Part 25 (2/2)

The last time I saw her was not many months before her death, sitting in a chair in her bedroom and very, very feeble. When I told her good-bye, she kept saying something to me over and over, which I couldn't understand. Finally I leaned down very close, and heard, ”Be a good girl.” I was then the mother of two children, but to her, just a little girl and the daughter of my father and mother, of whom she was very fond.

Opposite Tudor Place, where now is a twin apartment house, was until the nineteen-twenties a simple old brick house somewhat like the old Mackall house on Greene (29th) Street, only minus a portico. When I knew it it was the home of the Philip Darneilles--and I remember hearing my mother say, ”But Mrs. Darneille was a Harry!” Which meant nothing to me until I looked up the t.i.tle to this place, and there I found that all this land went right back to Harriot Beall, Mrs. Elisha O. Williams, one of the three daughters of Brooke Beall, who was among those wealthy s.h.i.+pping merchants who were responsible for Georgetown's early prosperity.

Mrs. Harriot Beall Williams left this property, all the way down to Back (Q) Street, to her daughter Harriot Eliza Harry. Through her it pa.s.sed to Harriot Beall Chesley, and then to her daughter, Emily McIlvain Darneille. The old house stood untenanted for several years until bought for the erection of the apartments.

Mr. and Mrs. Darneille had three daughters, the eldest really a beauty (the youngest inherited the old name of Harriot), and they had a great deal of gaiety there in the nineties. I remember especially the New Year's Day receptions they used to have, the many ”hacks” overflowing with young men, that used to climb the hill. It was the custom in those days for the ladies of each household to receive on the afternoon of that day. Only gentleman callers came, all dressed in their very best, and left their cards for all the ladies of their acquaintance. If you weren't receiving (attired in your best, sometimes to the extent of real low-necked evening dresses, the dining room table loaded with salads, old hams, biscuits, ices, candies, tea and coffee--and always a punch bowl on the side) you hung a basket on your front door bell, and the callers just deposited their cards and went on to the next place.

What fun the children had, watching the front doors and counting the cards; and there was a real thrill when the caller happened to be an Army or Navy officer, attired in full-dress uniform with gold braid and feathers, having earlier in the day paid his respects at the White House.

On part of the Darneille property stands an intriguing frame house. It is quite an old house and stood originally several hundred feet to the eastward in Mackall Square, the property owned by Christiana Beall Mackall, who was the sister of Harriot Beall Williams. So you see one sister sold it to the other and it took a trip across Was.h.i.+ngton (30th) Street to reside on Congress (31st) Street. I wonder how they moved it in those days, for it was a long, long time ago.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dodge lived there after they left Evermay.

In the 1880's this house, 1633 31st Street, was the home of a very interesting and eminent person, John Wesley Powell, American geologist and ethnologist. I now quote from the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_: ”He was born at Mount Morris, N. Y., March 24, 1834. His parents were of English birth, but had moved to America in 1830, and he was educated at Illinois and Oberlin colleges. He began his geological work with a series of field trips including a trip throughout the length of the Mississippi in a rowboat, the length of the Ohio, and of the Illinois. When the Civil War broke out he entered the Union Army as a private, and at the battle of s.h.i.+loh he lost his right arm but continued in active service, reaching the rank of major of volunteers. In 1865 he was appointed professor of geology and curator of the museum in the Illinois Wesleyan university at Bloomington, and afterwards at the Normal university.

In 1867 he commenced a series of expeditions to the Rocky Mountains and the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers, during the course of which (1869) he made a daring boat-journey of three months through the Grand Canyon; he also made a special study of the Indians and their languages for the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, in which he founded and directed a bureau of ethnology. His able work led to the establishment under the U.

S. Government of the geographical and geological survey of the Rocky Mountain region with which he was occupied from 1870 to 1879. This survey was incorporated with the United States geological and geographical survey in 1879, when Powell became director of the bureau of ethnology. In 1881, Powell was appointed director also of the geological survey, a post which he occupied until 1894. He died in Haven, Me., on Sept. 23, 1902.”

On two panes of gla.s.s in the front windows of this old house are names etched by a diamond--on one is ”Genevieve Powell,” under it ”Louis Hill”

and under that ”1884.” She probably was the daughter of Mr. Powell.

On the other pane of gla.s.s is etched ”Moses and Mary.” To the owners of the house that means nothing, but to me it means ”Moses Moore,” who was not a man but a woman (whose real name was ”Frank”), and Mary Compton, both of whom I knew and still know.

In the nineties it was for awhile the home of Mrs. Donna Otie Compton, who was the daughter of Bishop James Hervey Otie, first Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee. She was a picturesque figure, attired in her widow's cap and long crepe veil. Mrs. Compton had four daughters who were great belles.

Then for a good many years it stood there looking quite deserted, for old Mr. Arnold, its owner, was almost a cripple and one rarely saw him making his way up the street with great difficulty. Now General and Mrs.

Frank R. McCoy have bought it and made it a charming house with a lovely garden.

Through the alley just north of here, described in the t.i.tle as ”a private road,” we can reach another house built on that same property of the Harry's, but just who built it I do not know. It also was vacant when I was a girl, for I remember going to a Fair there one night in the spring when it had been loaned for some charity. In 1930 the house was bought by Miss Harriet and Miss Mary Winslow, who have added a lovely music room at the rear, but have kept the old-time appearance of the house. A mammoth oak tree, the pride of the owners, stands near the house.

The next house on Congress (31st) Street has another fine oak tree in front of it, and used to have a companion even larger on the other side of the walk. This property also came through Mrs. Harriot Beall Williams to Mrs. Brooke Williams, senior, and her daughter, Mrs. Johns, who lived there with her family.

A romantic story is told of how Captain William Brooke Johns, of the United States Army, one day saw at a picnic the beautiful Miss Leonora de la Roche, and fell in love with her immediately. But, since it was not considered good form in those days to be presented to a lady at a picnic, he watched her from a distance all day. The next afternoon he went to call. It was a case of love at first sight for both, and the wedding soon followed, with all the military splendor. As was told before, when the Civil War came he left the Union Army. Captain Johns had quite a talent for carving, and did a very good medallion of General Grant, who continued always to be a true friend to him. He also invented a tent which was used during the Civil War by the Northern Army.

This house was, for more than a generation, the home of Colonel and Mrs.

John Addison.

At that time it was a two-story house, with quite a different roof. It was a big, merry household with four sons and four daughters. The daughters were reigning belles in those days, and the old custom of serenading was much in vogue. One lovely moonlight night four swains with their guitars stationed themselves under the windows of the handsome old house and sang plaintive love songs for an hour or more.

Finally a shutter was pushed open very gently, and the four hearts went pitter-patter, antic.i.p.ating the sight of a lovely young girl's face.

Instead, appeared an old, black one, capped by a snowy turban, and these words floated down: ”I'se sorrie, gen'le-men, but de young ladies is all gone out--but I sure is pleased wid you-all's music!” The quartet was composed of Summerfield McKenney, Frank Steele, and a young Noyes, of the family now for many years identified with _The Evening Star_, and another whose name I do not know.

It was while the Addisons were living here that Commodore Kennon was so tragically killed on the _Princeton_.

One afternoon the youngest member of the Addison family, a little girl, was swinging in the yard when a carriage came up the street and turned in at the gate of Tudor Place, across the street. In it she saw her older brother, John. Much mystified, she ran to her mother, telling her how strange it seemed for ”brother John” to be coming up the hill in a carriage, and not coming home. It turned out that he had been sent to notify Mrs. Thomas Peter of the sudden death of her son-in-law.

In later years Brooke Williams, junior, lived here and, still later, George W. Cissel. The chapel of the Presbyterian Church on West (P) Street is named for this family. The house is now the home of Mr.

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