Part 26 (2/2)
It is Edward's duty to obey my lawful commands. In so doing, on this occasion, I will defend him at all risques and hazards. For the information of those persons who may have real business on the premises, there is a good and convenient gate. But Mark! I do not admit mere curisoity an errand of business. Therefore, I beg and pray of all my neighbors to avoid Evermay as they would a den of devils, or rattle snakes, and thereby save themselves and me much vexation and trouble.
June 2, 1810 SAMUEL DAVIDSON.
Lewis Grant's daughter married Charles Dodge, they being one of the four couples who had the very early morning wedding at Francis Dodge's home on the corner of Stoddert (Q) Street and Congress (31st) Street. Apropos of this there is a prized letter of four closely written pages from Charles Dodge to his father, announcing that he had reached the age of twenty-one and asking the parental gift of what might be ”his due.” He ended by saying he ”hoped he approved of his engaging in the estate of Holy Matrimony, for without that blissful comsummation his life would be void of happiness forevermore.” His father's concise reply was in four lines: ”Attend carefully whatever business you engage in, put off your marriage as long as possible, and get religion!”
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dodge did not live always at Evermay. It was sold to Mr. John D. McPherson, and the Dodges went to live in the old frame house opposite the gate of Tudor Place.
For many years the McPhersons leased Evermay to Mr. William B. Orme and, certainly, during those years the spectre of the inhospitality of its first owner was laid, for the Ormes were noted for their delightful parties and there, too, were June weddings with charming brides.
One morning in 1905 a group of Georgetown ladies met at Evermay and formed a little literary club (which is still in existence) composed of thirty-five members. It still bears the name of The Evermay Club. It met there regularly once a month as long as it was the home of Mrs. Orme, but nowadays the club moves from house to house. One summer the Ormes rented Evermay to a Hawaiian princess, who enjoyed it with her family.
Just across the street from Evermay is what is known as Mackall Square.
The old mansion sits so far back in the middle of the square and is so embowered in trees that it is not easily seen from either Montgomery (28th) or Greene (29th) Street. It is a simple and lovely colonial brick with old wooden additions on the back, and has been there a long, long time. But it is not the first house that was on that spot, for the one that was there was the frame house which was moved over opposite the gate of Tudor Place.
Benjamin Mackall married a daughter of Brooke Beall, and with the money inherited from her father's estate they bought this property and built the house.
In 1821 a trust was placed on the property, and in the t.i.tle is recorded ”no enc.u.mbrance except a small wooden house in which Mrs. Margaret Beall now lives, in which she has her life interest.”
Benjamin Mackall was a brother of Leonard Mackall. Their father owned large estates in Calvert and Prince Georges Counties in Maryland, and his products were sent to the Georgetown market; so it happened that his sons met the daughters of Brooke Beall, one of the important merchants s.h.i.+pping grain and tobacco to England.
This land was part of the Rock of Dumbarton, and Benjamin's wife was named Christiana. I wonder if by any chance they could have given her that name in commemoration of another Christiana who is spoken of in an old, old surveyor's book thus:
Surveyed for George Beall 18 January, 1720. Beginning at the bounded Red Oak standing at the end of N. N. W. tract of land called Rock of Dunbarton on the south side of a hill near the place where Christiana Gun was killed by the Indians.
Louis Mackall, their son, was born in this house and inherited the place in 1839. He was a well-known physician, but a large part of his life was spent at the old country home of the Mackalls, Mattaponi, in Prince Georges County, and there his son, Louis, was born in 1831. His father brought him to Georgetown when he was under ten years of age, and entered him in Mr. Abbott's school, from whence he went to Georgetown College and Maryland Medical University. He established a large practice in Georgetown and married Margaret McVean. Their home was not here but on Dumbarton Avenue and Congress (31st) Street, and they had a son, again Louis, who also went into the medical profession.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD MACKALL HOUSE]
This house was vacant when I was a girl and I remember very distinctly going to a dance there one heavenly moonlight night in June when it was loaned to the O. T. That was a little club of boys about my own age--”Only Ten”--but the meaning of the name was a secret then. During the next two years they followed the example of the I. K. T. by giving dances in Linthic.u.m Hall during the Christmas holidays.
The I. K. T. was a group of boys two or three years older than the O. T.
My brother was one of them, and when I asked him a year or two ago what the letters meant he said he couldn't tell; it was still a secret, like a fraternity. They had a pin somewhat like a fraternity pin. I still have the engraved invitations that both clubs sent out for their dances, with the names of the members underneath.
After having been vacant for years this place was bought by Mr. Hermann Hollerith in the early 1900's. He did not make his home here but built a house farther down on Greene (29th) Street, where his family still live.
They continue to rent the old house. Hermann Hollerith was the inventor of the tabulating machine which is used by the International Business Machine Corporation, and his work was done in a little house down on Thomas Jefferson Street. His wife was Miss Lucia Talcott.
Immediately opposite the steps on Greene (29th) Street which lead up to this dear old place are other high steps which lead to a place called Terrace Top. Here it was that in the winter of 1920-'21 two very charming people came to rest in what they considered the most attractive of American cities. They were Julia Marlowe and E. H. Sothern.
While they were here Miss Marlowe was honored by George Was.h.i.+ngton University at its one hundredth anniversary, on February twenty-second, by receiving the degree of D. D. L., a most unusual honor for a woman.
This house is now the home of Mr. Herbert Elliston, editor of the _Was.h.i.+ngton Post_.
All of this land was still, of course, Beall property, and somehow it all seemed to pa.s.s down through the women, for the next place to the west originally belonged to Miss Eliza Beall, a daughter of Thomas Beall of George, who married George Corbin Was.h.i.+ngton, great-nephew of General Was.h.i.+ngton. He was a grandson of John Augustine Was.h.i.+ngton and Hannah Bushrod. He was president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Ca.n.a.l Company, member of Congress from Maryland, and a prominent candidate for the Vice-Presidency at the time Winfield Scott was nominated for President.
Their son was the Lewis Was.h.i.+ngton who was living near Harper's Ferry at the time of John Brown's raid, and was taken prisoner by him and held as a hostage until released by Colonel Robert E. Lee and his United States troops when they arrived on the scene.
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