Part 14 (1/2)

In 1842 the property was bought by James Keith who was a great friend of General Was.h.i.+ngton, Mr. Keith's daughter married Mr. Forrest, and their son French Forrest was an officer in the United States Navy, but like many others in this part of the world, went into the Southern Navy during the Civil War. At the time of his funeral W. W. Corcoran, who was a very intimate friend, was a pall-bearer. In those days it was the style for the mourners to wear a long streamer of crepe around their hats and hanging down a foot or two. Little Douglas Forrest, the son of the deceased, began to cry, saying he ”wanted some funeral on his hat.”

Mr. Corcoran took him in hand and insisted that he should have his wish and be arrayed like the other mourners.

In the other houses of that row lived, at number 3335, just before the Civil War, a family named Semmes from New Orleans who had several daughters considered very beautiful. Cora Semmes became the wife of Colonel Joseph Ives, a brilliant young engineer officer of the United States Army, who, although of Northern birth, espoused the Southern cause. He was put on General Lee's staff, and later transferred to be aide-de-camp to Jefferson Davis where, in Richmond he and his wife became prominent and useful in entertaining distinguished foreigners, as she was noted for her charm as well as her beauty.

In number 3333 Judge Robert Ould resided. His father had been one of the founders of the Lancastrian School. Mattie Ould, whose name still is a synonym for grace, beauty and wit, spent her childhood here. After the Oulds went to Richmond this house was for a time the home of Henry Addison, while he was mayor. Later on the Cropleys lived in it.

William Hunter lived for a great many years in number 3331, when he was a.s.sistant Secretary of State. Women of my generation still remember him for his love of little children and his gifts to them of toys and goodies.

Across on the southeast corner of First (N) Street and Frederick (34th) Street at 3340 is the house which Harry Hopkins, the great friend of Franklin D. Roosevelt, bought and moved to with his new wife and his daughter Diana, when they left the White House where they had been living for a year or more. This was his home at the time of his death.

On this street used to live the Marburys before they moved to The Heights, and also the Wheatleys of whom there were several households in Georgetown in the latter part of the last century.

A block eastward on the same side of the street is another row of charming old houses, built about 1800 by Colonel James Smith, ”lately returned from the Revolutionary War.” In the one on the corner of First (N) and Potomac Streets used to live Mrs. Gannt and her daughter Clare and Mrs. Gannt's sister Mrs. Smith. I think they were descendants of the builder of the row. Their old home was for a time occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Blair Thaw, the former a poet, the latter an artist.

Third from the corner at 3259, in the middle of the 19th century lived Dr. Lewis Ritchie who had an extensive practice. I think he was the son of Dr. Joshua Ritchie. This house was the home of Hon. and Mrs. Lewis A.

Douglas when he was the sole representative in Congress from Arizona.

Later he was Director of the Budget and within recent years Amba.s.sador to the Court of St. James. This house is now the home of Mrs. McCook Knox who is very well known in connection with the study of Early American Portraits and has been connected with the Frick Art Reference Library of New York since its inception. In the front room of the attic of 3259 were doors of rough hewn wood with old iron bolts leading into rooms of the two adjoining houses. The story is that in the War of 1812 this row of houses used to be watched. A soldier would be stationed on the corner, but the ”questionable person” never emerged, he could escape through the attic rooms and come out at the end of the row.

No. 3257 is now the home of Hon. and Mrs. Richard B. Wigglesworth of Ma.s.sachusetts.

The old home of the Shoemaker family was at 3261. While he was a.s.sistant Secretary of War it was the home of Hon. and Mrs. F. Trubee Davison and is now the home of Hon. and Mrs. James J. Wadsworth of New York.

All of this part of Georgetown west of High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) used to be called Holy Hill, because of the great number of Irish who dwelt in the neighborhood. On Saint Patrick's Day there were parades and fights, and all kinds of excitement.

There were also a good many respectable colored Catholics, and near here, on Potomac Street, dwelt a family of Coakleys. Magdalen Coakley thought she was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. She got herself up to look like the Virgin, in sweeping white robes and a sky-blue veil and cloak. She was not a very dark negress and had a fine countenance and striking figure. She used to go about the streets blessing little children and wanting to baptize them, followed, of course, by a string of boys making fun of her. She would go up to Trinity Church and stand by the door; but once she wanted to help the priest give Communion, so they had to forbid her coming. Of course the poor soul thought she was being persecuted, but she took it in a Christian manner and prayed all the harder, on the street and everywhere. She lived to be an old woman still wearing her picturesque costume.

Her sister, Frances, was nurse for three generations for the Hein family whose home was at number 3249 N Street, now entirely changed by its modernized roof and steps.

Samuel Hein had emigrated from Konigsberg, Germany, as a young man, and had become an American citizen. He was fifty-six years in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, retiring as its disbursing officer. He was an ardent Union man, and during the four years of the Civil War kept the Stars and Stripes flying from one of his windows. All through the two terrible days after the Battle of Bull Run, when the Northern troops were streaming through Georgetown, Mr. Hein maintained a soup kitchen for the soldiers in his back yard. His wife was the daughter of John Simpson who lived on the corner of High Street (Wisconsin Avenue) and West (P) Streets. Her brother, James Alexander Simpson, was a rather well-known portrait painter. They were quite a musical and artistic family.

One son Charles Hein was an artist and had his studio in a little frame house still standing on 31st (Congress) behind another house, opposite the post office. There he took pupils. He was very picturesque in appearance, tall and dark, wore a drooping mustache, low collar with flowing black cravat and wide-brimmed black hat and cape.

Another son Col. O. L. Hein in an interesting book called _Memories of Long Ago_ tells this story:

One day in the spring of 1861, as I was pa.s.sing the residence of the pastor of St. John's Church, The Rev. Mr. Tillinghast, quite near our house, I was attracted by the sight of a das.h.i.+ng young Cavalry officer, who was showing off the paces of his handsome black charger to the Minister. I lingered nearby, greatly enjoying the equestrian performance, and upon its conclusion I was informed by the clergyman, that the name of the young officer was William Orton Williams, and that he was the military secretary of Lt. General Winfield Scott.

In the following year I was shocked to read in a local newspaper the account of the trial and conviction of Williams and his cousin, Lt.

W. G. Peter (resident of Georgetown) as spies under the a.s.sumed names of General W. C. Auton and Major Dunlop, of the Union Army, by a drumhead Court Martial, and their conviction and execution by hanging. In recent years I was informed by my wife's mother, Mrs.

Ross, that she remembered Williams quite well, and that he was engaged to Miss Anne Lee, the daughter of General R. E. Lee; but that she died, on the outbreak of the Civil War. Mrs. Ross was a cousin of General Lee, and a freqeunt visitor at Arlington before the secession of Virginia.

Williams was of distinguished ancestry, the son of Capt. William G.

Williams, a graduate of West Point of the cla.s.s of 1822, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Monterey, Mexico, while serving on the staff of General Zachary Taylor, and his mother, America Peter was the daughter of Thomas Peter, a prominent citizen of Georgetown, whose wife Martha Parke Custis was the granddaughter of Mrs. George Was.h.i.+ngton and an aunt of Mary Custis the wife of General R. E. Lee.

Just next door to this house is the site where, even before 1780, stood the Columbian Academy of which Mr. Rogers was the princ.i.p.al and of which Dr. Balch became the head in 1781. It was a large, two-story frame building, having a high entrance porch, where hung the bell. It stood on a hill which commanded a fine view of the river from the study rooms upstairs. Adjacent to the schoolroom was a large garden in the middle of which was a jessamine arbor. Two of General Was.h.i.+ngton's nephews were students of the school and lived with the princ.i.p.al.

Here was housed the Columbian Library which was opened in 1803. In later years the present building was erected but having a very different appearance. Here lived Hugh Caperton a well known lawyer.

I myself lived here as a very small child when I was two or three years old and one of my very first memories is being dared by my brothers and sisters to jump off the stone wall fronting the street, about four feet high. I felt as if I had to jump from the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument, but I did it, with no ill effects.