Just below here, on Congress (31st) Street, in the latter part of the last century lived a lady much beloved by rich and poor. She was the first person to conceive the idea of a diet kitchen for the needy. She had not much of this world's goods, so she went daily to the different butchers who gave her scraps of meat which she cooked, and had continually on hand jars of "beef tea." All the doctors knew where to apply when they had patients who were in need of it. She was the widow of Captain Charles Carroll Simms, an officer of the old navy who went with the Confederacy, and at the famous battle in Hampton Roads, was second in command of the Merrimac, and in command after the chief officer was killed. She was Elizabeth Nourse, daughter of Major Charles Joseph Nourse, of The Highlands.
Next door, below Mrs. Simms' house, stands the Methodist Protestant Church which not long ago celebrated its one hundredth anniversary. The lot for it was purchased in April, 1829, but the founders for a year or two previous to that had been worshipping in the Presbyterian Church building, Saint John's or the Lancastrian schoolroom. It is now a Christian Science Church.
Across the street from the church, next door to the Post Office, the tall brick house is where a family lived which in the nineties was a mystery to Georgetown—the Oueston family—father, mother, and daughter. No one knew what was the father's business, and no one ever saw the mother out, but it was rumored that she came from South America, was of royal blood, and had a throne on which she sat, dressed accordingly. The daughter was known then, and for many years afterwards, as "the girl of a thousand curls." She was tall and slender, and her magnificent suit of dark hair was a mass of curls, making her head look like "a bushel basket." She wore ankle-length dresses of a style totally different from what every other girl wore: white stockings, when all of us wore black, and black slippers, laced up with narrow black ribbons.
And then up to the northeast corner of Gay (N) and Congress (31st) Streets, to the tall yellow house, now an apartment house. For many years it was at the home of the Snyders. Dr. John M. Snyder died at the age of 36, in the enjoyment of a fine reputation in his profession, of an unusual accident.
The story is told by Dr. Samuel Busey, in his Personal Reminiscences:
Dr. Snyder had bought a farm called "Greenwood" a little way out of town toward Tenallytown, and one afternoon at Dr. Busey's home, "Belvoir," now the Beauvoir School, was telling Dr. Busey how he was enjoying pruning the old oak trees on his place of dead wood. Dr. Busey warned him that he was engaging in a dangerous amusement and related the story of how a hired man of his, doing such a job, had had a bad fall, but, fortunately, without injury.
Two or three days later, Dr. Busey was summoned to "Greenwood," where he found Dr. Snyder dying from just such an accident. The branch of the tree he had been sawing off was hanging by a splintered sliver, too weak to support its weight and, in swinging to the ground, had knocked away the ladder on which Dr. Snyder was standing.
His wife was Sophy Tayloe, a member of the well-known family of the Octagon House in Washington, and beautiful old Mount Airy in Virginia. As a widow in her old age, she had a steady admirer, a general, who came every afternoon at the same time in his Victoria, and took her to drive. I can see her now, a small, slight figure in her cape, and little black bonnet tied under her chin, and holding one of those quaint little ruffled sunshades to keep the sun out of her eyes.
She had one daughter, Miss Annie, who had the loveliest rosy cheeks (no rouge in those days), who never married. One son, Bladen, was an artist, and he used to be a familiar sight with his camp-stool and easel on the streets, painting.
Georgetown was not so "arty" in Bladen Snyder's day, unfortunately, so he was considered very "odd."