When Charles Carroll died in 1841, the place was bought by the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whitall. A daughter, Sarah Whitall, was born at Bellevue in 1822 and lived there for over seventy years. She married Mr. Rittenhouse of Philadelphia. The place remained in the Rittenhouse family until 1896, when they sold it to Howard Hinckley. In the intervening years, its appearance had been greatly changed by a coat of plaster over the old bricks, which Mr. Hinckley removed. It was very lovely, both inside and out, during the years that Mr. and Mrs. Hinckley made it their home. Some very delightful parties were given there. Then candlelight was the only illumination, and even the flowers used were redolent of colonial days. The rooms were filled with furniture of the right type; and I remember that the bedrooms even had the old washstands with holes in the tops for bowls and pitchers which also were exactly "right" in their period.
After that, Colonel Langfitt leased the house, and a very lovely wedding took place out of doors under an enormous tree, when his daughter married an officer of the United States Army.
In 1912 it was bought by John L. Newbold, a relative of the Lydia Newbold of long ago. After a great deal of agitation on the subject of cutting Q Street through, and putting a bridge across Rock Creek to connect with the city, the District government in 1915 moved the old house to its present location, for it had been sitting exactly in the path of progress all these years, there being a George Town Ordinance that a street could not be cut through without consent of the owner. I only wish progress could have made a circle around the old mansion and left it in its setting of stately, primeval trees.
Miss Loulie Rittenhouse, who had been born and reared there, worked untiringly for the opening of the street, the bridge, and also for Montrose Park, with the salvation of the glorious old oak trees it contains.
Slowly, very, very slowly, old Bellevue was placed on huge rollers, horses were attached to a windlass, and it almost took a microscope to see the progress made day by day, but at last it reached its present site, safe and sound. It was necessary to pull down and rebuild the wings, as they had no cellars. Of course, the wall is also new.
It was leased during World War I to various people of importance in Washington for war work, and finally, in 1928, bought by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America. It has been handsomely and suitably furnished as a house of the Federal period, and is open to the public as a museum house. A beautiful house it is; the usual wide hall through the middle, with vistas through the two big doors, four rooms opening off it, the two back ones being rounded out at the northern ends.
Tudor Place