Part 24 (2/2)

Mr. Nourse had many famous guests visit him in his modest home there--among them: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams.

Mr. Nourse's son, Major Charles Joseph Nourse, married Rebecca Morris whose father, Anthony Morris, of Philadelphia, was an intimate and life-long friend of Dolly Madison. Major Nourse built the old stone house out on the road to Rockville and called it ”The Highlands.”

Tradition says that a large box bush at ”The Highlands” has grown from a tiny sprig of box which Mrs. Madison plucked from her bouquet at the inauguration of her husband and gave to Mr. Morris.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUMBARTON HOUSE]

”The Highlands” was a large household, for Major and Mrs. Nourse had eleven children, and Mr. Morris resided there also. They have been a very remarkable family, noted for their longevity, their steadfast, n.o.ble character, and their loyalty to the Episcopal Church. It was from the prayers and savings of Phoebe Nourse, who died as a young girl, that St. Alban's Church has risen on that ground which she wished to dedicate to the glory of G.o.d.

”The Highlands” many years later became the home of Admiral and Mrs.

Gary T. Grayson.

But to return to the old house which blocked Stoddert (Q) Street or Back Street, as it was sometimes called. Mr. Nourse sold this house, his Georgetown home, in 1813 to Charles Carroll, who gave it the name of Bellevue, and thereafter always styled himself ”of Bellevue.” He was a nephew of Daniel Carroll, of Duddington. He also was a great friend of Mrs. Madison's, and helped her in her dramatic escape from the White House when the British were on their way to burn and plunder it. There has always been a story that Daniel Carroll brought her over the road to Georgetown, crossing at the P Street bridge, and that she stopped by Bellevue. There she is supposed to have met Mr. Madison whom she had not seen since early morning. This was the day of the Battle of Bladensburg when confusion reigned supreme. At the meeting Mr. and Mrs. Madison agreed on the routes and rendezvous of retreat.

From old letters it seems that she continued on out of town to ”Weston,”

the estate of Walter S. Chandler, which was situated near the present junction of Ma.s.sachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues. I can dimly remember the quaint white, frame house and the legend of Dolly Madison being there. She then went on to the encampment at Tenally Town, where she slept in a tent that night under guard, and the next day crossed into Virginia.

Mr. Carroll and his brother had not long before become owners of the paper mill on Rock Creek just south of Bellevue, so that must have been his reason for making it his home.

In 1820 he leased the place to Samuel Whitall, of Philadelphia, whose wife was Lydia Newbold. Mr. Whitall was a distinguished-looking old gentleman, and used to drive around in a high, two-wheeled gig, the last of its kind in the town.

When Charles Carroll died in 1841, the place was bought by the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whitall. A daughter, Sarah Whitall, was born at Bellevue in 1822 and lived there for over seventy years. She married Mr. Rittenhouse of Philadelphia. The place remained in the Rittenhouse family until 1896, when they sold it to Howard Hinckley. In the intervening years, its appearance had been greatly changed by a coat of plaster over the old bricks, which Mr. Hinckley removed. It was very lovely, both inside and out, during the years that Mr. and Mrs. Hinckley made it their home.

Some very delightful parties were given there. Then candlelight was the only illumination, and even the flowers used were redolent of colonial days. The rooms were filled with furniture of the right type; and I remember that the bedrooms even had the old washstands with holes in the tops for bowls and pitchers which also were exactly ”right” in their period.

After that, Colonel Langfitt leased the house, and a very lovely wedding took place out of doors under an enormous tree, when his daughter married an officer of the United States Army.

In 1912 it was bought by John L. Newbold, a relative of the Lydia Newbold of long ago. After a great deal of agitation on the subject of cutting Q Street through, and putting a bridge across Rock Creek to connect with the city, the District government in 1915 moved the old house to its present location, for it had been sitting exactly in the path of progress all these years, there being a George Town Ordinance that a street could not be cut through without consent of the owner. I only wish progress could have made a circle around the old mansion and left it in its setting of stately, primeval trees.

Miss Loulie Rittenhouse, who had been born and reared there, worked untiringly for the opening of the street, the bridge, and also for Montrose Park, with the salvation of the glorious old oak trees it contains.

Slowly, very, very slowly, old Bellevue was placed on huge rollers, horses were attached to a windla.s.s, and it almost took a microscope to see the progress made day by day, but at last it reached its present site, safe and sound. It was necessary to pull down and rebuild the wings, as they had no cellars. Of course, the wall is also new.

It was leased during World War I to various people of importance in Was.h.i.+ngton for war work, and finally, in 1928, bought by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America. It has been handsomely and suitably furnished as a house of the Federal period, and is open to the public as a museum house. A beautiful house it is; the usual wide hall through the middle, with vistas through the two big doors, four rooms opening off it, the two back ones being rounded out at the northern ends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TUDOR PLACE]

Chapter XV

_Tudor Place and Congress (31st) Street_

Like the brightest jewel in its crown of old houses, Tudor Place, now the home of Armistead Peter, junior, sits high and aloof on the heights of Georgetown. Its southern front, shown here, is the one most familiar to everyone, and it is the view that I looked out on every day of my life for more than a score of years from my father's house on Stoddert (Q) Street.

As Mrs. Beverley Kennon, its owner during my youth, was my cousin and had her motherless grandchildren living with her, some of my earliest recollections are of running round and round the old circle of box in front of the north entrance, playing ”colors.” I never, to this day, smell box that I am not back at Tudor Place and see the cobwebs in the old bushes bright with raindrops, as box, of course, is really fragrant only after rain. Also there were lovely times in the fall when the leaves were being raked up by old John, the colored gardener, who would let us climb on top of the brilliant load in a wheelbarrow with a crate on top of it. Such rides! Old John was a character (and one we loved dearly), not much over five feet tall, with grizzled hair and goatee, and always wearing an ap.r.o.n tied around his waist and a derby hat on his head.

Tudor Place was purchased by Francis Lowndes, one of the prominent tobacco merchants and s.h.i.+ppers, in 1794, from Thomas Beall of George who made a large addition to George Town in 1783, called by his name.

Mr. Lowndes started to build a mansion, but in 1805 he sold the property to Thomas Peter and his wife, the former Martha Parke Custis.

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