A Portrait of Old George Town

by Grace Dunlop Peter

One Fourth of July, his son, Thomas, aged eight, as he tells us in his Reminiscences, wanted to deliver an oration which he had prepared—in Scotch Row, near by his home. All of his comrades had gone to see Captain Doughty's Company on parade with the fife-and-drum corps. But the little boy was not to be deterred. He went up on Bridge (M) Street, hunting an audience and a distinguished one he brought back with him. If small in number, it made up in quality, for he had General John Mason and Monsieur Pichon, a "bland and elegant" Frenchman sent by Napoleon to receive the $15,000,000 for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Mr. Pichon was a Huguenot from the city of Lyons and lived, while here, near the Bank of Columbia. This son followed in his father's footsteps as a minister and did not have to go out always for his audience.

A short while after the death of General Washington, Dr. Balch gave notice that he was going to speak on the life and services of the great statesman. He preached in the open air to more than a thousand people.

The last years of Dr. Balch's life were spent at number 3302 Gay (N) Street, where a bad fire destroyed many valuable papers and the records of his church. He wrote to a friend: "Only the Parrott (his wife) remains!" Apparently, he never lost his sense of humor. Perhaps it was that which helped to make him so universally beloved.

Dr. Balch died on the 7th of September, 1833. Every house in town was hung in black, all the stores and banks were closed and the bells tolled as his body was carried to the church.

One block westward of Dr. Balch's original house lived another man, very influential in the religious life of the town in addition to his large business activities. Henry Foxall, a native of Monmouthshire, England, was born in 1760. He went to Dublin, where he was put in charge of extensive iron works and where he became a Methodist. On coming to this country, he first settled in Philadelphia, where, in 1794, he was a partner in the Eagle Iron Works of Robert Morris, the great financier and signer of the Declaration of Independence.

When Thomas Jefferson became President, he thought it advisable to have at the seat of government an ordnance plant, so Morris recommended Foxall, who came here in 1799 for that purpose. He built his foundry on the western outskirts of George Town, just behind Georgetown College. He built also a large brick house, two stories, with dormer windows on Frederick (34th) Street, between Water (K) and Bridge (M) Streets. It was quite a pretentious house for that time, with its high ceilings, elaborately decorated cornices of minute workmanship, and mantels of carved wood. It had ample grounds, and in front stood two tall and graceful Lombardy poplars. He had also a summer home, a little farther out and higher up, called "Spring Hill," from whence he had a fine view of the Potomac and the Virginia hills.

A warm friendship sprang up between him and Thomas Jefferson, as they had many tastes in common. Both were performers on the violin and used to accompany each other, and both were fond of tinkering. Jefferson, you remember, was of a very inventive turn of mind. During this time he thought of an air-tight stove and got Mr. Foxall to make some according to his ideas, but they did not work out to please him.

Thomas Jefferson lived for a while in George Town on the little street bearing his name, between Washington (30th) and Congress (31st) Streets, running south below Bridge (M) Street, in a house demolished a few years ago. It stood immediately south of the Canal on the east side, and was in appearance much like the home of Francis Scott Key. It must have been during the time he was Secretary of State in John Adams's administration that he occupied this house.

Mr. Jefferson was never happy living in a town. I found this interesting little tidbit about him in the Encyclopædia Britannica: "For eight years he tabulated with painful accuracy the earliest and latest appearance of 37 vegetables in the Washington market, and after his return from France for 23 years he received from his old friend, the superintendent of the Jardin Des Plantes, a box of seeds which he distributed to public and private gardens throughout the United States." So I think we might easily call him the founder of the Garden Clubs of America, certainly of the Georgetown Garden Club.

Mr. Foxall was a convert to Wesleyanism, and a lay minister. He was in the habit of entertaining the members of the Methodist Conference at this home, and was once good-humoredly twitted by one of them in regard to his inconsistent roles of "proclaimer of the gospel of peace and forger of weapons of war." To this he replied: "If I do make guns to destroy men's bodies, I build churches to save their souls."