Many besides Georgetonians have been laid to rest within its borders, for there are Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War for President Lincoln; James G. Blaine, and many more, all prominent in their days. There, too, lies Peggy O'Neale, who, as the wife of Andrew Jackson's Secretary of War, Eaton, kept the social life of the Capital in an uproar for many a year and, it is said, also greatly influenced political matters.
Her very first triumph took place in Georgetown, when, at a school exhibition at the Union Hotel, the little girl with dark brown curly hair and pert red lips was crowned the "Queen of Beauty" by Mrs. Dolly Madison. Peggy was the daughter of the Irish landlord of a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, and was married at sixteen to Mr. Timberlake, an officer in the United States Navy. He committed suicide in 1828.
After that began her career, when she was defended and supported in all that she did by Andrew Jackson, who had suffered bitterly from criticism of his own wife.
But the most famous person who lies buried in Oak Hill is the man whose song is known in every hamlet of this broad land: John Howard Payne, the author of "Home, Sweet Home." He had been in Georgetown in his youth, you remember, for he accompanied General Lingan on that trip to Baltimore from which the General never returned but to his funeral. Mr. Payne was then a young man of twenty-one and excited over the adventure, I suppose, like any one of that age. He was sent in later life as a consul to one of those little states on the northern coast of Africa which in those days made so much trouble for the United States. There he died and was buried. Years later his body was brought back by Mr. Corcoran, and there was quite a ceremony for his re-interment.
The stone placed over him in that distant land and brought back with his body has the seal of the United States carved at the top and reads:
IN MEMORY
OF
COL. JOHN HOWARD PAYNE
TWICE CONSUL OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOR
THE CITY AND KINGDOM OF TUNIS
THIS STONE IS PLACED
BY A GRATEFUL COUNTRY
HE DIED AT THE AMERICAN CONSULATE
IN THIS CITY AFTER A TEDIOUS ILLNESS
APRIL 1, 1852
HE WAS BORN AT THE CITY OF BOSTON
STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS
JUNE 8, 1792
HIS FAME AS A POET AND DRAMATIST
IS WELL KNOWN WHEREVER THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE IS SPOKEN THROUGH
HIS CELEBRATED BALLAD OF
HOME, SWEET HOME
AND HIS POPULAR TRAGEDY
OF BRUTUS AND OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTIONS
This slab lies flat upon the ground. Adjoining it is a circle in the center of which is a monument bearing a bust of Colonel Payne, and on it is the following inscription:
IN
MEMORY OF
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE
AUTHOR
OF
HOME, SWEET HOME
BORN JUNE 9, 1791
DIED APRIL 9, 1852
ERECTED ANNO DOMINI 1883
"Sure when thy gentle spirit fled
To realms beyond the azure dome
With arms outstretched, God's angel said
'Welcome to Heaven's Home, Sweet Home.'"