A Portrait of Old George Town

by Grace Dunlop Peter

The row of three quaint little brick houses here seem to be an unknown quantity to even some of the oldest inhabitants and nearest neighbors. In number 3021, long ago, lived Horatio Berry, the brother of Philip Taylor Berry. In number 3025, the quaint locks on the doors all have on them a small, round brass seal, bearing the coat-of-arms of Great Britain, the lion and the unicorn rampant, also the name "Carpenter & Co.", and in the cellar are crossbeams hewn by hand.

Next we come to a pair of cottages, changed from their pristine loveliness—now the "Mary Margaret Home," for old ladies. The one at 3033 P Street in my girlhood was the home of Mrs. James D. Patton, the former Jennie Coyle. She gave me piano lessons for four years, but she gave me much more! She formed a group of girls into a King's Daughters' Circle, "The Patient Workers," which met at her house on Saturday mornings when we sewed and made articles which we sold at a Fair in the Spring. The proceeds were divided between the Children's Country Home and the Children's Hospital. There is still a brass plate in the hospital bearing the name, "The Patient Workers" for a bed we named.

The two big houses on the northeast corner of West (P) Street and Congress (31st) Street were built by Joseph H. Libbey, a well-to-do lumber merchant. They continued to be in his family for a long time. The one on the east now is the Catholic Home for Aged Ladies. In front of it is the largest and most beautiful elm tree in Georgetown. The two houses at 1516 and 1518 Congress (31st) Street, Mr. Libbey built about 1850 as wedding gifts for his two daughters, Martha, Mrs. Benjamin Miller, becoming the owner of number 1516. It is still owned by her descendants. Number 1518 has changed hands several times. It was where Richard V. Oulahan, the well-known newspaper correspondent, lived until his death several years ago. At that time it was said of him: "He gathered news like a gentleman and wrote it like a scholar."

Back in the eighties, a party was given at number 1518 one night for the young niece of two maiden ladies whose home it then was. The guests were about sixteen and seventeen years old, and the boys had all just arrived at the age where their most treasured possessions were their brand new derby hats. When the party broke up and the guests trooped upstairs to get their wraps, the young gentlemen found, on entering their dressing room, that on one of the beds reposed the crowns of all their derbies, while on the other, neatly laid out, were all the brims. The culprit was never caught. Only the other day one of the long-ago guests was told by the offender that he had been the originator of the diabolic idea.

If you look west along the next block of West (P) Street, you notice how different are the north and south sides. Along the south side are houses of an absolutely different period. All those on the north side were built in the seventies or later, including the Presbyterian Church, except the one on the corner of Congress (31st) Street, which was the residence of General Otho Holland Williams, a Revolutionary officer, who was in the same company with General Lingan. His house has, of course, been completely changed and made into two houses. It was never beautiful, but it was a dignified old mansion, with high steps leading up to a quaint doorway.

Across Congress (31st) Street, at number 3108 West (P) Street, the house with the high steps going up sideways was built by Judge Morsell about 1800. For a while, the Barnards lived there. Then the Marquis de Podestad, Minister from Spain to this country, made it his residence. After the Civil War, General George C. Thomas resided there. Next door is where the Shoemakers have lived for many years.

The house with the nice, old hipped roof was at one time owned by a Captain Brown. In the eighties and nineties the Misses Dorsey of Virginia had here a school for girls called "Olney Institute." Afterwards, Reverend Parke P. Flournoy, once a chaplain in the Confederate Army, lived here up into his nineties with his family.

Still a little farther on, and incorporated with the old Tenney house, now owned by Mrs. Stephen Bonsal, is where Miss Jennie Gardiner had a school for little children about the same time as the Dorseys' school. For some time before the Civil War it was the home of the Reverend Mr. Simpson, whose wife was Miss Stephenson from near Winchester. Her father, whose home was Kenilworth, near there, made her a present of the house. Following the Civil War, it was for a long time the home of William H. Tenney, who had a prosperous flour mill.

Just across the street from it, the imposing looking yellow house with the mansard roof is the one that Elinor Glyn bought and "did over," and then never lived in, as she decided to go back to England to her mother, who was in delicate health. Later it was the residence of Mrs. Isabella Greenway, Representative in Congress from Arizona.

A block from here just above Q Street on what is now dignified by the name of 32nd, but will always remain to old Georgetonians, Valley Street, lived a very interesting character, still remembered by some people in Georgetown as "The crazy man of Valley Street."