A Portrait of Old George Town

by Grace Dunlop Peter

William A. Gordon

The interesting-looking house to the east of Hamilton Dodge's, 2811 P Street, was built in 1840. That is where the Gordon family were living when William A. Gordon, junior, came back from the Civil War. Certainly, that must have been a joyous occasion, and there were happy hearts within the old walls that night. His sister Josephine (Mrs. Sowers), Margaret Robinson (Mrs. Thomas Cox), and Elizabeth Dodge (Mrs. John Beall), all exceedingly handsome women, were belles in their youth, and a trio of great friends to the end of their lives.

The family of Admiral Sigsbee were living here when the U. S. battleship Maine, of which he was the captain, was blown up in the harbor of Havana in 1898. His wife was a daughter of Admiral Lockwood. It is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Ihlder.

At 2805 P Street lives Honorable Dean G. Acheson, now Secretary of State. For a while, in the latter part of the last century, a quaint and very well-known lady made this house her home—Miss Emily V. Mason, of Virginia, from whom Mr. Corcoran received friendly and grateful letters, thanking him for contributions to her work for "her children," as she called them. The letters were written from Europe. She evidently had groups of Southern children in various cities for whom she provided, using for that purpose money made by her writings, to which she refers. I remember how picturesque she was in appearance: a lovely face, surrounded by long, white curls, crowned by a wide-brimmed, black bonnet tied with a wide ribbon. She seemed to have quite a salon during her residence here, serving tea and substantial refreshments to all her friends who called in the afternoons.

The iron fence around these houses is made of old musket barrels, used during the Mexican War, and was put there by Reuben Daw, who owned a large part of this block.

Just across the street from Mr. Acheson used to live a lady, the widow of Mr. Hein, the artist, who like "Anna" in the Bible spent all her days in the "courts of the Lord," the Catholic Church. She always wore a long black coat and a crêpe veil to her heels, rode a bicycle back and forth to church, the long veil floating out behind. One evening she was struck by an automobile and killed instantly. The niece to whom she had left her little house had made an arrangement with a middle-aged woman living there that if she took care of "Aunt Martha" she could have the house tax free all her days. Her days are still continuing—and with all the advance in prices of houses, the niece can't do a thing about the house!

The dear little white frame cottage just above here on Montgomery (28th) Street, was built about 1840, and occupied by Benjamin F. Miller, who came from Saugerties, New York, as an engineer, to construct the Aqueduct Bridge which carried the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal across the river to Virginia. And, on the corner of Montgomery (28th) and Stoddert (Q) Streets is the last of the big Dodge houses on the corners of Georgetown. It is the one built by Robert Perley Dodge in 1850. He and his brother, Francis Dodge, junior, used practically the same plans for their houses. Robert Dodge was a civil engineer, and, I think, had something to do with the planning of the Aqueduct Bridge.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert Dodge became a paymaster in the Union Army. After the war, he became identified with the government of the District of Columbia, serving as treasurer and auditor for several years until he died. It is said he planted the enormous maple trees that adorn this block of 28th Street.

During the first World War, when this house had stood a long time untenanted and sad, it was opened up as a night club called "The Carcassonne," and postals were sent out advertising "Coffee in the Coal Bin." These were the days of prohibition. Somebody who lived there played the piano, incessantly. The Ballengers had lived here; the Powells, and Major Gilliss; and then Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick (now Mrs. Albert Simms), lived here until she bought three houses down on 30th Street below N Street, and made them into one very attractive house with an unusual and lovely garden.