Joel Barlow and Robert Fulton were intimate friends. In 1810 Fulton visited Kalorama, and it is declared that some of his first ventures in navigation were launched upon Rock Creek. History records that Fulton tested his torpedoes during this visit to Washington, and persuaded Congress to consider his navigation schemes. Mr. Barlow went to France as American Minister in 1812. He was taken ill while on his way to meet Napoleon, who had invited the American Minister to an interview with him at Wilna. Mr. Barlow died at Cracow, in Poland, where he solaced his death-bed by dictating a poem full of withering expression of resentment toward Napoleon for the hopes he had disappointed.
Mr. Barlow bequeathed Kalorama to his niece Mrs. Bomford. A romantic story is told of this lady. While with her first husband (whose name has deservedly perished) on the frontier, he being an officer in the United States Army, she was captured by Indians. For some reason known only to himself, her husband did not take the trouble to pursue her; but Lieutenant Bomford did. He organized a force of citizens and soldiers, and sallied forth in quest of the lady. He found her, and she rewarded him by marrying him after she had obtained a divorce from her indifferent lord.
Colonel and Mrs. Bomford resided at Kalorama for many years. During their residence here the Decatur-Barron duel took place, and the body of Decatur found a temporary resting-place in the tomb of the Barlows. This vault is still visible at the top of a small hill near the main entrance to the Kalorama grounds. With its low sharp roof and its plastered walls, it looks like an old spring-house. It bears an inscription to the memory of Joel Barlow, “poet, patriot, and philosopher,” although he was buried, when he died, at Cracow, Poland.
When Mrs. Decatur left the Decatur mansion, she retired to Kalorama. And years after her husband’s death she made it famous by the elegant entertainments which she gave there. There are gentlemen still in public life in Washington, who recall the elegant and costly dinners given by this lady at Kalorama.
This beautiful historic spot is now owned by a family named Lovett, who, it is said, intend in time to rebuild it.
Following Seventh street a mile or two beyond the city limits, we come to an unpretending country house, at some distance back from the road, surrounded by lawns, gardens and groves. It is a long, low house, before which runs a piazza, and behind which bubbles a famous spring. If it is morning, a pair of saddle-horses stand waiting their riders before the door. Presently they come out together, an ancient knight and lady, ready for a ten-mile ride on horseback. Eighty years and more have set their seal on the brows of each. The gentleman’s frame bears the marks of extreme age; it is attenuated, yet shows few signs of decrepitude. His skin may look like parchment, but the eyes burn with unabated fires. The lady is tall, straight, and stately, with dark, keen eyes, and head erect, as befits the mother of the Blairs. She has a son more than sixty years of age, and yet she seems not to have lived so many years herself. More than fifty years ago, this couple, by wagons and on horseback, came through the woods from far Kentucky to seek their fortune in the new capital city. The struggling village has grown into a metropolis; sons and daughters to the fourth generation have blessed them; they have done their share in the making and unmaking of presidents and men in power; they have received their full meed of honor as well as of blame; their name has grown to fame; they have long outstripped the allotted years of man, and here they are, ready for their eight or ten miles’ horseback ride this morning. This is Francis P. Blair, Senior, and his wife, and this their country home. Honored among suburban Washington haunts is “Silver Spring.”
Almost any sunny day this ancient knight and lady; mounted on their two solid steeds, with a green bough in their hands in lieu of riding whips, she with a stately calash upon her head, may be seen jogging along Pennsylvania avenue toward the stately home of Montgomery Blair, which faces the War-Department. For more than two generations Mr. Blair has been a power in the land. He has had more or less to do with the making and unmaking of every president since the days of Jackson. The Nestor of the Washington Press, he was a powerful supporter of “old Hickory,” and to-day retains, undiminished, the living love now bestowed upon the friend so long buried in the past. Mr. Blair, leaning on his long staff, may often be seen wandering through the unbowered ways of Lafayette square, which he so well remembers as the Burns’ orchard. Here he never fails to gaze upon the bronze equestrian statue of his friend. Others may laugh at the pivoted horse, but “old Frank Blair” pronounces the statue to be the best likeness of Jackson now extant.
With the exception of the Burns’ house, the oldest houses in the city are found on Capitol Hill. Here are houses whose antiquity alone make them remarkable amid the houses of America. For example, here is the old Duddington house, built by Daniel Carroll, who you may remember was so angry with Major L’Enfant for tearing down his first abode, in the way of a beloved street. The present house, built at that time, stands just[just] in front of the old site. Going south-east from the Capitol, the tall forest trees of Duddington are soon visible. So completely do they screen the house, nothing is seen of it until the visitor comes to the large entrance gate, directly in front of the dwelling. It is a double house, built of red brick, with wings stretching out on either side. The grounds are beautiful in their very wildness, presenting all the attributes of a primitive forest. Outside is a spring with an ancient covering of brick. “This spring was once a well-known resort, on the Duddington farm, for the school-boys of the neighborhood, one of whom, an aged man now, told me how pleasantly he used to pass his noon recess there.”
Nearly all the buildings in this part of the city can lay claim to antiquity. Many of them were built by Thomas Low, of brick brought from England. Thomas Low is an historic name in Washington. The[The] brother of Lord Ellenborough, he belonged to one of the most distinguished families in England. He amassed a large fortune in India, at the time that Warren Hastings was Governor-General. He was a friend of Hastings, and warmly defended him. Low brought with him to this country five hundred thousand dollars in gold. Soon after his arrival he became acquainted with General Washington, who induced him to invest largely in the wilderness which was to be transformed into the capital of the nation. The investment was not profitable to Mr. Low. The high price set upon property caused the city to go up far in the rear of his many new buildings. He married Miss Custis, the granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, and sister of George W. Parke Custis. His matrimonial venture was not more satisfactory than his landed one. He parted from his wife, and at his death his five hundred thousand dollars had dwindled down to one hundred thousand. Mr. Low was so absent-minded, it is said he would forget his name when inquiring for letters at the post-office, and once locked his wife in a room, and not knowing what he had done, half a day passed before she obtained her liberty.
There is a row of two-story brick dwellings near Duddington which were built by Mr. Low, in one of which he lived. These houses bear the name of the “Ten Buildings.” During Mr. Low’s residence there, Louis Phillippe, then an exile, was his guest. In one of these the first copy of the National Intelligencer was printed, October 31, 1800. Another row of houses on New Jersey avenue, one block south of the Capitol, was also built by Thomas Low. Originally they were fashionable boarding-houses, and such men as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Dallas and Louis Phillippe were entertained beneath their roof. They are now occupied by the Coast Survey. In this house the bill was drawn up and prepared for presentation to Congress, authorizing the establishment of a United States Bank. A house a little nearer to the Capitol, long occupied by John W. Forney, was built for the Bank of Washington, but never occupied for that purpose. Instead, the United States Supreme Court held its sessions in it for several years, and a house opposite was used as the Bank of Washington.