Immediately opposite the steps on Greene (29th) Street which lead up to this dear old place are other high steps which lead to a place called Terrace Top. Here it was that in the winter of 1920-'21 two very charming people came to rest in what they considered the most attractive of American cities. They were Julia Marlowe and E. H. Sothern.
While they were here Miss Marlowe was honored by George Washington University at its one hundredth anniversary, on February twenty-second, by receiving the degree of D. D. L., a most unusual honor for a woman. This house is now the home of Mr. Herbert Elliston, editor of the Washington Post.
All of this land was still, of course, Beall property, and somehow it all seemed to pass down through the women, for the next place to the west originally belonged to Miss Eliza Beall, a daughter of Thomas Beall of George, who married George Corbin Washington, great-nephew of General Washington. He was a grandson of John Augustine Washington and Hannah Bushrod. He was president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, member of Congress from Maryland, and a prominent candidate for the Vice-Presidency at the time Winfield Scott was nominated for President.
Their son was the Lewis Washington who was living near Harper's Ferry at the time of John Brown's raid, and was taken prisoner by him and held as a hostage until released by Colonel Robert E. Lee and his United States troops when they arrived on the scene.
Miss Eleanor Ann Washington, the daughter of the house, was skilled in painting and did miniatures of her mother and of other members of her family. She also used to sketch in the beautiful woods north of her father's home, which soon after became Oak Hill Cemetery, and she was the first person to be buried in its grounds.
George Corbin Washington married a second time, a girl who had been almost like a daughter in his house, Ann Thomas Beall Peter, of whom his wife had been very fond. Both of the wives of George Corbin Washington were descended from the Reverend John Orme, a distinguished clergyman of Maryland in colonial days.
After the death of Mr. Washington the place was sold and became the home of Senator Jesse D. Bright, of Indiana, who was deprived of his seat in the Senate during the Civil War because of his sympathy with the South.
For a long time this place belonged to Columbus Alexander, but in recent years it has changed hands several times. It had been leased by the Honorable Dwight Morrow to be his home while Senator from New Jersey, but his sudden death the summer before of course changed that arrangement.
During World War II it was the home of General William (Wild Bill) Donovan, head of OSS, and is now the home of Mr. Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post.
All of this property of The Heights belonged, as I have said, to Thomas Beall, and after 1783 it was rapidly being "developed," as they say nowadays. It is interesting to follow out how it all happened and how relatives wished to live one another.