have bird’s eye view of the city.  Any timber in the area would have been cut down for firewood. 

1932

George Washington Masonic National Memorial opens.  Not within the boundaries of the neighborhood, but the temple certainly serves as a landmark.

1940s

Southern RR continues to use their Cameron Yards facilities.  Site is on and near USPTO).

1950s

Temple Trailer Village built for veterans and Federal Government workers.   Dirt roads include Lee, Temple Terrace, Mason, and Washington Drive.

City annexes land from Fairfax County.

1958

Developer Hubert Hoffman Jr (1920-2002) purchases 80 acres.   Land still mostly a back water.

1960s

Interstate 95/Capitol Beltway built, as well as Holiday Inn and Hoffman Building I.

1970s

Hoffman Building II and parking lots.

American Truckers Association built.  Site near ParcMeridian.

1980s

Metro’s Yellow Line, Eisenhower Avenue Station and Eisenhower Avenue.

“Eisenhower Valley” and “Cameron Valley” begins to show up in The Washington Post.

1990s

Roger Lewis article in The Washington Post praises plans for Carlyle, mixed-use development on 76 acre site. 

Hoffman Town Center Development

Discovery of West Family burials

2000s

Office Buildings, Residential, Hoffman 22 Theaters, US Patent and Trademark Office, Courthouse, slip ramp as part of part of new Wilson Bridge and thru/local.

2010

Lost Boy Cider

National Science Foundation

2020

Construction starts for Carlyle Crossing, which will include a Wegman’s.

2021

Marker Erected for Hubert Hoffman at end of Hoffman Street on Foundry Apartments Building.   

 

 

 

Morning Walk in Mantua

Inspired by a new book by Sue Kovach Shuman, I had a fun walk this morning through parts of Mantua, a neighborhood located between the Beltway and Fairfax.   Accotink Creek, Crook Branch and Long Branch are saving graces which run through the green oasis.  Like a lot of places in suburbia where the only thing left from the past are the water fingers, folks may not realize there is enough of a demolished past here to cover in a book. 

Much is owed to Richard Chichester (1736-1796), who obtained the patent in 1776.  His mother was Ellen Ball Chichester, a cousin to George Washington.  His second wife was Sarah McCarty.   They lived previously at Newington, which stood from 1760 to 1875 as the second Truro Parish Glebe House.   Sarah’s father was Daniel McCarty of Mount Air.   Their story is emblematic of a shifting economy away from tobacco to wheat.  The Chichesters built their mill on Long Run near where it flowed into the Accotink.  A good guess is they wanted to be closer to Alexandria but Beth Mitchell’s map of 1760 shows a number of mills already established west of Alexandria. 

Images of America books are of a varying quality.  Shuman gets an A plus for her full on research, knowledge and insight.  She covers the large petroleum leak (1990) from the storage facility on Pickett Road.   The company settled a lawsuit brought forth by the 110 homeowners.   Shuman points out this was the first time a company did so with homeowners rather than the EPA.   She also tells us Leroy Eakin’s donation of 15 acres in 1950 created the first park in the county system.   We bet he would be proud to see Mantua today, a community protecting the natural beauty, and balancing its needs in a good way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Candidate for a Marker: William Cranch (1769-1855)

No man we believe ever wore the robes of office, or ministered at the alters of justice, of purer or more spotless life.  — Alexandria Gazette

For 68 continuous years William Cranch served the legal community in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.  He was a political progressive, a persistent and ardent opponent of slavery, duels, and alcohol, and an early supporter of public education in Washington.  —  An Encyclopedia of Great American Judges

Judge Cranch was a citizen of unexampled usefulness in upbuilding the new capital…The tenderness of his conscience, conspicuous throughout his career, is evidenced in one of the earliest national cases.    —  The Court House of the District of Columbia.   

For over fifty years, Cranch served the court, a tenure probably without parallel anywhere.  In more ways than one, he was the court.   -- An Anecdotal History of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Cranch’s unflinching commitment to judicial independence, judicial duty, and the rule of law boded well for the future of the court over which he would preside for the following half century.  -- A Noble Beginning for the D.C. Circuit Court, R. Kent Newmyer.

 

In May, we wrote about the loss of a dozen homes along Washington Street.  Our peek into that part of Alexandria’s past led us to learning more about Sarah Whittlesey, a poetess and novelist who lived at Duke and Washington. 

“A Seaport Saga,” our source of inspiration for both of those, also includes a photograph and brief mention of Judge William Cranch (1769-1855).  Appointed by President Adams, Cranch had a long and distinguished career as a Federal Judge in the District of Columbia.  He is not in the same breathe as the Supremes, but Cranch deserves our attention.  He served on the bench for 54 years, eighth most in the Federal system, and only two years less than Henry Potter, second most.   Cranch also had the unglamorous, but important duty of Reporter of Decisions, and served in community leadership roles.

A gift to the searcher of insight into the life of William Cranch is his familial connections to John and Abigail Adams and their family.  Cranch’s mother Mary was the oldest sister of Abigail Adams.  The two families were very close, and exchanged quite a few letters.  Cranch and John Quincy Adams were cousins and also exchanged scores of letters. 

Let’s take a look into some of the life of William Cranch (1769-1855), whose adult life spanned the first 60 years of the republic.   We make note that no one has written a book about his life.  Filling in the gaps are a number of sources that shine lights through the cobwebs.  We are in debt to them, seen below.

 

Arnebeck, Bob.  Through a Fiery Trial.  Building Washington, 1790-1800.

Carne, William.  Life and Times of William Cranch, Judge of the District Circuit Court, 1801-1855.

Clark, Allen Culling. Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City.

Founders Online.

Jacobs, Diane.  Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters”

John Quincy Adams Digital Library

Massachusetts Digital Library

Massachusetts Historical Society

Nagel, Paul.  The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters.

Scott, Leonora Cranch. The Life and Letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch.

Vile, John R. An Encyclopedia: Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia

 

 

Early Life

The fourth and youngest child of Richard (1726-1811) and Mary Smith Cranch (1741-1811), William Cranch, came into the world in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1769.   Coming up on its 400th anniversary, the town, the second oldest in the state behind Plymouth, lies about ten miles south of Boston.

Once a small seaport, Weymouth has produced or been the home of Abigail Adams, Booker T. Washington and Frank Lloyd Wright.   Abigail Smith and John Adams married in Weymouth.   Some town folk surely take some measure of pride in knowing about a skirmish at nearby Grape Island, an action that turned back some British soldiers in 1775.

Cranch (1769-1855) was too young to remember the Boston Tea Party (1773), but his father surely told his young son about Paul Revere’s Ride and the Battles at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, which took place not too far from Weymouth.   He also no doubt learned about the patriotic actions of his uncle John Adams in Philadelphia and other Weymouth stories.

Cranch was 13 years old when the Revolutionary War ended.   He was likely very proud of his father.  Founders Online tells us Richard emigrated from Devonshire in 1746 and settled in Boston.   After running a glass factory in Braintree, he moved to Weymouth and repaired and made watches.  Educated at Harvard, Richard Cranch sat on the bench of Common Pleas, held political offices, and was a delegate at the Massachusetts convention to ratify the federal constitution.   

Cranch’s mother Mary was the eldest child of Reverend William Smith (1707-1783) and Elizabeth Quincy (1722-1775).   The city of Quincy is named after Colonel John Quincy (1869-1767), the father of Elizabeth Quincy and William Cranch’s great grandfather.  Presidents John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams were born in Quincy.

Where some colonial era mothers had their stories banished to a dusty book shelve, Mary’s stories were intertwined with well-known citizens.  Her sister Abigail would marry John Adams, future first Vice President and second President of the United States.  Elizabeth Smith Shaw (1750-1815), the third and youngest sister, would play key roles in family stories.   All three were very close to each other.  Their letters are the binding to our insight into the family circle and beyond.

In his biography of John Adams, the Pulitzer-prize winning author David McCullough gives us some insight into the world of the Cranch family.   In 1759, when John Adams first met Abigail Adams (ages 24 and 15), it was in conjunction with Richard Cranch courting Abigail’s older sister Mary.   Richard married Mary in 1762.  Two years later, John married Abigail in Weymouth.   

The two families spent considerable time together and became very close.  McCullough writes that Abigail was very fond of her sister Mary and, “attributed her taste for letters to Richard Cranch, who taught her the love of poets.”  Jacob echoes this, and adds that John Adams was also attracted to his intellect.   

In a (1797) letter Abigail Adams wrote to Mary, she said:

The President says one of sister Cranch’s letters is worth half a dozen others.  She always tells us so much about home.

Elizabeth Smith Shaw (1750-1815) was also very close with the family members.   Jacobs points out that Elizabeth was particularly close to William (“Billy”) Cranch.   After Cranch left for Washington in 1794, she penned a letter to Abigail.  Elizabeth wrote, “I shall feel the separation from Billy even more than his own father and mother.”

Women of this era knew their roles were limited by societal  norms and expectations.  Nevertheless, those in this story shined in other ways.   In her book, “Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters,” author Diane Jacobs tells us Mary became a de facto mayor of her small village while Elizabeth co-founded a co-educational school. 

The Adams and Cranch women did a lot more than that, things not largely known or appreciated.  As Nagel points out, Abigail and Louisa, wife of John Quincy Adams, were “independent, strong persons, and bore no resemblance to the gentle, retiring females portrayed in journals like “Wide Awake.”

Richard and Mary had three children who lived beyond childhood.   Elizabeth (1763-1811), the first, exchanged scores of letters with her aunt Abigail Adams, and a number of letters with John Quincy Adams, her cousin.  Elizabeth married Rev. Jacob Norton (1764-1858).  At the time of his death, he was the oldest graduate from Harvard.   

Lucy (1767-1846) also exchanged quite a few letters with her aunt Abigail.   In one written July 20, 1786, Abigail described one of her outings in London.  Lucy surely marveled at the first-hand account of Windsor Castle.

We spent only one day at Portsmouth, but returned an other road which brought us back through Windsor. Here we stopped a day and half, and I was charmed and delighted with it, the most luxuriant fancy cannot exceed the beauties of this place.

William (1769-1855) was the third and last born.   An early reference to him in letters came from the pen of his aunt, Abigail Adams, on Jul 29, 1776.  Writing from Boston to her husband John, the future First Lady passed along some family news to the future President.  Small pox would take away many lives in the colonies and across the continent from 1775-1782.   The Adams received the inoculation, as did Cranch, who Adams referred to as “Billy.”   

Cranch was also close to his cousin, John Quincy Adams, the second child and first son of John and Abigail, and future sixth US President.   Adams favorite place to be was the Cranch family home.   They, too, exchanged dozens of letters.

Writing from Paris (May 31,1778) when he was just 11 years old, JQA gave his “affectionate cousin” an account of his visit to Montmartre.   

I went to the Castle of the Count Brancard & dind there with him and some other Gentleman & Ladies, from which Place there is a most Beautiful Prospect of the City.

John Quincy Adams is also a gift to the searcher.  As pointed out by the John Quincy Adams Digital Library, he  kept a diary for 68 years, a total of 15,000 pages.

This extraordinary dedication to pen and paper makes his diary, “the longest continuous record of any American of the time.”

In 1780, John Quincy Adams (age 13) wrote to Cranch (age 11).  The letter gives us an idea of a day in his life.  It’s possible William had the same type of schedule and daily routine.

My Dear Cousin:

I am in one of the schools which I was in when I was here before and am very content with my situation. I will give you an account of our hours. At 7 o clock A.M. we get up and go in to school and at 8 o clock we breakfast which consists of bread and milk. At 9 go into school again, stay till one when we dine, after dinner play till half after two, go into school and stay till half after 4 and then we have a piece of dry bread.   At 5 we go into School and stay till 7 when we sup, after supper we amuse ourselves a little and go to bed at 9 o clock.

I am your affectionate friend and Cousin,

John Quincy Adams

 

Education and Law Practice

For some during colonial times and beyond, education before college came in the form of home schooling and reading the classics.  Some families kept their own library of books.  For those who could afford it, some sons and daughters received private tutoring.   

William Cranch received such a multi-component education.  His father loved to read and had a large library at home.  The Massachusetts Historical Society tells us William’s uncle John Shaw (husband of Elizabeth Smith Shaw, sister of Abigail Adams) tutored him from April 1783 to March 1784 in Haverhill.

In 1784, when he was fifteen, Cranch entered Harvard, the oldest and 57 years ahead of William and Mary, second oldest.   His uncle John Adams had graduated from the famed college in 1755.   One of his classmates was a future President of the United States and his cousin, John Quincy Adams.  Adams’ younger brother Charles (1770-1800) also attended the distinguished school and graduated in 1789.   They stayed in Hollis Hall, one of the oldest building on the famed campus.   

Cranch graduated from Harvard with honors (Bachelor of Arts) in 1787.   Cranch and his cousin John Quincy Adams both gave a commencement speech.   No doubt influenced by his uncle John Adams, Cranch spoke on the need for three branches of the government.   

After graduating Cranch studied law under the tutelage of Thomas Dawes (1757-1787), a Supreme Court judge in Massachusetts and close friend of John and Abigail.  Dawes married Margaret Greenleaf, sister of William’s wife, Anna Nancy Greenleaf.    

In 1790, Cranch put up his first business sign in Braintree, another town in Boston’s orbit with associations to the Adams family.  His stay there lasted just one year.   He then moved to Haverhill, a long day’s horse ride, and replaced John Thaxter who had practiced there. 

The Massachusetts Historical Society tells us Thaxter’s mother, Ann Quincy, was a sister of Abigail Adams’ mother, Elizabeth Quincy Smith (1722-1775).   In the family tree Jacobs provides in her book, one sees Boston-born Colonel John Quincy (1689-1767) and Elizabeth Norton (1696-1760), the grandparents of Abigail Adams and Mary Cranch, and thus the great grandparents of William Cranch. 

Thaxter, too, stood in this circle of Smith families.  The MHS write that Abigail treated Thaxter, “almost like another son.”

Nagel points out William flourished in Haverhill, which “offered the more cheerful household of Elizabeth and John Shaw.”   That cheerfulness belied the sadness that came when Rev. Shaw passed away in 1794.  The disease of alcoholism took him away too soon.   

Their son William Smith Shaw, Cranch’s cousin, might too have had a problem with alcohol.  His accomplishments were noteworthy, and included the helmsmanship of the Boston Athenaeum and serving as private secretary to President Adams.   

In December 1790, Cranch wrote a letter to his uncle John Adams, who had become the first Vice-President, serving under George Washington for both terms (1789-1797).   

I find myself, Sir, very ignorant of the Civil law. Where shall I begin my Course of Study in that branch?

Adams picked up his pen and replied at length.  Among his recommendations were:

One branch of the division is the Law of Nature and Natures and the other the Roman Law.,,, increase your familiarity with the Latin language and the Roman learning in general… read carefully the institutes and acquire a familiarity with the titles and indexes of the Corpus Juris…. Study the Greek translation of Theophilus.

Cranch must have applied himself.  He began his practice in Braintree and argued cases before the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1793.  He also had clients in Haverhill in 1791.

Coming to Washington

In a word cloud of early Washington history, one sees, among others, the names of Washington, L’Enfant, and Jefferson, as well as Morris, Nicholson, Law and Greenleaf.   In the summer of 1791, L’Enfant, the French-American artist and Revolutionary War officer, sketched out his plan for the new Federal capital.  Then came the land speculators, who had a bad case of “Potomac Fever.”   Morris, Nicholson, Law and Greenleaf all had money and access to credit.   Their belief that significant amounts of people would want to buy lots in the new seat of government proved to be a siren song.

The Greenleaf family was well-known in New England.  One of the best looks at James (1765-1843) is, “Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City,” by Allen Culling Clark.  The family were Huguenots, who left France over worries of religious persecution.

His father, William Greenleaf (1725-1893), active in the American Revolution, held meetings at his house in Boston.  In July 1776, as Sheriff, he stood on a balcony of the Statehouse and read a copy of the Declaration of Independence.  Listening intently in the audience were William Cranch (age 8) and John Quincy Adams (age ten).

In days of old, some families consisted of more than ten children.  The Greenleafs certainly tell this story.  Mary, wife of William Greenleaf, gave birth 15 times. 

James Greenleaf drew a lot of attention.  He piled up bags of money in Amsterdam and married Dutch Baroness Scholten van Aschat in 1788.   Nancy, the last born of the Greenleafs, married William Cranch.  Rebecca married Noah Webster.  Margaret married the Honorable Thomas Dawes.  Susanna married a Captain.  Sarah married a Doctor.  John married Lucy Cranch, William’s younger sister.    Descendants include T.S. Eliot and John Greenleaf Whittier.

William Cranch probably thought his life would play out in Massachusetts, where his familial, social, and economic needs could be fulfilled. Then came the lusty sales pitch from James Greenleaf (1765-1843), his brother-in-law. 

Greenleaf was serving as the US Consul in Amsterdam when he paid a visit to Washington in 1793.   After George Washington and his team of Virginia planters had wrangled the seat of the government away from the north, Greenleaf, Robert Morris and John Nicholson formed the Greenleaf Syndicate.   They were required to build twenty houses a year for seven years, a goal that proved way too lofty.

William’s wise uncle John Adams had told Abigail he did not approve of speculators.   William was probably leery, too, but as Clyde Willis (“An Encyclopedia: Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia”) tells us, he had a case of wanderlust.   In a letter, he wrote, “the lot of the small-town lawyer held too little promise for him.”

In her terrific book, “No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Liberal Religious World,” author Cynthia Grant Tucker tells us William Cranch was “tender, devout, and studious.”  On the other hand, he was “incapable of earning or managing money.”   “Naive and impatient,” he fell for the scheme to make a quick fortune.

In 1795, Cranch took the bait from Greenleaf and took the long and bumpy coach ride to Washington.  His first year got off to a bad start when his law books were lost in a fire on the ship carrying them.    It wouldn't be long before he lost his money.

The Land Syndicate of Morris, Nicholson and Greenleaf hired Cranch to serve as a legal counsel for the firm.   The triumvirate had formed in 1793 and bought up large numbers of lots near and around the site of the Capitol.   Morris was a lion of commerce and US Senator from Pennsylvania.   John Nicolson, a native of Wales also lived in Pennsylvania, serving as Comptroller General from 1782 to 1794.    They both went to debtor’s prison.  Nicholson died there in 1800.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was Washington.   As detailed by Arnebeck, the syndicate members lost their hats when only a small number of lots were sold and little interest was shown in their sale of stock of the North American Land Company. 

Greenleaf went to debtor’s prison.  As Nagel writes, “the Cranch family was devastated.”   Just two years after his arrival, William was broke, as well as his sister Lucy and her husband John Greenleaf.

Fortunately for Cranch, he had a circle of family around him.   As Nagel writes, Nancy displayed courage and “exemplified the strength women often had to show in marriage.” 

Abigail sent him letters of encouragement and asked her husband more than once to help their nephew.   After tabbing him as District of Columbia commissioner in 1800 (replaced Gustavus Scott), President Adams made William one of his 23 appointees as a Federal Judge in February, 1801.   Much has been written about these “midnight judges,” although as McCullough notes, there was “no frenzied rush to name midnight appointees as portrayed by Jefferson and the Republican press.”

The appointment not only righted Cranch’s ship, it gave him a new direction with a good, steady paycheck.   In 1805, President Jefferson, even though no fan of Adams, elevated Cranch to the Chief Judge bench.   He would serve in that position for the next 50 years.

Where Cranch Served

Washington 

If Judge Cranch and others of his time were to come back and walk along Pennsylvania Avenue to Judiciary Square, they would perhaps have mixed feelings.   A number of large limestone buildings put up in the twentieth century fill some of the blocks and hold the court and police business, as well as the National Law Enforcement Memorial.   

A knowing smile would come across Cranch’s face as his eyes turned to Indiana Avenue.   Standing as a sentinel to those early days of the Federal capital is the large, U-shaped District of Columbia Courthouse (historically known as Old City Hall) where he sat on the bench for all those years.   

Designed by George Hadfield and built in stages between 1820 and 1850, the imposing Greek Revival building (one of oldest in the District and a National Historic Landmark) saw multiple uses, including City Hall, the Court proceedings, and governmental offices.  As James Goode points out, that part of the city remained undeveloped until the construction of City Hall building began in 1820.   Most of what went up in Cranch’s time, including residential row houses and Blagden Row, was demolished in the twentieth century.   Goode describes the homes as one of the most elegant pre-Civil War house groups.  Cranch probably was a guest in one or more of them.   

Judiciary Square remains the haunt of shined shows and uniforms, with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the Juvenile Court Building, District of Columbia Superior Court Building C, the Police Court Building and Municipal Court Building, and seen-a-lot-on-the-news, the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse.

Alexandria

Although on a smaller scale than Judiciary Square, Judge Cranch might also have mixed feelings about seeing Market Square in Alexandria.   Cranch would see nothing of what once filled it (City Hall rebuilt in 1871 after a fire), but he would recognize the square as a place of public use with a large City Hall.   With the farmers arriving daily, Market Square used to keep Alexandria fed.  Today, the Farmers Market is held on Saturdays.    

First Years and Where Cranch and Family Lived

McCullough gives us a succinct description of the infant new Federal district when President John Adams arrived in 1800 - “squalid shacks of the work crews… only a rather shabby village with great stretches of stumps and stubble.” 

William Carne, a long time observer of life in Alexandria, gave this description: 

“the city rising in the field and along the morasses, old farmhouses and new residences, scattered here and there.” 

Fortunately for Cranch, the former Maryland land included Notley Young’s brick mansion.  The Georgian home had been built in 1750 and overlooked the Potomac near Georgetown (G Street between 9th an 10th, SW, demolished 1856, site Banneker Circle).   With a commanding position, Notley’s mansion would have been a landmark for many years in the capital city.   He was one of the original proprietors of the land.  Ever so sadly, Young owned scores of enslaved humans.

Still single, Cranch boarded with Young before he married Nancy in April, 1795.   The couple then domiciled in a number of locations.   The addresses Clark gives don’t all list the quadrant — NW, NE, SE, and SW.   In his book, “Through A Fiery Trial, Building Washington, 1790-1800,” Bob Arnebeck tells us Greenleaf let Cranch live at his 2,000 acre farm hugging the south side of Eastern Branch (Anacostia River).   Cranch raised vegetables there.  

These first years in Washington were difficult ones for Cranch and Nancy.  They had to make the adjustments associated with living so far from home, and Cranch went bankrupt when only a few lots were sold.   During this time, William and Nancy had William 1796, Richard 1797, and Ann, 1799.    Cranch wrote to his mother that concerns of being sent to debtor’s prison gave him “horrors… that haver tormented my mind.”   He avoided debtor’s prison, but no doubt felt shamed.   

Family-wise, William Cranch and James Greenleaf were not the only ones in financial distress.   While serving in London, John Quincy Adams met and married Louisa Johnson.  She was the daughter of Joshua Johnson (1742-1802), a Marylander born in Calvert County and Catherine Nuth of London.    

Chris Haugh (“Six Degrees of Joshua Johnson”) tells us about Joshua Johnson.   Born not too far from Annapolis, he helped establish the first American tobacco firm to cut out the British middlemen.  By the time Cranch had moved to Washington, the “obnoxious weed” was no longer the cash cow it once was for Virginia or Maryland.   But Johnson rode the eighteenth-century waves and parlayed his financial gains into the post of US Consul to London.   Among his guests was John Adams, serving as a diplomat.     

Despite all this, Johnson had lived too high off the hog and ended up bankrupt in 1797.  With wounded pride and little money in his pocket, he arrived in Georgetown.  In an act he would repeat for Cranch, President John Adams pulled out his godfather file and appointed Johnson as head of the US General Stamp Office.  It wasn’t enough.  Johnson, burdened with mental stress, died in 1802. 

 

Duncanson-Cranch House, Near Arena Stage

In 1807, Samuel Eliot, Jr., (1772-1822) leased this house.   He was a nephew to Cranch’s wife Nancy and kept the books for the Syndicate.    Cranch and his family stayed there from 1808-1811.    His children at that point were William (age 12-14), Richard (11-13), Ann (9-11), Mary (7-9), Elizabeth (3-5), John 1-3), and Edward (birth to 2).  Yet to be born were Christopher Pearse 1813 and Abigail 1817.

Once again, what surprises Cranch would see a century later.  Visitors to the Southwest part of DC flock to The Wharf, a booming new mix of residential, restaurants, and retail along the shore of the channel waters.   Steps away lies the long-time anchor, Arena Stage, now part of a gentrified area around the Metro station.  Filling out the stock are residential units built after Urban Renewal took too much away in the 1960s.

Embedded in this landscape and within a short walk from each other are the Duncanson-Cranch House (1794), Wheat Row (1795), and the Thomas Law/Honeymoon House (1796).   All three are steps from the corner of 4th and N, SW.   The masked trio are part of a small handful of homes built during that period of speculation when the seat of government was in the process of being transferred from Philadelphia to Washington.   

Cranch did not live in the other two but it was part of his world and the builders and residents are part of the story of the infant city of Washington.   This was a mostly barren landscape, a long walk to the Capitol (such as it was).   The Honeymoon House (Sixth and N) was for a short time, home to Thomas Law and his bride, Elizabeth Parke Custis Law.  She was the oldest of Martha Washington’s four grandchildren, who gave the new Federal district a fine Virginia flavor.   Her sister Martha Parke Custis Peter and her family lived in the lap of luxury on a high hill in Georgetown and were part of the “Cave Dweller” high society set.   Although not fitting in as Southern, Cranch might have met them in social settings.   One can imagine the conversation turning to George Washington, their step grandfather. 

Note:  William Cranch is not found in Washington’s diary (Founders Online).  Abigail wrote several letters to Mary, telling her about dinners and visits with the Washingtons in New York.   While there, Abigail became Martha’s “staunch social ally.”    

Law not only lost money, he also lost his wife when she left him and retreated to the Virginia portion of the District.   Their break up gave the society columnists juicy material.

Wheat Row (4th and N) stretches across as four Federal style row houses (1794-1795). James Greenleaf and his Syndicate built them about 1794.   The National Register for Historic Places notes they are “probably the first speculative housing erected after Washington was chosen as the seat of government.”  Daniel Reiff, an architectural historian, believes the design is similar to Hollis Hall, the building where Cranch resided while at Harvard.

Built in 1794, the Duncanson-Cranch House (Cranch-Eliot House) is a six-windows wide, three stories tall structure at 468-470 N. Street, SW.    It is part of the Harbour Square Co-Operative Apts.  William Mayne Duncanson, a sea captain, rented the dwelling in 1795-1796.   Duncanson and Law were Anglo-Indians, who had made money in India and came to Washington with money in their pockets and a gleam in their eye.  As Clark put it, “they saw in visions, bazaars and temples.”   Duncanson also built a mansion home at 619 D. Street NE.  Known as The Maples or Friendship House, is was converted into residential in 2015.

Like Greenleaf and Law, Duncanson lost a considerable amount of money in the speculations.  Founders Online tells us President Jefferson declined to appoint him as either the librarian of Congress or the US Marshall for the District of Columbia.

Alexandria Beckons

While the city of Washington slowly grew, newcomers had two other options for a place to lay their head and find a developed town.   While not as populated as Baltimore, Georgetown and Alexandri  had more than a half century each under their belts.    As seaports, they possessed elements of a cosmopolitan place to live.

Down where Great Hunting Creek’s big mouth waters flowed into the Potomac, stood the town of Alexandria.  Founded in 1749, the growing seaport certainly had experienced economic ups and downs and would continue to do so during the years the Cranch family was there (1811-1825).   But while Washington teethed, the Virginia part of the District held a vitality.  A visitor in 1808 (“Journal of Capt. Henry Massie,” Pen Portraits of Alexandria, T. Michael Miller) had the following observations:

Alexandria is a very handsome town.   There is here open every morning an abundantly supplied market with all kinds of meat and vegetables.  The wharves are crowded with vessels of different sizes.

Two hundred years after the arrival of enslaved humans from Africa, Virginia planters were still keeping large numbers of them in bondage and gifting them to their children.   Some visitors to Alexandria and the nearby farms and fields, mainly those from the North, and especially Quakers, shook their heads at the slavocracy and their terrible ways.   There were a number of black communities in the town, with both free and enslaved African Americans.   Some of the churches they built stand today as reminders of their success and struggles, and help weave the fabric of the Old Town and Parker Gray communities.

By the time Cranch and his family arrived in 1811, Alexandria had blossomed into a place to be.   With tobacco fading away, flour exports put money in pockets.  A number of fine Georgian and Federal homes lined the streets.   On King Street, one could easily find a tavern to quaff a beer and catch up on news, and an established restaurant to slurp oysters.   The town’s associations with George Washington served as major bragging rights and families were proud of the service given to the patriot cause.   Through the door at John Gadsby’s tavern had walked Washington a number of times and Jefferson’s Inaugural Ball was held there in 1801.

Perhaps Cranch walked down to the tip of Jones Point, then shaped lie a dog-leg, to see where the first stone of the new Federal District had been ceremoniously laid in 1791.  Market Square held an array of farm products as well as the Hustings (minor offenses) Court.  Cranch worked there in his first years in the District, which then included Alexandria and environs.   A religious man, he worshipped the Old Presbyterian Meeting House.    

In June, 1800, President Adams, in the final summer of what would prove to be his only term, paid Alexandria a visit.   At his website, "Our History Museum," Ken Lopez details the story.   After visiting the widowed Martha Washington at Mount Vernon, Adams was escorted into the town and given the customary salutes and honors of recognition.   The feting continued at Gadsby’s Tavern where toasts were made.  And is there any doubt, the President was treated to a fine array of Virginia food?

In September, 1811, Cranch wrote the following letter to his Aunt Abigail.

I have sometimes thought of removing to Alexandria, where rents are low & provisions cheap; and where I can have the benefit of good schools for my daughters without sending them to a boarding school; & where every thing is convenient, and society upon a scale better suited to our circumstances and habits. The district court, of which I am sole Judge, sits only in Alexandria.— The only disadvantage which I think of at present is, that I shall not find it so convenient to attend the Supreme Court to take notes of reports, as if I resided in this city. Alexandria I believe is more healthy than the city. The Ague & fever has not been known for many years, in the thick settled part of the town; and the bilious fever is very rare. I should be able to visit my land, in case I should improve it, without the heavy tax of the Bridge toll.

These are my principal reasons for thinking of a residence in Alexandria—but I am by no means determined.—Health, education, society, economy and convenience are considerations of the first importance in choosing a residence, and if the balance of these should be clearly in favour of Alexandria I ought to go there.

 

Cranch listened to his own advice and moved his family to Alexandria that year.  Christoper Pearse Cranch, arguably their most famous child, was born in Alexandria in 1813.  Abigail was the last, born there in 1817.   The family’s move coincided with the British occupation of the seaport during the latter stages of the War of 1812. 

Sadly, Ann Allen Cranch (21 years old), their eldest daughter, passed away in 1821.  The Gazette noted the  “funeral will proceed from her father’s house on Washington Street.”    William and Mary also lost four other children, two in 1822 and one in 1824. 

 

Places Lived in Alexandria

609 Oronoco, 1813

Want to start a good discussion in Alexandria?   How about — name the most famous intersection?

Tabbed with three state highway markers, the intersection of N. Washington and Oronoco is certainly one of Alexandria’s most heralded places.  Former residents at this corner included Robert E. Lee, Edmund Jennings Lee, and other members of the famed family, as well as the highly respected Quaker educator Benjamin Hallowell.   

Cranch is certainly not found in this conversation, but he lived at 609 Oronoco in 1813.   Robert E. Lee was just another young Lee living next door (607), but his father was Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee.    Cranch might have met Charles Lee, although his fading sun, like Henry’s, was dipping behind Shuter’s Hill.  Lee had practiced in the halls of justice and was a town leader.

Cranch might have borrowed milk from Edmund Jennings Lee, who lived on the other corner.  Edmund served as clerk of the US District Court for Alexandria. 

Richard Bland Lee was another possibility.   The congressman had helped the Virginia team of planters move the seat of government moving from Philadelphia to Washington.

 

220 S Washington

1817-1821

This dwelling, now a business on the first floor, still stands as part of a row of houses built by Johnathan Schofield in 1812.   John Lloyd acquired them, thus the name “Lloyd’s Row.”  Five are three-story and one is a two-story.   Cranch bought the latter in 1817.   The family lived here from 1817 to 1821. 

Another insightful source on the Cranch family is “The Life and Letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch" by Leonora Cranch Scott (1846-1933), his oldest daughter.  She used not only her memories, but also her father’s autobiography and letters.  The result is a rich and thorough source.

In his autobiography, Christopher Pearse Cranch recalled part of his childhood in and around Alexandria.

My first recollections date from the house in Washington Street when I was about four or five years old.   I was taught to read by my sister Nancy.  When she was eight or nine, she died.  Everyone loved her.  About this time my sister Mary also died.   The deaths of these two elder sisters were my first great griefs, and made a deep impression on me.

 

 

212 S Fairfax

Dates Uncertain

Living here put the family in the heart of the seaport.   The court at Market Square stood just two blocks away, and the same distance for the waterfront.   According to Ethelyn Cox ("Historic Alexandria, Street by Street"), the home dates to 1786.  Its first resident was Dr. William Brown (1748-1792).   A marker affixed to the handsome home tells the reader he was a Physician General of Hospital for the Continental Army, author for the first America Pharmacopeia, and personal physician of George Washington.   After Dr. Brown died in 1792, his widow “offered four good rooms.”  Among them were the widow of Richard Blackburn of Rippon Lodge, Carlyle Fairfax Whiting, grandson of John Carlyle and Cranch and his family.

Note:  In 1913, the Richmond Daily Dispatch told its readers about the home at 212 S. Fairfax.  One of its windows panes had been cut with diamonds, an etch of the names of those who had lived there.  Among them were Dr. Brown, S.R. Greene, and Judge Cranch.

Cranch worshipped three blocks away at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House. Donald Dahmann, the historian there, tells us Cranch “enjoyed playing the church’s Hilbus organ.”

Cranch got involved in the community in Alexandria, serving as a trustee of the Alexandria Academy along with Edmund J. Lee, Thomas Swann and John Janney.   Those were three big family names in town.   Cranch might have enjoyed conversing with Janney, a Quaker.   Perhaps he tried to reconcile any friendships he had with Alexandrians who were slave owners.   

 

Farm South of Alexandria

In his autobiography, Christopher Pearse Cranch recalled part of his childhood in and around Alexandria.   The family (father, mother, him, William, Richard, John and Edward, Elizabeth, Abby and Margaret) spent their summers, “on a farm, Suffield, about four miles to the southwest.”  His brother Richard Cranch oversaw the work of the family.  They raised vegetables, rye, wheat and oats, and small apples.  They had a dog named Watch, a mix of setter and Newfoundlander.

Note: I was not able to determine the site of this farm. 

Christoper also wrote about their move back to the town of Alexandria in 1823.   

In 1823, we moved to another part of Alexandria, which went by the name of the Village.The house was a large and pretty frame dwelling, in the southern suburbs of town, not far from Hunting Creek.On the southern side of the house was a veranda of two stories, overlooking a yard with a semi-circle of tall Lombardy poplars, a well of water, and a large garden with an abundance of fruit and flowers. The roses were particularly plentiful and fine.In the center of the garden was a large summer arbor, with seats, and covered with multi-flora roses. We had strawberries, gooseberries, cherries, damsons, peaches, and fine winter pippins. At the bottom of the garden was a small building used by my father as a library, and law office.From the upper story of the veranda there was a fine view of the majestic Potomac, and the sails constantly gliding up and down the river.It was a beautiful place, and to this day it mingles with my dreams.But the situation was not healthy, all that region near the creek being subject to fever and ague, at which I took my turn with others.

I shall always remember this pleasant house at the village as the happy suburban home where, in spite of these domestic sorrows, we children found such ample scope for play, such delight in our beautiful garden, such amusement with the dogs, the chickens, the ducks, the hayloft, and the rural surroundings.And it was there that I attempted my first versification, a paraphrase from Ossian.

 

Market Square 

In her book, “The Market Square Cookbook, Alexandria’s Founders, Farmers and Food,” Tiffany Pache provides a history of Market Square through the years.   From 1785 to 1802, the Hustings Court, where Cranch sat on the bench, was located in the Market House.  It was a two- story building on the southeast corner of Cameron and N. Royal (across from Gadsby’s Tavern).    

1817 saw expansion and changes to this square.  On that same corner, a larger Market House building, now fronting Royal Street, was built with brick and rose to three stories high.  The first floor continued to serve as the farmer’s market.   The second floor held the city library and court offices.   The city museum was on the third floor.   The pillory and stocks had been removed while the scale house remained mid block Cameron Street.  Sharpshin Alley ran east to west and divided the square in half.  On the lower half facing King, stood a mishmash of retailers and businesses. 

Emblematic of a growing and proud town, that new three story building was topped by a steeple with a bell and clock designed by Benjamin Latrobe. 

 

Cranch Family Children

In colonial times, families suffered greatly from the loss of children dying before adulthood, as well as mothers dying after labor.   Although, the percentages dropped by the start of the nineteenth century, the black veils continued to  wrap families in grief this way.    Ann died of tuberculosis at age 20.  After marrying Richard Norton, Mary died at the same when her child was one week old.  Richard’s promising life was cut short when he drowned at age 28.   

William, Richard, Ann, Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward were born in Washington and were part of the move to Alexandria in 1811.  Christopher and Abigail were born in Alexandria.  For Elizabeth, John, Edward, Christopher and Abigail, their formative years were lived in Alexandria.  The family lived there until 1825, when they returned to Washington.   William was the only one of the children who stayed in Washington the rest of his life.   

William Greenleaf Cranch

1796-1872

Residence:  Corner of 4th and East Capitol Streets

Buried:  Congressional Cemetery

In the colonial era and beyond, the first born child and the last born child could be separated by 15 or more years.   This was the case with William and Abigail (21 years) and Christopher (17).  In fact, Christopher, in his autobiography, has but one brief mention of William.

It’s hard to know where in Washington William was born but it was likely near the Capitol.   No doubt a function of his financial straits, William Cranch moved his family to  several places before the move to Alexandria in 1811.  This could have been a difficult time for his first son, age fifteen when they crossed the river, and he himself, was looking down at his chasm between adolescence and adulthood. 

The Census for 1850 shows William Greenleaf Cranch living with his father.  The 1860 Census shows him as a Clerk in the Post Office.  Also listed are John, age 39, an Artist, Charles, 36, Hannah, 14, Edward 8, and Mary Dines, a 50-year-old black “home servant.”

The City Directory (1869) for William shows him working at the Patent Office and living near 6th and Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.  He passed way at his residence at the corner of 4th and East Capitol streets.

His obituary in the Evening Star, January 29, 1872, noted his funeral was at the residence of his brother John Cranch, No. 13 4th street S.E. near East Capitol street, and was largely attended.

 

Richard Cranch

1797-1825

Born:  Washington

Died: Pennsylvania

Buried Pennsylvania

William and Nancy suffered deeply in the first half of the 1820s.   Ann and Mary died in 1821, followed by Richard drowning in 1825.  Richard had managed the family farm south of Alexandria.  In 1825, he was attached to the Brigade of Topographical Engineers.  The crew was working on the route for a canal from between Lake Erie and Pittsburgh.  The Meadville Messenger gave an account of Richard’s drowning.

In short, two lieutenants, Turnbull and Ramsay, along with Cranch and two other men were in a boat in a lake about two hundred yards off shore.  A squall of winds turned the boat over.  Lt. Ramsay and another man tried to save Cranch.   They pulled him to the shore and tried to revive him, but it was too late. 

In his autobiography, Christoper wrote:

“I shall never forget what a dark day that was, when the tidings of this event reached us.  I can well remember how all the family were plunged into grief and tears.   We all loved our brother Richard dearly.  He was the strongest and most active in the family.”

According to MyHeritage, Richard was buried in Pennsylvania.

 

Ann Allen Cranch

1799-1821

Ann’s obituary (April 11) in the Gazette indicated she was the eldest daughter of Judge Cranch, and that the funeral will proceed from her father’s house on Washington Street. 

She might have died from consumption (tuberculosis).  Ann was laid to rest at Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery in Alexandria.   

Mary Cranch Norton

1801-1821

There is very little information on both Ann and Mary.  In “The Life and Letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch,” he writes:

My first recollections date from the house in Washington Street when I was about four or five years old (He was born in 1813).   About this time my sister Mary also died.  She had been married to her cousin Richard Norton about a year, and died soon after confinement, with a daughter, who also died.   About a year later, Mr. Norton died from some virulent fever badly treated by an ignorant physician.

The deaths of these two elder sisters were my first great griefs, and made a deep impression on me.

 

Mary might have died from childbirth.  She too was buried in Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery.

 

Elizabeth Eliot Cranch Dawes

1805-1860

Congressional Cemetery

In Washington in 1829, Elizabeth married Rufus Dawes (1803-1859) of Boston.  He was the son of Judge Thomas Dawes of Boston.   Perhaps he wrote poems for Elizabeth, for Thomas was talented this way.  He had some of his verses published (“The Valley of the Nashaway and other Poems.")   According to the website LawLit, Rufus later found employment in Washington as a governmental clerk.   He died there in 1859.

The Baltimore Sun published Elizabeth’s obituary (June, 1860).  It pointed out she was the widow of the late Rufus Dawes and the daughter of the late estimable Judge Cranch.  She died “after a severe and protracted illness.”

The funeral for Elizabeth was at the residence of her brother William at the “corner of second street east and D Street south.”   

 

John Cranch

1807-1891

Died: Urbana, Ohio

Three of Cranch’s sons -- John, Edward, and Christopher -- earned a measure of fame through their creative talents.   John, like Christoper and Edward, also spent some of his early life in Alexandria, and, like his father and brothers,  graduated from Columbian College, the predecessor to GWU.   

In 1829, readers of the Alexandria Gazette learned that the paper took great pleasure in mentioning “a young artist, one of our own townsmen, is now located in Washington, pursuing with assiduity, and we doubt not success, his profession.” 

That was John Cranch.  He would go on to have his work exhibited at, among others, the National Academy, Apollo Association, Boston Athenaeum, American Art Union, and the Washington Art Association.

In 1837, readers of the paper got an update.  The Gazette published an extract from the New York Daily Express. The paper pointed out John Cranch was a son of Judge Cranch, and was “one of the most promising and talented artists in our county.”

Two years earlier, he painted a portrait of Grenville Mellen (1799-1841).  Born in Maine, Mellen (1799-1841) Mellen penned poetry and books.  He was the son of Prentiss Mellen, who served as the first Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court.   

The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art has in their collection a photograph of John Cranch.  It was taken in his studio at his daughter’s home in Urbana, Ohio, c 1885.  One sees his portrait of his father behind him, and another (unknown) portrait beside him.  The photograph was donated by John E. Cranch, his great-grandson in 1985.

The book,"Paintings and Sculptors in the Collection," provides a bio of Cranch, as well as a self-portrait.  After graduating from Columbian College, he traveled to Italy (Venice and Florence) in 1830 to study art.  He befriended Hiram Powers, described by the Met as “among the most influential and best-known American sculptors of the nineteenth century.”   Also in the inner circle of American ex-pats was Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Returning to the states, Cranch lived in New York where his work appeared in an exhibition held by the National Academy of Design.  He then moved to Cincinnati in 1839 and became President of the Fine Arts Section of the Hamilton County Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

In 1841, John’s brother Christopher was not feeling well.  He took sanctuary in Washington and began to take up landscape painting.   He writes in his diary of buying paint and brushes and using one of John’s old easel.   Christopher surely took inspiration from his brother, too, as John painted landscapes.

In 1845, John married Charlotte Dawes Appleton (1824-1909) of Baltimore.   He exhibited in Boston and again in New York.  In New York he shared space with Christopher.   In 1855, John returned to Washington, where he provided leadership to the newly formed Washington Art Association.

His studio in Washington was at 278 1/2 Pennsylvania Avenue, above the Adams & Co. Express Office on Pennsylvania Avenue.   On a visit to Washington, a Boston newspaper reporter noticed a portrait of Judge Cranch there.  He also saw “David playing on the harp before Saul.”

The book, "The First Smithsonian Collection," adds to our knowledge of John Cranch.   He worked with William Wilson Corcoran (1798-1888), to promote the formation of a national gallery and art school.   The famed founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (opened 1874) grew up in Georgetown and lived in Washington. 

Cranch painted a portrait of early Smithsonian regent Robert Dale Owen.  In 1895, his widow Charlotte donated a large collection of prints to the National Academy.   Cranch had acquired European engravings and Renaissance paintings and sculptures.

Cranch stayed in Washington from 1855 to 1881.   He moved to Ohio in 1885, and drew his last breath there.

According to the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit, a portrait of his father hangs in the Ceremonial Courtroom of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington.

 

Edward Pope Cranch

1809-1892

Died in Cincinnati

Edward Pope Cranch was born in Washington.  He followed in his brother’s footsteps as a hand at the family farm and a graduate of Columbian College, and in his father’s footsteps as an attorney.   In his autobiography, Christopher tells us Edward wrote that he had great insight into their father’s life.   Edward studied law for three years in his chambers at City Hall in Washington and observed — “I don’t believe he spent an idle hour in his life.”

Edward was close with Christopher, their fondness seen in lengthy letters exchanged.  After Christopher passed away in February, 1892, Edward wrote to Mrs. Scott:

He was very dear to me from my childhood, and his memory will be precious to me while I live.

Edward also had talents with the brush and as a lecturer.  He made his way to Cincinnati in 1831 and studied under Salmon P. Chase.   Edward lectured at the Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge.   He returned to Alexandria in the late 1850s and painted and taught there, followed by a stint in Washington in the mid-1870s.  He decorated pieces of Rookwood ware in Cincinnati between 1882 and his passing in 1892. 

 

Christopher Pearse Cranch

1813-1892

Born: Alexandria

Died: Cambridge

Christopher Pearse Cranch was arguably the most famous of the Cranch children.  Born in Alexandria in 1815, he became a preacher, poet, essayist, author of children books, and an artist.  After graduating from Columbian College (the predecessor to GWU) in Washington, he began a remarkable, multi-talented and well-traveled life.   

The Walden Books website says he met Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) after entering Harvard Divinity School.   The two, along with some of their fellow students, helped form the Transcendental Club.   Christopher sketched “The Transparent Eyeball,” an ode to Emerson who wrote Nature (1836).  He was the only one in the group born in the South.

The two exchanged letters.  In March 1840, Emerson wrote:

I thank you for the beautiful verses which I have read and re-read with great content.   The first piece is true and the second is brilliant. 

Cranch became particularly close to George William Curtis (1824-1892), who became a writer for Harper’s Weekly and the New York Tribune.   In her biography of Curtis, Linda Dowling tells us he was also an essayist, lecturer, editor and best of all, the “beloved author of the Editor’s Easy Chair column in Harper’s Monthly Magazine.”

The two were friends who traveled to Italy and France together, exchanged letters, buoyed each others spirit, and shared poetry, ideas, criticisms, and thoughts.   One particularly poignant moment came during the Civil War.  Christopher wrote to Curtis:

...sorry to hear about your brother who died at the Battle of Fredericksburg.  (Lt.Col. Joseph Bridgham Curtis).

Cranch’s daughter tells us Christopher asked her to send, after his death, his published and unpublished works to Curtis.   Cranch named one of his sons, George William (1847), after his friend and Curtis helped him publish a book.

When Christopher passed away in 1892, Curtis wrote about him in his column in Harper’s Magazine called, "The Easy Chair."

He was of that choice band who are always true to the ideals of youth, and whose hearts are the citadels which conquering time assails in vain.  It was a long and lovely life, a life gentle and pure and good.”  

As many did in his time, Cranch married someone he and the family knew.   Elizabeth De Windt (1787-1870) was a niece of John Quincy Adams.  Her mother Caroline (1795-1852), was a daughter of Abigail “Nabby” Adams Smith (1765-1813), who was the only daughter of John and Abigail Adams. 

Jim Olson wrote about Nabby in his book, “Bathsheba’s Breast, Women, Cancer & History.”   She was seventeen when her father was appointed to minister to England.   Contrary to certain ideals that advocated for modesty, her husband, William Smith, spent lavishly.  As a harbinger for what would happen in Washington, he lost everything on real estate speculation.  Much worse, Nabby had breast cancer that spread to other parts of her body.   Her mother Abigail Adams fell into a depression. 

Elizabeth’s father was the wealthy Dutch-American, J.P. De Windt II (1787-1870).    Her sister Caroline married Andrew Jackson Downing, the distinguished architect who spent some of his formative years in Alexandria. 

The Corcoran Gallery of Art tells us Cranch devoted all his time to painting after 1840.  He and Elizabeth spent time in  Rome, Paris and Switzerland.  He was praised for his landscape painting.   “Virginia, A Guide to the Old Dominion,” tells us Christoper published in 1875 what is “probably the best American translation of Virgil’s Aeneid.” 

In 1993, the University of Georgia Press published an edited edition of “Three Children’s Novels,” by Christopher Cranch.  They write that his most enduring achievements are his novels for children and he was the first American author to write novel-length works solely for children. 

As the editors explain in their introduction, Cranch was the first American author to write novel-length works solely for children, and to fuse elements of fantasy and adventure. One of them was titled, “The Last of the Huggermuggers,” which Cranch described as a story about “a good giant.”

Cranch’s letters give the reader a host of descriptions.   Visiting Washington in March 1886, he wrote:

This great city of Washington.   I had heard of its transformation into a beautiful city, but it is much beyond anything I imagined… the immense area which I remember as field and common and slashes — all built up with fine houses and and churches and public buildings, with monuments and statues and parks.

 

Christopher also gave us this description of his father…

… tall and erect…serious and somewhat taciturn… quiet temperament, inclined to melancholy, fond of children, devoted attachment between him and my mother,

… and his mother"

… industrious and regular, early riser, busy attending to her duties.

Christopher spent his final two decades in Cambridge, passing away at the age of 78.   

 

Abigail Adams Cranch Eliot

1817-1908

Born in Alexandria

Died in St Louis

Abigail, the last of the Cranch children, was born in Alexandria.  Her childhood included living in the seaport.   One can imagine her excitement at age seven when the town pulled out all the stops to fete Marquis de Lafayette in 1824.  He stayed at the corner of Duke and S. St. Asaph, almost within earshot of the family home on S. Washington. 

Abigail married William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887), who was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and raised in Washington.  After graduating from Columbian College in 1831, Eliot earned his degree from Harvard Divinity School.   He married Abigail in 1837.   As Charlotte C. Eliot (“William Greenleaf Eliot, Minister, Educator, Philanthropist”) tells us, their move from Washington to St. Louis in 1837 took two weeks and involved:

a steam car where they were “nearly shaken to pieces,” a steamer to New York, canal boats to Cleveland, stagecoach all night ride to Cincinnati, and finally, a steamer to St Louis where they were greeted with smoke and mud.

T.S. Eliot is the most famous Eliot in St Louis, but his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, made great contributions to the city.  He was a friend of the poor and oppressed, preached for 39 years, and helped start Washington University and other schools in St. Louis.   All the while, Rev. Eliot preached and taught, visited his parishioners three hours a day, and founded several Unitarian churches in the West.   

Among William and Abigail’s eight children was Henry Ware Eliot (1843-1919).   One of Henry’s sons was T. S. Eliot (1888-1965).   Abigail also would have been proud of sons Rev. Thomas Lamb Eliot, who was once greatly admired in Portland, Oregon.

Like many other women of the past, Abigail’s story has been pushed aside or not even recognized.   Coming to the rescue is Cynthia Grant Tucker and her book, "The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Unitarian World."

She tells us Unitarian’s ideals were tolerance, freedom, fairness and boundless love and that “no natives did more to map out this world than the family of Abigail Adams Cranch (1817-1908) and William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887).”   But for the women, “they had to strain to make themselves heard.”

Abigail Adams Cranch contribution was “not only the dedication and wit of the great-aunt for whom she was named but also the insights unique to those who had grown up together with their religion.     

 

Return to Washington in 1825

Cranch and his family moved back to Washington in 1825.  Alexandria was still an appealing place to live, but Washington’s population had tripled its sister across the river to 8,000 in 1820.   Cranch’s commute certainly shortened to a short walk away from City Hall and the Courthouse.  

Cranch lived at 217 Delaware NE from 1826 to 1854 (Site is the Russell Senate Building between the Capitol and Union Station).  The website “O Say Can You See, Early Washington, D.C” provides a searchable map of 1834.  Judge Cranch’s neighbors included William Brent, Chief Clerk in the District Court, a Mrs. McCardle, who ran a boarding house, and William Dundas, clerk in the Post Office.   

No African Americans lived on his block but they were part of the growing neighborhoods -  Capitol Hill, (modern day terminology) Navy Yard, Penn Quarter and Downtown, Foggy Bottom and SW.  A Sophia Custis, a free black female, resided on the west side of Third between C and D. In 1854, Cranch moved to D and Second, whose site is part of Judiciary Square. 

1843 must have been a rough year for Judge Cranch.  His beloved Nancy passed away and the children, except for William, were living elsewhere. He did receive visits from Christopher and his family.   

 

Career Highlights and Noteworthy Events

Costin v. Washington, 1821

It seems Cranch never met George Washington, but he sat on the bench for a case involving William Costin (1780-1842).   Some believe Costin was related to Martha Washington.   He might have grown up near Mount Vernon, perhaps not far from the farm Cranch and his family kept when they were living south of Alexandria.

Around 1800, Costin moved from Virginia to the city of Washington.  He married Delphy Judge, sister of Ona Judge, who escaped from her bondage to the First Family.   The map provided by O Say Can You See (1822) shows Costin living near the northeast corner of the intersection of Pennsylvania and A Street SE (Site near LOC).

In 1820, the District City Council passed a law that required all free African Americans in the District to apply for a permit.  Without it, and a copy of their manumission, they could be subject to fines or removal.   

In their book, “Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital” authors Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove summarize the story.  Costin refused to obey the new law.  After he was arrested and fined, Costin sued the District.   His argument was that “the constitution knows no distinction of color.”

In the case of Costin v. Washington, Judge Cranch ruled against Costin, but he cut him some slack.   He wrote that the law did not apply to Costin and other free black people who currently lived in the city.   Cranch:

"conceded that the law was unfair to free blacks who had long lived in the city and contributed to it, noting that they could not compel whites to give surety, and that the law threatened to force families apart. He ruled that those who had lived in the District prior to the law's enactment were exempted from having to abide by it."

On the other hand, Cranch, in a foreshadowing of Plessy v. Ferguson, said:

Every state has the right to pass laws to preserve the peace and the morals of society; and if there be a class of people more likely than others to disturb the public peace, or corrupt the public morals, and if that class can be clearly designated, it has a right to impose upon that class, such reasonable terms and conditions of residence, as will guard the state from the evils which it has reason to apprehend.

 

The Trial of Anne Royall 

One gathers Cranch didn’t know whether to laugh or cry with this one.

In his book, “The Trials of a Scold,” Jeff Biggers captures the story of Anne Royall.  Through our modern day lenses, we view charging someone for being a “scold” as ridiculous.  But in 1829, such a trial took place in Washington.  Royall, a travel writer who was not afraid to speak her mind, was brought up on charges of cursing at church children.  Cranch presided over her trial, which drew a lot of newspaper coverage.    He dismissed two charges, leaving the one of Royall being a “common scold.”   Cranch sentenced her to a $10 fine, which was paid by two reporters. 

Of the case, Willis tells us it was significant on two grounds -  the ties to the Jackson administration and how it “illustrated how the judge eluded politically sensitive situations by focusing on some of the finer points of law.” 

The Trial of Reuben Crandall

Seven years after the trial of Anne Royal, Cranch presided over the trial of abolitionist Dr. Reuben Crandall.  Francis Scott Key prosecuted Crandall for “publishing malicious and wicked libels, with the intent to excite sedition and insurrection among the slaves and free colored people of the District.”  The jury found him not guilty

U.S. v. Bollman & Startwout

Willis writes that Cranch is best known for his dissent in U.S. v. Bollman.   The two defendants were charged with treason.   Cranch held that the pair had not actually “levied war” against the United States.   Chief Justice John Marshall later agreed with Cranch. 

In part of his ruling Cranch wrote:

Dangerous precedents occur in dangerous times.  It then becomes the duty of the judiciary calmly to poise the scales of justice, unmoved by the arm of power, undisturbed by the clamor of multitude.

Of Cranch’s decision, upheld by the US Supreme Court, Matthew McGuire wrote:

Bollman and Swartout may have been rogues but they had rights which the Constitution protected, and Cranch said so, no matter what the President thought or did.  The Court as far as he was concerned, was not the President’s creature.

Willis also praised Cranch:

Cranch was a political progressive in many ways.  He was a persistent and ardent opponent of slavery, duels, and alcohol, and an early supporter of public education in Washington. 

Attempted Assassination of President Jackson

In January 1835, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed residence of Washington, tried to kill President Andrew Jackson.  Both shots mis-fired.   U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key brought Lawrence before Judge Cranch.   The jury acquitted him but he spent the remainder of his life in a mental institute.

The Pearl

In the early morning hours of April 15, 1848, the schooner Pearl slipped away from its mooring in SW DC.  On board were 77 enslaved humans, including the Edmonton Sisters, hoping to find their freedom.   After being caught near the mouth of the Potomac, and returned to the District, organizer Daniel Drayton and skipper Edward Sayres were tried in the DC Courthouse.   

Drayton was found guilty on the charges of larceny and illegal transport of slaves.  About a month later, Judge Cranch overturned Drayton’s convictions.   Drayton later pleaded guilty to additional charges. Unable to pay the fine, he spent four years in jail.  President Fillmore pardoned Drayton and Sayres in 1852.    

Petition for Harriet Bell

In her book, “Escape of the Pearl,” Mary Kay Ricks tells us about Harriett Bell, an enslaved human who was owned by Susannah Armistead.   James Carlise, an attorney hired by the Bell family, filed an injunction requesting that the court prevent Armistead from moving Harriet out of the Washington jurisdiction.  Judge Cranch granted the injunction.

Dorcas Allen

This case was fascinating in that Judge Cranch had to give testimony to his cousin John Quincy Adams.

In her dissertation, ("Slavery Exacts an Impossible Price: John Quincy Adams and the Dorcas Allen Case, Washington, DC"), Alison T. Mann lays out the story.  In 1837, a Georgetown resident sold Dorcas Allen and her four children to James H. Birch.  He took them to the Alexandria slave pen on Duke Street.   In what is easily the darkest chapter in the city’s history, more than a thousand enslaved humans would be shipped away to the Deep South in the antebellum period. 

That evening, Allen killed her two youngest children.   In October she appeared before the court in Alexandria and pleaded not guilty.   John Quincy Adams, Cranch’s cousin and former US President, was in his fourth term as a Congressman representing Massachusetts.    He attended the auction Birch was holding to sell of Allen and her two surviving children.  Mann used his diary as part of her research. 

The only surviving evidence of Allen’s testimony is from Adams, who talked with Cranch about the matter.   The jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity.   

Marbury v. Madison

Many have said this was one of the most important rulings ever made by the Supreme Court.    It set forth the principle of judicial review, which allows the judicial branch to determine the constitutionality of legislative acts.  Cranch was not on the bench, but he was the reporter for this case.

The blog, Duty & Breach, quotes Cranch:

Every case decided is a check upon the judge.  He can not decide a similar case differently, without strong reasons, which, for his own justification, he will wish to make public.  The avenues to corruption are thus obstructed, and the sources of litigation closed.

Other Achievements:

• Became one of the first professors at Columbian College, the predecessor to GWU.
• Vice President, Washington National Monument Society.
• Wrote a memoir of John Adams in 1827.
• Edited “The Jurist,” a series of reprints of standard law books. 
• President of the Capitol Hill Seminary for Young Ladies.
• Helped organize the Washington Library Company.
• Elected to American Antiquarian Society.
• Administered the oath to Presidents John Tyler and Millard Fillmore.
• Signed Petition for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia.

Later and Final Years

Carne tells us Judge Cranch’s later years were “quiet and serene.”   At age 86, he had lived a long life.  The longevity, however, would have been bittersweet in some ways, in that all of his cousins except Abigail Adam Shaw, had passed away before him.  His sister Elizabeth departed in 1811 and Lucy in 1840.   Saddest of all, his beloved Nancy passed away in 1843, a dozen years before he took his last breathe. 

His son Christopher visited him in March 1852 and found him “exceedingly feeble --  He has not left his room, I think for a year.  He reads, however, all day.  His mind is clear." 

It’s impossible to know William Cranch’s final thoughts.  They must have been filled with many good memories.   His mother and father had led by example and provided him with a solid upbringing.  There’s something to be said for the women in his formative years — his mother, his sisters Elizabeth and Lucy, his aunts Abigail and Elizabeth.   His children’s accomplishment surely pleased him, and the knowledge he and Nancy had raised them with love and care.   

Cranch had many memories to recall regarding his extended family.   His uncle John, though not revered in our time, stood among the greats of the Founders.   And consider the fact just how many enslaved humans the early Presidents owned, while Adams and his son President John Quincy Adams spoke out vigorously against the slavocracy.  

The funeral for Judge Cranch was attended by President Franklin Pierce and U.S. Attorney General Caleb Cushing.   He was laid to rest in Congressional Cemetery, where so many of the stone tablets read like the first line of an historical marker.

When Cranch arrived in Washington, the city was an infant.  He was part of the growth from that “shabby village” to a population of about 60,000 that included African Americans striving long and hard for their civil rights.

When the Judge was laid to rest the nation’s capital was still “a city of magnificent distances.”  So, too, was the republic.  In a foreshadowing to the nation splitting apart in 1861, Alexandria had retroceded back to Virginia in 1848.   

As Tom Lewis notes, Washington “seemed more than ever a bifurcated city in the 1850s.” Northerner abolitionists wanted to see slavery end, while Southern slave holders did not.  Nevertheless, the rule of law had held its own and Cranch had done his part.

Many newspapers published his obituary.

The New York Herald:

Judge William Cranch, eminent as the author of the Circuit Court Reports.  He had been connected with the judiciary of the District of Columbia for half a century.

The Boston Evening Transcript had a lengthy one page tribute.

The talents, education and principles of Judge Cranch caused him to be highly respected.

The Alexandria Gazette:

He was an estimable citizen, an upright and honest man, and a learned and impartial judge.

Titled, "Tribute to Judge Cranch," The Washington Daily Union offered these words.

In Alexandria members of the bar, former and present officers of the court, met at the Court House, to express their high appreciation and veneration for the memory and virtues of the late William Cranch.

The Evening Star reported on his funeral.

A large number of citizens were in attendance, including President Franklin Pierce.   The pall bearers included John Marybury and Richard S. Coxe.   

President Pierce attended the funeral led by Rev. William Furnace of the Unitarian Church of Philadelphia.  Carne tells us the pall bearers were old lawyers, James Adams, Roger Weightman, Richard S. Coxe, James Carlisle, William Redin and John Marbury.    

 

Public Memory

As far as we can tell, there are no markers for Cranch anywhere, and nothing named after him.  In 1871, the Cranch Public School Building opened at the southwest corner of 12th and G, SE, but it was demolished in 1949.   

According to the Historical Society of the District of Columbia Circuit, a portrait of Judge Cranch hangs in the Ceremonial Courtroom of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse. 

They provide the portrait details.  His son, John Cranch painted the portrait.  

In a city of monuments and memorials, there is, other than the hidden away portrait, no plaque or public memory erected to William Cranch's memory.

Hopefully, an historical marker will be erected for him in Washington.  We recommend one in Alexandria, too.

Candidate for an Historical Marker: Sarah Whittlesey

Alexandria is a city that has produced leaders, elected officials, captains of commerce and industry, clergy, veterans, educators, and others.  When it comes to those who shined with their words and pens, the list sure looks tiny, at least those from the nineteenth century.   The novelist Constance Cary Harrison of Vaucluse comes to mind, but she bought her ink in Richmond and up north.   

Several months ago, when we were looking at lost homes on Washington Street, we came across Sarah Whittlesey (1824-1896).  Quite frankly, I had never heard of her or any others from that family.    From 1848 to 1896, she lived at the southeast corner of Duke and S. Washington (torn down in the 1960s).  Whittlesey became a poetess and novelist of some note, but her story is long forgotten.

Here is a brief history of her life.  We include her brother Oscar and a few other Whittleseys.

 

The searcher of information on the Whittlesey family can find the book, “Genealogy of the Whittlesey-Whittlesey family” by Charles Barney Whittlesey.   The author tells us the name was taken by persons living in Cambridgeshire, England on the Whittlesea Fens from the tenth century.     

“Memorial of the Whittlesey Family in the United States” tells the reader John Whittlesey was the immigrant, who became a farmer and shoemaker at Saybrook, Connecticut.  For generations, a branch of the Whittleseys lived in the "Constitution State."  Their names can be seen chiseled on a number of stone war memorials in public spaces.  In Old Saybrook, the John Whittlesey Jr. House and the Ambrose Whittlesey House are both listed on the National Register for Historic Places.   The oldest part of the former is from 1693.  The NRHP form tells us the family played an important part in the development of the Ferry District in Saybrook.  John Whittlesey and his son were ferryman there.   

The latter tells the story of Ambrose Whittlesey.   The Whittleseys were “wealthy landowners and farmers, but also involved in the merchant trade and shipbuilding.”  Ambrose sailed on the high seas as a captain.

Through the years, the Whittlesey family produced a number of notable citizens.   They must have been incredibly proud of Charles W. Whittlesey (1884-1921).  In the story of the “Lost Battalion,” he led his infantry troops in the Argonne Forest in December 1918.  Outnumbered and cut off for five long days, Major Whittlesey refused to surrender.   He received the Medal of Honor for his actions.

Like Sarah, Eliphalet Whittlesey (1821-1909) came from the Connecticut line.  Born in New Britain and educated at Yale, his was a uniquely remarkable life.  Eliphalet rose to become a pastor, a professor, and then a one-star general.  He came to Washington after the war and helped found Howard University, as well as providing leadership to the Freedman's Bureau and the Board of Indian Commissioners. Whittlesey was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. 

Research by Donald Dahmann, historian at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House (“From the Close of the Civil War to the Closure of the Congregations at the Close of the Century), adds to our knowledge of Eliphalet Whittlesey.  He was a Congregational Minister at the historic church on S. Fairfax Street, serving as a long-term supply minister during the late-1880s.   Whittlesey had commanded an African American regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War. 

Charles Whittlesey (1819-1874), born in Salisbury, Connecticut, made quite a name for himself in Alexandria.  After the Civil War was over, he became active in Reconstruction efforts and practiced law.  He lived on the 200 block of Prince Street, known today as "Gentry Row."  This would have placed him in high circles in the seaport.

In May, 1866, the Unconditional Union Republican Party held a state-wide convention in Alexandria.   Along with other members of the Presbyterian congregation such as Lewis McKenzie, Whittlesey served as a convention delegate.  Whittlesey also served briefly as Attorney General of Virginia (Sep 1869 - Jan 1870).

In April, 1868, Charles Whittlesey, also a member of the congregation at Old Presbyterian Meeting House, attended a lecture on education at Liberty Hall.  The Alexandria Gazette reported the place was “packed by the colored people of the city to listen to a lecture by John. M. Langston" (1829-1897), who became the first black man to represent Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives and a Civil Rights legend.

In 1869, Charles Whittlesey ran as the Republican candidate for U.S. Congress from Virginia's Seventh District.  The race received a lot of press coverage.  The Gazette hammered Whittlesey repeatedly as a Radical Carpetbagger.  Although Whittlesey won in Alexandria, Stafford, and Louisa County, McKenzie (Conservative) defeated him 15,878 to 11,073. 

Sarah Whittlesey’s life began in Williamston, North Carolina.  The small town lies in Halifax County in the eastern part of the state, about 80 miles east of the capital in Raleigh.   Like Alexandria’s early years, Williamston's lifeblood owed something to being a port on the river and the cultivation of tobacco using enslaved humans.

Sarah’s parents were Luman Whittlesey (1795-1868) and Elizabeth G. Peale Whittlesey (1806-1868).   Luman was born in Washington, Connecticut, where he married, in 1818, Sarah Johnson Cogswell (1797-1821).    They had two sons, Edgar Augustus Whittlesey (b. 1819) and Joseph Adolphus (b. 1820).  A newspaper article in the Litchfield Inquirer (Nov. 1831), indicates a David Whittlesey of Washington, Connecticut was their guardian.   Not much is known about Edgar and Joseph.  Edgar might have gone to Texas.   

Sarah had two handfuls of aunts and uncles on the father’s side.  Luman’s brother, Harvey (1788-1861), lived in Farmington, Connecticut.  Ralph (1801-1850), also might have gone west. 

After his first wife passed away in 1821, Luman moved to Williamston.   In 1823, he married Elizabeth G. Peale, a native Tar Heel.   Luman taught at the Williamston Academy.   Sarah was born in 1824.  Two years later came Oscar Columbus.

In 1839, Luman wrote a letter to his brother, Harvey, who was living in Farmington.  Luman gave him, “a very condensed account of my movements since I left Connecticut.”  He farmed, taught school, and worked as a blacksmith.   The hot work of the latter was probably to supplement his income.

Understandably, there is a paucity of newspaper coverage on the Whittleseys during their time in North Carolina.  Richard Walser ("Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Volume 6") fills in gaps.  He tells us Luman had a farm and store in Palmyra, a rural community near Williamston.

Luman and his family returned to Williamston in 1841, before moving to Edenton five years later.   The town lies on the banks of Albermarle Sound and shares a look and feel with Old Town Alexandria.   Edenton had its own newspaper.  Luman taught there for two years.

The men of the Whittlesey family could choose from a number of traditional roles and occupations.  For women like Sarah, it was slim pickings.  Education was the main road out of the rut.   Sarah graduated from La Vallee Female Seminary in 1841.   The school was located about 20 miles west of Halifax.    In addition to the basics, students were taught Latin and French, music and science.  Some of Sarah’s stories contain conversations in French.

The UNC University Libraries tells us the Seminary:

... was run out of a small building behind what is now known as the Gray-Brownlow-Willcox House.  The school building had two floors in which there would have been space for classes to be conducted and for students to eat meals and socialize, and an attic area which was likely the living quarters for the students.  La Vallee Female Seminary was forced to close in 1850.

Image from Edenton Sentinel, June 2, 1860.  

Perhaps Sarah visited Halifax, famous for the Halifax Resolves, which urged the state’s delegates to vote for independence from Great Britain in April, 1776.   On his Southern tour, George Washington stayed overnight there on April 16, 1791.

In 1842, at age 18, Sarah married Harry A. Smith of Massachusetts.  The North Carolina Digital Collections tells us their union was “brief and disastrous.”  She left Smith in 1846 and the divorce was drawn up four years later. 

Most likely looking for greener pastures, Luman moved his family to Alexandria in 1848.  They lived in a house on the southeast corner of Duke and Washington.   The brick dwelling, demolished in the 1960s, stood out with a two-story veranda facing Washington Street.  The census of 1850 shows Luman and Oscar as tutors.   Sarah is listed as S.J.C. Whittlesey.

Photo:  Left to right:  Lafayette House, Duke and S. St. Asaph; site of Whittlesey House (bank at Duke and Washington); and Janney House, across Washington Street.   

It’s hard to know what the family thought of Alexandria when they arrived.  It seems they would have been impressed and pleased by its cosmopolitan nature as a seaport and being close to the nation’s capital.   There's no doubt they were pleased by less of a wait for mail from Connecticut. 

The town had grown from the smaller one of three by seven blocks that George Washington had known in colonial days.   After the turn of the century, Virginia’s population stagnated, as farmers and others sought opportunities to the west.   Alexandria’s glory days as a bustling seaport with tall ships was fading.   

Nevertheless, in the 1850s, the Whittleseys would witness what Harold Hurst (“Alexandria on the Potomac”) details as a remarkable change.   Factories and railroads brought jobs and paychecks.   Victorian style architecture added to the stock of Georgian and Federals and occasional "Flounder."

The Whittlesey family lived in Alexandria from 1848 to their passing, as follows:  Lunan and wife Sarah (1868), Sarah (1896) and Oscar until 1901.   This was a distinct period of growth in the second half of the nineteenth century.  T. Michael Miller described some of it as (The Alexandria Chronicle, Spring/Summer 1996):

Fine dwellings, modest wooden or brick row houses, and noisome manufactures were intermingled in an unzoned welter.

The Alexandria world the Whittleseys first saw can be seen in a color lithograph, "View of Alexandria, Virginia in 1845."  The classic image has been used in a number of prominent books about Alexandria.   The E. Sasche & Company of Baltimore provides a north to south orientation of the town.   

 

For a more detailed look, we provide this marked map.   

The Whittlesey home at Duke and Washington stood on the northern edge of the "Bottoms" or "Dip" neighborhood, and the western edge of a core of mostly residential homes that to this day maintains that distinction.   The large swale that begins its downhill run from Duke southward is the first hint at the Bottoms neighborhood.   

This portion of, "Bird's Eye View of Alexandria, 1863" by Charles Magnus gives the reader an idea of the area where the family lived.   Their home stood one block below where one sees the horse and buggy at Duke and S. Columbus.   

The family had a bird's eye view themselves of both the attractive homes to their west and The Bottoms to their south.   They stood in contrast to each other.   The Bottoms had drainage problems and most of its residents were low on the income range.   

This dichotomy still exists today in that the homes south of King, east of Washington and north of Wilkes can fetch more than a million dollars.   Zoning there is almost all single family residential, while the Bottoms is a mix. 

While many homes were razed during the “Dip Renewal” phase of Urban Renewal, a few markers provide a glimpse into its past.   601 Wilkes is the site of the Alexandria Pottery, which provided employment to African Americans.    The home at 408 S. Royal was once the dwelling of George L. Seaton.   This part of Alexandria was Hayti, a smaller community within the Bottoms.

The Bottoms does shine its historic landmark, Alfred Street Baptist Church.  Residents and worshippers take great pride in its past, present and continued bright future.  A state highway marker tells the reader the church is:

is home to the oldest African American congregation in Alexandria, dating to the early 19th century. It has served as a prominent religious, educational, and cultural institution. In 1818, the congregation, then known as the Colored Baptist Society, began worship services here in the midst of the Bottoms, a free black neighborhood. By 1820 the church created its educational branch, providing religious and secular opportunities for both black children and adults. In 1855, free black craftsmen probably designed and built the brick church. Alterations to the building occurred in the 1880s and in 1994 the church constructed a new sanctuary.

Another distinct feature of Sarah’s world was S. Washington Street.  Like today, landmarks include the Lyceum, churches and Lloyd’s Row of brick homes (photo by author).   One might still call it Sanctuary Row

The Whittlesey home stood one block to the west of the corner of Duke and S. St. Asaph.  Commodious brick homes built there and nearby before and during the Whittlesey's arrived stand today as sentinels of Old Town's beauty.   In particular are the Lafayette House and the Dulany House.   Some of Alexandria’s most impressive home lie on the nearby blocks.  There's no doubt Sarah and her family would have enjoyed this part of the city, and perhaps made friends there.

Politically, Alexandria had first given their hurrahs and humphs to the Federal Party.   Conservative Democrats held sway until the 1850s when the town, always putting business needs and internal improvements first, became a “Whig citadel.”   Two years before the Whittleseys arrived, Alexandrians had voted 763 to 222 to retrocede back to Virginia.  Of course, by laws hammered out by the planter-legislators, enslaved African Americans held no civil rights.

As in North Carolina, the Whittleseys would have seen both enslaved humans and free blacks.   Their house stood on the northern edge of the “Bottoms” or “Dip” neighborhood, one of a number of African American communities.    There was no greater contrast in the United States than free African Americans in Alexandria becoming successful citizens and raising families, and the horrible institution of selling off slaves that took place five blocks to the west of the Whittlesey home at the slave pen on Duke Street.   They probably saw the wretched site of enslaved humans tied in coffles being marched to the waterfront, nevermore to be seen.  

Also in their immediate vicinity stood a tannery (site Wilkes and S. Washington), and a Lancastrian School (site near Wolfe and S. Washington), where Luman found employment as a teacher.   Steamboats plied the waters of the Potomac, about a half a mile to the east.  Sarah surely took in plays at the theaters, and observed life at the market square, during parades and elsewhere.  King Street was an emporium, and offered a number of book stores, including ones that would sell her poems and novels.

Sarah and her family lived just two blocks north from the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, which chugged through the Bottoms neighborhood on Wilkes Street.   One block away towards King Street stood the Lyceum, a Greek Revival beauty finished in 1839 on S. Washington Street. 

In April, 1852, at the Lyceum, her brother Oscar was selected as a member of a committee established to organize a Library Association.   Also at the table were several distinguished citizens including Richard L. Carne, a father at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and brother of William, the city’s de facto historian.

Oscar tutored and also wrote some poetry.  In August 1850, an ad appeared in the Gazette for:

“LaValle Seminary, just below the Exchange Bank, near the corner of Price and Water (Lee) streets.  Messrs L. & O.C. Whittlesey respectfully announce to their patrons, and the public generally, that they will resume the exercises of their school, on the 2d day of September next.” 

They also might have ran a school out of their home and Sarah might have taught the females.   

One thing is for sure.  Competition would have been keen.  Alexandria had a stellar reputation for its academies and private schools, perhaps the reason Lunan moved the family to Alexandria.   From 1828 to 1842, Benjamin Hallowell, the famed educator, set the bar high with his “Brimstone Castle” School for Boys on N. Washington Street.   Also laudatory was the Alexandria Academy, just one block south of the Whittlesey home.   Hurst also praises other such as the Alexandria Female Academy and the Belle Haven Institute.

Oscar got quite involved in the administration of Alexandria, becoming clerk of the Common (City) Council, serving on the Health Board, and a Trustee for the City School Board.  After the war, he stepped into the fiery arena that was Reconstruction.   He joined up with the Organization of the Union Republic Association, which the Gazette labeled the “Radical Caucus.”  Lewis McKenzie served as President, Oscar as Secretary.   

In 1871, the Alexandria Gazette showed Oscar as an examiner for annual inspection of the Snowden School.  The “colored school house” was on S. Pitt between Gibbon and Franklin.  Oscar was in high company that day with William F. Carne, the city’s de facto historian.  The successful African American businessman George Seaton was also in attendance.   Oscar and Carne “expressed themselves as greatly pleased with the examination.”

Readers of the Gazette had seen the Whittlesey name in the paper now and then.  Elisha Whittlesey (1783-1863), was born in Washington, Connecticut and served as a member of the US House of Representatives (Ohio) from 1823 to 1833.  In 1847, he was appointed General Collector for the Washington National Monument Society.

Readers of the Gazette first learned of Sarah Whittlesey in March, 1848 when the Gazette  published her poem, “The Loved and Lost.”  Seen in the upper left hand of page 4, the byline said, “Sarah J.C. Whittlesey Smith.”  Her poem stood out in the seven-column page.   (Note:  Once Sarah got divorced, the Smith name was dropped.  The most common use of her name was Sarah J.C. Whittlesey, with S.J.C. Whittlesey also used). 

In April came “The Lily and the Rose.” followed by “Adolphus.”   Oscar’s poem, “Analogical Musings,” was published in May 1848. More poems followed in 1849, 1850, including a few more by Oscar. 

In June 1851, the Gazette published, “The Smile, From Mrs. Whittlesey’s Magazine.”   Perhaps they thought Sarah was the author.   In fact, Abigail Goodrich Whittlesey (1788-1858) penned the story.  Born in Goodrich, Connecticut, she founded and edited Mother’s Magazine. 

Sarah’s first book came out in 1852.  “Heart Drops from Memory’s Urn,” was a collection of her poems.  The Spirit of Age, a newspaper in Raleigh, the capital city of North Carolina, published it in their Poet’s Corner.  The poem, written for “Sophie,” has this middle stanza.

Dearest, like the heaven’s seeming,

As life’s winding way;

Overcast, and brightly beaming,

Till the perfect day;

But when we are safely landed

Over Jordan’s tide,

When Time’s Army is disbanded,

On the other side.

 

G.E. French and Robert Bell on King Street sold the book with a price of $1.15, “handsomely bounded in muslin-gilt edges $1.50.”  Ads were also seen in the Richmond newspapers and The Cecil Whig in Elkton, Maryland.  The Gazette wrote: 

“This lady’s poems, we trust, will meet with a favorable reception.  Many of her productions have been highly complimented.”

Sarah had fans and readers in both North Carolina and Virginia.  The Greensboro Times serialized some of her short stories, including “The Hidden Heart,” “Reginald’s Revenge,” “The Broken Vow,” and “Southern Field and Fireside.”   The newspaper told its readers her first literary production had been published in the Edenton Sentinel in the summer of 1846.    In that issue (June 2, 1860), they included a sketch of Sarah.   Such images of her are rare.

Sarah developed a style that Walser describes as “genteel, false­-feminine sentimentality.”  The Living Writers of the South points out:

Miss Whittlesey is strongly Southern in her feelings, tastes, and style generally. In a lyric, she gives the following literal vent to that partiality.

 

And I long to go back to the beautiful ways

Of my beautiful South;

I’m weary of waiting, and wrathful days,

And woe’s wide mouth!

 

Other than the serialization of her poems in the papers, Sarah’s readers had to wait seven years for her next publication.  “The Stranger’s Stratagem or The Double Deceit and other Stories” featured seven short stories, with an average of about 50 pages long.  Sarah’s book was sold by three bookstores in town -- French’s, Robert Bell and George Siggers.

 Also on the shelves were The Farmer’s Almanac; magazines by Harper and Frank Leslie; "Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington," by George Washington Parke Custis; "The Rivals, A Tale of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton;" "Life of Andrew Jackson;" "History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion Virginia;" and "Heroines of History."

Readers of The Greensboro Times had gotten the first look at the book in the spring before.   "Reginald’s Revenge" was promoted as, “A Prize Story written expressly for the Times.”   The first five columns of the front page of April 17, 1858 issue was Chapter Five of the book.    

W. Dodd of New York published the book.  The stories were, The Stranger’s Stratagem, Reginald’s Revenge, Italia Alma, Lilia Rosely, The Drunkard’s Daughter, Eva Evylin, and The Gem.

The Gazette wrote:

We have received a handsome volume, published by Miss Sarah J C Whittlesey.  A large number of our citizens have subscribed to the book in advance…. in one handsome volume, price $1.25 plain, with gilt edges and sides, 1.50 Robert Bell.

They also said:

“… a lady whose genius and accomplishments have been shown in various emanations of her mind, and her friends confidently anticipate that her present work will be most favorably received by the public.  We trust it may not only be acceptable to readers, but add to the fame and increase the worldly prosperity of the fair author.”

Also that year, Southern Literary Messenger published a collection of poems, including Sarah’s “Summer is Over.”

Summer is over, and soon will close

The volume of Nature, fair.

Let us then read while the sunlight glows,

What they have written us there;

Emblem of life are the beautiful flowers,

Springing in Summer’s soft tread,

Blooming today in its sunlight and showers,

Tomorrow lie faded and dead.

 

Early in the morning on May 24, 1861, and less than 24 hours after Alexandria had voted to ratify the "Ordinance of Secession," Union troops marched into the city of 12,000.   Colonel Elmer Ellsworth did his part by leading the 11th New York Zouave Regiment.   Civil War buffs have discussed whether or not the appropriate words are an "invasion," an "occupation," or something else. 

Image from historical marker at King and S. Pitt streets.

No matter.  That morning, at King and Pitt streets, about five blocks  from the Whittlesey House, hotel owner Jesse Jackson shot and killed Colonel Ellsworth.  Seconds later, one of the Zouves killed Jackson.  Blue uniforms would pepper the seaport for the next four years.

It’s hard to know what Sarah did during the Civil War.  Like many white Alexandrians, she likely seethed behind the curtains at the site of Union soldiers, mourned when they heard of rebel losses, and cheered the victories of Robert E. Lee.   The town was under full control of the Union army from May 1861 to the end of the war in 1865.  

There’s no doubt Sarah would have been sad in 1865 at the sight of what Smith and Miller ("A Seaport Saga") described as the return of the "tattered remnants of the Seventeenth Virginia Regiment."   In 1862 and 1863, she would have seen the influx of a large number of contraband, African Americans who had fled their owners and found an early form of freedom in Union-controlled Alexandria.    

Almost directly across the Whittlesey home on S. Washington Street stood a two-part dwelling that was used during the war to assist contraband persons.   In her book, "A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time, Julia Wilbur's Struggle for Purpose," Paula Whitacre tells us how Wilbur and Harriet Jacobs raised money and collected clothing for the needy new citizens.  The brick building also served as living quarters at times.  Still standing, it can be seen on the cover of "Alexandria, Images of America."  It is thought that Wilbur and Harriet are part of the group that day.  Perhaps Whittlesey witnessed the taking of the photo.

It's hard to know how much Sarah knew about Harriet Jacob and vice versa.   On the surface, they did not have much in common.  Both, however, had lived in Edenton and both escaped bad situations.   Sarah was the victim of an arranged marriage to a man named Harry Smith of Massachusetts.  As the NC Encyclopedia points out:

Four years later she abandoned Smith because of his "jealous tyranny," assisted in her escape by her friend D. William Bagley, who arranged to bring her and her trunk down a ladder from her locked room on the second floor of the house, and who transported her to a Roanoke River vessel making an instant departure.

The scar on Harriet’s psyche had cut much deeper.   She endured enslavement and sexual harassment.  After seven years of torturous hiding, Harriet also escaped by boat from Edenton.

Among the remarkable things she did in her life, Harriet penned “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by herself.”  It was published in 1861.   The following summer, Harriet traveled to Washington to help with the plight of the contraband.  She wrote a letter to William Lloyd Garrison, vividly describing the terrible conditions for them in Alexandria.  There were some caring people such as a Mrs. Dagans, but not enough.

Another place, the old school-house in Alexandria, is the Government headquarters fro the women.   This is I thought, the most wretched of all the places.  Anyone who can find an apology for slavery should visit this place and learn its curse.  What but the love of freedom could bring these old people hither? 

 In October 1865, with the war over, Sarah picked up her pen and wrote, "The Three Bells."

The final stanza was:

Oh, soul, on ocean sailing

In Time’s storm-beaten barque,

Faith, Hope and Love — the Three Bells—

Will reach thee at the dawn,

And save thee from the sea-swells —

Hold out your light till morn!

 

That same month, Sarah wrote a letter to President Andrew Johnson.  The reader today will shake their head at her prejudicial words and beliefs.  Sarah slammed “negroes” as “a lazy people” and said that Northerners treated them cruelly.   In line with what other conservative whites felt towards "carpetbaggers," she also said, “We should get along smoothly together, if Northern men would not interfere.”   

Sarah’s next book was “The Bug Oracle,” a 96-page novelette.  Irwin’s P. Beadles, a New York publisher, sold it in 1866.   For some reason, Walser does not mention the book.  

The Southland Writers tells us:

In 1866, the publishers in New York of a series of Dime Novels appropriated one of the Miss Whittlesey’s stories, The Bug Oracle, and published it without her knowledge or consent.

In January 5, 1867, Field and Fireside (Raleigh) published some of Sarah’s, “Bertha, The Beauty.”  It appeared on pages 1, 2 and some of 3.

The “bug” makes an appearance in Chapter VII:

In solemn Indian file they marched down the long hall towards the pantry, where in obedience to Mr. Redmond’s directions, Aunt Cora, the cook, had placed the shell-bug on a blue plate, thinly sifted with flour, with another plate bottom up over to prevent its escape, and above all was smoothly spread a snowy napkin.   

The Bug Oracle was a warm up for ”Herbert Hamilton, or the Bas Bleu" (1867).  The setting is in Virginia.  The Alexandria Gazette wrote:

The plot and story are interesting, and the whole production highly creditable to the talents of the fair writer.

The Living Writers of the South wrote:

She has written a great deal for the periodical press and has repeatedly carried off prizes for stories adapted to serial publication a la feuilleton.    

After the war Oscar went to work for the Freedmen’s Bureau.  In October, 1866, he was assigned to taking a census of the “negro inhabitants of this county.”   Given that a significant number of “contraband” and Freedmen had poured into the city during the war, Oscar would have been quite busy this way.   He joined up with the "Organization of the Union Republic Association," which the Gazette called the “Radical Caucus.”  Lewis McKenzie, mayor (1861-1863) and powerful business magnate, served as President.  Oscar was the Secretary.  Charles Whittlesey, the lawyer, was assigned to preparing a constitution.

Sad news reached the Whittlesey family in January, 1868.  Luman had passed away at the family home in Alexandria.  His obituary in the Gazette included noting his graduating from Yale and living in Williamston as a teacher.   Other sources note he taught at the Lancastrian School.

 

Elizabeth joined Luman in June.  Her funeral took place at the family home on Duke Street.  They were both laid to rest in the Trinity United Methodist Cemetery at the end of Wilkes Street.   Their pair of tombstones lies just a few steps from the brick wall separating the cemetery with the Alexandria National Cemetery.     

Perhaps because of her sadness and grief, Sarah did not write her next novel ("Bertha, the Beauty") until 1872.   Walser (The North Carolina Encyclopedia) wrote the book is:

“Miss Whittlesey’s glory,  This lengthy autobiographical novel has a detailed narrative of the struggles of the long-suffering heroine with her wicked husband.” 

The Gazette wrote:  

…”is a tale of truth, in the rose-hue of romance.  The scene is laid in North Carolina, with glimpses of the five year’s war in Virginia, along with the moving panorama of historical facts.”

And:

“many of the scenes and incidents related, concerning the late war, occurred in this place and neighborhood, and will be recognized and remembered by our citizens.”

The New Orleans Republic wrote:

"The author has woven a rather entertaining, gossipy story of a North Carolina girl of half Yankee parentage and remarkable beauty."   

In December 1866, Field and Fireside (Raleigh) had reported:

Our Great Serial, Bertha the Beauty, which has been written especially for us, by one of our most popular and accomplished Southern authors, Miss Sarah J.C. Whittlesey, will be commenced in our first issue in January. This is the most powerful and thrilling novel which it has ever been our honor to present to the readers of the journal. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer advertised her book in September, 1871, noting the publisher was Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger of Philadelphia.

Sarah also made the news in February 1872.   Reporting on George Washington’s annual Birthday celebration, still a big deal in Alexandria, the Gazette said:

Mayor Latham presented to the Chief Marshal, as the representative of the fire department, a beautiful wreath, as a tribute of gratitude from Miss Sarah J.C. Whittlesey, whose property was recently saved from destruction by the firemen, and read a very pretty and appropriate poetical address.

 

As Reconstruction continued to unfold, Charles Whittlesey continued his work to help African Americans in Alexandria.  In April 1868, he attended a lecture on education at Liberty Hall.  The Gazette reported the place was packed by the colored people of the city to listen to a lecture by John M. Langston, a "colored lawyer and employee of the Freedmen’s Bureau."   Langston would go on to much fame.   The US House of Representatives Archives writes:

One of the most prominent African Americans in the United States before and during the Civil War, John Mercer Langston was as famous as his political nemesis, Frederick Douglass. One of the first African Americans to hold elective office in the United States (he  became Brownhelm, Ohio, township clerk in 1855), Langston topped off his long political career by becoming the first black man to represent Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 1869, Charles Whittlesey ran as the Republican candidate for U.S. Congress from Virginia's Seventh District.  The race received a lot of press coverage.  The Gazette hammered him repeatedly as a "Radical Carpetbagger."  Although Whittlesey won in Alexandria, the Stafford, and Louisa County, McKenzie defeated him 15,878 to 11,073.   

Sarah dropped off the radar screen after "Bertha, the Beauty."  In 1889, J.B. Lippincott published, "Spring Buds and Summer Blossoms.”  It included Oscar’s “Idle Hours.”

Sarah and Oscar dedicate their book to: “Our Father and Mother, who have crossed over the river and rest in the shade of the Tree of Life.” 

The book includes a photograph of the two, with the latin phrase, Sumus soli duo.   Oscar has his left arm touching Sarah’s right arm, with her right hand laying softly in his.  

Pages 9 to 216 are Sarah’s poems.  Pages 219 to 250 are Oscar’s poems. 

One of the poems is titled, "To S.J.C.W. of Alexandria" by Arthur W. H. of Washington, DC.  The next poem is Sarah’s response to Arthur W. H.  This to and from also occurs for R.G.S. of Portsmouth.  Another title is "To: Katy, of North Carolina."

The Gazette wrote the book was handsomely printed and bound.   "The writings are far-famed, and this volume will be highly appreciated by the muse."

Sarah’s fans in Edenton read in the Fisherman and Farmer —

A lady friend has placed in our hands for notice a book of poems by Sarah J.C. Whittlesey, and Idle Hours by O C Whittlesey.   Its 250 pages contain many touching lines written upon subjects of living interest, for the most part and expressive of tender emotion as well as great and reverential regard for the memories of other days.

It’s hard to know what Sarah did in her sunset years.  Perhaps she and Oscar acquired or used the modern convenience of the telephone.  By 1891, about 100 homes subscribed to the services of Southern Bell.   Maybe she was one of the many Alexandrians who cheered on the arrival of the first electric trolley which rolled down King Street in 1892.    It seems likely she attended the unveiling in 1889 of John Elder’s Appomattox memorial at Washington and Prince, just one block north of her home. 

Sarah took her final breath at the family home in 1896.  Her obituary in the Gazette pointed out:

Her father will be remembered by many who have now arrived at the middle-age sign post of life as their pedagogue in the old Lancasterian school on the site of which the present Washington building stands.” 

It acknowledged her as:

“an educated lady and was possessed of a literary taste.   Some of her productions showed that the writer possessed the spark of genius.” 

The funeral took place at her home.  Rev. Mr Williams, pastor of the ME Church South, conducted the services, and the interment was in, "the old Methodist church cemetery." 

Note:  I was unable to find where Sarah was laid to rest.   As mentioned, her father and mother’s tombstone lies in the Trinity United Methodist Church.  

After trying so hard as a reformer in Alexandria, it seems very likely Oscar would have been saddened in his final years.   In the landmark decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, the Chief Justices voted 7 to 1 against Plessy.  This solidified Jim Crow laws across the south.   

In Alexandria, Joseph McCoy and Benjamin Thomas had been hanged in 1897 and 1899.  Both took place within steps of where Oscar had served as clerk of court.   

One bright moment for Oscar might have been the appearance of Frederick Douglass, who spoke at Lannon's Opera House in September, 1894.   This turned out to be one of the lion's last roar, as the great one passed away the following April.

Oscar drew his last breath in February, 1901.  The Washington Post (Feb 23) wrote:

Oscar C. Whittlesey died at Alexandria Infirmary this morning at age 75.  He was born in Connecticut and came here early in life with his father, who was a well-known educator.  During the Civil War deceased was one of the collectors of taxes, later clerk of the common council.  recent years he had been one of the magistrates of the Fourth Ward.  Brother of Sarah, who attainted considerable literary fame.  The deceased was also literary in his tastes.

 

After the turn of the century, Alexandria finally saw significant growth in its population.    World War II brought jobs to Washington and fueled the massive wave of suburbia all around the city.   Alexandria’s population of 18,000 in 1920, which was only 4,000 more than when Sarah and Oscar had passed away, leapt to 61,000 in 1950.   As part of the Lost  Cause, historical markers pointed out the stories of the Confederates.  Jim Crow laws were not dismantled until the 1960s.    

Marker-wise, the city is making an excellent effort to tell more and more of the stories of the past, with a notable push to include the struggles and successes of African Americans.  The Appomattox memorial and historical marker that stood just one block from Sarah’s house was taken away in early 2021.

All these things are appropriate and needed.  We must, however, be careful to not push aside the stories of Alexandrians such as Sarah Whittlesey.  

Quite frankly, the chances for a marker for Sarah seem slim.   Paired with her brother Oscar, however, a marker would give the reader insight into the world they lived in.   And, as far as we know, there are no markers for any novelists in Alexandria, much less for a woman.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fourth of July Parade in Groveton

There might be nothing more emblematic of the Fourth of July than a small community parade.   Yesterday, about 50 residents of Groveton, a suburban neighborhood about two miles south of Alexandria, waved flags and strolled along three streets in the heart of the neighborhood.   

The Fairfax County Fire Department participated, bringing excitement for the kids and a big slash of red to the streets of Collard, Arundel and Ridge.    

Charlotte Brown, Groveton’s historian, author of "Groveton," Images of America, and long-time resident, provided this photograph of the Groveton Block Party on July 4, 1967.   

The Weather Committee came through with splendid conditions, enjoyed by all the participants and a smattering of spectators, including pets and children.   Some were long-time residents of the neighborhood, whose suburban era began in the 1930s.   New residents in recent years have given the community a fresh look and how about those beautifully maintained lawns.

Yesterday everyone put down their cell phones and chore lists.   It was all about having patriotic fun and rekindling a summer-time tradition on top of Beacon Hill.

Happy Fourth Groveton!  Great job everybody!   

Walking Tour: Old Town's Oldest Homes

At its website, Visitors Center, and social media, the city of Alexandria provides information for visitors.   Private companies can give you ghost and history tours.  Books such as "Walking Tours of Old Washington and Alexandria," and "Walk and Bike the Alexandria Heritage Trail" are terrific.  And just strolling pretty much anywhere in Old Town will be a visual feast.

 

This sets forth a challenge to contribute something useful for the visitor.    

 

Using the book, “Alexandria Homes, 1750-1830,” we came up with the number of such homes on each block.  We offer this map. 

 

As you can see, the 300 block of Queen Street is heavenly, but the biggest bang for the buck is south of King and east of Washington. Prince is princely and don't miss S. Lee and S. Fairfax.

 

We also mark our recommended walk that starts at the foot of King, passes along the waterfront, goes through the Wilkes Street tunnel, has a stop at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Burial Grounds, and ends with a bang along Captain’s Row.

 

Old Town is something special, and we hope you enjoy seeing its amazing places.

 

 

 

 

 

Alexandria: The Years Before its Founding in 1749

Every July, Alexandria celebrates the anniversary of its founding in 1749.  The city also has a pre-history.   One of the best accounts of it can be found in “Alexandria’s Forgotten Legacy,” a series of articles written by historian William Carne in the Alexandria Gazette and reprinted by T. Michael Miller.

We pick up the story in the late seventeenth century when the northward movement of the planters and settlers along and near the Potomac began to reach what became Fairfax County in 1742 and Alexandria in 1749.   We offer this condensed and annotated version of Carne’s Chapter III, “Civilization Crosses Great Hunting Creek.”  

1690.  When the last decade of the seventeenth century was reached, the tide of population was steady above the Occoquan…

The Occoquan River became the southern boundary of Fairfax County in 1742.The land above it was Stafford County from 1664 to 1730 and Prince William from 1730 to 1742. Fairfax County initially included what became Alexandra, Arlington and Falls Church.

Image:  Virginia and Maryland as it is planted and inhabited this present year 1670, Herrman, Augustine, 1621 or 1622-1686. Published, [London] : Augustine Herman and Thomas Withinbrook, 1673.

… the land embraced with Howson’s Patent became capable of being made the permanent abode of civilization. 

In 1669, Captain Robert Howson emigrated from England.He brought with him about 120 people to live in the colony.Governor William Berkeley granted to Howson, 6,000 acres of land “upon the freshes of Potomac River…”

Image:   Alexandria portion of the Howson Tract.

It has been narrated in former chapters that John Alexander, the purchaser of the Howson patent land…

Shortly after Howson gained the tract, John Alexander (1603-1677) acquired it from him for 6,000 pounds of tobacco.   A native of Scotland, he had emigrated from England in 1653.  Alexander was the founder of Alexander family in Northern Virginia and a planter and merchant in Stafford County.  It is believed the town was named for him and/or the family. 

… gave his land to his sons, Philip and Robert Alexander. 

Philip inherited the lower portion (south of Four Mile Run).Robert (1633-1704) inherited the upper part (north of Four Mile Run.In 1741, one of their descendants, Captain Philip Alexander, owned the majority of the land that would become Alexandria.  The Mitchell map shows ownership in 1760.

Image:  Beth Mitchell's interpretive map of 1760.  

As the lands now grew to be of considerable value, the first actual survey with chain and compass was made sometime about 1692 by Theodorick Bland, one of the most celebrated land surveyors of his time.

Bland (1663-1700) also surveyed Williamsburg in 1699.

The lines fixed by him began at a hickory tree on the marsh ground lying on the side of the marsh into which Hoff’s Run now empties, which was called at that time West's Pocoson, and within more modern times, "Pompey Gales Marsh." 

Comparing the Bland/Jennings survey with the modern day map, a guess of the site of the hickory tree is just south of the Carlyle Mill Apartments on Mill Road. Before it silted up, Great Hunting Creek was wider than it is now. Tall ships could reach the village of Cameron, whose site is believed to be near this point and near the Eisenhower Metro Station.  Note:  For some odd reason, Hooff's Run is labeled Four Mile Run on Google maps.

Bland ran his line in a direction generally north until he reached the mouth of the “Wankapin” Run; nearly opposite the southern point of Analostan Island…

Most of the land west of this line is hilly, today’s neighborhoods such as North Ridge, Aurora Hills, and Arlington Ridge and Arlington National Cemetery.  

Oxford Dictionary gives the origin of Wankapin as — Mid 19th century; earliest use found in John P. Kennedy (1795–1870), novelist and politician.   

Wankapin Run is marked on Beth Mitchell’s Map of 1760.  It probably ran just south of Netherlands Carillon.

Analostan Island, currently known as Theodore Roosevelt Island, is located just south of Georgetown and east of Rosslyn.  Other names through the years were My Lord’s Island and Mason’s Island.

... and thence came by the river shore to Piper's Island (Jones Point) and thence went up Hunting Creek to the beginning.

Jones Point was shaped like a dog leg until landfill in the 1930s.   Some of the river side land that was Howson’s Tract also changed during dredging and landfill.

This survey completed, the land was, it seems, divided between Robert and Philip Alexander, the former taking the upper portion near Four Mile Run, and the latter, that on which the city now stands, and near Hunting Creek.

No copy of the Bland survey had been found.  Daniel Jennings resurveyed the Howson Patent in 1746.   It is this map that is available and used.

Alexander family members owned portions of the land north of Alexandria for many years, including the Abingdon plantation (site National Airport).   An interpretive panel in Potomac Yard tells some of their story.  Four Mile Run serves as the border between Alexandria and Arlington. 

A portion of this land was leased to Thomas Pearson, the son-in-law of Philip Alexander…

Pearson's Island can be seen in the Mitchell map.

Thomas Pearson (c.1663 - c.1710) married Sarah Alexander (c.1667 - c.1705), the daughter of John Alexander (1603-1677).   Research by Jim Bish tells us the Pearson family, along with the Alexander, West and Harrison families, was prominent and influential in the area.   By marriage, the children of Simon Pearson (probably the son of Thomas Pearson) became related and “tightly bound” to George Washington and his family members.  Simon Pearson owned more than 4,000 acres at one point.  Simon (d. 1733) inherited some of these lands from his father Thomas.   

A portion of these Pearson lands would be acquired by the West family, including the foot of Oronoco Street (West’s Point) that would become a tobacco shipping point in the 1730s and 1740s and then the northern most part of Alexandria in 1749. 

… and in 1696, by the date of this lease we may fix the 15th of February 1696, as the day on which was begun the permanent settlement beyond Hunting Creek.   

Archaeology has shown that Native Americans had hunted and fished in these lands for many years.   

He (Thomas Pearson) probably cleared the river side lands from Hunting Creek to a considerable distance northward and left his name on the island now called Daingerfield’s, but which all the old maps and charters designated as Pearson’s Island.  This was probably the first permanent settlement in Alexandria county.   

Pearson’s Island is now known as Daingerfield Island. It lies just south of National Airport.  It is not an island now, in that its western portion just east of the George Washington Parkway is land.   Earlier maps shows this as wetlands.  This jutting land is occupied by a sailing marina and small National Park Service offices. 

Thus in 1696, civilization stepped across Hunting Creek and commenced to clear off the primitive forest and make way for the pleasant old town of Alexandria.

As others did and still do, Carne sometimes shortened Great Hunting Creek to Hunting Creek.  Great Hunting Creek today forms a natural boundary between Alexandria and Fairfax County.  Its mouth was once wider than now.  Hunting Creek flows into the Potomac near Mount Vernon.

The population of the Potomac region at this time had grown sufficiently numerous to require what in modern days are called mail facilities and accordingly when a public post was established in 1695 throughout a portion of the colonies the route was made from Potomac through Annapolis to Philadelphia.  By this conveyance letters could be sent northward — eight times a year. 

In his article, “The Colonial Post-Office,” (The American Historical Review, Jan, 1916, JSTOR) William Smith writes that prior to the establishment of the colonial mail service in Virginia, the colony had arranged that “all letters superscribed for the public service should be conveyed from plantation to plantation to the place and person named.”   There was no systematic service for private letters. 

That same year, Maryland plantations having more than kept pace with those upon the Virginia side of the river, the upper portion of Charles County was cut off and erected into a separate shire under the now familiar name of Prince George’s County.

Maryland was also a planter society using enslaved humans.  The most prominent plantation across the river from what became Alexandria was the Addison plantation.   John Addison built a brick manor home there on Oxon Hill in about 1705.  The landmark dwelling burned down in the 1890s.  Its site is the MGM Resort at National Harbor.   A number of interpretive panels tell some of the story.   

1699. At that time, the Indians had all been driven out.  All that remained this side of the Blue Ridge were more like the docile Africans, then being brought by shiploads into the colony.   It is more than probable that the remnant of the Dogue Indians, on the westward trail that formerly roamed here, passed through “Indian Thoroughfare” as Thoroughfare Gap was then named in 1676.  There is no recognizable trace of them after that year.

There are a number of gaps in the mountains west of Alexandria, including Thoroughfare Gap (I-66, Bull Run Mountains), Snickersville Gap (Route 7 near Bluemont), Ashby’s Gap (Route 50) and Keyes Gap (Route 9).   

 

Conclusion

The land that would become Fairfax County in 1742 experienced a land boom from 1720 to 1732, with patents doubling to 163.   Tenant farmers and enslaved humans made up some of the population of an estimated 4,000 in 1742.  This included today’s Alexandria, Arlington and Falls Church.

Around the first part of the 1730s, a tobacco warehouse was built at the foot of what became Oronoco Street.   Enslaved humans picked the leaf, stuffed it into hogsheads, and rolled them down primitive roads to what we today call West’s Point at the foot of Oronoco Street.  Planters and prominent men such as John Carlyle, Laurence Washington, Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, William Ramsey, and Hugh West helped found the town in 1749.   

This July, the city of Alexandria will celebrate and commemorate its 272nd anniversary.   As we have seen, stories took place during the prior decades.