We have no Anaxagoras or Petrius, but we have General B. F. Butler, a greater Roman than them all. As a last leap up the ladder of fame, this distinguished Congressman has decided to become an aristocrat and an old settler, and to this purpose he has bought a delightful site on Capitol Hill, and is building a residence worthy of the constructor. This costly creation may be called a stone triplet, as three houses will be born at the same time. The first faces the east, but its northern side salutes the Capitol. It is said this is intended for a grand “club house,” but the gambling will be exclusively confined to politics. All this is in anticipation of the grand hurdle race which will probably come off in 1876. The second house remains a mystery. The last has already been rented to the Coast Survey for a library. Henceforth Capitol Hill claims General B. F. Butler. He is our Congressional cloud by day and our political fire at night. There is a great deal of legislative chaff, and only a few grains of wheat. Capitol Hill has drawn her solitary ration and is satisfied.
Olivia.
[GEORGETOWN ARISTOCRACY.]
The Bells, Madame Bodisco, Mrs. Southworth, and Governor Cooke.
Washington, October 20, 1875.
Recently some stones have been unearthed in Georgetown of great value to the student of antiquated taste. These slabs bear a date so remote that most of the letters have been eaten away by the teeth of Time, but sufficient remains to identify the Bell family, who occupied Georgetown Heights in the early part of the last century. Far back in the shadowy past the clear ringing tongue of this English Bell might have been heard as it poured its melody in the ear of an Indian princess, who soon after became his wife. The first nest of the young pair was a tent; afterward a quaint English cottage snuggled on the woody heights. Below them moved the silvery waters of the solemn Potomac. To the east stretched their vast possessions, which embraced all the land within the scope of vision which lay between the cottage and the rising sun. Here Madame Bell, attended by her pale-face consort, led the fashions without rivals and with none to dispute her sway. Over the stormy Atlantic came the winged schooners, bringing rich brocades for this dusky queen. Her costumes were half enlightened, half barbaric, like many of the styles of to-day. The descendants of these ancient Georgetown aristocrats have been slowly undergoing the bleaching process, and the past hundred years had almost obliterated the last trace of Indian lineage, and yet within the memory of the present generation “white trash” have been noticed in this vicinity bearing the name of Bell, and carrying in their lithe forms and eagle eyes the last superb touch of the grace of Indian origin. But, true to the savage instinct, these were the first men to seize the deadly musket in the Southern cause, and the late battlefields of the South are made richer by the bones of the last of the first aristocracy of Georgetown.
After the Bells came the Peters, a haughty Virginia family, whose slave call was answered by hundreds of inky men. Georgetown Heights in those early days was called the Tudor estate, in memory of the royal line of England. Tudor Place stretched itself between the Heights and the Washington Navy Yard, but in the course of time this vast estate was broken up. This was prior to the Revolution. The Peters family were related to the Washingtons and Lees. Washington Peters is the most prominent descendant of this aristocratic family, but the last fragment of the estate has passed away from him, and he lives at Ellicott’s Mills, on a farm, a man almost eighty years of age, the last to retain the haughty bearing of the proud old family, the last of his race whose hand has rested on the yoke of a slave.
The shifting panorama shows us Protestant Thirkel, who, through the influence of Archbishop Carroll, of Baltimore, gave the extensive grounds now occupied by the Georgetown College and Convent to the Roman Catholic Church some time during the latter part of the last century. Little is known of the social standing of the Thirkels, but they were a family of wealth, and their tombstones are institutions of learning.