Jaybird's Jottings

Part Five: Here Come The Cars and The Fort Belvoir Military Railroad

The summer of 1909 must have been an exciting year for residents of Newington and nearby.  In June, the papers reported on the story of Major Jack Cohen and Hamilton Peltz.   As part of an effort to advocate for good roads, the two scout car drivers had completed the Richmond to Washington leg of their "endurance drive" in their steamer demonstration automobiles.  

In late July, the crowds felt an even greater level of excitement at Shuter's Hill in Alexandria.  With the sun dipping below the trees, Orville Wright and Lt. Benjamin Foulois flew into history.   They made a breath-taking 180 degree turn above the landmark hill in the Wright Brothers flying contraption, before landing safely at Fort Myer.   This baby step of aviation proved once again to the US Army the capabilities of the Wright Brother's aeroplane.   This flight sealed the deal and earned them a contract and more headlines and fame.

The good roads story would stay in the new for the next couple of  decades.    The trails the American Indians had carved out were being paved and new one made.  A report in the Post ("Rally for Good Roads," July 26, 1909) provided accounts of those desiring better roads.  C.C. Snellings wrote:

I live on the old stage or telegraph road.   If I can be of any service to you in this great movement toward good roads, I am at your service.  

We should point out that the Post was still using the telegraph road reference in terms of the entire stretch from Washington to Richmond, or perhaps Fredericksburg.   Sometimes it used the term "Old Telegraph Road," and sometimes the telegraph road.   Either way, the term had yet to take a hold in the way it did later as the road we know it today from the Pohick Church up to Duke Street at Alexandria.  

In the 1920s, reports started to use more specific references, such as "Telegraph road in Fairfax County."    It's hard to know when the Post began to capitalize both Telegraph and Road.   The earliest we found was 1942.  In the 1950s, ads used Telegraph Road as a reference point.  

For all those years, the road that became known as Telegraph Road had been the main way to get north and south in that part of Fairfax County.    But with the coming of the Richmond-Washington Highway, the predecessor to Route One, which ran mostly along the old River Route used by George Washington, a greater number of people would use that way instead of Telegraph Road.   

The Fort Belvoir Military Railroad

With over 50,000 men and women, the largest employer in Fairfax County is Fort Belvoir. The installation is the keeper of the sites of Belvoir and Cedar Grove and some of the sites of Accotink.  Its land on the north side of Route One was once part of the Truro Parish Glebe lands as well as over to where the Boggess Race Track and Ordinary too.

The installation got its start in 1917 and its name from the mansion home the Fairfax family made famous.   It began as an Army engineering training facility.    In support of the World War I effort, Camp A.A. Humphreys opened with ceremonies in May 1918.   

A HABS document tells us the RF&P rail line that passed by Newington was a crucial factor in the final site selection.   Not yet paved, the road that would become U.S. Highway One was a muddy disaster.    

An eight-mile long spur was built from Newington to the Quartermaster Corps warehouses at the training camp that same year.  The HABS report points out that the construction of this spur “was similar to conditions that engineers might encounter in the field.” 

Fort Belvoir has done a terrific job with historical marking (We are hearing that new markers will replace the dozen or so ones at the Belvoir site.)   Their most recent work is on the Fort Belvoir Military Railroad.

The spur began about a thousand feet south of the underpass at Newington Road.   The bridge spanning Cinder Bed road and Accotink Road remain extant.  The spur continued past Mount Air, home of Mrs. George Kernan.   It's a side story but one worth pointing out.

Edith Moore Sprouse ("Mount Air, Fairfax County") provides terrific information on Kernan (1866-1962).   Born in France, both her father and mother had pedigree blood.   George wrote for the New York Herald and helped get legislation passed for an eight-hour work day in St. Augustine, Florida.   She rubbed shoulders with Empress Eugenia, the wife of Napoleon III, who gifted her a suite of furniture that made its way to Mount Air.  George lived at Mount Air from 1914 to her death in 1962.   When she was not traveling, her daughter Elisabeth lived there until fire destroyed the home in 1992.

Spouse’s book includes a photograph (1918) showing the 2nd Battalion of the 304th Engineers posing for the camera in front of her house.   They helped build the Fort Belvoir Military Railroad.  Feeling a sense of patriotic duty, George allowed them to bivouac near her house.   Citing the Official History of the 304th Engineer Regiment, Sprouse tells us the soldiers affectionately called their temporary home,, "Camp Merry Widow."  

The spur ran to Route One where it crossed over using a railroad bridge, and proceeded down to just past 23rd Street.   Narrow and dangerous for many years, the narrow underpass were demolished in 2012 as part of the road widening for Richmond Highway (Route 1).   

Most of right of way of the spur still exists up to the railroad at Newington.   The future of the right of way is up for grabs.   Some have eyed it for a cycle/pedestrian path, while others have asked a light rail be considered.   No doubt, some residents of Newington would like the calm and quiet to remain.

The Historic American Engineering Record document tells us a trestle first went across Route One in 1918.  After it deteriorated, a new bridge went up in 1928, with modifications in 1935.   The railroad remained functional through the 1990s.    The last locomotive left Fort Belvoir in September 1993.    The report notes the FBMRR historic corridor "still maintains a strong level of integrity."    

Fort Belvoir has erected a series of markers that touch on some of this history.   One titled, "Warehouse District," tells us the warehouses were built parallel to the rail line.   Their number reached 45 in 1943.  

The arrival of what became known as Fort Belvoir seemed to portend the coming of more and more growth in Southeast Fairfax County.   One of the first set of suburban homes in the county popped up in Groveton in the late 1930s.   A boom was at hand, one that would forever reshape the landscape where the Truro Parish Glebe House and the nearby homes and communities had stood.

We pick up that story in Part Six.

 

 

 

 

 

Part Four: Reconstruction and Railroads

After the Civil War was over, civil rights measures and the election of black Congressmen gave African Americans and progressive Republicans hope for better days.   Sadly, white conservative Democrats wasted no time in passing laws that took away those rights at state levels.  

As if rising up like fortresses against the prejudice and discrimination around them, African Americans in Alexandria built churches that stand today as landmarks of the Civil Rights movements and still a strong part of the fabric of the community.  

We don't know of any particular stories in Newington during this time frame, but authors such as Scott E. Casper give us glimpses into the stories of African Americans at Mount Vernon.    In his book, "Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon," Casper tells the uplifting story of Sarah and Nathan Johnson.   Nathan and his fellow black neighbors walked the four miles to vote at Accotink.  They voted for "Radical Republicans" who would represent their interests in the State Constitution Convention.   This was the same voting place where Jonathan Roberts had courageously stared down a gun-toting election official to pave the way for a 76 to 19 vote against succession in May 1861.   The county vote tally was 942 to 289 for the breakaways.

Casper digs even deeper in, "Out of Mount Vernon's Shadow: Black Landowners in George Washington's Neighborhood, 1870–1930."   He looks at the way families held things together with the diary farms they owned and worked in this part of Fairfax County, and kept ownership in the family.  The Quanders are synonymous with Spring Bank (Quander Road), but Casper identifies others such as Henry Randall, William Robinson, and Griffin Johnson.  

At Gum Springs, Ron Chase and the museum he so proudly runs there will tell you the pride the community takes in its past and present.  

In 1870 in Fairfax County, a Board of Supervisors was formed.   Richard Nevitt, who lived in the old glebe house until it burned down in 1875, was appointed to “divide the county into townships with a view to the proper subdivision of these townships into school districts.”  Of those townships/districts — Centreville, Lee, Mt Vernon, Falls Church, Providence, and Dranesville  —  Lee, Mount Vernon, Dranesville and Providence are still around, along with Hunter Mill, Sully, Springfield, Braddock and Mason.    

Nevitt served as a Trustee of the Mount Vernon District for three years.  Nellie Nevitt taught at the Quakers Snowden school for many years and at the Potters School.  At her blog, "Backyard Mount Vernon," Tammy Mannarino provides terrific insight into the Snowden family.

Nevitt was Newington’s biggest newsmaker during this time.   A small piece in The Washington Post in 1890 quoted him recalling the visit of Edward Albert, Prince of Wales to Mount Vernon in October 1860.   The Prince, Nevitt said, was accompanied by President Buchanan, his niece and Cabinet, Lord Lyon, the English minister, the Duke of Newcastle and Mayor Barrett of Alexandria.    The Mount Vernon website tells us this marked the first time a member of the British royal family visited America and Mount Vernon.   

In 1872, the Fairfax County News reported that a handful of depot buildings had been constructed on the line of the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railroad, as well as “a commodious water tank capable of holding 10,000 gallons of water.   The property was owned by Nevitt.  The station there was given the name “Long Branch.”   

Nevitt made the news again in 1887 when the U.S. Navy appointed him a watchman.  Ten years later he passed away at his home in Newington.  

G.M. Hopkins’ “Atlas of fifteen miles around Washington” shows us some of Newington’s other inhabitants around that time (1878).  They include R.L. Nevitt, Sam Nevitt, Mrs. Lamoye, George Wiley, Fred Graves, Charles Landstreet, T. Landstreet, and S. Milstead.

 

The Railroads Finally Connect

In Virginia, the first form of transportation was the waterways.  Then came the dusty paths and turnpikes.   In 1840s, the iron horses of the railroads ushered in a new era.    A passenger could ride the rails from Wilmington, North Carolina to Richmond, then Fredericksburg and Aquia Creek, just north of Fredericksburg.   From there they had to board a steamer to Washington.  

In 1872, the missing link between Alexandria and Quantico was finally built.  The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad and the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway were as one.    

For almost 150 years now, the railroad cars have chugged past Newington.    As pointed out by the historical marker there, the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railroad opened the Long Branch Station in 1872.   The name came from the Long Branch, which parallels the railroad track before feeding into Accotink Creek.    

The station was later named Accotink and then Newington around 1954.    In his book, "The Iron Road of Franconia," Nathaniel Lee tells us the name change "better reflected the neighborhood that grew up around the station."  Some residents might recall hearing  stories of those who worked for the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac RR in its glory days.   In 1971 the railroad station was closed.  

Today, one does not have to wait too long to see a CSX or VRE trains whiz by Newington.    A ramp runs up to the site of the station, but is off limits.    Between Alexandria and Quantico, the VRE makes stops at Franconia/Springfield, Lorton, Woodbridge and Rippon.  The Lorton station is about two miles from both the Lorton and Franconia/Springfield stops and includes the popular car hold service to Sanford, Florida.

 

The Post Office, the School, and Potter's Hill

Postal service in the United States has long been taken for granted, but not so in the twentieth century.   A big day arrived in July of 1888 when Newington acquired a Post Office.   The Alexandria Gazette of July 1888 announced the news.  Henry A. Pearson (1855-1940) was the postmaster.  He was married to Mary S. Pearson (1857-1916).  Sadly, their only child, SGT. Henry Benjamin Pearson, Jr., (1918-1944) was killed in action in Normandy during the landing on Invasion Day.   He rests in peace at the Pohick Espiscopal Church Cemetery.  

It's interesting to observe that one of the first references to Telegraph Road in The Washington Post came in March 1888.    

"The citizens of Fairfax County who cross the Cameron Run Ford at the "Telegraph" road to reach this city are petitioning the County Court of the county for a bridge at that point.  The ford is a very dangerous one and numerous accidents have occurred there." 

A 1912 map of Rural Free Delivery in Fairfax County (Library of Congress) shows Newington having a Post Office.   Also seen on this map is Potter Hill School, located at the southwest corner of modern day Telegraph and Buelah Street.  

A new historical marker near the Wegman’s tells us some of the history of Potter's Hill.    The late county historian Edith Moore Sprouse had a hand in the research.   Current evidence shows there were three schools here through the years.  The original school probably dates back to 1870, when public education become mandatory under state law.  The second was a typical one-room school house used until 1916.   The teacher was Lelia Milstead.  The third school burned down in 1932.   The map on the marker, which looks like it is the Hopkins map from 1878,  shows a S. Milstead living on the east side of the intersection of Telegraph Road and Newington Road.

The marker also talks about the Potter family who used the hilltop land as a farm, sand and gravel business and a landfill.   In the late 1990s, the landfill became the Hilltop Golf Course.  The unique layout resembled a British links style course.    In recent years, the lower part of the land has become residential.

After the turn of the century, residents of Newington would began to see big changes in the land around them.    The horse and buggies would stick around for a while, but they would begin to see the coming of the cars on Telegraph Road and elsewhere.   Below them on that neck of land where the Fairfax family had lived would come an army base.    An aeroplane would fly over Shuter's Hill.    The world was getting smaller.  We pick up some of those stories in the next part.

 

 

Newington: Part Three: The Farmers Leave, the Quakers and the Telegraph Arrive, then Comes the Civil War

In Part Two, we looked at the Truro Parish and Truro Parish glebe lands and house.  We now turn the page on the century, and look at what took place in and around Newington in the antebellum period.

 

In mid-December 1799, the church bells chimed in Alexandria like they never had before.   George Washington, the town's beloved adopted son, and the most famous person in the young nation, had slipped away at Mount Vernon.  His passing and period of mourning seemed to signal the end of an era in Alexandria and Fairfax County.   The parish system had been put to rest.   The planters and the patriots Washington knew would be laid to rest in cemeteries such as the small one at the Old Friends Presbyterian Meeting House, the ones on the outskirts east of Hoof's Run, and the one at Pohick Church.   In the words of Smith and Miller, this was the end of the "Golden Epoch."   

It may be hard to believe now, but the population of Fairfax County decreased from 13,000 in 1800 to 9,200 in 1830.   Janice Artemel covers this quite well in "Fairfax County:  A History."   One factor was the depletion of soils from the tobacco days.   Some land owners sold their tracts to tenants farmers and left for greener pastures in states such as Kentucky and Ohio.    Artemel writes that by the early 1840s, much of the land was no longer cultivated.   Some turned to raising cows, sheep and pigs.  

A sign of the end of those earlier times came with the appearance of ads in the Alexandria Gazette in 1825.   Newington and Mount Air were for sale.  The ad was placed by D.P. Chichester, attorney for Sarah Chichester.   Her husband Richard had passed away in 1796.  She would join him in 1826.   

In 1828, the Nevitt family purchased the glebe house in Newington.  In his book, Don Hakenson tells us William Nevitt (1773-1866) was living in the old glebe house in 1860.    County maps confirm he owned the land, which was bordered roughly by modern day Telegraph Road to the east, Newington Road to the north, Long Branch to the west and Blanche Road to the south.

Morse's Magnetic Telegraph

If there is one road in Fairfax County that has seen a thing or two through all the years it is Telegraph Road.   Ever since the Native Americans carved it out from the wilderness, this way between the trees has been used by many to get to and from Alexandria and points northward.   The origin of its name is obvious, but we had to dig deeper than we thought to learn more about it.

In 1847, readers of the Alexandria Gazette began to see coverage of Samuel Morse and his “magnetic telegraph.”   In The South Atlantic Quarterly, Volume 16, "The Telegraph in the South," 1845-1850, the authors tells us:

"By the middle of 1848, the South had erected entirely by its own energies a “lightning way” reaching entirely to its principal cities.  Nowhere, even in the North, had three been such progress."

The General Assembly of Virginia authorized the railroad companies to erect the wooden poles and the wires.   In March, the line was completed from Washington to Alexandria, with service soon to come to Fredericksburg and beyond.   

In April came the news the connection between Alexandria and Baltimore, via Washington, had been completed.  In May, a Mr. J. Lugenbeel was appointed as the superintendent for telegraph operation in Alexandria.   Operations were to be held at the “Market Square, formerly occupied as the Clerk’s Office.

That summer, Alexandria, Washington and Baltimore exchanged messages.  The one from Alexandria began: 

Alexandria presents her respects to Washington and Baltimore, and is happy to bring them within a conversational distance by the aid of Professor Morse and his associates... 

But then came this:

... and at the same time to inform them that under the genial influences of her good old mother Commonwealth to whom she has so lately returned, after so long an absence the roses are returning to her cheeks and she is fast recovering the healthful elasticity of her early youth.

In the November 8, 1848 edition, editor Edgar Snowden told his readers the results of the Presidential election posted in his paper had come by "Magnetic Telegraph." 

It’s hard to know how popular the telegraph service was in Alexandria, but for those used to penning letters, we can imagine the frustration they felt on having to triage their words.   In effect, the first form of a tweet.     

A map from 1853 shows the charges for sending a telegraph from Pittsburgh.   In Alexandria, it was 56 cents for the first ten words, then five cents for each additional word.   Baltimore charged 40/4.   DC was 50/4.

Surprisingly, there are no historical markers along Telegraph Road.  There is one at its intersection with Route One.  

One of the first telegraph lines in the world, a part of the Washington–New Orleans Telegraph Company, was built from Washington to Petersburg in 1847. From this the road took its name.

Through the years, many folks have seen this marker.    Erected in the early 1930s, it is one of the oldest in the area.  According to Fairfax County, the marker program is the oldest such in the nation, starting in 1927.

Given a chance to put up a new marker, historians would probably not use the same wording.   In 1844, a telegraph line was completed between Washington and Baltimore and is regarded as the first in the United States.  

It should be pointed out that the newspapers used to refer to the "Old Telegraph Road," that ran from Alexandria to Richmond.    

It should also be pointed out that Fort Belvoir erected a new marker at Telegraph Road and the ramp from the Fairfax County Parkway.   The title, Telegraph Road, is a bit odd, given it is not mentioned in the marker.

 

Jonathan Roberts and The Quakers

The arrival of the telegraph line along what became Telegraph Road was not the only news maker in this part of Fairfax County in the 1840s.    Although they were not always welcomed, Quakers arrived in these parts in the middle of the 1840s.   Using paid labor, they injected new life in to the nearby village of Accotink and the Woodlawn area, both close to Newington.     

An historical marker tells us about these Quakers and the Woodlawn Quaker Meetinghouse they completed in 1853.   The meetinghouse, along with their farms, and schools created a successful community.  

It’s also hard to believe now, but Accotink was once a village and place of some note before the Quakers arrived.   Frederick Tilp (“This is Potomac River”) gives us a look at its humble beginnings in the middle of the 18^th-century.

Accotink held a unique situation.    From Williamsburg all the way up to Alexandria, a creek flowing into the Potomac had meant one thing in the colonial days - a place where planters rolled their tobacco barrels for shipment to Europe.  Tilp points out Accotink is the only (Potomac) river town established prior to the Civil War that was not dependent on tobacco. 

After the Revolutionary War, Accotink became the site of a grist mill, a fish boat wharf and a post office.  Phillip Otterback knew a good fishing spot when he saw one and set up a commercial operation at Accotink, some ten miles below Alexandria.    He employed 176 men.

The Quakers arrived in the 1840s.   Tilp notes three factors that brought them southward from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Accotink -  demand for hardwood timber for ships, more land for their wheat farms, and their religious beliefs.    

Accotink boasted a gristmill, blacksmith shop, school, general store and post office, along with a few homes.   In 1856, James C. Hill ran a series of ads in The Alexandria Gazette.  He touted the village of Accotink as a thriving place, where Accotink creek is “at all times navigable for wood boats carrying 30 to 40 cords per load to Washington and Alexandria.”

Image:  Atlas of fifteen miles around Washington, including the county of Montgomery, Maryland.  Hopkins, Griffith Morgan, Jr., 1879.   Note:  North is oriented to the northeast.

An engineering report documented the mill’s annual output - one million sawed lumber per year, 30,000 cords of wood, 12,000 bushels of corn and wheat.   Troth’s fleet consisted of a stern-wheel steamer and four light-draught schooners. 

In his wonderful book, “Jonathon Roberts, The Civil War’s Quaker Scout and Sheriff,” Greg Wilson tells the story of Roberts, the Quakers and their Accotink story.   William Page Johnson III wrote a condensed version (“The Quaker Scout, Jonathan Roberts (1818-1901),” for the Newsletter of Historic Fairfax City, Inc., Fall 2013.  

In 1948, 40 Quaker families from New Jersey came to the area south of Alexandria.   Two of their leaders were Chalkley Gillingham and Paul Hillman Troth.  They purchased the Woodlawn Estate, a manor home completed in 1805, a wedding gift from George Washington to Martha's granddaughter Nelly,  and George's nephew Lawrence Washington.   Woodlawn is a crown jewel of the National Trust for Preservation.   

Flush with timber and cheap in prices, the land around Accotink was ripe for the picking.   The Quakers chose the spot where the main road (Route 1) runs past Accotink Creek.    Accotink stood about halfway between Alexandria and Colchester.  Before being pushed off by colonial forces, Native Americans had established a settlement there.   

True to their religious beliefs, this group of Quakers did not use slave labor.   Their jobs included millers, merchants, blacksmiths, boatmen, wheelwrights, carpenters, and farmers.

In 1848, Roberts acquired the Cedar Grove farm from William Mason McCarty, brother of Daniel McCarty III.  Before he became Sheriff, Roberts was a successful farmer.  He also helped found the Accotink Creek Navigation Company.   

Wilson also tells us about Richard L. Nevitt.  He served as Justice of the Peace in this part of the county.    Nevitt (son of William Nevitt) and his wife Rebecca, lived in the former Truro Parish Glebe house.   The county map shows him owning land to the north of this father, and Samuel E. Nevitt to the east of Telegraph Road.   Nevitt family members and descendants of the McCarty and Chichester families also owned nearby land.  A typical spread was 125 acres or so.

 

African Americans

There isn't a lot of information on African Americans in Fairfax County in the antebellum period.  But we do know it was a hellish time for those enslaved.  

In their book, “The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry,” Ned Sublette and Constance Sublette document the Domestic Slave Trade.   In 1808, the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves outlawed the practice.    But as the authors point out, planters in the Deep South needed more and more enslaved humans.    This situation created a bonanza for Upper South slave traders, who sold hundreds of thousands of enslaved humans to the sugar and cotton planters.    

It's hard to know if any enslaved humans in or around Newington met this cruel fate, but we do know it happened to Charles Ball of Calvert County Maryland.  When his owner died, his mother, father and siblings were auctioned off.  Each one went to a different owner.   In his book, he wrote:

“My poor mother, when she saw leaving her for the last time, ran after me, took me down from the horse, clasped me in her arms, and wept loudly and bitterly over me.”   

The vast majority of Newington’s white residents were likely conservative during the decades before the Civil War.  It’s possible some supported the Whig Party and Unionists in the 1850s.  Ever protective of its business community and seaport activities, Alexandria certainly supported the Whigs until push came to shove in 1861.

 

Civil War

In May 1861, the war winds blew in northern Virginia when the Union Army stepped onto Virginia soil and took control of Alexandria.   Some of the first blood fell at the southeast corner of King and Pitt Street when hotel operator James W. Jackson shot and killed Colonel Elmer Ellsworth.  Seconds later, one of Ellsworth’s Zuouves shot and killed Jackson.   Before it was taken down several years ago, a marker said the following.

The Marshall House stood upon this site, and within the building on the early morning of May 24, 1861 James W. Jackson was killed by Federal soldiers while defending his property and personal rights, as stated in the verdict of the coroners jury.  He was the first martyr to the cause of southern independence.  The justice of history does not permit his name to be forgotten.  Not in the excitement of battle, but coolly, and for a great principle, he laid down his life, an example to all, in defence of his home and the sacred soil of his native state, Virginia.  Erected by the Sons and Daughters of Confederate Soldiers.

Forgotten is an incident that took place in the village of Occoquan, just five miles south of Newington.  As reported by the New York Times, a group of Republicans that included John Underwood and African Americans, had hoisted the American flag up a pole in Occoquan, as well as the party ensign bearing the names of Lincoln and Hamlin.   

Underwood, educated in New York, was the kind of “carpetbagger” Southerners despised.   Pro-abolition, he had joined the Liberty Party in the 1840s.  Like the Quakers, Underwood farmed with free labor.   His pubic actions in Occoquan were brave, as he had received death threats.  

One can image residents of Occoquan placing wagers as to how long the flagpole with the party ensign of Lincoln and Hamlin would last.

Not long.   

With an axe and much passion, Jackson struck the first blow to tear down the flagpole.  

The area in and around Newington became a no-man’s land of sorts during the war.   The Union Army built a ring of forts around the city of Washington and Alexandria, which had retroceded to Virginia in 1847.   Fort Lyon and its four sister earthworks, located about a half dozen miles north of Newington, protected Alexandria from a spot whose site is just to the west of the Huntington Metro station.   

A map Robert Knox Sneden (1832-1918) drew in 1861 (“Mount Vernon and Vicinity” (March 1861) shows the main roads, churches, forts and Union lines between the Pohick Church and Mount Vernon.   Modern day Telegraph Road is labeled a turnpike while Route One was a "gravel road."  The Union held all the strategic points including the high ground at Fort Lyon (modern day Huntington Metro Station),  Camp "Vernondale" (Telegraph Road), Calvary on the high ground occupied today by the Fed Ex facility at the end of Cinder Bed Road, and others near Pohick Church and Accotink.  

The rebels were too busy elsewhere to bother with Washington and Alexandria, but Union supporters and soldiers in Fairfax County were haunted by the specter of John “The Gray Ghost” Mosby.    Don Hakenson is the foremost authority on Mosby.   At Rose Hill, just a few miles north of Newington, Mosby and eight of his men captured Colonel French Dulany, aide to “Restored Governor Francis Pierpont, who was living on Prince Street in Alexandria.   A couple of skirmishes took place along Telegraph Road (Hakenson).  

Hakenson also tells us Frances Chichester sold Mount Air to Aristides C. Landstreet and his wife Mary in 1860.   The war not only split the country in half, it divided the Landstreet’s family.   His son Edward wore a rebel uniform while his other son William wore a blue Union one.   During the war, Union soldiers occupied Mount Air.  

Anne Froebel, a Confederate supporter, had stories to tell from her perch overlooking Telegraph Road at Wilton Hill, about four miles north of Newington.   She kept a Civil War diary, an account that delves into her worries as a home owner.   Her concerns came with the knowledge that two nearby mansion homes had been burned down.  

One was West Grove, a brick manor house whose site is the Belle Haven Country Club.   Owned by the West family, it was built in 1710s.   It seems likely that Union soldiers torched this one.    The other was Vaucluse, the beloved home of descendants of Bryan, Eighth Lord Fairfax, who grew up at Belvoir.  Dave Cavanaugh tells us Union soldiers burned Vaucluse out of strategic necessity.   Its site is close to INOVA Alexandria on Seminary Hill.   

Soldiers also kept dairies during the war.    One (Charles B. Haydon, Lt. Col, "For Country, Cause and Leader") provides a description of the rounds they made on patrol.

The pickets now run from the river to Accotink, thence diagonally along to Accotink Road to the Telegraph Road near Potter's.   

Anyone living in Newington during the war might have seen the flow of contraband pouring into the city of Alexandria in 1862 and 1863.  These African American escapees had found an infant form of freedom by stepping into Union-held camps and forts.  Poor living conditions and disease, however, took away many of their lives.   Many of them were buried at what is now the Contraband and Freedmens Cemetery in Alexandria.  Historian Char Bah researched the genealogy of their descendants and published her findings in her new book, "Alexandria's Freedmen's Cemetery: A Legacy of Freedom."

Like everyone else, residents of Newington were certainly glad to see the bloodshed end in 1865.   But there were uncertain years ahead.

In December 1866, the Alexandria Gazette reported on the passing of William Nevitt, who had owned the glebe house since 1828.   He was 93 years old and a member of the M.E. Church in Alexandria.   According to the marker, the Nevitt family lived in Newington until it burned down in 1875.   

In 1874, the war had been over for a decade.   A fued in Newington, however, had apparently raged on.   The Gazette of May, 1874, brought titillating news of a fight that seemed to take a page from that classic feud between the Hatfields and McCoys.  

John Deavers and W. Landstreet got into a scuffle.  Deavers was the mail carrier from Long Branch to Accotink.   According to his account published in the Gazette, he (73 years old) was attacked by W. Landstreet, who “cussed and abused him.”  Both had sticks and wielded them during the assault.   “Deavers knocked him down and whiped (sic) him until Richard Nevitt pulled him off.”        

Fires were always a problem in the days of wooden houses and no fire stations.  Sadly, the old Truro Parish Glebe House burned down in 1875.   

Hakenson writes:  "The Newington House was perhaps the oldest house still standing in Fairfax County."   

According to the Alexandria Gazette, the fire took place when the family of Richard  L. Nevitt was having breakfast.  The house was destroyed but most of the furniture was saved.    

Richard L. Nevitt was active in politics.   In a 1859 meeting of the Whig and American part of Fairfax County, he was appointed Secretary.   As a clear sign he did not want to see a civil war, Nevitt chaired a meeting of the Union Party in April 1861.  Like many others in Alexandria and Fairfax County, he supported the Conservatives after the war.  Nevitt was nominated to the House of Delegates.

After the Civil War was over, civil rights measures and the election of black Congressmen gave African Americans and progressive Republicans hope for better days.   Sadly, white conservative Democrats wasted no time in passing laws that took away those rights at state levels.   The end of Reconstruction meant hard times for African Americans.   The railroads would also play a major part for residents of Newington and nearby.  We pick up there in the next part.

 

 

Newington: Part Two: Charles Green, The Truro Parish Glebe and the Glebe House

Part Two:   Charles Green, The Truro Parish Glebe and the Glebe House

In Part One, we looked at the small world of George Washington and his fellow planters such as George Mason, as well as the Fairfax family in Belvoir.   

In Part Two, we delve into Charles Green, the Truro Parish and its glebe lands and glebe house.  It was this land that would become known as Newington, the name given to the glebe house.    This is a fascinating part of colonial Virginia history, essential to understanding the story of Newington and Fairfax County in the colonial times.

 

The story of the Truro Parish is a story that took place even before the founding of Fairfax County in 1742 and Alexandria in 1749.    To understand the role of a glebe lands and glebe house, one must first understand the role of a parish.   

Perhaps the best definition of a parish in colonial Virginia comes from the Encyclopedia of Virginia.

A parish in colonial Virginia was a unit of both civil and religious authority that covered a set geographical territory. Each Church of England parish in the colony was served by a single minister and governed by a vestry usually composed of local elites.   

Dick Hamley, the historian at the Pohick Church, tells us: 

Truro Parish and Fairfax County existed together and worked together.  Both were part of the government except that Truro Parish reported to the Bishop of London.  The Vestry contracted for care of indigent, poor and elderly.  They arranged for schooling and apprenticeship for orphans.  They were responsible for marking and updating land boundaries for all residents.   The Vestry was responsible for some road building.  The Vestry assigned and collected the annual levy, assessments fines and tithes as they felt necessary.   

The vestry was also responsible for the creation and maintaining of glebe lands and glebe house.   Prince William historian Jim Bish describes the glebe lands this way.

The glebe lands usually were lands that were set aside for the church to earn income.  Sometimes these were established when a Parish was established and sometimes landowners willed some of their property to the church at their death which added to the church glebes.  The church then usually received annual rents from these lands or they could be sold to help finance a larger financial obligation.  

The word "glebe" in northern Virginia conjures up the thought of Glebe Road.   From Alexandria, if you take Glebe Road northwest-ward for about a half dozen miles, you will come to the Glebe House in Arlington.   A historical marker tells us the house was built in 1820 and 1850, replacing one that was built in 1775 and burned down in 1808.  This house and glebe lands provided for the rector of Fairfax Parish, which included both Christ Church, Alexandria and Falls Church.

The first and the second glebe house in Fairfax County was the Truro Parish Glebe House whose site is in Newington.   We learn about both from Willard J. Webb and Anne C. Webb in their book "The Glebe Houses of Colonial Virginia."  

In 1734, fifteen years before the founding of Alexandria, the Truro Parish acquired 300 acres on the road from Colchester to Alexandria.    In 1737 they erected a house on the glebe lands.   The authors describe it as a "one-story, weatherboard house 24 feet square with four rooms."    

Cameron Parish was created in 1748, by cutting off about half of the Truro Parish lands.   To pay for its glebe lands, the Truro Parish sold its glebe lands and house and split the proceeds with the new Cameron Parish.    The Truro Parish then bought 176 acres near the old glebe.   A new house was completed there in 1760.  It's not known what happened to the old one.  Perhaps it was taken down, its wood re-used.    

The Truro Parish hired William Buckland to finish the house, which was made of brick and was 72 feet long.  According to the Gunston Hall website, Buckland had worked on the interior design of Gunston Hall.  He would later have a hand in two masterpieces in Annapolis — the Chase-Lloyd House (1771) and the Hammond House (1774).   Charles Wilson Peale’s portrait of Buckland shows a distinguished man with a confidant look.

The Encyclopedia of Interior Design tells us about builders of homes in the colonial age.   Most were master builders and house joiners.  Few were architects in the way we know them today.   Buckland, born in Oxford, was a notable exception.  

The author concludes his bio of Buckland by saying, “Today, there is little dispute that Buckland was one of colonial America’s greatest architects.”   

The first permanent rector (minister) for the Truro Parish was Charles Green (1710-1765).   “The History of the Truro Parish” provides us with a brief bio of Green.  In addition to his duties as a minister, he was also as a doctor.   According to Founders Online, Green was called to Mount Vernon from time to time and gave care to Martha.   

Crazy as it may seem today, Green owned 12 slaves.  They worked the tobacco fields on land that is now Newington.  

Colonial society depended on a strong sense of social order.   A major scandal, however, shook the seemingly placid Virginia world in the 1740s.

Peter R. Henriques brings the story out of the dust bin with his article titled “Major Lawrence Washington versus The Reverend Charles Green” (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1992, JSTOR).  Washington, half-brother of George Washington, accused Green of “frequent attempts to debauch Anne Fairfax in the months before her marriage to Washington.”  She was fourteen years old at that time.

Anne's full name (Anne Fairfax Washington Lee) had, arguably, the three most famous family names in the history of Northern Virginia.  She was the daughter of Colonel William Fairfax.  After Lawrence died in 1752, the widow Anne inherited Mount Vernon.   She then married George Lee.  In his book, Paul Nagel tells us Anne and George decided to remain at Mount Pleasant on the Northern Neck.  An agreement was made with George Washington.  He paid 15,000 pounds of tobacco annually to George Lee for Mount Vernon.   This lease agreement lasted from 1752 to 1751 when both George and Anne died.

Henriques writes:

"To conduct a full-scale ecclesiastical trial in Virginia was to venture into unexplored territory.”

The trial was held at William & Mary College in Williamsburg.   In the end, Governor William Gooch negotiated a settlement.  Green had to pay court costs and promised to “behave with good manners toward the Fairfax and Washington families.”  The case against him was dismissed and he was able to remain as the parish minister.    

In 1767, Daniel McCarty purchased the Truro Parish glebe lands and house.   His daughter Sarah and her husband Richard Chichester lived in the house and named it Newington.  

The exact location of the first and second is not known.   A map George Washington drew in 1765 shows the "Old Glebe" house between the Back Road and Long Branch, and closer to the back road.   A circa 1770 hand drawn map (Belvoir Neck survey, Mount Vernon Ladies Association), shows "Glebe House" between the Back Road and Long Run, closer to Long Branch.    Using bends in the road and the location of Mount Air, the houses appear to be somewhere near modern day Newington Road. 

Built in the 1760s, the second parish house burned down in 1875 and is now long forgotten.   There are apparently no remaining sketches of the Newington Glebe House, nor any photos of the dwelling before it burned down in 1875.    The best we can do is see what has been said about it and others.

In 1767, the Truro Parish, signed by George Washington, placed an ad in the Virginia Gazette.  

To be sold to the highest bidder, in consequence of an act of General Assembly, and pursuant to order of Vestry, on Friday the 22d of May next, on the premises, the late Glebe Lands of Truro parish, in Fairfax county, containing by estimation 400 acres, but the exact quantity will be ascertained against the day of sale. 

Thereon is a brick dwelling house, with four rooms on a floor, passages above and below, and cellars; also a kitchen, meat house, corn house, coach house, and barn, together with sundry other houses, and a yard and garden paled in. 

The situation is high, dry, and healthy, with good water, some meadow, and a valuable peach orchard. 

In 1898, a writer “W.H.S” wrote a sentimental piece about landmark homes near Alexandria and lamented the loss of ones like Vaucluse and Newington.   He describes the houses as having “great outside chimney, dormer windows, and clambering vines.”

Webb and Webb provide a sketch of the floor plan of the glebe house at Newington, one prepared by Mrs. George Kernan, circa 1920.   One sees a simple plan with a small porch, and markings for walnut trees and roses.  

Kernan was the mother of Shirley Kernan Enochs, the last owner of Mount Air.   We will provide more on Kernan and Enoch in Part Five.  Kernan purchased Mount Air and its 117 acres in 1914 after returning from a stint in France.  She and her daughter Elizabeth Enochs lived there.

As the historical marker indicates, the Truro Parish sold the glebe home and lands to Richard and Sarah McCarty Chichester in 1767.   They gave it the name Newington.   It’s not known what they named it after, but landowners often chose a place name from back in the Mother Country.   In London, Newington lies about a mile due east of Big Ben, and near the Thames River.

Richard Chichester (1736-1796) married Sarah McCarty in 1766.   One of their children was Richard McCarty Chichester, whose godfather was George Washington.    

In his diary of February 1768 ("Where & How -- my time is Spent"), Washington penned --

"Fox hunting with Colonel Fairfax, Captain McCarty, Mr. Chichester, Posey, Ellzey & Manley who dined here with Mrs. Fairfax & Miss Nicholas.  Catchd two foxes.

Sarah McCarty (d. 1826) was a daughter of Daniel McCarty (1758-1801) and Sarah Eilbeck Mason (daughter of George Mason IV).   Daniel McCarty (Mount Air) was a cousin of Richard Chichester.   

In his diary for January 1769, George Washington wrote:

Fox huntg. again upon long Branch with Mr. Fairfax Mr. Clarke Mr. Mac[ar]ty & Mr. Chichester. All went home from the field. Found Doctr. Rumney here.

We don't know exactly where their outing took place, but it's not a far-fetched guess that Washington rode on his horse from Mount Vernon to the Newington home of the Chichester's.   Perhaps they then proceeded along what is now Newington Road to the Long Branch waters.

The Fairfax Genealogy Society tells us about the Chichester family cemetery.   It is located behind a home on Newington Road near the intersection of Accotink and Newington Roads.  

Gunston Hall has a document dated Feb 20, 1797, an inventory of Richard Chichester’s holdings.   The inventory was performed at “the dwelling plantation” in Newington.

It included 43 enslaved persons, stock including cattle and sheep, household furniture and items, glass and tinware.  Of the total value of 4010 pounds, 3,013 were the slaves.

When George Washington slipped away at his upstairs bedroom at Mount Vernon in 1799, Alexandria and Fairfax County mourned like never before.   His passing seemed to signal the end of an era.  The patriots were growing old, the parish system was gone, and the tobacco fields were worn out.   We pick up the next phase for Newington in Part Three.

 

 

Newington and the Historic Landscape of Lower Southeast Fairfax County

For some folks living or working in the DMV, Newington must seem like just another census designated place, a vague somewhere between Lorton and Springfield south of the Beltway, a slowdown spot on I-95 heard on the morning traffic reports.

Residents in the Newington neighborhood certainly have a sense of community.    And although the train station and country store are long gone, the past hangs on with the sights and sounds of passenger and freight trains that run by.   Opinions surely vary on the one-lane underpass on Newington Road, as either a long-time annoyance or perhaps for some a rare relic of the past to admire and appreciate.

Quite honestly, Newington never piqued my curiosity until recently.   On our way to drop her car off at a car dealership in Springfield, the better half and I drove through the bedroom community.   Moving along Newington Road, we spotted a county historical marker at the front of Levelle W. Dupell Park.   Whoever worked on the marker can be pleased to know it inspired us to look deeper into Newington’s past.

Using this info as well as our usual sources of newspapers, articles, books, aerial views, and maps, we put together this look at the history of Newington and parts nearby.  

We'll roll this out in seven parts.  From our IOU department, we tip our cap to Don Hakenson and his ground-breaking book, “This Forgotten Land,” as well as his other sources on the web.  A real gem of a discovery is Nathaniel Lee’s 2016 book, “The Iron Road of Franconia.”   Both their books can be purchased at the Franconia Museum, a jewel spot itself.

We also thank Dick Hamley of the Pohick Church for his insights into the history of the Truro Parish.   Getting a grip on that part of the story was the most challenging.  Any mistakes are certainly mine.

Part One:  The Small World South of Alexandria

We start where we often do with Fairfax County by looking at Beth Mitchell’s interpretive map (1760).   The future site of Newington can be seen by finding (center left) the Truro Parish Glebe.   

Founded in 1742, the county was mostly plantation or farm land, and included modern day Alexandria and Arlington.  A historical marker at the corner of Chain Bridge Road and Old Courthouse Road marks the approximate site of the first Court House of Fairfax County.   Typically, the best location for a county seat is in the geographic middle.  But in this case, the bustling seaport of Alexandria was the the center of the universe in the county.  The County Courthouse moved there in 1752.     

While the colonial world in Fairfax County did owe much to Alexandria, there were other places of activity and community.   About a half-dozen miles to the southeast of Alexandria stood a small little world of its own.   The future site of Newington stood within this satellite.   Therefore, we can use Newington as a window into some of these forgotten or lesser told stories.      

If a person wanted to catch up on the local news and gossip in the early days of Fairfax County, their best chance would be at one of its three churches.   In Alexandria, a chapel of ease (location unknown) served as the predecessor to Christ Church.   Serving those in the northern part of the county stood The Falls Church.    South and east of Alexandria near the Occoquan River and the future site of Colchester stood Pohick Church (built 1730).

As told by its website, Pohick Church, the first permanent church in the colony north of the Occoquan River, is "rightly called the Mother Church of Northern Virginia."   Its first location was about a mile south of where Pohick Church stands today. (completed in 1774).    

During these times, the economic lifeblood of the county was tobacco.   Before the 1730s, the tall ships from England had landed at the various plantation wharves dotting the shoreline of the Potomac River.    Tired of this inefficiency, the Crown influenced the colonial government to enact a Tobacco Inspection Act of 1730.   A game changer, it required the selection of tobacco ports, inspectors, and warehouses.

To make the case for just how important this part of Fairfax County was in the early days, one can take a look at the following.

At least on paper, there were four tobacco inspection warehouses in the county in 1760.   The busiest, by far, was at Alexandria.  Of the other three at Pohick Creek, Occoquan River and Little Falls of Potomac River, two were located in this lower part of the county.    The site of the one at Pohick Creek now lies within the Accotink Bay Wildlife Refuge, on land owned by Ft. Belvoir.   The one at the Occoquan River stood at modern day town of Occoquan. 

There were about a half dozen ferries in the county and one of them was located at Colchester.   Long before the first bridge was built over the Occoquan River, this was the only place to cross over it and arguably the most important gateway to the county.  

As told by a state historical marker, Colchester, founded in 1753, was the second town established in Fairfax County.   It served as that gateway to this part of the county.   Mitchell includes an insert for Colchester in her map, showing its triangle shape with a number of lots.  

Like Dumfries to the south, silting helped seal Colchester's fate as a "What Might Have Been Seaport." During its short span of glory days, however, it, too, was a place for people watching.    In his footnoted research article, Raymond Nye ("Economy of Goods") found indications of the success of the Fairfax Arms tavern.   Built circa 1753, this structure is a prized historic asset.  Archaeologists are currently investing the town's site.  

Travelers coming up from the Northern Neck and points south of Fairfax County used the Potomac Path to get the ferry at Colchester.   Colchester Road also holds a hidden history.   It took place near the modern day Noman M. Cole Jr. Pollution Control Plant.   You won't find any markers there and not much has been written about it.  

Had this small place continued on, it might have been called Boggessville.   Mitchell's map shows a racing ground in this vicinity, as well as a tavern owned by Robert Boggess.   Hakenson's book features a photo of the structure, known as LaGrange.  Boggess built the structure in the 1740s.   After it was torn down after the Civil War, a replacement structure stood there until it burned in 1972.     

An article by the Fairfax Genealogical Society tells us the Marders Family Cemetery is located there (9501 Old Colchester Road), holding at least ten remains.   One is Rebecca Kirby Marders, wife of James S. Marders.    Her mother was Susanna Elizabeth Boggess who came from a line of the Robert Boggess family.

Robert Boggess, like George Washington and George Mason, was a vestryman of Truro Parish.   Boggess also ran the racing track.  

The mail pick up point for the stage was located at LaGrange.   On Saturday, May 6th, 1758, George Mason wrote a letter to George Washington from the  "Race Ground at Boggess's."   We might say this letter from Mason to his friend was the colonial version of an email.

The subject of the letter was French Mason, a relative of Mason who owned land below Boggess.   As the footnote at Founders Online points out, George Mason was making the case for the candidacy of French Mason for an officer’s commission in the 1st Virginia Regiment.

Travelers using the Potomac Path had two choices from LaGrange. We might consider this fork similar to today's "Local" and "Thru" routes on the Beltway south of Alexandria.  

Although it ran a mile or two to the west of the Potomac River and not next to it, the local route was called the "River Road" (modern day Route One).  It served the planters in the area.  Washington used this road countless times to get to Alexandria and points northward.

The thru road, so to speak, was the "back road."   This is the modern day Telegraph Road that passes by Newington.  Anyone living in the future site of Newington would have had a bird's eye view of travelers using this road.   The mail-carrying stage used this route.   Artemel tells us the mail left Alexandria before dawn and arrived at Fredericksburg by night.  The fifty miles took about sixteen hours.  

The river road rejoined the back road at modern day Telegraph and N. King's Highway.   There was no bridge over Great Hunting Creek until 1810, built more or less where Route One crosses today.     

The other three main roads in this part of the county were rolling roads that led to the tobacco warehouse station near what became the village of Accotink (modern day land owned by Fort Belvoir).   It's hard to know if modern day roads follow along these three main roads, but map comparisons indicate some sameness with Pohick Road, Rolling Road and Backlick Road.

Several ordinaries (taverns) were located near the future site of Newington.  They offered weary travelers food, drink, rest and catching up on the news and road conditions.  

The ordinary at Colchester was without a doubt the finest.  In his "Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States," John Davis wrote:

"a tavern, where every luxury that money can purchase it to be obtained at first summons.  The apartments are numerous and spacious."

Of a stroll from Occoquan to Colchester, he wrote:

No walk could be more delightful...   

Another tavern stood near modern day Telegraph Road and Van Dorn Street.   Perhaps the appeal with that one was resting up before the hilly ascent and last three miles to Alexandria.   Perhaps its offerings were more affordable than the one in Colchester and more comfortable for swigging beer in terms of class and social distinction.

Mitchell's map also shows us four mills in this part of the county.  There were quite a few in the county.   To get an idea of what they were like, one can visit George Washington's.  Do note it is a replica of the one that burned down.

The other mills were owned by Boggess, Benjamin Grayson and James Steptoe.   Founders Online tells us about the two Benjamin Graysons.  The father passed away in 1757 and was a friend of George Washington.   His son Benjamin (d. 1768) "ran a mercantile business in Colchester."  They also tell us he was granted a license to operate a tavern in Alexandria in 1764.    

Founders also tells us a bit about James Steptoe (d. 1757), who owned land west of Accotink Creek.   Through his land ran one of the rolling roads used by the Fitzhugh's.  Today's Rolling Road seems to use the same route.

Anne, the daughter of Colonel James Steptoe, married Washington's brother Samuel Washington (probably 1766).   They lived in Harewood, then in Frederick County, now in Charleston, West Virginia, and had four children.

Among the planters living in this area were Washington, whose Mount Vernon plantation  was on its way to becoming the largest in this part of the county.   But in 1760, Washington's 2,298 acres was small when compared to Henry and William Fitzhugh (combined 24,000), Robert Carter's heirs (9,200) and George Mason (8,200).   Washington, however, through his marriage with Martha, owned 88 enslaved humans, by far the most in the county at that time.

George Mason, like Washington, served as a vestryman for the Truro Parish Church.  His ownings included land to the east of the future site of Newington and modern day Huntley Meadows.     One of his grandsons, Thomson Francis Mason, built Huntley.

Without a doubt, the biggest wig in the county was Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax.   He left the Mother County in 1738 to claim his land grant of 5M acres across what is now northern Virginia and the Northern Neck.  A lifelong bachelor and avid woodsman, Thomas was the patriarch of the famed Fairfax family that lived at Belvoir.  The Georgian brick beauty was located about three miles south of the future site of Newington and virtually next door to Mount Vernon.   The county is named after Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax.

Note:   There are no known sketches of Belvoir.   This one is from a marker and is interpretive.

Like much of the county at this time, the land that would become Newington and this lower southeast part was used mostly for tobacco plantations, both large and small.   It also held those two main roads mentioned before.   Anyone standing on what is today the intersection of Telegraph Road and Accotink Road in Newington, would have seen the occasional traveler on horseback, or perhaps spotted a coach or the post (mail) rider.   

Travelers, few that they were, came from as far away as the capital in Williamsburg.   Despite stops at the ordinaries, they were likely weary by the time they got to Alexandria.   Perhaps those going southward were more cheerful, having rested and eaten a decent meal in the growing seaport.   Travel was seasonal to avoid bad weather.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the population of the county was a rough number determined by tithables to the church, a tax everyone had to pay, and something that shows us just how closely linked God and government were in those days.  In 1749, the year Alexandria was founded, something like 6,000 people lived in the county.   Sadly, about a third were enslaved humans.  

Before the Revolutionary War came, the top of society in the county were members of the Fairfax family.    Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, was the patriarch, but he never married.    His cousin, Colonel William Fairfax, built Belvoir.  It was his family that filled the home.   A marker at its site shows his family line and those who married into their world.   Imagine walking into Belvoir and seeing those listed below.

• Daughter Sarah married John Carlyle, the famed merchant in Alexandria whose Georgian manor dwarfed all the other homes build on one-half acre spots in the seaport.     
• Daughter Anne married Lawrence Washington, George's half brother.  The widow Anne married George Lee. 
• Daughter Hannah married Warner Washington.
• Son George William married Sarah Cary.  The letters she and Washington exchanged reflect strong feelings but George William and Washington remained close friends.
• Son Bryan became Eighth Lord Fairfax and built Mount Eagle, whose site is neat the Huntington Metro.  His son Thomas, Ninth Lord Fairfax, built Vaucluse (destroyed during the Civil War) outside Alexandria.    Thomas married the granddaughter of John Carlyle.

The stories this stately brick mansion that overlooked the Potomac River could tell.  Washington launched his career with the help of the Fairfax family.  When Alexandria was founded in 1749, there were eleven trustees, including Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax, Colonel William Fairfax, George William Fairfax, John Carlyle and Lawrence Washington.

Thomas, Ninth Lord Fairfax had three wives.  His third was Margaret Carlyle, granddaughter of John Carlyle.   In his book, "Fairfax of Virginia," Hugh Fairfax points out all the later generations of the Fairfax family descend from John and Sarah Carlyle.

The mother country still held sway in its Virginia colony, but the tide was beginning to turn in the 1760s.   Washington, Mason, and Carlyle were beginning to gain a patriotic sense of identity and an annoyance with the lawmakers in London.   

Counterbalancing the patriots’ ire were their economic tethers to the merchants in London and Liverpool, who crafted the household goods, clothing and cargo that arrived on the tall ships in Alexandria.   In turn, the mother country purchased Virginia's "noxious weed." 

In January 1759, George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis.   The couple settled down into their planter life, a time that would prover to be between the wars.    Although not classically educated like some of the other Virginia squires, Washington had made a name for himself as a surveyor for Thomas, Sixth Lord Fairfax at Belvoir.   Martha had been the wealthiest widow on the Northern Neck.   Their marriage mirrored some others of its time, bringing together a man of some distinction and a lady of inherited wealth.   Ever so sadly, much of the wealth was in the form of enslaved humans.

Mitchell’s map shows us that the future site of Newington was surrounded by land owned by a handful of planters.   One of them was William Fitzhugh.  If you live in Springfield or neighborhoods northward up to I-66, your home is probably on land once owned by either William Fitzhugh or his brother Henry.

Fitzhugh built Ravensworth, an impressive home located more or less in the middle of his vast plantation.   A historical marker located near Braddock Road and the Beltway, tells some its story, including its burning down in the 1920s.  

The story does not end with these major players.   In fact, one cannot fully understand these early years without understanding the story of Charles Green and the Truro Parish Glebe lands and Glebe House.  

We pick up their stories in the next part.  

 

The Federal Triangle

“The grandeur of the Federal Triangle symbolizes the power and dignity of the United States of America.”  -  Marker, Federal Triangle, Cultural Tourism DC.

 

If showed a satellite view of the central part of Washington, DC, and asked to point out the first thing they notice, some folks might finger a cluster of ten buildings situated between Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenue.   Spanning the distance of almost a mile between the Capitol and the White House, they stand out with their red-tiled roofs.

On the ground, you couldn’t ignore this set of buildings if you tried.   Their imposing size form a distinct part of the central core of the nation’s capital.   And yet, except maybe for a convention for architects, this is not a place visitors in Washington yearn to see. 

We’re talking the Federal Triangle, a cluster of mostly Classical Revival government buildings put up in the late 1920s to mid 1930s (Two buildings were already there and one was added in 1990). 

For the employees who work there, they know this place as where they earn their steady paychecks from Uncle Sam.   For others, the Federal Triangle is just a set of canyon walls they hope to breeze through on their way to and from work.

Nevertheless, we noticed that Cultural Tourism DC, who has put together a dozen and a half heritage trails for the District, included the Federal Triangle in their program.

When I saw it listed, my initial thought was — ok, maybe I’ll check it out someday. 

But then I realized I really don’t know much about this place, other than it's a set of bulky Federal buildings between the Mall and downtown.   We have visited the National Archives a number of times, but like millions of others through the years, the Federal Triangle has merely been a place to pass by or get through.  

Nevertheless, as I learned, the Federal Triangle has a fascinating history, one that can tell us something about the growth of Washington during the first half of the twentieth century.    This was a pivotal time when this central part of the city began to turn the corner in terms of planning, appearance, and landscape.  

Let’s take a look back.   We'll roll this out in six parts.

 

Part One:  L'Enfant's Vision to Olmsted's Terrace

I could discover no one so advantageous to Erect the Congressional building as is that on the west end of Jenkins heights which stand as a pedestal waiting for a monument... - Pierre L'Enfant to George Washington, June 22, 1791.  Founders Online.

 

In a word cloud for the history of Washington, DC,  Pierre Charles L'Enfant has a distinct place.   Descriptions of him use the words -- French-American, military engineer, officer, soldier.  Often left out, however, is the equally important, "artist."

As Kenneth Fletcher writes, today's Washington, DC owes much of its unique design to L'Enfant.   The son of a painter, he "designed the city from scratch, envisioning a grand capital of wide avenues, public squares and inspiring buildings in what was then a district of hills, forests, marshes and plantations."

One can imagine L'Enfant standing on what we call Capitol Hill (then called Jenkins Hill) and looking westward.   Perhaps still beaming from his appointment in 1791 by President Washington, he turns to his left and sees one edge of his canvass --  the Eastern Branch River (Anacostia).  To his right stands a terrace of wooded hills.  Ahead in the distance he sees the Potomac River and the Virginia part of the diamond shaped district.   From Georgetown, a ferry road cuts a diagonal path across what will become the central part of the nation's capital. 

On his parchment of paper, L’Enfant inked the words, "Congress House," on Jenkins Hill.   In a letter to Washington, he had described the place as a "pedestal waiting for a monument."

About a mile to the northwest was his spot for the "President’s House."   Founders Online tells us Washington had recommended the same general area, but on a ridge slightly to the west and closer to the banks of Tiber Creek.

L'Enfant also envisioned a grand boulevard connecting the two most important buildings in the young nation, as well as an avenue leading due west to the river.   On a line due south of the President's House and in the middle of the avenue, L'Enfant wanted to see an equestrian memorial to George Washington.  

Although no one knew it at the time, and for many years later, a triangle of large government buildings would rise up between the Capitol and the White House, and the National Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue.    Collectively, they would solve a pressing need for the Federal workers and would become a landmark place that would portray a symbol of strength for the Federal government.   Artistic embellishments, their architecture, and their massing would also make them a monument of sorts.       

It’s difficult to say at what point what became the Federal Triangle was foreseen as something close to what we see today.   What is certain is that momentum to try and capture some of L'Enfant's visions and intentions in this monumental core began in the latter part of the nineteenth century.  

On the horizon in Washington stood its centennial as the capital.   Quite the norm, politicians and civic leaders had their own ideas about how to best commemorate the milestone.  Banquets, boosters and speeches would fill their desires.

Holding their own preferences, not only for the centennial commemoration, but for the future of the landscape of Washington, was a set of six men.   Four were architects, one was a sculptor, and the other a Senator's aide.    Well before , these too were six influential friends of architecture, art and progressive formal planning.

Only four became members of the famed McMillan Commission, but they all stood as one in their ideas about what was best for the planning needs of the nation's capital.    Informed by their interpretations, right or wrong, of L'Enfant's vision; the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago; the City Beautiful Movement; and their own collective vision of what Washington should look like in the coming years, these six progressive professionals played key roles in laying the ground work for the remaking of the monumental core in the city.   What we see there today owes something to them.   

In some ways, this story began when Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), came to Washington in 1874.   We know of his fame today, but maybe not the course of his life.   He was a well-traveled man who had seen a landscape or two.   After an upbringing in New England, his wanderlust took him to Europe, a tour of the South (wonderfully captured by the late author Tony Horowitz) and parts of California.  His designs include Central Park, parks in other major cities, and a total of 500 commissions.   

The Capitol Building in Washington had grown in size from its initial completion in 1800.   L'Enfant's pedestal now looked too small.    Commissioned by Congress, Olmsted went to work.  His designs included a marble terrace for the west side.   Perhaps we should call it the "Solemnly Swear Terrace," where every four years (weather permitting) the President-elect becomes the President.

Hard to say what L'Enfant would have thought of the city of Washington at that time, but we know Olmsted's thoughts.    He wrote in a report the arrangement of federal buildings in Washington was “broken, confused and unsatisfactory.”  He added, “What is wanting is a Federal bond.”

Tom Lewis (Washington:  A History of our National City") tells us Olmsted wanted to extend his commission to the Mall.   The lawmakers said no. 

Nevertheless, the west side terrace he created can be seen as an overture to the L'Enfant remake.    

In his book, "L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington," Michael Bednar writes, 

When completed, the west terrace anchored the magnificent structure to its hilltop site as predicted.    It provided a wonderful promenade around the building and spectacular place from which to view the Mall and the surrounding city.   During the first century of the Capitol the east facade was the front. After the completion of the west terrace, the west facade became the front, and the Mall became the Capitol’s front yard.

Essential in understating this story is knowing what this central part of Washington looked like as the centennial approached.   It sounds crazy now, but looking westward from the Capitol, the first thing eyes cast upon was the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station.    Built in 1872 in the Victorian Gothic style, it stood at Sixth and B (later Constitution Avenue) where the National Gallery of Art stands now.   The station certainly had some attractive architectural qualities, but to some observers, its long shed and the belching smoke of trains made it an eyesore and a blight.   To some, the station was also a sad reminder of the summer day in 1881 when President James A. Garfield was shot (passed away in September).

Along the Mall, the 2,000 foot expanse looked little like today.   Its western terminus was the Washington Monument where government fish ponds had seen better days.   Trees were arranged in small groves.    Some liked it that way, but that group of six men saw it as clutter and unfinished business in terms of the grand avenue L'Enfant had in mind.

In between Pennsylvania Avenue and the Mall stood the area that would become the Federal Triangle.   Through the years, this part of Washington had earned scorn and ridicule.   Its southern border had contained the sight of the filthy Washington Canal (filled in during the 1880s to create B Street, later Constitution Avenue).  

Maps show part of this area as Division.   It wasn't the only place in the city to be avoided, but this one had been dubbed, “Murder Bay."  

Life for those living in the alleys was a day to day struggle.   Anti-Saloon Leaguers no doubt shook their heads when walking past certain parts of the neighborhood.  An article in The Washington Post (“Story of Murder Bay, 1888”), described it as a ”dreaded spot where for many years disorder and crime flourished.”  

Despite all this, the city of Washington had come a long way since its "Empire of Mud."   But there was still much work to do.  We pick up the story in Part Two.

 

Part Two:  The McMillan Men Rescue L'Enfant

Between the Spanish American War and World War I, the thrill of America's new international role in the world held the nation's capital in rapture. Visionaries gravitated to Washington and sought to make it the glorious equal to the great European capitals of the day. Remains of the period define Washington today--the monuments and great civic buildings on the Mall as well as the private mansions built on the avenues that now serve as embassies. -- William Seale, "The Imperial Season."

 

History has recorded the key role the McMillan Commission played in shaping the growth of Washington, and, in particular, the monumental core.    Created in the spring of 1901, its official name was the Senate Park Commission.  Its "McMillan Plan" was officially titled "Report of the Senate for Improvements in Washington DC."   Author Jon A. Peterson calls it "the first comprehensive plan for an American city," as well as "a scheme so spectacular that it inspired many local beautification organizations to urge schemes of comparable boldness." 

Senator (Michigan) James McMillan chaired the commission, and it's his name we remember.   Rightfully so in many ways.  Holding the power and position, McMillan collared the powerful chairmen in the marble halls, secured the needed funding, and wielded the high-level influence needed to implement the plan.

Forgotten are the key roles played by the group of six men discussed earlier.    They all held strong beliefs about the resurrection of L'Enfant's plan and the need for formal planning in Washington.   Art, history, the coming age of the City Beautiful Movement, and their classical training and experience informed their progressive ideas.  

The group (minus Moore) had formed a bond in 1895 as members of the "Public Art League," an offshoot of the Washington Chapter of the AIA.    The Public Art League saved what became the southern parts of Rock Creek Park.   The Corps of Engineers had wanted to fill the land in to make a level plain between Georgetown and Washington.

Glenn Brown led the way for the architects.   In his memoir, he discusses why such an organization was needed.   Building designs coming out of the offices of the Treasury, the Quarter Master General's Office and the Engineer Corps left much to be desired, and selection of architects had been through friendships and mere competency.

As Lewis tells us, an alliance was formed with this group and McMillan in 1901.   Charles Moore, McMillan's aide, had used the occasion of the AIA's national convention in Washington to bring them together.   The AIA's headquarters was the Octagon House, a beacon still today of architecture and history, and the long time home of the AIA. 

Let's take a look at these key players.

 

Charles Moore (1855-1942) 

Moore earned his PhD in history at Columbian College (now GWU).   He served as a close aide to Senator McMillan and became a founder and 30 year member of the influential Commission of Fine Arts in Washington.  Moore authored a number of publications, including “Washington, Past and Present”, and “Wakefield, Birthplace of George Washington.”   His journalistic skills and political savvy did the Commission many favors.   Andrew Mellon is credit with the building of the Federal Triangle, but Moore's guiding hand was indispensable.

 

Daniel Burnham (1846-1912)

Commission Member

Played a major role in the creation of the City Beautiful Movement, Burnham earned his early architectural fame in Chicago.    He served as Director of Works for the landmark 1893 Columbian Exposition in the Windy City and worked with McKim and Saint-Gaudens on the "White City" project.    Burnham is credited with the quote, “Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood…” 

Burnham’s designs include the Flatiron Building in Manhattan and Union Station in Washington. 

 

Charles McKim (1847-1909)

Commission Member

McKim was a proponent of the Beaux Arts Style and has been described as “one of the foremost American architects.”   He attended Harvard and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.   His body of work includes restoration of the White House.   Richard Guy Wilson (American Renaissance, tells us McKim took primary responsibility for the design of the Mall.   He also had public speaking, supervisory and organizational skills that greatly aided the McMillan Commission.   

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907)

Commission Member

Adding star power to the team of architects was sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, whose resume included the Standing Lincoln and Seated Lincoln in Chicago, the unforgettable Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, and the shrouded Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington.  Coin collectors cherish his works including his $20 Double Eagle gold piece.

 

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957)

Commission Member

Olmsted's son, Frederick Law Jr, was the youngest of the group.   He would go on to become an original member of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission (1926 to 1932) and earn accolades for his designs.   Law Jr’s philosophy of landscape had been nurtured by his father.   

Olmsted, Jr. gave a pivotal speech to the AIA in 1900, titled, "Landscape in Connection with Public Buildings in Washington, DC.   In it he said:

The purpose of the Mall was and ought to be to emphasize support and extend the effect of the Capitol as the dominant feature of the City and the most important building in the whole United States.

The National Park Service ("The Mall, National Mall & Memorial Parks") called his address, "one of the first attempts by an American designer to define the role of landscape architecture in the planning and improvements of cities."

 

Glenn Brown (1854-1932)

Alexandrians and some folks in North Carolina will be pleased to know our final key player was Glenn Brown.    As such, we will spend more time on him.   

It’s our observation that Brown is the one mentioned less in look backs at the McMillan Commission.  For example, the esteemed Benjamin Forgey left him out in his terrific article, while mentioning the others (“How 1902’s City of Tomorrow Became the Capital of Today,” January 4, 1999, The Washington Post).   The reason for this seems to be that Brown was not on the McMillan Commission.

There are three terrific sources for Brown, including his memoir, “Memories;” an absolute splendid primer titled, "Glen Brown, AIA, An Alexandria Architect's Monumental Vision" (Exhibition, Northern Virginia Chapter AIA) and William Brian Bushsong's bio, which was updated by North Carolina Architects and Builders.

Brown came into the world in Fauquier County in 1854.  Warrenton, its seat, lies about 30 miles west of Alexandria.  A year later, his father, Dr. Bedford Brown, moved the family to Rose Hill, North Carolina, a small coastal plain town 40 miles north of Wilmington.  

Of the six McMillan men, Brown was the only one with a Southern accent.   His grandfather was a planter and politician,  his father a surgeon for the Confederates during the war.  

The family packed up again in 1867 and headed back to Virginia.  Dr. Brown set up a practice in Alexandria.  The Brown family lived at 113-115 S. Fairfax Street (partially demolished in 1970).  His father practiced medicine there.   

In 1880, Brown established his architectural practice in Washington (lived at 607 Louisiana Avenue).  In his memoir, he recalls feeling the need for a "more intimate relationship with my fellow architects."  His designs in Washington include the Beale House on Massachusetts Avenue.  In Winston Salem, he left his architectural mark in several places, and found time to help the North Carolina chapter of the AIA.

In 1891, Brown completed a Colonial Revival restoration of the interior of Christ Church.  John Milner's, "The Restoration of Christ Church, Glenn Brown," details his work which included the entire interior and the pulpit.    

An organizer at heart, Brown helped found the Washington chapter of the AIA.   As its Executive Secretary, he planned the 1900 convention around the centennial.  The theme was "The Grouping of Government Buildings, Landscape and Statuary."   

Brown's book (“History of the United States Capitol”) caught the eye of Senator McMillan and Charles Moore, his assistant.  

Moore would later write:

That book was the inspiration of the members of the so-called McMillan Commission of 1901.  It led them to the realization of the potentialities and possibilities of the L’Enfant Plan.   During the years of doubt, hesitation and uncertainty which followed the publication of the McMillan Commission plans, Glenn Brown organized the Committee of One Hundred, which kept steadily before the public both the merits of the new plans and the possibilities of accomplishing a conception which at the time seemed too fine, too superb, too ideal.

Kurt Helfrich ("Designing the Nation's Capital: The 1901 Plan for Washington, D.C.) also shined a light on Brown:

It was at the 1900 Washington convention that the Institute's secretary, Glenn Brown, had skillfully orchestrated a program of lectures and discussions that set the stage for appointment in 1901 of the Senate Park Commission by the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia. The recommendations of the Senate Park Commission formed the basis for planning and design changes to the Mall and its environs that continue to shape the monumental core of Washington today.

This group was on a mission.   They read histories of Washington and prepared papers on landscape and civic art.  They visited Annapolis and Williamsburg, and toured Europe to look for ideas and inspiration.   The group's visit to Paris is detailed in "Paris on the Potomac."  Their plan owes something to the designs of Andre Le Notre, including his famed beauties at Versailles, Tuileries, and Vaux le Victomte.   

Back in the capital, they walked along the hills circling the city.  In their book, "Designing the Nation's Capital: The 1901 Plan for Washington, DC," authors Sue A. Kohler and Pamela Scott provide the words of McKim who later wrote, "If half of what is talked about can be carried through, it will make the Capitol City one of the most beautiful centers in the world."

As mentioned, these six men also held a turning-point convention in Washington in 1900.   The paper prepared by the Northern Virginia Chapter of the AIA (Glenn Brown, AIA: An Alexandria Architect's Monumental Vision) tells us Brown "organized a successful campaign to realize L'Enfant's original plans and revitalize the monumental core utilizing the principles of the classical style."  

 

Armed and ready, the group's big moment arrived in January 1902.   On the heels of the Senate receiving their report, McMillan and his team gathered at the Corcoran Gallery (then installed at Pennsylvania and 17th, today's Renwick Gallery).   They laid out for public viewing a model for their plan for the Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue.  They also displayed, “The Future Washington, Bird’s Eye View, Washington, DC" by Francis Hoppin.  

As pointed out by the White House Historical Association, Hoppin's painting depicts the commission's proposed redesign of the city's future monumental core. 

Once again, we must realize what this central part of Washington looked like at the time.   The McMillan Plan more than doubled the size of the Mall, and extended it to the Potomac River.   The Washington Monument had been its western edge, not the center as it is today.    

Getting the first look was President Roosevelt and his entourage of Cabinet members.  Across the span of three days, 25,000 or so poured into the gallery to view the model.  

Pennsylvania Avenue was a key element in the plan.  Brown had described it as a "hideous contrariety of buildings of all sorts -  high and low - not one block with a symmetrical silhouette against the sky."    

The McMillan Plan, although it failed to pass in the House, became a guiding light for planning in Washington.  The Urban Planning website points out it:

Of all the major plans for American cities the Senate Park Commission design for Washington was by far the most successful if judged by the number of recommendations that have been carried out.  It is not too much to say that the central part of Washington today is almost entirely the result of the plan published and exhibited in 1902.

None other than James Goode adds:

The McMillan Commission’s plan for the development of Washington inspired a civic beautification and national planning movement.

Not everything the commission recommended turned out as planned.   For executive buildings, they recommended Lafayette Square, the area north of the White House.   Perhaps the majority of us can agree it's a good thing that did not happen.   

One part of the report was titled, "The Area South of Pennsylvania Avenue."  It suggested it was a proper location for municipal buildings for the District.     

The report also said:

"This individuality (the District buildings) would be still further enhanced by grouping within the same general area other buildings municipal or semi-municipal in character.     The entire space should be occupied, transformed from its present unworthy conditions into a section having a distinct character and also being closely related to its environment."

It needs to be emphasized that while the McMillan plan looked to L'Enfant's plan, its proponents did not always follow it.    Kirk Savage, ("Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape."), details this part of the story in what is perhaps the best such book on L'Enfant and the Mall.    

Scott Berg echoes this saying, "The report may have honored L'Enfant, but it also sometimes by necessity and sometime by choice, ignored much of his plan.  

"Where L'Enfant had envisioned the Mall as a national boulevard, the commission, perhaps a bit starstruck, recommended a duplication of the Tapis Vert at Versailles in the form of a greensward containing a shallow reflecting pool..."

He adds, however, that the core of L'Enfant's plan remains visible.

In 1902, Senator McMillan passed away.   Eight years later, the Commission of Fine Arts picked up the ball.   We tell its story in Part Three.

 

Part Three:   Moore and the Role of the CFA

"Art as expression, not as market campaigns, will still capture our imagination."  -- Neil Peart, Rush.

In 1902, Senator McMillan passed away.   That same year, the plan with his name on it had died in the Senate.   After they returned to their practices, Moore, Burnham, McKim and Olmsted came back to Washington to testify on behalf of a bill that kept any building 400 feet away from the Mall.  

In her book, "A Quest for Grandeur," Sally Kress Tompkins picks up the story.   Reunited with Moore, and galvanized once again, the group teamed up with the AIA and President Teddy Roosevelt, who supported the tenants of the McMillan Plan.    They agreed about the need for a watchdog group in terms of future development along the Mall.  

Senator (New York) Elihu Root, who had served as Roosevelt's Secretary of State and McKinley's Secretary of War, hammered out a bill that established the Commission of Fine Arts.  President Taft inked it.   The body's reach was limited, but all building plans in Washington needed their sign off signature.

For those who wanted to see the McMillan Plan succeed, they must have been pleased to see Burnham selected as the CFA's first chairman (1910-1912), and Moore and Olmsted Jr. sitting beside their trusted colleague and friend.   Better yet for the group and progressive thinkers, Moore served as CFA Chairman from 1915 to 1937.   

A good number of people were involved in what became the Federal Triangle, but more than anyone else, Moore guided the process along.    During his tenure, the CFA scored a number of achievements in their pursuit of bringing about the major tenants of the McMillan plan.  A big one was the Lincoln Memorial.   Today its site seems perfectly situated.   But in the late 1910s, that part of what became the Mall was reclaimed land known as the "Potomac Flats."   The land holding the future memorials for Lincoln and Jefferson did not exist.

Mallhistory.org tells us contractors had moved 12 million cubic yards or material from the river to remove silt and deepen the ship channel.   Senator Joseph Cannon, who seemed to oppose everything the CFA desired, stood firmly against the proposed site of a memorial for Lincoln.

Another CFA victory was the Memorial Bridge.    The Army Corps of Engineers had proposed to make it an extension of New York Avenue.   The CFA convinced Congress to build it as an extension of the Lincoln Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial was christened in 1922.   Two years earlier the Grant Memorial was unveiled at the foot of the Capitol.  The new National Museum (National Museum of Natural History) had opened in 1901.  The monumental core was beginning to take on some of its current look and feel.

After distinguished careers, Saint-Gaudens and McKim died in 1909.  Their passing occurred in the same year that the remains of L'Enfant were reinterred from Digges Farm in Prince George's County, Maryland to Arlington Cemetery.   Anyone standing in front of the Arlington House, which holds, arguably, the best view of Washington, can see L'Enfant's grave site, his eternal pedestal overlooking the monumental core.   

Burnham passed away in 1912.   Brown, who moved into the Corcoran Apartments (site is the State Department), would live to see some of the Federal Triangle built.   Olmsted Jr., and especially Moore, continued to play influential roles.    

Brown's memoir is an important resource for learning about some of the lesser known players.   For example, he praises Cass Gilbert for his leadership as the president of the AIA.   Gilbert's designs include the Woolworth Building in Manhattan, at the time, the world's tallest building, and the Supreme Court building.    Like Brown and Moore, he worried a government-appointed Public Buildings Commission would not have the needed "vision, scholarship and training."

Meanwhile, the population in Washington swelled.  The District is known for its rapid growth during the New Deal, World War II and afterwards.  Forgotten is the leap in the 1910s and during World War I.    In 1917 and 1918, temporary buildings sprouted up on the Mall.   Lewis points out this was in effect, the largest office space on the world.  

In the early 1920s, another government report indicated the need for more office space for Federal workers in the Executive Departments.   A significant number of employees went to work in rented buildings or temporary structures.  Some were unsanitary and awaited the wrecking ball.   The Department of Commerce reported its workers were housed in seventeen separate buildings.  

James Goode tallies the figures for us.   There were 30,000 working for Uncle Sam in the city in 1916.   Ten years later, the figure was 60,000.

The ingredients for what would become the Federal Triangle were now coming together.  The growing Federal Government needed new, fire-proof and large buildings.    Although the District Building and the Post Office had been built, the less-than-desirable area between Pennsylvania Avenue and B Street remained an easy sell to Congress as a place for new buildings.

As Tompkins points out, Moore and the CFA continued to press the case for a buildings program that would adhere to the McMillan plan.  They wanted to see private architects, expert planners, and a systematic approach. 

Throughout this time, the term Federal Triangle had not yet been coined but "the triangle" did emerge.  An initial top priority was an Archives building.  Lt. Colonel Clarence O. Sherrill, in charge of Public Buildings and Grounds, briefed on the need for fireproof structures, and ones big enough to carry out the business of the government.   He also said the government had run out of space in Washington.

Just how much of a role Glenn Moore played in all this can be seen in some of the language used by Senators and officials in the build up to the passage of the Public Buildings Act of 1926.   

Senator Smoot wrote,

"As one proceeds down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, on the south side will be a succession of beautiful and harmonious buildings, all of a design in keeping with the semi-classical tradition so well established in Washington."

Senator William Bruce said,

"The amendment I have offered contemplates noting less than a return to the original plan designed by L'Enfant."

 

Herbert Hoover is known as the 31st President, serving (1929-1933) between Calvin Coolidge and FDR.   Lost is his role in the building of the Federal Triangle.    Hoover served as the Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928 and supported Moore's ideas for public buildings and formal planning.   Like Roosevelt, Taft, Harding and Coolidge before him, President Hoover supported the McMillan plan and its ideas.      

Over on the Hill the lawmakers were making the sausage for the bill that would become the Public Buildings Act of 1926.    Its whopping $50M price tag ($701M in today's dollars) included other buildings in Washington and across the country.   It took two years to hammer out the details.  

Finally, in 1926, the Public Buildings Act was passed.   Some observers would later say it betrayed L'Enfant's vision, but Tompkins tells us Moore was pleased the new law "conformed to the 1901-1902 McMillan Plan."   Senator William B. Bruce (Maryland) inserted an amendment that mandated new Federal buildings in Washington be located within the Triangle and south of Pennsylvania (Bruce found time to write "Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1918).

Andrew Mellon is remembered as a wealthy banker and businessman with roots in the steel town of Pittsburgh, as well as an art collector, a philanthropist and Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932.   In one of the greatest gifts to the nation, he donated his collection of art to the National Gallery of Art.   Somewhat lost and forgotten is his leadership in the making of the Federal Triangle.   We pick the story in the next installment.

 

Part Four

Mellon and the Architects

"The overall stylistic character of the buildings was to be an adaptation of the eighteenth century classic," but within this framework emerged a mixing of elements, heavy from Paris and Rome. The buildings would also meet the modern demands of office space and reflected a "civic center ideal."   --  James Goode

 

Andrew Mellon is remembered as a wealthy banker and businessman with roots in the steel town of Pittsburgh, as well as an art collector, a philanthropist and Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932.   In one of the greatest gifts to the nation, he donated his collection of art to the National Gallery of Art.   Somewhat lost and forgotten is his leadership in the making of the Federal Triangle.   

As mandated by the Act's legislation, Mellon took charge of the public buildings program in 1926.   As his biographer, David Cannadine, points out, "it was rather ironic the self-proclaimed champion of small government and fiscal restraint was presiding with such zeal and interest over this unprecedented monument to administrative bureaucracy."

Mellon was the leader and Edward H. Bennett served as chair of the Board of Architectural Consultants.   Moore was active as ever in his role with the CFA.   Bennett had worked with Burnham as a planning assistant on plans for San Francisco and Chicago, and Mellon was obviously someone who appreciated the arts. 

The Evening Star gave a lot of coverage to the story of the Federal Triangle.  Their May 3, 1927 edition covered a series of conferences held in Washington to hash out some of the details.  Bennett was acknowledged as a key speaker, as well as members of the CFA and the National Park and Planning Commission.  

In December, a measure passed that paved the way to demolish most of the triangle area.   A few months later real estate geeks got a bounty of coverage in the March 31, 1928 issue.  "District Enters Great Era of Buildings Construction."   

Frederick Gutheim and Antoinette Lee, authors of "Worthy of the Nation: Washington, DC, from L'Enfant to the National Capital" pick up the story.   In 1929, a conference was held in Washington, with the title "The Development of the United States Capital."     The authors write, "although the Federal Triangle was to be built of twentieth century building elements, steel frame with limestone facing, Bennett stated modern, blunt architecture was not acceptable for the Department Buildings."

Goode tells us the "overall stylistic character of the buildings was to be an adaptation of the eighteenth century classic," but within this framework emerged a mixing of elements, heavy from Paris and Rome. The buildings would also meet the modern demands of office space and reflected a "civic center ideal."  

In 1929, the Treasury Department established a Board of Architectural Consultants.   Bennett was officially in charge, but Moore had strong advisory status and inside influence.  In fact, as Tompkins tells us, a rift developed between the two.  

Mellon sided with Moore, who oversaw the selection of the architects.  Gutheim and Lee tell us, "Had Bennett been given a free rein, he might have dictated a more uniform Roman style, less eclectic, and less Renaissance."

The Board of Architectural Consultants consisted of a Who's Who of American architects.   

Louis Ayres (1874-1947), Commerce

Ayres served on the CFA and designed the Commerce Department. His other designs include the United States Memorial Chapel at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial

 

Milton Medary (1874-1929), Justice

Medary, favorite son of Philadelphia, was also a Moore man.  Along with his partners, Zantzinger and Borie, he designed the Department of Justice.

 

John Russell Pope (1874-1937), National Archives

Pope turned out to be the most famous of these architects.  His designs before the National Archives include the House of the Temple and Constitution Hall in Washington, Richmond's Union Station (now Science Museum), and the Baltimore Museum of Art.  After the National Archives, he designed the National Gallery of Art and the Jefferson Memorial.

 

William A. Delano, (1874-1960) New Post Office 

A beloved son of New York, Delano served on the National Commission of Fine Arts (1924-1928), the Board of Architectural Consultants (1927-1946), and the National Capital Park and Planning Commission (1929-1946).   Along with Moore, he was a key advisor on the Federal Triangle project.

 

Arthur Brown (1874-1957), Labor, EPA/Departmental Auditorium (originally for ICC and Labor)

Brown's diplomas include Berkeley and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  With his partner G. Albert Lansburgh, his commissions include San Francisco City Hall and the War Memorial Opera House.   For the Federal Triangle, Brown designed Labor, the ICC and the Mellon Auditorium.    

 

Edward H. Bennett (1874-1954), Apex (Federal Trade Commission)

Born in Bristol, England, Bennett immigrated to San Francisco.  He, too, studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts school in Paris.   He worked with Burnham in Chicago, where the two sketched out a plan for San Francisco and Chicago.   Mellon hired Bennett as the Chairman of the Board of Architects.  He designed the Apex Building, the final one at the eastern tip.

 

Louis Simon, (1867-1958), IRS

Born in Baltimore, Simon served as the Chief Architect in the Office of the Supervising Architect from 1896 to 1914, followed by almost twenty years as Chief of Engineering and Drafting Division.   In 1934, he was tabbed as Supervising Architect of the Treasury.    

 

Goode tells us the architects based their designs on a variety of classical orders including the architecture of Rome, the Italian Renaissance, and eighteenth century France.    More than 100 outdoor sculpted pediments, relief panels and bronze doors are a distinct part of the Federal Triangle.  The Post Office Department, DOJ and the National Archives feature murals and sculptures inside.  

Adding to our knowledge of what inspired the architects is "Paris on the Potomac: The French Influence on the Architecture and Art of Washington, D.C."  In the chapter titled, "Interpreting the Influence of Paris on the Planning of Washington, DC, 1870-1930, Cynthia R. Field provides examples, including these two.  

The distinctive ovoid form of the Place des Victoires was chosen for the Federal Triangle, an unmistakable reference to Paris.

The articulation of the facades framing the entrance to the Grand Plaza strongly recalls the buildings of the Place de Concorde.  

In The Washington Post and the Evening Star, the term “Federal Triangle” began to catch on in 1929.   That summer, President Hoover, flanked by a good number of Cabinet officials and members of Congress, laid the cornerstone for the first building, the new home of the Department of Commerce.   The construction for the Federal Triangle was about to begin. We pick up the story in Part Five.

 

Part Five: Construction and Later Years

"Evening on the Mall.  I walk on the grass, on axis.  Flocks of swift starlings sweep toward the Federal Triangle and the city.  Soon the lights will come on at the Capitol.  I turn to look at the soaring Washington Monument and the back at the dome of the Capitol.   Here is the Mall, surely tonight the most beautiful place man has yet made in America."  -  Elbert Peet. "Washington." 1937.  On the Art of Designing Cities.  Selected Essays. 

 

In The Washington Post and the Evening Star, the term “Federal Triangle” began to catch on in 1929.   That summer, President Hoover, flanked by a good number of Cabinet officials and members of Congress, laid the cornerstone for the first building, the new home of the Department of Commerce.   His speech was broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company.   It’s hard to know how many listened, but the number of stations in the US would leap from 30 in 1922 to 618 in 1930.   

Politicians love bragging points and Hoover got in on the action.   It had been said the Commerce Building would become the largest office structure in the world.   The President described it as “the most important structure in the new program for better accommodation of our Government and the beautification of our National Capital.”   

Basking in the glow, he added:

This is more than merely the making of a beautiful city.  Washington is not only the Nation’s Capital, it is the symbol of America.   Our Government in Washington has grown to a working force of nearly 70,000 employees.  

The Post noted it would be of stone, five stories with a sixth back of the roof balustrade.  Their report also noted the architecture of the rest of the buildings would follow that of the Commerce and IRS, referred to as “unified architectural composition.”    Goode writes it was designed to house 25,000 civil servants.

We should remind here again that while the majority of the Federal Triangle buildings were built between 1929 and 1938, two were already there.   The highest and oldest building is the Romanesque Post Office, built in 1898.   The District Building went up in 1910.   

The IRS was up next.  One of the markers shows a photograph of the construction in 1929.  One can see two diagonal streets.  The one with the market buildings is Louisiana Avenue.  The other, bottom left, is Ohio Avenue.   They went away as part of the construction. 

 A Post report noted the construction workers and their families (25,000) would live and spend some of their paychecks in the District.   Jobs included the executives, architects, draftsmen, foremen, stonemasons, bricklayers, structural steel workers, carpenters, laborers, cement workers, marble fitters, electricians, plumbers, and steamfitters.

In late October 1929, Wall Street shook like never before when the stock market crashed.  $3B was wiped out in a frenzy of dumping.   However, as a Cultural Tourism DC brochure explains, the economic blow did not slow things down at the Federal Triangle construction site.     

On the other hand, veterans of World War I were effected by the Stock Crash.    In the summer of 1932, some 40,000 of the "Bonus Marchers" demanded they be given their hard-earned and law-granted compensation.   The majority set up a shanty town south of the Anacostia River, but some set up camps in the Federal Triangle area at Camp Glassford (modern day National Gallery of Art).   

In his book, “Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall,” the authors tell us about an early plan for the Federal Triangle Heritage Trail.   It proposed a historical marker that would touch on the story of the Bonus Army.   The GSA decided against it.   The authors write that the markers on and near the Mall “are addressed obliquely.”    

Throughout the design process for the Federal Triangle buildings, Moore and the CFA continued their work.   As the buildings went up, the remaking of the Mall took place.   Tree lovers must have cried some bad tears when the elms went down by the National Botanical Garden.  But the Victorian approach of the Mall was anathema to the need for the open space and vistas along the axis.    

The Wescott Nursery of Fairfax County got the call to bring down the trees.   Their bill to Uncle Sam showed 66 cut, and 25 moved or transplanted, including a huge magnolia.   The NPS report says they were all evaluated, with 50 transplanted.    Some of the elms had died from Dutch Elm Disease. 

The re-make of the Mall was mostly finished by 1936.   Anyone watching could also see the Federal Triangle nearing its completion, too.  Following IRS and Commerce were the completion of the remaining buildings --  Department of Justice, Department of Labor, the Departmental (Mellon) Auditorium, the new Post Office, Archives, the Apex Building (Interstate Commerce Commission) and the Federal Trade Commission.     

As noted by the nomination form, all the buildings, except for National Archives, are steel framed, dressed masonry, constructed of limestone, have red roof tiles and were constructed around large, open, interior courts.   

The interiors are "generally divided into traditional office space with marble or terrazzo floors and plaster walls.   Some of the spaces have rich decorative features such as rusticated walls, arches, classical columns and coffered ceilings.   The Post Office and Department of Justice contain numerous murals."

Some of the courts became makeshift parking lots.   The CFA was aware of the need for parking, but turned down garages over worries they would have been unsightly.  Underground parking was discussed, but the price tag would have added to the already high cost of construction.   

Of the six members of the group that had formed back in 1900, only Moore and Olmsted, Jr. were still around to see the completion of the Triangle.    Moore, in particular, must have felt a sense of satisfaction.   He had carried the McMillan flag for all those years.   

Moore passed away in September, 1942.  His obituary in The Evening Star pointed out he gave more than 50 years of his life to development and beautification of the National Capital.   The Washington Post wrote, "he had a long and distinguished life the major part of which was devoted unstintingly to public service in Washington."  

Of course, war was on the minds of Americans in 1942, having heard FDR utter the words that December 7, 1941, would be a day that would go down in infamy.

In the ensuing years, there were a number of changes that took place at the Federal Triangle.   One was with the Department of Labor.   Its employees moved out and the EPA moved in.  For many years, where the Ronald Reagan Building stands today stood a large parking lot (Image from 1949 and used with permission from Historic Aerials).   

In the 1960s, President Kennedy’s temporary Commission on Pennsylvania Avenue formed.  They proposed the “Great Circle be completed.”   But it would have demolished or partially demolished the Old Post Office.  A marker at Pennsylvania and 12th discusses the Great Circle and the Great Plaza and shows their would-have-been location.   In 1970, a group of citizens calling themselves "Don't Tear It Down," successfully campaigned against the call to demolish the building.

During the Bicentennial in 1976, thousands poured into the National Archives to see the original copy of the Declaration of Independence.  During the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, some onlookers used parts of the Federal Triangle to gain a better view.

 

In the summer of 1977, the Federal Triangle Metro station opened with much fanfare.   It currently serves the Blue, Orange and Silver Lines and has one of the more remarkable entrances.   First time users approaching the entrance under the massive colonnade (12th Street) have probably wondered if they were in the right place.  

In 1982, the GSA released an EIS report with a threefold purpose -  to complete the Federal Triangle in a historically and architecturally appropriate manner, to increase the amount of office space and better relate the Triangle to key areas to its north and south.  

The report said the eleven buildings housed about 18,000 employees in almost three million square feet of office space.   It pointed out the Great Plaza had been intended to be a formal space.   It had been used as a parking lot (1700-1800).   Other spaces, building courtyards and underground garages were used for car pools, giving a total of 3,350 parking spaces.   The Federal Triangle was "extremely well served by Washington's two mass transit modes, Metrorail and Metrobus.   Surveys indicated 55% of the employees used transit.  At that point, the Yellow and Green lines were yet to be opened. 

In 1998, the Ronald Reagan Building/International Trade Center opened.  This was the last open space and completed the Triangle.    As a marker points out, the structure’s 3.1 million square feet of space make it the second-largest federal office building.  Only the Pentagon is larger.  Its massive curved shape resembles the hemicycle by the Metro entrance.   The Woodrow Wilson Plaza features two works of art, both by Washington-born artists.

In 2013, the Commerce Building underwent a renovation.  This brought an end to National Aquarium's long run there since 1932.   Its collection included over 1.500 specimens and had been free to the public.   The aquarium's fish and collections moved to the aquarium in Baltimore.

The Federal Triangle is used from time to time as a metaphor for the Federal Government.   The opening credits for the HBO mini-series House of Cards include Pennsylvania Avenue showing the Department of Justice and the National Archives, individual shots of the Old Post Office Tower, the Ronald Reagan Building, Postal Service, and if you look real hard, the Mellon Fountain.

Artist Mike Osborne picks up on the more sinister side in his new book, “Federal Triangle.”   The Lora Reynolds Gallery in Austin exhibited some of his black and white photos this summer.  Reynolds recounts that he was inspired while living in Washington for several years.   He writes that his project "depicts DC as a kind of bureaucratic Bermuda Triangle—an impenetrable place of mystery, danger, and disorientation."

In the sixth and final part, we will look at the significance and criticisms of the Federal Triangle, what was demolished, and close with our own observations.

 

Part Six:  Significance, Criticisms, Demolished Buildings, and Observations

"The Federal Triangle is the most ambitious architectural undertaking in the history of the Washington, and represents the culmination of the City Beautiful Movement." -- Author G. Martin Moeller, Jr. ("AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC")

 

As far as the significance of the Federal Triangle, a good number of people have chimed in.

Catesby Leigh ("Why America Needs Classical Architecture," City Journal, Summer 2019) called it "the last great expression to date of the urban ideal that emerged at the Chicago fair."

The summary review for the book, "Sculpture and the Federal Triangle" writes it is, "the last major construction project for neoclassical architecture and for architectural sculpture in America," as well as "an important chapter in our cultural history."

The National Building Museum, writing of the CFA, point out:  "The Commission’s guidance helped insure that this complex would provide a monumental yet varied architectural border for the northern edge of the Mall."

The NCPC tells us, "Several of the buildings contain significant cultural resources such as murals, sculptures, and interior architectural elements not found in any other building in the nation.  For instance, the lobbies, hallways and library in the Department of Justice headquarters showcase over fifty murals painted by prominent American artists."

In her review of "A Quest for Grandeur: Charles Moore and the Federal Triangle," historian Susan Klaus describes it as "a unified composition of buildings, grounds, and public art."

Author G. Martin Moeller, Jr. ("AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC"), writes the Federal Triangle is "the most ambitious architectural undertaking in the history of the Washington, and represents the culmination of the City Beautiful Movement."

Of the paintings, murals and sculptures, Goode writes they constitute the most important collection of public art ever executed for any single building complex in the country.  He adds the Federal Triangle remains one of the most important design and construction projects in the history of the country.

Criticisms of the Federal Triangle run the gamut (see Moeller, "AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC" for individual building critiques).  Perhaps writing the most balanced, John H. Scarff ("Washington Triangle Reflects Government," March 15, 1936) said, “In spite of the general lack of interest, the entire group has the impressiveness of size, and shows most careful thought and workmanship.” On the other hand he added, “Although they escape the pomposity of the new Supreme Court, they are dull.”  Ultimately leaving it up to the observer, he wrote, “These buildings are a mirror held upon us.”

In his Images of America book, "Pennsylvania Avenue," Christopher P. Cavas writes "much of that life began to be sucked out of the street with the erection of the Federal Triangle... full of federal workers by day but empty at night."

What the residents of Washington thought of the Federal Triangle and the remaking of the Mall is hard to say.   Safe to say African Americans were saddened and frightened when the KKK had been allowed to march down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1926.    On the other hand, pride swelled in 1939 when the glorious voice of Marion Anderson poured forth from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

In his terrific book, “Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, DC"), Howard Gillette Jr. adds an important perspective.   He writes that Federal officials “achieved dramatic success in beautifying Washington, most particularly in carving out a distinctive federal enclave at the city’s core.”  Sadly, however, they did not “adequately address issues such as housing.”  

This leads to J.D. Dickey's poignant history of Washington, "Empire of Mud."   He tell us about the "Red Summer" riots of 1919, where military servicemen attacked blacks in the streets.   Health reports on the Division neighborhood showed the deleterious effects of infectious disease and poor housing conditions on African-Americans.  

Dickey writes:

In the face of such unfair treatment, blacks had no recourse to the ballot box to demand change.   They, like their white counterparts, couldn't vote in the capital or do anything to change the policies of those in power.   This became most evident when, instead of improving the Division, the Federal Government decided to tear it down.

 

As far as what was demolished to make way for the Federal Triangle, there were a number of landmark places.   In terms of size, architectural appeal and history, the greatest loss was City Market, replaced by the National Archives.

J.B. McDonnell (The Washington Post, “Ancient Landmarks Disappear in Plans of Greater Capital”) lamented the loss of Poli’s Theater, Hancock’s (Bar) Harvey’s Restaurant, Made’s Restaurant, the City Market, and the Southern Railway Building.

Paul Dickson (“On This Spot”) digs even further and mentions the Ford Opera House and a Burlesque Hall.  

Goode ("Capitol Losses") includes the Southern Railway Building, Central Market, the Capital Bicycle Club, and Harvey’s Restaurant.    

Dickey adds the Bijou and President theaters and Albaugh's Opera House.

Of all these, perhaps the most tears fell for Harvey’s.  The Post’s obituary for it pointed out Lincoln and Grant had dined there, as well as politicians, statesmen, writers, artist and scientists.  Brothers Thomas W. Harvey and George W. Harvey started it all in a “white-washed blacksmith shop.” Famous were there steamed oysters.  

The Federal Triangle certainly renewed this part of Washington and brought jobs.  It also brought traffic.  In 1941, a Post piece (“Federal Triangle Blamed for Traffic Snarl”) said a city planning report “condemns the Federal Triangle as the greatest cause of traffic tie-ups and criticizes the crowding of Federal buildings into a small downtown area.”   A Grand Plaza had been planned for, but the large space became a parking lot (now the Reagan Building).   

Bennett had known parking was going to be a big problem, but was advised that parking garages would be unsightly and that some workers would take public transportation.  

 

Observations

We took two different walks through the Federal Triangle to record these thoughts and observations.  Let’s do this by starting with the eastern most tip of the triangle and working our way to 15th Street.   

 

Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain 

The eastern end point of the Federal Triangle?

The answer sure seems to be the FTC building, which is the most eastward building at Sixth Street.   It even has an apex shape.   But the actual tip is one block over, where Penn and Constitution meet, a small spit of land that holds the Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain.   

Dedicated in 1952, the fountain lies across the street from the National Gallery of Art.  As their website points out, Mellon donated his collection of art for the new museum (opened 1939) and gave funds for its construction.

Perhaps forgotten is Mellon's role in building the Federal Triangle and the Auditorium named after him in the middle of the Interstate Commerce Commission building.  

Philip Kennicott ("One of DC's great fountains comes back to life") called this memorial one of Washington's treasures and "having a strong claim to being the most beautiful water feature in the city."   Closed in 2008 for repairs, the fountain's cascading waters returned in 2016.     Restoration gave the bronze a "rich, brownish luster."    

 

Federal Trade Commission 

Actually, this building, located east of the National Archives and east of busy Seventh Street, may not seem to be part of the Federal Triangle either.  Moeller describes it as "the plainest structure of the complex."  Nevertheless, its curved tip, the apex and capstone, hints at something special.  The architecture is “stripped classicism.”  Catching eyes is the sculpture “Man Controlling Trade,” designed by New Yorker Michael Lantz.  

 

National Archives 

Here we go again.  To some, the National Archives may not seem to be part of the Federal Triangle.   Its temple-like design and grassy apron is different from the rest.

More than one million people visit here each year or come to conduct research.   Many an anniversary has drawn large crowds.   Archives.org points out it wasn't until 1952 that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were transferred from the Library of Congress to the awe-inspiring Rotunda, joining the Bill of Rights.

A grand staircase faces Constitution and has been the scene of crowd gathering for parades and such.   Author events are held here and crowds swell during certain events.  One of the sculptures is Guardianship, symboled by a sword and lion and created by James Earle Fraser.

 

DOJ

Ok, so we are finally into the heart of the Federal Triangle, overwhelmed by the behemoths.   Before my visit, I would not have known which building was which, save the Reagan building and Commerce.    I also did not know the DOJ was the fourth established, after State, Treasury and War.   From 1789 to 1870, it was known as the Office of Attorney General.  The FBI was located here until they relocated across the street in 1975.   1930’s murals can be seen inside.  The building was renamed in honor of RFK in 2001.

 

Old Post Office Building

Hard to believe, but this historic landmark, third tallest in the District and completed in 1899, was the target of demolition a number of times.  In the late 1920s, its Romanesque Revival architecture was seen as out of place with the planned Beaux Arts/neoclassical style for the new Federal Triangle.  

Later on it stood in the way of the plans for a wing of the IRS Building and the completion of the Great Circle.   

In 1971, a group of people led by some heavyweight supporters and calling themselves —  “Don’t Tear It Down”  — protested plans for its demolition.   This coalition led to the creation of the DC Preservation League, as well as the creation of the DC Historic Landmark and Historic District Preservation Act of 1978.  According to one of the markers, this act is one of the nation’s stronger local preservation laws.   

The Post Office Building became the Trump International Hotel in 2016.  Public access to the tower is still available.

 

William Jefferson Clinton Building

If there is ever a book written on weird building shapes in Washington DC, this one, originally called the New Post Office Building, could be on the cover.    I can't begin to describe its shape, other than to say from above it looks like some sort of steampunk keyhole design.

The nomination form does explain its shape, but it was written when this building was the New Post Office Department Building.  

It is now the William Jefferson Clinton Building and holds the EPA.   After the Post Office Department left in 1971, it housed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.   Congress named it the Ariel Rios Building in 1985.   In the early 1990s, they moved it and EPA moved in. They also moved in to the ICC building and the DOL building.   In 2013, the building was named for President Clinton.    The Metro station is located here.

 

 

Benjamin Franklin Statue

The marker points out this statue originally faced The Washington Post building at Tenth and D Streets (FBI Building).  It was donated by the paper's founder Stilson Hutchins, unveiled in 1889 and moved to this corner spot in 1982.   Seems like an odd place for it.  

 

EPA

One of the problems with the Federal Triangle is one of identity.   Through the years, it’s quite obvious many have asked - what department is located here?   Even long time residents don’t know.

From a walker’s perspective, it’s less of a problem, but challenging nevertheless.   In the case of this building, it is two blocks long.   So I was pleased to see a pair of interpretive markers for the EPA in the middle of the block.    In this case, the small garden softens the blow of the visual impact projected by the building.

This building first held the Department of Labor.  The first Secretary of Labor was Frances Perkins, the nation’s first woman cabinet member.  EPA was a late comer, created in 1970.

IRS

As part of this look at the Federal Triangle, we should have tried to get inside one of the buildings.  We did for Archives (no photos) and the Reagan Building (cavernous but not classical).  We did find "Reagan's Mandate: Anecdotes from Inside Washington's Iron Triangle" by Barbara N. McLennan.  She describes her interview experience.

The building contained a main lobby that was so ornate with marble, chandeliers and gilt paint that it could have housed an inaugural ball.

 

Mellon Auditorium

First known as the Departmental Auditorium and designed by San Francisco Beaux Arts architect Arthur Brown Jr., the Mellon Auditorium sits in the middle of the EPA building.   One website calls its front "the most dramatic example of Greek Revival architecture in the Federal Triangle."

The building, used for concerts, balls and conferences, was named for him in 1987.

 

District Building

The District Building can be seen as a mirror for the District of Columbia.   Renamed the John A. Wilson Building, it holds the offices of the Mayor, the City Council and other city departments.

In their essential history, “The Guide to Black Washington," Sandra Fitzpatrick and Maria R. Goodwin tell us it wasn't until 1973 that the Home Rule Act of 1973 was passed.   District residents could finally vote on the Mayor and City Council but Congress retained veto power and budget control.

District pride was felt in 1974 when Walter E. Washington became one of the first black mayor's in a major city in the US.  

The neon "DC Tax Money" sign outside the building looks cheesy, but oh how important it is to remind folks that District residents have "Taxation Without Representation."   

The Boss Shepard Statue is also here, which I would agree seems incongruous.  But Shepard deserves credit for leading the effort to improve the look of the city after the Civil War.

 

Reagan Building

Some architectural critics shake their head at this one.  I have to agree with Leigh who writes the building is a "meretricious (I confess I had to look up that word) rendition of the classical forms that define the Triangle."   I also agree the courtyard is a travesty of the originally envisioned Great Plaza.

Having said that, there is appeal with the public access.  The International Trade Center is located here, as well as some modern public art and "Moynihan Place."   The marker here points out this is the only FT building to house both private and government offices.    

 

Commerce Building

It would not surprise us if the employees working here are the most fit.  This massive building extends three blocks long from Constitution (previously B) to E Street.  Five football fields could fit on the footprint.

This building was one of the first constructed (1926-1932) for what became known as the Federal Triangle, and was the largest governmental building in the country when opened, as well as the largest office building in the world.

A series of artistic pieces adorn the side facing 15th Street and represent the agencies the Commerce Department took in -  Census Bureau (established in 1790), Bureau of Navigation (1789), Lighthouse Service (1789), Patent Office (1802), Coast and Geodetic Survey (1807), and Bureaus for Steamboat Inspection (1838), Fisheries (1871), Mines, Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Aeronautics, and the Radio Division.  

 

Conclusion

This was a very rewarding look at a part of Washington that most folks don’t make as a destination.   

We are grateful to the folks who put together the trail markers and the document on line.  We can't help but be concerned, however, about the great paradox that Charles Moore's name is nowhere to be found.   Fingers crossed for a forthcoming remedy, perhaps for the 125th anniversary of the McMillan Plan.

We enjoyed seeing the interpretive panel for the EPA, but it is the only one of its kind.  More panels like it would break up the long walk and inform passers by.

In closing, it should be noted that the National Children’s Museum is scheduled to open in November with its entrance near Penn and 14th.   Hoping you won’t mind, we can’t help but say that reminds us of the French artist who envisioned something grand for the new capital city.    Thank goodness, too, for that group of six McMillan men.

 

Sources

Alexandria Gazette

Washington Post

Washington Evening Star

Markers, Federal Triangle, Cultural Tourism DC.

Aden, Roger C. and Derek Alderman:  Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall: Displaced and Ephemeral Public Memories

Bednar, Michael J.  L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, D.C.

Berg, Scott W.  Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C. 

Brown, Glenn. Memories.

Craig, Lois. The Federal Presence.

Dickson, Paul. On This Spot.

Fitzpatrick, Sandra Fitzpatrick and Maria R. Goodwin. The Guide to Black Washington.

Gillette, Jr. Howard.  Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban 

Goode, James.  Capitol Losses.

Goode, James, Capital Views.

Gutheim, Frederick and Antoinette J. Lee. Worthy of the Nation: Washington, DC, from L'Enfant to the National Capital Planning Commission

Lewis, Tom.  Washington: A History.

Moeller, G. Martin.  AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC.  

Paris on the Potomac: The French Influence on the Architecture and Art of Washington, D.C. Cynthia R. Field, Editor.

Peterson, John A. The Birth of City Planning in the United States.

Press, Donald E.   South of the Avenue.  From Murder Bay to the Federal Triangle.  

Savage, Kirk.  Monument Wars, Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape.

Thomas, Christopher A.  The Lincoln Memorial and American Life.

Tompkins, Sally Kress, A Quest for Grandeur: Charles Moore and the Federal Triangle.

Designing the Nation’s Capital:  The 1901 Plan for Washington, D.C. Edited by Sue Kohler and Pamela Scott.

Federal Triangle Historic District.  DC Historic Sites.

Report of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia on the Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia.

Washington at Home: An Illustrated History of Neighborhoods in the Nation's Capital.  Edited by Kathryn S. Smith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neighborhood Visit: Mount Pleasant

Regarding our morning walks, we try not to return to the same area until some time has passed.  Nevertheless, we made an exception with Mount Pleasant.    At the end of our walk to Crestwood, its neighbor just to the north, we were charmed by Pear Plum Cafe on Mount Pleasant Avenue, something we took as invitation for a full visit.

Like Crestwood, Mount Pleasant gains something good from having Piney Branch Park, a wing, if you will, of Rock Creek Park, as a cozy border that keeps out cross traffic.  Its neighbor to the east is Columbia Heights.   The two are separated by 16th Street.

To start, we turn once again to “Washington at Home,” the standard guide for neighborhood histories in the District.   Mount Pleasant, along with DuPont Circle, LeDroit Park, Columbia Heights, Deanwood and Greater Shaw, is discussed in Chapter Three (“A New Image for the Capital”).  These were neighborhoods that sprung up after the Civil War and were mostly located beyond the downtown core and L’Enfant’s original design.   They developed as part of Washington coming into its own as a city of more than just one of “magnificent distances.” These bedroom communties benefitted from public transportation and a more bucolic setting than in the city.

Mount Pleasant was the first of these.   A 1900 map shows the village did not include the modern day part of the neighborhood west of Mount Pleasant Avenue.    Ingleside, a mansion home built in the 1850s, survived an effort to demolish it, and was later transformed into a senior living home.     

The center of the village was 14th and Park, the heart of today’s Columbia Heights.   The National Register for Historic Places explains:

This central area became the Village of Mount Pleasant around 1850.  As new neighborhoods grew, particularly Columbia Heights (13th Street east to Georgia Avenue), the new development of Mount Pleasant was pushed to the west. In 1901, the extension and relocation of 16th Street redefined the eastern boundary of Mount Pleasant.

 

A number of homes that were just east of Mount Pleasant Avenue were demolished to make way for straightening out and extending 16th Street north of Columbia Road.    All the modern day roads were completed by 1945.    On the 1945 map, Mount Pleasant is labeled as being on both sides of 16th Street.  

The neighborhood has a number of Heritage Trail markers.  These large two-sided markers tell a cohesive story for the history of Mount Pleasant.   They are a model for how public memory should be done.

One of them at Lamont Plaza tells us horse-drawn streetcars began in the 1870s, followed by the electric powered era.   The turn around for the line was at Lamont and Mount Pleasant Avenue.   

As we noted with Crestwood, Washington’s population boomed during the 1930s and 1940s.  A historical marker in Mount Pleasant tells us many single family homes there were converted into rooming houses or multi-family buildings during this time.

Like what happened in Crestwood, African Americans began to purchase homes after the US Supreme Court outlawed restrictive covenants.  As a marker points out, however, it was not easy. 

As reported by Robert L. Asher of the Washington Post, (“Mount Pleasant:  Troubled, Polygot In-town Neighborhood, December 17, 1967), racial tensions flared up here in 1967.   At the same time, residents were proud of the nickname -  “little U.N.”  Whites, blacks and Latinos all called the neighborhood home. 

A marker echoes these points:  

Mount Pleasant activists have often been on the cutting edge of important civic issues, and artists and musicians have been part of its daily life.

 

Homes

The crown jewel of the neighborhood and the sole survivor of the country estates is Ingleside at 1818 Newton Street.   Noted architect Thomas Ustick Walter designed it in the composite Italianate Villa style.  

The HABS report tells us:

Built in 1851 on a 140-acre estate, Ingleside was designed by Thomas Ustick Walter, with the grounds by Andrew Jackson Downing.   Today the mansion remains an unusual surviving example in the District of Columbia of a country house which has been surrounded by an urban neighborhood.  

The National Register for Historic Places provides a summary of the home.   It was built in 1850 on two large tracts —  Mount Pleasant and Pleasant Plains.   The building has undergone alterations, including an extension of the portico and two wing additions.  

Notable residents of this home have included Frank B. Noyes of Washington, D.C. newspaper The Evening Star.”  Noyes owned the Washington Senators and renamed the team the Nationals in 1905.

Residential Stock

The National Register form points out the neighborhood has a wide variety of buildings and homes that give it a distinct architectural entity.  These include Revival, row houses, townhouses and apartments.   The form also puts Mount Pleasant on par with the venerated neighborhoods of Cleveland Park and Chevy Chase, in that they boast a quality of architecture that rose out of the City Beautiful movement in the first quarter of the century.   

 

Rabuat Park

Mount Pleasant has a bit of a Bermuda Triangle where Mount Pleasant meets 16th Street, on odd configuration that creates two options.   Confusion reigns for drivers.

On the other hand, Rabaut Park is an outdoor hangout that’s named after U.S. Congressman Louis C. Rabaut.   After a groundswell of support to add “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, and with an assist from a pastor from Washington and others, including President Eisenhower, a bill introduced by a Michigan congressmen passed in both houses.   Rabaut, (D-Michigan) had filed a bill supporting the “under God” addition a year earlier.

Note:  We did not see a sign for Rabaut Park.

 

Francis Asbury Statue

Honoring mostly generals, Washington is dotted with equestrian statues.   This one goes beyond the norm to commemorate Francis Asbury, who is considered as the father of the American Methodist Church.   Dedicated in 1924 in a ceremony attended by thousands including President Calvin Coolidge, he was honored in Washington with the erection of a bronze equestrian state.

 

Mount Vernon Avenue

Mount Vernon Avenue is the place to pull out your wallet.   Their farmer’s market is on Saturday morning’s, although they have the more sleepy hours of 9 to 1.  DC Curbed ranked it third best in the city behind Columbia Heights and Eastern Market.

 

All in all, an excellent visit.   Mount Pleasant is indeed pleasant.

Neighborhood Visit: Crestwood

Our hunt for our next neighborhood visit involved looking at an old reliable, our stickpin map of the DC neighborhoods we’ve been to.   It was easy to see two drought areas — the easternmost and northernmost neighborhoods.     

Looking at the latter, my eye caught Crestwood.  Sounded interesting and we had never heard of it.   The neighborhood’s shape resembles a sail, formed by Rock Creek Park which hooks over to 16th street.   Mount Pleasant stands to the south and Petworth to the east.

To learn more, we started with an old friend, DC Urban Turf, who describes Crestwood as follows:  

…. if you’ve never heard of Crestwood, you’re not alone. The relatively peaceful, upscale residential area that sits between 16th Street and Rock Creek Park is located near some of the city’s more popular neighborhoods, but is simultaneously isolated.

Agreed.

I continued reading:

... a neighborhood with green lawns, beautiful houses, and quiet streets virtually devoid of traffic.

Mmmm, been there, done that, it’s almost broiler plate.  

Nevertheless, the knowing we could easily slip into Rock Creek Park gave appeal.   Additionally, numerous are the times we’ve driven up or down 16th Street, always my mind telling me to get back there and see the churches.

In his book, David Swerdloff gives us a terrific look at the history of the neighborhood.   The title, “300 Years for Our 300 Acres,” refers to the original parcel of land, then located in Maryland.  “Argyle,” a corruption of Scottish places  — Argile, Cowall and Lorn” — showed up on later deeds.

Crestwood first started making the news in 1941.  Between FDR’s New Deal, the war and the post-war boom, Washington’s population soared rom 693,000 to 802,000, its peak for many years.   The streetcars were trying to hold on, but were giving way to buses and cars.

The Washington Post initially referred to the new neighborhood as “Crestwood at Rock Creek Park.”    The Post’s “Display Home” presentation house at 1824 Randolph Street drew hundreds of visitors.   

The developer was Stone, Lord & Caldwell, who pointed out that inhabitants would be assured “a permanent sylvan vista by these Federally-protected reservations which prevent invasion of any commercial or industrial activity.” All these years later, I could see this was still true in the neighborhood.   

 

Restrictive Covenants

As told in “Washington at Home,” restrictive covenants were put in place in Washington as early as 1854.   All those years later when Crestwood and other neighborhoods were built, they still locked the door on many of Washington’s residents wanting to buy a home.

Perhaps no one knows more about those barriers than Jeffrey D. Gonda, author of “Unjust Deeds: The Restrictive Covenant Cases and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement.”   As he tells us:

white homeowners and homebuilders had established contracts and inserted clauses into property deeds prohibiting the use or occupancy of designated homes by African Americans and members of other minority groups for more than half a century.   

In 1948, the US Supreme Court (Shelley v. Kramer) outlawed the discriminatory practices.   Spirits were lifted, and the decision helped bolster the Civil Rights Movement.  But as Gonda points out, the victory never became the triumph its supporters hoped it might be.  Jim Crow simply changed its tactics.  

“Washington at Home” tells us even after the landmark decision, African American homebuyers faced an array of obstacles, including tactics by real estate agents, ads in the papers, and fear mongering speculators who told white homeowners their property values would drop if sold to blacks (“block busting”).

The Crestwood neighborhood website acknowledges the restrictive covenants that had been written into the property deeds, which prohibited the sale of homes to African Americans and Jews.  

There is an Alexandria connection in this story.   Hurd v. Hodge was an equally important Supreme Court case. Charles Hamilton Houston, who is honored with a historical marker at the recreation center named after him in Parker Gray in Alexandria, was the lead lawyer in the case.   He has been praised for his work in laying the foundation for Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark decision in 1954 that is much more well-known than the decisions about where people could or could not live.

Sandra Fitzpatrick and Maria Goodwin (The Guide to Black Washington) add to our knowledge of Crestwood and the adjacent upper 16th Street area.  They write:   

Bordered by fine old mansions and WWII vintage homes built in large part by prosperous Jewish families, the northern portion of 16th street is known locally as the Gold Coast.  Crestwood, an exclusive neighborhood of spacious detached homes, was built at the beginning of WWII.  With an adjoining 1920s period residences on the east side of 16th Street, upper 16th street was one of the earliest integrated areas in the city after restrictive residential laws were declared unconstitutional by the courts in the 1950s.  It gained Gold Coast nickname when it became a fashionable address for Washington’s black and white.

Swerdloff’s research found the percentage of African Americans in Crestwood went from only a few in 1950 to about 50% in 1960.   He points out the neighborhood is one of DC’s most diverse communities. 

In 1992, The Washington Post wrote about the neighborhood.  Michele Norris touched on the history of the covenants.  After they were stricken down, the subdivision “took on a greater ethnic mix.”   Residents included Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WVA), the legendary Georgetown University basketball coach John Thompson, professional golfer Lee Elder and FBI Director William Sessions.

Twenty years later Amy Reinink found residents still pleased with the serenity and sense of community.  Quoting author Swerdloff, almost two-thirds of Crestwood’s resident were black in 1970.   

Oral histories provide insight to the history of the neighborhood and its “Gold Coast” chapters.

The Chowan Discovery company produced the 20-minute film, Oral Histories from the Gold Coast and the Upper 16th Street Communities.   Residents and former residents of the Crestwood, 16th Street Heights, Shepherd Park, Colonial Village, and North Portal Estates tell some of their stories.    One lady recalled walking into a whites only church and becoming a member.   All these simple yet courageous acts were part of the Civil Rights Movement in Washington.

 

Highlights

Carter Barron Amphitheatre

This 4,000 seat outdoor venue debuted in 1950 as a way to honor the 150th anniversary of the Washington DC as the nation’s capital.    Barron was the Vice-Chairman for the National Capital Sesquicentennial Committee.   After he passed away that November, Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman named the venue in his honor.

In their book, “The Guide to Black Washington,” Sandra Fitzpatrick and Maria Goodwin tell us Rock Creek Park’s picnic areas were segregated until the 1950s.   It became a venue for black entertainment and music during the 1960s and 1970s.

In August 1959, Harry Belefonte drew an overflow crowd.  Richard L. Coe of the Post wrote it was one of the most satisfying evenings he had ever spent at the venue.  The following summer Ella Fitzgerald pleased large crowds.   Diana Ross and the Supremes were among the legendary entertainers to perform there.

I was disappointed not being able to see it (fences and gates), but understand those measures.

Houses

As noted by Urban Turf, Crestwood's bread and butter of the stock is brick colonials with four or five bedrooms.  Mixed in are Tudors, ranch homes, and a few blocks lined with row houses.

 

“Avenue of Churches”

The reasons aren’t entirely clear why 16th Street became home to so many churches.      

What is certain is that the dozens of places of worship on this corridor make it a visual feast of architecture.   We find scant info on the "National Church Movement," but the National Register for Historic Places on the Grace Lutheran Church has insight.

Grace Lutheran Church

The form describes this church, completed in 1928, as an “exquisite stone building that was constructed as a response to the national church movement in Washington.”  The noted architect and authority on church designs John William Cresswell Corbusier (1878-1928) designed it in the neo-Gothic style.  

The form also points out:

It is difficult to assess the ultimate influence of the concentration of so many "national" churches, a phenomenon that was, at once, nationwide and uniquely local, but its architectural impact on this city is obvious, the most notable single example being the Washington National Cathedral.  The phenomenon of national churches locating in Washington, D.C. says a great deal about the increasingly dominant place of the nation's capital in the American imagination: that this secular center was becoming a religious center, too.   

Marylou Gjemes wrote a brief history at the church’s website.  The congregation formed in 1878 in the District and first met at 13th and Corcoran.   In 1928, they moved into to the present church at 16th and Vernum, which shoulders with the Crestwood neighborhood.  A parish house was completed in 1956.   

 

19th Street Baptist Church  

The history of this church is not only remarkable but also a bit difficult to sort out.  We turned to Fitzpatrick and Goodwin who tell us the story began in 1802 when four ministers and six lay persons founded the Baptist Church of Washington, D.C.  The congregation was interracial and included enslaved persons.  

In 1839, the black members organized the First Colored Church of the City of Washington, and moved to 19th and I.  They worshiped there until 1975 and moved to the present location on the edge of Crestwood.  The authors explain that the move came after the majority of the parishioners moved.   

Reverend Sampson White helped establish this one and First Street Alfred Baptist.  The church was a landmark at the corner of 19th and I Streets, N.W.  Then the congregation moved here.  

16th Street

Not quite as widely known as Pennsylvania Avenue, 16th Street, at least by DC residents, stands out as one of the District's most distinct streets.   Embassies found a home here in addition to the churches.  

Coffee

Crestwood is not zoned for restaurants so we headed down to Mount Pleasant, where we found Pear Plum Cafe and its delicious home made biscuits. 

 

All in all, a very rewarding walk and visit.   My one recommendation would be to get rid of the numerous Neighborhood Watch signs.   They are a visual blight, made me feel unwelcome, and are anathema to everything I saw and learned about this fine neighborhood.   Please don't let history repeat itself.

 

Neighborhood Visit: Carderock Springs

In searching for our next neighborhood visit, we turned once again to Montgomery County.   Catching my eye was Carderock Springs, which is on the National Register for Historic Places with 275 modernist homes.   

Situated about a mile north of the Legion Bridge and nestled between the Beltway and Congressional Country Club, Carderock Springs is a counterpart to Tauxemont.   The developer placed the homes (built in the 1960s) within the sloping and forested landscape.   Also like Tauxemont, streets are not as wide as normal, and are without sidewalks and telephone poles.  

 

Brief History

Although Carderock Springs is part of Bethesda, G.M. Hopkins map of 1878 shows it within the Rockville District.   One sees dwelling markers for Philip Stone and Harriet Stone, as well as John Saunders and a few others.

Maps from 1945 show a few of those remaining as well as Gibson Grove Church.   A fire damaged it several years ago, but the wooden white structure still stands in the southeast corner of the neighborhood.    The congregation plans to refurbish and move back in.

On the 1945 map one can also see the footprint of suburban homes had reached Cabin John near Seven Locks and McArthur Boulevard.   Maps from 1966 show the Capital Beltway and the new neighborhood of Carderock Springs.   

A woman to whom much is owed in this story is Lilly Coltman Moore Stone (1861-1960).   Author Judith Welles wonderfully tells the story of Stone in her book.  She is also the author of "Cabin John: Legends and Life of an Uncommon Place."   Both are  available at the Bethesda Co-Op in Cabin John, and via her website.

Facing the major obstacles of sexism and ageism, she gracefully conquered them both.  Among Stone's achievements were leading the Stoneyhurst Rock Quarry for thirty years and founding the Montgomery County Historical Society.   Proving age is just a number, she did the former at age 63, and the latter at age 82.

Carderock Springs first made The Washington Post news in May 1962.  Real Estate Editor John B. Willman noted the sales market was brisk.   Bennett & Matthews Construction touted 50 of their contemporary homes in “its new Carderock Springs section of Bethesda” where 314 homes were to be built as an “architecturally controlled community” with varied terrain and abundant woods.”

Willmann also wrote about builder Edmund J. Bennett and his homes at Carderock Springs.   Along with his partner John L. Matthews, they conducted research to “fit a Bethesda family profile.” 

Bennett collaborated with architects Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon KLC.   According to the nomination form, Bennett was described as the “Eichler of the East.”  Joseph Eichler (1900-1974) earned acclaim for his Mid-Century Modern homes in California.

The neighborhood received National Register of Historic Places status in 2009.   The anchor is the Carderock Springs Swimming and Tennis Club.  Their website points out they have a wide range of activities including tennis, swimming, a playground, exercise classes, a summer fun program, and community activities throughout the year.   

These are the highlights of our visit.

The Hermon Presbyterian Church

We started in the northwest corner where two churches stand next to a couple of holes at Congressional.  The out of bounds wall is just steps away (resists joke about “Amen Corner…”).

The Hermon Presbyterian Church is a jewel.  The Maryland Historic Trust tells us this clapboard country church, built in 1874, is one of the finest and earliest examples of ecclesiastical Gothic Revival in the county.   Features are the tower with a wooden bull's-eye medallion, long arrow stained glass windows with peaked mouldings, and a hood supported by brackets over the entrance.   

Church members were “tired of long journeys to churches in Rockville, Bethesda, and Georgetown.”    Instead of building a new church in 1930, the congregation decided to repair the existing one.    Among the founding members were Stone's mother and father.   Welles tells us Lilly and Frank Pelham Stone were married there in 1892.   

 

Adat Shalom Reconstructionist

This wonderful next door neighbor to the Harmon Church offers a more modern look and landscape.

First Agape AME Zion Church

As noted by their website, this church moved from Silver Spring to 7700 Seven Locks Road.  The Gibson Grove church was named after Sarah Gibson, a former slave from Virginia.   In October of 2003, a fire damaged the church due to a leak in the oil heating system.    First Agape AME Zion Church succeeded Gibson Church.  The congregation worships here near the golf course until their church is rebuilt.   

According to a Cabin John newsletter (2003), Gibson migrated from Virginia during the Civil War.  She and her family purchased 4 and 1/2 acres of land on Seven Locks Road.   She donated a portion of her land for a church in 1889.  

Magruder’s Blacksmith Shop

Montgomery County tells us this uncoursed rubblestone building is one of the oldest in the county.   Evidence suggests the structure was a blacksmith shop and dwelling built for Ninian Magruder around 1751.   River Road was a rolling road to Georgetown.  Ninian Magruder gave the property to his son Samuel, who built Stoneyhurst.

As you can see from the photo we took, the structure is being rehabilitated.   The workman on the roof dutifully informed the inquisitive man that he could not take photos inside.  

We understand the new owner of this beauty plans to move in and make it their home.   Sounds like a great example of living history.

 

Stoneyhurst

 The Maryland Historic Trust tell us this property was originally part of Ninian Magruder’s tract, “Honesty.”   Samuel Magruder built this house with uncoursed rubble stone about 1767 as a one-room two and a half story structure.    The manor home remained in the family until 1853.  In 1906, Lilly Stone paid for an extensive “Victorian renovation” and a frame addition.   

Glenmore

Welles also devotes a chapter to Glenmore, the home of Lilly Moore Stone.  Unlike Stoneyhurst, it lies within the neighborhood. Lilly moved into this home in 1937, with her son Dunbar and his wife, and their three children.   Frank, Lilly's grandson, was killed in action in World War II.

Bethesda Co-Op

We’re not sure how many residents of Carderock Springs head north to Potomac or south to Cabin John for their coffee and morning chats, but we partook of the latter.   Welles graciously offered to meet me there.  

I bought two of her books which she signed and personalized.    Although the mystery remains unsolved, those who can't get enough of the Alexandria's Female Stranger story will want to read the pair of pages she devotes to it in her Cabin John book.   She points out the 1912 publication of the novel, "The Legend of the Female Stranger, A Tale of Cabin John Bridge and Old Alexandria," "aroused romantic images about Cabin John."

All in all, another wonderful visit to Montgomery County.  Don’t be surprised if we return there soon.

 

Day Trip: Bluemont

"Alas, we're moving too fast to appreciate this special spot on earth, we call home, this Bluemont. -- Evelyn Porterfield Johnson.

 

One of our favorite types of day trips are the ones to the smaller towns in the foothills west of Washington.  The drive time is usually less than 90 minutes and there’s nothing quite like catching that first glimpse of the Blue Ridge Mountains.   Traffic melts away and time slows down in these places.  For those of us old enough to remember country stores and smaller food portion sizes, the experience can be thick with nostalgia.

These warm and soothing thoughts returned once again on a trip to Bluemont.  Nestled on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge about sixty miles from Alexandria, this small town lies in the westernmost part of Loudoun County, one that has seen its population leap from 86,000 in 1990 to 400,000 last year.  

One gathers rather quickly that folks in Bluemont, like those in Waterford, love their peace and quiet.  Its citizens do proudly put on their annual fairs and a new brewery has given them a boost.   Having said that, access to the small town where the northern most portion of Snickersville Turnpike intersected with Route 7 was cut off years ago.   Blink your eyes and you’ll miss the small sign for Route 760.   Bluemont’s historical crossroads stands just three football fields from Route 7, but with trees blocking the view, this one makes for a “miss is good as a mile.”  

Nevertheless, Bluemont packs a punch with two separate historic districts, and a quiet place not yet spoiled by the homogenous sprawl that has reached Round Hill.   As we learned, Bluemont is also a window into some of the history of this part of Northern Virginia, as well as the early transportation routes to and from Alexandria.

Snicker’s Gap lies just a short distance away from Bluemont.   With a little imagination, one can see George Washington riding his horse up the western slope and through the break in the blue ridge.   The 2,200 miles long Appalachian Trail crosses Route 7 at Bluemont, and the views of the Shenandoah River and Valley are breathtaking.

In colonial times, the valley farmers took their flour and agricultural products to the market and seaport in Alexandria.   Three gaps —  Vestal’s (then Key’s) along what is now Route 9 to Charles Town, Ashby’s along Route 50 to Winchester, and Snicker’s along Route 7 to  Winchester — put them through the Blue Ridge Mountains.  

 Snicker’s Gap, named after Edward Snicker, lies in the middle.   Susan Freis Falknor tells us he purchased this gap land in 1769.   Snicker operated the Shenandoah Ferry, which stood about two miles to the west, as well as an ordinary there.  Washington penned Snicker’s name in his diary more than two dozen times between 1756 and 1785.

In 1777, Snicker sold his land to Richard Wistar of Philadelphia, who in turn sold it to William Clayton in 1769.  Clayton, one of many settlers who came to Virginia from Pennsylvania in the colonial times, established a farm where Bluemont stands today.  Greeting you at its historical crossroads is Clayton Hall.  Build around 1797 by Amos Clayton, son of William, it is the oldest structure in Bluemont and its historical anchor.

Travelers today get to Bluemont along Route 7 from Leesburg.  Washington and others took what became Little River Turnpike to what is now Aldie, then headed northwestward to Snickersville along what became Snickersville Turnpike.  They then continued on through Snicker’s Gap to points westward and Winchester.

 

In the early 1800s, more and more horses and carts took this route when hauling the produce and flour to Alexandria and the goods back to Winchester.  This led to the construction of the Snickersville Turnpike along what had been called at times Colchester Road or the Road to Colchester.  

In 1824 the village earned the name Snickersville.  Ten years later, Snickersville became a crossroads with the construction of the Leesburg-Snicker’s Gap Turnpike, today’s part of Route 7 from Leesburg to Belmont.

In their book, "From Snickersville to Bluemont," the authors (Jean Herron Smith, Evelyn Porterfield Johnson and Robert Hoffman) tell us about some of the families who settled down in the village.  One of them was John Chew (1749-1838), who moved to Bluemont from Alexandria around 1795.    The daughter of John and Margaret stayed in Alexandria and married Presley Jacobs.  Gresham Farrar's bio tells us Lt. Chew was wounded in the left arm at Camden, South Carolina in 1780, resulting in an amputation.   John and Margaret had 11 children and lived in a house they called "Locust Grove." 

 

During the Civil War there were mostly small skirmishes near Snickersville.   The exception was the nearby Battle of Aldie.  Part of it was fought on the Snickersville Turnpike, about six miles south of Snickersville.  A stone memorial there honors the casualties (30 killed, 66 wounded, 102 captured) of the First Massachusetts Calvary, cut down by a hail of Confederate bullets on June 17, 1863.

In the early years of the colony of Virginia, the waterways were the lifeblood of transported goods.   Then came the turnpikes, an improvement of the roads.  Then came the railroads.   In his book, "Alexandria on the Potomac, The Portrait of an Antebellum Community," Harold Hurst tells about the Orange and Alexandria RR and the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire line. The Orange and Alexandria would be the most successful, eventually reaching Lynchburg.   

The Alexandria, Loudoun & Hampshire line was equally ambitious, hoping to stretch all the way to the coalfields of Hampshire County, then in Virginia, now in West Virginia west of Winchester.

A historic marker in Purcellville cogently explains part of the story.

The railroad that became the Washington & Old Dominion was born in Alexandria in response to the competition in shipping posed by the port in Baltimore, which was served by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The B&O was diverting farm produce from the Shenandoah Valley away from Alexandria by way of its junction with the Winchester & Potomac Railroad. It also had access to the rich coalfields of the Ohio Valley. 

A group of Northern Virginia businessmen formed the Alexandria, Loudoun & Hampshire Railroad, with the first train reaching Leesburg from Alexandria on May 17, 1860. Their goal was to reach the farmlands and coalfields and recapture the trade that was slipping away.

Because of financial problems, this goal was never achieved and the railroad terminated in the town of Bluemont, Virginia.  To survive, the rail line picked up business wherever possible. The railroad hauled farm products from the Fairfax and Loudoun country side into Washington, carried mail for the Federal government, provided freight service to and from the many towns and communities springing up along the line and furnished passenger service for the many commuters working in Washington. A specialized service promoted by the railroad was as an excursion line for vacationers wanting to reach cooler temperatures and resorts in the Loudoun Valley. 

After the Civil War, Snickersville declined before an awakening in 1900.  Just as the two turnpikes had boosted Snickersville, so too did the railroad.

But it took some time.   Leesburg was reached in 1858, Hamilton in 1870, then Round Hill, a small town about four miles to the east of Bluemont.   

Then came the Blue Ridge Inn in Bluemont.  In his article, Loudoun County historian Gene Scheel tells us the four-story frame building was built in 1893.  Colonel Daniel Grosvenor kept it and Jules DeMonet, formerly at the White House, prepared the meals.   

In 1900, the railroad magnates extended the line from Round Hill to Bluemont.   The NRHP form tells us this promoted the change of name to Bluemont, “in order to promote the town as a small mountain resort.”  

In 1901, a writer with The Washington Post touted the “Beauties of Bluemont,” pointing out the pure air, the vistas, the fishing and hunting and comparing it to the Adirondacks and the Alleghenies.   Washingtonians had been escaping the heat of summer on the Potomac steamers for years.  Bluemont gave them the mountains.  The village was back on the map.   

Extending the line to Bluemont also spurred the construction of vacation homes along the ridge.  Residents included prominent Washingtonians and Virginians.  The most famous was John Fox, Jr., the popular writer of Appalachian novels.  His best seller was “Trails of the Lonesome Pines.” The website of the same name points out it is the longest continually running outdoor drama in Virginia.

The summer colony also attracted another famous person.   Frank G. Carpenter (1855-1924).   The globetrotting journalist, author and photographer found a primo spot and built "Johannesburg," a nod to his wife.    Their daughter, Mrs. W. Chapin Huntington, leased the home to diplomats.   Carpenter's home in Washington was at 1318 Vermont, later home to Mary McLeod Bethune.

Bluemont’s hey day with the iron horses lasted for about three decades and officially ended when the W&OD discontinued service west of Purcelleville.  Bluemont's sheen faded like blue jeans, but as pointed out by Linda Wheeler ("Village’s Storied Past," January 18, 2004), the town “reinvented itself as a historic village that attracts tourists to several annual festivals.”  

An early rescuer of the town in the 1970s was Evelyn Porterfield Johnson.  She gave Clayton Hall the rehab and love it sorely neede She also started the Bluemont Fair, and helped write "From Snickersville to Bluemont, the Biography and History of a Virginia Village.” (Available for puchase at the Country Store).

In her collection of contemporary accounts (“A Decade of Bluemont News”), she recalls the germ of her idea for the fair.

September 18, 1969

I would like to propose a little Bluemont Fair, an unsophisticated day in the country with pony rides, dried arrangements, local art, antiques, and homemade foods.   

Wouldn’t it be fun?  How about next fall?

This September marks the 50th annual fair.

 

Here are the highlights of our visit.

Clayton Hall

Greeting you at the crossroads is Clayton Hall.  Build around 1797 by  Amos Clayton, son of William, it is the oldest structure.    According to Loudoun County: 250 Years of Towns and Villages, the building has been used as a roadhouse and tavern.  

 

Bluemont General Store

Who doesn’t love a country store?   My nostalgia goes back to one that was located on High Point Road in Greensboro, just a five minute walk from our house.   With allowance money, and the pennies and nickels we made from finding tossed bottles, we would buy Topps baseball cards, peanuts and a 6 1/2 ounce bottle of Coke.  In those days, the company embossed on the bottom the place where it was bottled.   We tried to guess the furthest place away.

These predecessors to Seven-Elevens have mostly disappeared, but hold on in the more rural parts.  The Bluemont General Store website tells us the Rice Brothers owned and operated the store in the first part of the 1900s.  They catered to both the local farmers and the visitors.   In 2006, Broad Run Veterinary Service bought the building and restored it.    The store sells all the usual items, as well as "From Snickersville to Bluemont," easily the definitive history of the town.  

 

E.E. Lake Store and Former Post Office

This building was built around 1901 by Edward E. Lake.  A dance hall was located upstairs.    The store closed down in the 1940s but reopened in 2018 after renovations.   One portion holds the Plaster Museum, which includes the old post office that was there until the early 1950s.  

Quoting the town's postmaster, an article in The Washington Post pointed out that Bluemont's current zip code, 20135, "has the quirky distinction of spilling into both Loudoun and Clarke counties in Virginia and a tiny corner of Jefferson County in West Virginia."

 

Bear’s Den Rural Historic District

The nomination form tells us this collection of about 150 homes were built in the late 19th-century and early 20th-century as summer homes by wealthy Washingtonians.  The architecture is “rustic, yet elegant with native stone.”

Bear’s Den

This “faux medieval lodge” was built in 1933 by Dr. Huron Lawson, a professor at George Washington University, and his wife, Francesca Kaspari, a soprano singer as their summer home.  After the Lawson's passed away, the property fell silent.  In 1984, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club and the National Park Service relocated the Appalachian Trail into the forest, where it passes by the lodge.  Previously the trail had run along roads and private land.   The lodge is available for accommodations.

 

Snickersville Turnpike

The Philomont General Store website calls this “15 of the most beautiful miles in the northern Virginia piedmont’s Wine and Hunt Country.”  Having experienced it, we wholeheartedly agree.   If you played "Stairway to Heaven" while on it, the song would fit like a glove.

 

Hibbs Bridge

Worthy of a stop on the turnpike is Hibbs Bridge, a double-arched stone bridge with a humped back (c. 1820) which is on the National Register for Historic Places.   

Led by a coalition of citizens and elected officials, the STA saved the bridge from demolition in 1991.  They have erected an assortment of historical markers along the way.  

One summarizes the history of the turnpike.  It points out it the Iroquois used it as a hunting trail before becoming the first recorded turnpike in America.   Previously the road had been named the old Colchester Road.

Three toll gates collected the fees with the last closing down in 1915.   Washington used the road, sometimes staying at West’s Ordinary in modern day Aldie.

 

The Philomont General Store

About halfway between Aldie and Bluemont likes the small town of Philomont.   A landmark since 1913 is the General Store.  According to Loudoun Now, the store has been housed in the building since 1941 and is the last operational post office located in a general store in the county.

 

Bear Chase Brewing Company

Wineries have helped bring visitors to Loudoun County but more and more this is true for breweries, cideries, and distilleries.   

Appalachian Trail 

Bluemont holds another cross roads of sorts.  The 2,100 mile-long hiking path known as the Appalachian Trail passes just to the west of the village.

This means that only a seven-mile stretch from Purcelleville to Bluemont is all that is missing from connecting the Appalachian Trail (Maine to Georgia) with the 45-mile long W&OD trail from Shirlington to Purcellville.  

In 1990 the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority tried to take the steps necessary to complete the extension, but nothing that I know of has taken place since then.  WashCycle has advocated for this missing link. 

Steve Bates of the Washington Post reported on the story in 1990.  Peter Harnik, vice president of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy was quoted as saying, “the extension to the Appalachian Trail would be a tremendous boon."

 

Mount Weather

About five miles south of Bluemont lies Mount Weather.   Men in black and high-ranking evacuees have been spotted there.   Scheel wrote a terrific piece on it, “From the Mysterious to the Mundane, The Mountain Has Weathered It All.”   The authors of "From Snickersville to Bluemont" tell us this facility offered employment for Bluemonters.

 

Conclusion

We've always enjoyed our trips to Loudoun County, and this one adds another tally to the chalkboard.   Bluemont is a jewel and we hope it retains most of it rural character.   Nevertheless, we would be pleased to see the missing cycling link constructed.   Considering this would involve spokes and saddles, it’s our guess the residents would think this to be something good.