The halls of this beautiful building are laid with imported tiles, its ceilings are exquisitely frescoed, and many of its walls hung with wood-paper in rich blending tints. The museum filling the main hall of the second floor is furnished with lofty, air-tight walnut cases.
The great California plank which once stood in one of the underground halls of the Patent-Office, has been wrought into a massive table which stands in the Museum. It is seven feet by twelve, and looks like a billiard-table without the cloth, and is finely polished. The legs and frame are made of Florida cedar. The top of the table is composed of the plank; it looks like solid mahogany without knot or blemish. Much attention has been given to the cultivation of the fibrous grasses which, in China, are woven into fine and durable cloth. Specimens of these grasses, and of the cloth which they make, in its various stages of manufacture, are on exhibition in the cases of the museum. A number of acres have been set apart in the grounds for the cultivation of these grasses. The shade-trees of our entire country are to be represented in these grounds. Already over one thousand four hundred native varieties have been planted.
Through the Smithsonian Institute the Department has been put into communication with leading foreign agricultural societies, and the result has been, not only an exchange of reports, but of almost every known specimen of flower-seeds, seeds of shrubs, vegetables and fruits. The display of flowers in the agricultural grounds is already something wonderful, and soon will equal any like display in the world.
TROPICAL PLANTS AND FLOWERS.
INSIDE THE GOVERNMENT CONSERVATORY.—WASHINGTON.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
OLD HOMES AND HAUNTS OF WASHINGTON—MEMORIES OF OTHER DAYS.
The Oldest Home in Washington—The Cottage of David Burns—David Burns’s Daughter—Singing a Lady’s Praises—The Attractions of a Cottage—“Tom Moore” the Poet Pays Homage to Fair Marcia—The Favored Suitor—How the Lady was Wooed and Won—Mother and Daughter—The Offering to God—The City Orphan Asylum—A Costly Mausoleum—The Assassination Conspiracy—Persecuting the Innocent—A Suggestion for the Board of Works—The Octagon House—A Comfortable Income—The Pleasures of Property—A Haunted House—Apple-Stealing—“Departed Joys and Stomach-Aches”—The Jackson Monument—The Tragedy of the Decatur House—A Fatal Duel—The Stockton-Sickles House—A Spot of Frightful Interest—The Club-House—Assassination of Mr. Seward—Scenes of Festivity—The Madison House—Mrs. Madison’s Popularity—Her Turbans and Her Snuff—The Exploit of Commodore Welkes—Arlington Hotel—The House of Charles Sumner—Corcoran Castle—The Finest Picture-Gallery in America—Powers’ Greek Slave—“Maggie Beck”—Kalaroma—During the War—Rock Creek—The Romantic Story of Mr. Barlow’s Niece—Francis P. Blair—Doddington House—The Brother of Lord Ellenborough—Forgetting His Own Name—Locking Up a Wife—The “Ten Buildings”—The Retreat of Louis Phillippe—Old Capitol Prison—The Temporary Capitol—The Deeds of Ann Royal and Sally Brass—“Paul Pry”—Blackmailing—Feared by all Mankind—An Unpleasant Sort of Woman—Arrested on Suspicion—A Small American Bastile—Where Wirz was Hung.
The oldest home in Washington is the cottage of David Burns.
You remember him, he was Washington’s “obstinate Mr. Burns.” Well, he owned nearly the entire site of the future Federal city, an estate which had descended to him, through several generations of Scottish ancestors. It was perfectly human and right that he should make the most and best of his precious paternal acres. Long before quarrelling Congresses had even thought of the District of Columbia as a site to contend over as the future Capitol, the cottage of David Burns had gathered on its lowly roof the moss of time.
After the lapse of nearly a century it stands to-day as it stood then, only the moss on its roof is deeper, and the trees which arch above it, cast a longer and deeper shadow. It was a mansion in that day of small beginnings. Yet it is but a low, sharp-roofed cottage, one story high, with a garret; its doors facing north and south, one opening upon the river, with no steps, but one broad flag-stone, now settled deep within its grassy borders. Besides the garret, there cannot be more than four rooms in the house; a dining-room, sitting-room, and two sleeping-rooms; the kitchen, after the Maryland and Virginia fashion of the present day, was probably a detached building. The farm-house no doubt equalled its average neighbors, scattered miles apart across the wide domain of open country.