A Portrait of Old George Town

by Grace Dunlop Peter

Later Honorable Warren Delano Robbins, a first cousin of Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of the ushers at his wedding, and at one time Minister to Canada, bought this house, changed it somewhat and made it very lovely in its new dress of yellow paint on the old plaster.

When he went to Ottawa he leased it to Honorable Dwight F. Davis, former Secretary of War, once Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, and also donor of the Davis Tennis Cup.

It has now for several years been the home of Mrs. William Corcoran Eustis. She is the daughter of one-time Vice-President Paul Morton.

Just across the street from here is the house that Honorable and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss bought when they gave their fine estate, "Dumbarton Oaks," to Harvard University. This house was built by Mr. Thomas Hyde and was where he and Mrs. Hyde lived till the end of their days. She was Fannie Rittenhouse and had grown up in the old house close by, known for a hundred years as "Bellevue," but renamed "Dumbarton House," when the National Society of Colonial Dames of America bought it for their Headquarters in 1928. It is one of the finest, most beautiful, and most interesting of the old places of Georgetown. It has always been somewhat shrouded in mystery, as to its builder and owner. We do know, of course, that this was part of the grant of the Rock of Dumbarton to Ninian Beall and, through his son, George, descended to Thomas, who, in 1783 made his first Addition to George Town. Thomas may have built a small house here, but this was not the house where his father, George, was living when his wife died and was "buried nearby"—that was on Gay (N) Street at the house now 3033 N Street.

In 1796 Thomas Beall of George sold this property to Peter Casanave, who, two months later, sold it to Uriah Forrest. He kept it for a year—never lived there—and sold it to Isaac Pollock. There was wild speculation in real estate at that time on account of the new Federal City being located here. After one year Pollock sold the property to Samuel Jackson.

It seems that it was then that Samuel Jackson started to build this mansion, but got into financial difficulties and it was mortgaged to two or three people and finally foreclosed. In 1804 the place was bought by Gabriel Duval, then Comptroller of the Currency of the United States, afterwards a Justice of the Supreme Court.

In 1805 Joseph Nourse, Registrar of the United States Treasury, who had been until that time living on Congress (31st) Street in George Town, bought it and lived there until 1813. He had this position from 1789 to 1829 and was in charge of moving all the records of the Treasury Department when the Government moved from Philadelphia to the new capital in Washington.

Mr. Nourse had been born in London in 1754; came to Virginia and fought in the Revolution. He was secretary to General Charles Lee and Auditor of the Board of War. His wife was Maria Louisa Bull of Philadelphia, and they had two children, Charles Joseph Nourse, who became a Major in the Army, and Anna Maria Josepha, who was a lovely girl and took part in the prominent social affairs of the new city. She is spoken of in the diary of Sir Augustus Foster, British Minister of that period.

When the National Society of Colonial Dames had this house restored, a penny bearing the date 1800 was found in one of the front walls where such an identification was often placed, and architects think that Samuel Jackson began to build this house, using perhaps the little house that was on the property as a wing, and that then Joseph Nourse took it over and was really the builder of this fine mansion. It was probably intended for entertaining for his beloved daughter, for, after her death, which occurred at one of the Virginia springs one summer, he sold the place and moved out to a small frame house on a high hill overlooking the Federal City. He called his new home "Mount Alban," because it reminded him of the place of the same name in England. It was there that the first British martyr, Saint Alban, was killed. Mr. Nourse was a very religious man and used to walk about in the grove of oak trees surrounding his house and pray that some day a House of God might stand upon that spot; that is exactly where the Washington Cathedral is now being erected.

Mr. Nourse had many famous guests visit him in his modest home there—among them: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams.