Hotels of Washington DC Prior to 1814

By W. B. Bryan
Read before the Society March 9, 1903

The value of definite knowledge as to the location of the hotels of Washington in its early years is appreciated by all who have had occasion to consult the records of that period. At that time, and in fact pretty well along towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the taverns of Washington, like those in other towns in this country, were centers of much of the social and civic life of the place. It was in some tavern that the birthright balls in celebration of the anniversary of the birthday of General Washington were held. There, too, were the meeting places of the assemblies, as the dancing parties that met during the winter seasons, were termed. If a social semipublic attention was to be paid to a distinguished citizen, the tavern was the place selected as the scene of the festivities. Here came the travelling purveyors of amusement, whether it was the wonderful mathematical dog that was to be exhibited or a collection of the works of some distinguished artist. When the day rolled around for the holding of the town elections announcement was duly made that the polls of such a ward would be opened at a certain tavern. In the event the city fathers did not win public approval, a meeting of those who wished to protest was called to be held at some tavern. Here the nominating conventions, so to speak, were held, and the ticket for the municipal election agreed upon. It was at the tavern that groups collected to discuss political questions, and in fact there was hardly an interest claiming the attention of any considerable number of the people that did not find its advocates assembled at a public house.

It was not thought improper for justice to be dispensed within the precincts of a public house. The Orphans Court of the District was organized in the summer of 1801 in a hotel, and while the old Circuit Court of the District held its sessions in the Capitol, still at one period rooms in hotel buildings in the vicinity were occupied. Because the taverns were so well known, they were used as landmarks, so that the location of these places furnish the key to much of the geography of the city in the days when directories were not issued and before the numbering of houses came into vogue.

The practice so common in other cities of making use of pictorial signs and fanciful names to attract attention and custom does not seem to have been adopted here to any extent. So we find the Eastern Branch, Tunnicliffs, Stelles' and Rhode's Hotels, but very seldom names like "The Bull's Head," "The Black Bear," "Dragon and Horse," and other like appellations. However the Indian King at a very early date was represented on a sign that was swung out at the northeast comer of Fifteenth and F Streets, for that became the name of the hotel located there. Some years later, and in fact until quite modem times the old hostelry on a portion of the site of the present Metropolitan Hotel was known by the name of Indian Queen.

There were evidently three classes of liquor licenses in the District after the year 1791. At that time the Maryland legislature enacted a law which gave to the commissioners of the city authority to grant licenses for the sale of spirituous liquors, but in quantities not less than ten gallons. Such has been the change in the manner of life of the people, that today such a permit would be regarded as a wholesale, rather than a retail license, the latter being the term used in the law.

The two other classes of liquor licenses according to the Maryland law of 1780, were, one for the retailing of spirituous liquors in quantities under ten gallons, and not less than one pint, but not to be drunk on the premises ; while the other was issued to ordinary or tavern keepers. Until the close of the period of the legislative jurisdiction of the State of Maryland in the District which was February 27, 1801, the State of Maryland, through the judges of the county courts of Prince George and Montgomery counties, continued to license this traffic and collect the revenue into the State treasury. A slight change was made in the year 1799, when the corporation of Georgetown was given the right to collect the liquor tax, but to retain for the municipal treasury only what could be secured over and above the sum required by the State license, which latter was to be paid to the State officers by the town authorities.

A century ago in the District of Columbia the buildings occupied as hostelries were not large. Unlike the mammoth caravansaries of today they were not intended to accommodate a great number of people at one time. The stables were apt to be larger than the taverns, for many of the guests came on horseback, or perhaps in their own carriages. The size of the buildings is further indicated by some of the provisions of the law governing the issuance of licenses. In the event the tavern was at the county seat, then the tavern keeper must provide in his house "six good featherbeds, with sufficient covering for the same, and stabling for ten horses." In any place except the county seat licenses could be issued to inn keepers who provided for the public use three featherbeds and stabling for six horses. The rates and prices for all liquors and other accommodations must be approved by the judge and a copy displayed in each tavern as a protection to travelers against overcharging.

The buildings were in keeping with the simple conditions of the business. Generally they were merely the ordinary dwelling house of the time, two, and sometimes, three stories in height. According to the announcement of John Wise, who kept the City Tavern at the Sign of the Bunch of Grapes, Alexandria, he had just opened on February 20, 1793, his "new and elegant three story brick house fronting the west end of the Market House, which was built for a tavern and has twenty commodious, well-furnished rooms." In the annals of the hotels of Alexandria at this period appears the name of John Gadsby, subsequently prominent in this city in the same line of business. In 1796 an extensive structure, as it was then regarded, was built by subscription at the northeast corner of Twenty-ninth and Bridge or M Street, Georgetown, and was known as the Union Tavern. It was sixty feet front, three stories in height, but it contained only thirteen bedrooms. Daniel Carroll's extensive hotel on Capitol Hill, as it was termed, which was projected in 1799, but not actually built until 1805, was described as having dimensions of fifty-four by sixty feet and was three stories in height. It was said to contain fifty rooms.

No doubt the inn keepers of the time realized as early as any of the residents in the locality selected as the seat of government, the general interest which was felt in the new city. The tide of travel set in almost as soon as active preparations for erecting the public buildings were started. In the fall of 1793 the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid, and work had already begun on the President's house. In the same year Mr. Samuel Blodgett of eager, ardent mind, who had become much interested in the new city, laid the cornerstone of a large building which came to be known as the Great Hotel. Standing on the crest of what was spoken of in those days as the F Street ridge, its front adorned with classic pediment, it presented an imposing mass in the fields and woods which then constituted the site of the infant capital.

The view from the hotel was a commanding one, and the placing of a structure of that size in such primitive surroundings then, and for many years later, made it one of the most conspicuous objects in the new city. It was located at the northeast corner of Eighth and E Streets, had a frontage of 120 feet, and was two stories in height, with a basement and an attic story. This building was offered as the first prize in a lottery known as Federal Lottery, No. 1, but it was not finished by Mr. Blodgett, who, as the manager, devised this scheme for the improvement of the city. In fact it was never completed for hotel purposes as originally planned. Some parts were used for public meetings, and in the year 1800 the first theatrical representation in the new city was given there. Religious services were also held in the building, but there seemed to be no use for the unfinished structure, and as it fell more and more into decay, it furnished a refuge for those who were unable to find any other shelter. It stood in this condition until the year 1810, when it was purchased by the government, and after extensive improvements, it was occupied by the General Post Office, the Patent Office, and the City Post Office.

Although the cornerstone of the Great Hotel was laid in the fall of 1793, yet nearly two years later, namely in the spring of 1795, there is a reference to it in one of the local newspapers which would indicate that only the foundations had been built. Some notion of the feeling that prevailed at that time in regard to Mr. Blodgett and his lottery enterprise, may no doubt be gathered from a communication signed "A Stage Passenger,'' which appeared in the Washington Gazette of September 28, 1796. The writer states that in his opinion the architect intended "The word hotel inscribed in red letters upon the front of a magnificent building, half-finished *** to denote the character of the founder. *** With this view he selected the initials of the following Latin words, 'Hic omnes turpitudine excedit longe.' ''

The first hotel within the limits of the City of Washington, of which there is any record, is one that was kept by John Travers on the Eastern Branch. Mr. Travers announced in the Georgetown Weekly Ledger of August 24, 1793, that he had opened a tavern on the Eastern Branch. There is some significance in the location of what was undoubtedly the first tavern in the new city, as it may fairly be concluded that much of the early activity centered about that section. As the population of the city four years later was estimated to be about 2,000,¹ it is evident at that time there were comparatively few people living in the stretch of four miles between the Eastern Branch and Georgetown.

One of the first roads opened up in the new city was one to afford communication between the Eastern Branch and the central and the eastern sections of the city. Independent of the importance of that water way as a harbor for vessels, the ferries established there at an early date supplied a direct route between southern Maryland, Virginia and the new city. As early as the year 1791 notice was given of an intention to establish a ferry from a point half a mile north of Alexandria to the Maryland shore, while in the spring of 1795 a ferry had been started in the Eastern Branch at the foot of South Capitol Street, known as the lower ferry. By that time bridges had been built by the commissioners of the city over the Tiber and James Creeks, the former at Seventh Street and the latter at N Street. A company had also been chartered in 1795 by the Maryland legislature, but several years elapsed before a bridge was built over the Eastern Branch at the foot of Kentucky Avenue, near the present Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge. Two years later the same authority gave the Anacostia Bridge Company the right to erect a bridge over the Eastern Branch and one was built at a later period where the Bennings Bridge now stands. These were known respectively as the Lower and the Upper Bridges. Another method of communication was provided in the spring of 1795, as then a line of packet boats was daily plying between Georgetown and Alexandria, stopping at the wharf of Morris and Nicholson's, foot of Sixth Street, southwest, Greenleaf Point. The public was notified that passage on these boats could be engaged at Mr. Mark Ward's tavern on Greenleaf's Point, which was no doubt in the vicinity of the wharf.

In the same year the mail coaches from the north passed through the city instead of following the old road from Bladensburg, which wound along to the north of the urban bounds. According to the topographic map of the District prepared by Andrew Ellicott, it is supposed, in the year 1793 a road designated as the road to Baldensburg is shown as entering the city via Maryland Avenue. From the Capitol the route to Georgetown was apparently at first in a northwest direction to the F Street ridge.

With these lines of communication in and about the city established and a bridge over Rock Creek also erected by the city commissioners, the close of the year 1795 saw the new town fairly started on its career. The three principal sections of the city, namely, the vicinity of the President's House, the Capitol and the Eastern Branch seem to have had a pretty even start. As affording much information as to the progress of the growth of the city, the history of the early hotels will be found to be not without interest.

In the year 1792 James Hoban and Peirce Purcell purchased from the commissioners Lot 5, Square 224, fronting on the north side of F Street seventy-five feet east of Fifteenth Street. This was only one of a number of lots bought by Mr. Hoban, either individually or in connection with Mr. Purcell.

At that time Mr. Hoban, as the architect of the President's House, was superintending the erection of that structure. He was also selected by Mr. Blodgett to design the Great Hotel² It may be conjectured that in order to enhance the value of his property in the vicinity of the President's Square, Mr. Hoban decided to erect a building on Lot 5 for hotel purposes. At any rate a building was put up and was in use as early as June, 1795, and was known as the Little Hotel. The first record of a tavern in the vicinity of the Capitol is not until the following year. On the 10th of September, 1796, Elizabeth Leslie announced through the columns of the Washington Gazette that the public can be accommodated at the Capitol Hill Tavern, but gives no information of its whereabouts. This may be the tavern referred to by Mr. Twining, an Englishman who visited the city in that year.³

Tunnicliff Hotel
Pennsylvania Avenue and Ninth Street S.E

Mr. Joseph Wheat is more explicit, for in the Washington Gazette of October 17, 1796, under the heading of ''New Tavern,'' he invites the patronage of the public to his house just opened at the head of Mr. Barry's wharf at the Eastern Branch, the landing of the lower ferry. A few months later Mr. William Tunnicliff informed the public that he had opened the Eastern Branch Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, Square 925, fronting on that thoroughfare between Eighth and Ninth Streets, southeast. The old building still standing on that site is probably the one referred to by Mr. Tunnicliff. Prior to 1800 there is, therefore, a record of five hotels in the eastern part of the city, and one in the western.

In giving the building on F Street the title of Little Hotel, the owner, Mr. Hoban, if he was the responsible author, was perhaps influenced by the popular designation of the larger structure to the east. The first reference to the Little Hotel is in June 19, 1795. On that date appears in the columns of the Impartial Observer, the first newspaper published in the City of Washington, a notice of a celebration by the Masons ''of the festival of St. John the Baptist.'' ''The brethren," the notice states, ''will walk in procession from the lodge to the Capitol, where divine service will be performed." At the close of the service, it is stated, the brethren will return in procession to the Little Hotel ''for refreshments.''

This hotel is spoken of three years later as the lodge room of Federal Lodge, No. 15, and it may have been thus used at the earlier date. It is also probable that the allusions in the local newspapers, during 1796 and a portion of 1797, to Scott's Hotel and Scott's Little Hotel have reference to this building, although in the same period mention is also made of a hotel designated merely as the Little Hotel. While it cannot be positively asserted that all such references apply to one place, yet the probabilities lead one strongly in that direction.

In the fall of 1797 the Little Hotel was without a tenant, and Messrs. Hoban and Purcell offered it for rent. Prior to that, in August, 1797, Bennet Fenwick purchased from David Bums Lot No. 6 at the northeast corner of Fifteenth and F Streets, adjoining on the west Lot 5, where the Little Hotel stood. Fenwick erected a building on his newly acquired property, but there is no evidence that he used it at that time for hotel purposes.

The history of the Little Hotel is very meager. The first entry that occurs, after a lapse of more than a year, is on January 4, 1799, when William Rhodes announced through the columns of the Centinel of Liberty and Georgetown Advertiser, that he had taken the Little Hotel in the City of Washington. This is the first mention of a man who was, for a number of years, one of the best known Boniface's of the city.

As nearly as can now be ascertained, Mr. Rhodes continued to be the proprietor of the Little Hotel until sometime in the year 1801, when he took possession of the property at the northeast comer of Fifteenth and F Streets, which became known as Rhodes' Hotel. In a deed dated September 10, 1801, the comer property is referred to as ''the house built by the aforesaid Bennet Fenwick and now in the occupancy of William Rhodes." There is reason to believe that the change was made by Mr. Rhodes in the spring of 1801, and if that is correct, then it was in the building on the comer where was held the first session of the newly created Orphans' Court of the District.⁴

There also was located in the following year the polls for the second ward in the first election of the new corporation of Washington. In many other ways Rhodes ' Hotel was identified with the civic life of the place.

Mr. Rhodes left the building in the summer of 1804, and in the fall of the following year it was leased by Joseph M. Semmes, who called it the Indian King Tavern. Mr. Semmes' tenancy lasted two years, and in the fall of 1807 his furniture was offered for sale, which experience closed the career of a good many of the inn keepers of that day.

It then became a boarding house run by Mrs. Barbara Suter of Georgetown, but a portion of the structure fronting on F Street was used by Mr. Edgar Patterson as a store. The boarding house seemed to have been a success, for it continued under Mrs. Suter's management for seven years, and then in the year 1814 the property was purchased by the Bank of the Metropolis, an institution still in existence under the name of the National Metropolitan Bank. It is highly probable that the old structure still standing on that comer is the one that was erected by Bennet Fenwick sometime after the year 1797.

An idea of the building as it then appeared may be obtained from the description given by Mary Ann Fenwick, the widow of Bennet Fenwick. In the summer of 1804 as Mr. Rhodes had left her property and taken the Lovell Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, she naturally wanted to find another tenant. In offering the house she spoke of it as ''that large and convenient three story brick house near the Treasury, and formerly occupied by Mr. William Rhodes as a tavern.''⁵ A sale advertisement in 1813 gave the dimensions of the building as 76 x 40 feet.

The glory of Rhodes' Tavern, or City Tavern as it was called, seems to have departed with Mr. Rhodes and its prominence as a hostelry ceased. The polling places for municipal elections in that ward were held thereafter at Rhodes' Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, and so were the dancing assemblies and other events of the day. No trace has been left of the building, which is identified with the earliest records of the city as the Little Hotel. There is no evidence that it was used as a hotel after the spring of 1801, when a reference is made to it as the house lately occupied as the Little Hotel,'' although a few days later, namely April 3, 1801, a notice appears of a meeting of the carpenters of the city to be held at the Little Hotel. May 11, 1801, an advertisement appeared in the Georgetown Centinel, offering for sale Lot 5, Square 224, ''where the Little Hotel stands," which is described as a two story brick building. It was not sold until 1804, when it was purchased by Francis Clarke, a merchant who made his home there.⁶

Soon after the removal of the government to the new city, additional accommodations for the public in the section near the Treasury was apparently in demand. To meet this William Lovell built a tavern. On the 21st of May, 1801, Mr. Lovell bought from James Hoban a lot on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets. The exact site is now occupied by the buildings, Nos. 1417 to 1421, which were erected in the spring of 1902 on the ground from which a portion of the old tavern building had just been removed, after standing for about one hundred years. The following year this hostelry is spoken of as the Union Tavern and Washington Hotel, and it is described as located ''on Pennsylvania Avenue, just east of the President's and one mile from the Capitol.'' It was known popularly as Lovell's Hotel up to 1804, but in that year the place passed into the hands of William Rhodes, who continued there for eight years. It was known as Rhodes' Hotel. Then in May, 1812, came what seems to have been inevitable, at least in the experience of Washington hotel men of that period, namely the advertisement of the furniture for sale. In the following summer James McLeod became the proprietor and gave it the name of the Washington Hotel.

Fifteenth Street between F and G Streets
February 10, 1903

The locality of the President's Square seemed to have attractions for hotel men, for in addition to Rhodes' Hotel, and that of Mr. Lovell's, to say nothing of the Little Hotel, which, however, was probably a deserted building after the close of the year 1801, thus keeping the more pretentious Great Hotel in countenance, there is a record that in December, 1801,⁷ Charles Rogers came over from Georgetown and opened the Fountain Tavern on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the President's Square, probably just west of Seventeenth Street.

The following year, however, Mr. Rogers retired from the management of the Fountain Tavern and George Pitt announced that he had taken the place and called it Anchor Tavern and Oyster House. It is evident that it became more of an eating house than a hotel. The name Fountain Inn was revived many years later and was an early designation of the Kirkwood House, now the Raleigh, northeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Twelfth Street. George Pitt did not come to this hotel unknown to the Washington public, for in January 21, 1800, he assumed charge of the upper ferry on the Eastern Branch near the present site of the Penna. Ave. Bridge, and also of the hotel which was apparently in that locality.

Another hostelry that played no small part in the lives of the citizens at this early period was what was known as Morin's Tavern. This place was established by Mr. Lewis Morin, of Baltimore, who, in May, 1800, bought from the city commissioners Lot 1, Square 292, at the southwest comer of Pennsylvania Avenue and Twelfth Street, paying for this deep triangular piece of ground the sum of $549.77. Here he erected a two story frame dwelling house, fronting 30 feet on Pennsylvania Avenue and extended back to D Street, ''and used by him as a tavern,'' as the deed of that date, November 16, 1801, recites. This inn was selected as the polling place for the ward in which it was located in the first city election and for a number of years subsequently. By the year 1811 Mr. Morin opened a grocery store in the same locality. There is but little further mention of the hotel. Mr. Morin died in the fall of 1811. As late as the year 1813, a Mr. Espey is spoken of as his successor.

To return again to the vicinity of the Capitol, where in the interim William Tunnicliff had made a change of evident importance in his establishment. For May 21, 1799, he informed the public that his large and commodious new house known as the Washington City Hotel, near the Capitol, was ready for the reception of guests. This building was located on A Street, just east of the southeast comer of First and A Streets, northeast, the comer being noted in after years as a part of the site of the old Capitol Prison. It is easy to understand why Mr. William Tunnicliff left his Eastern Branch Hotel for the new location, or at least to conjecture the probable reasons. For in the first place Congress was coming the following year to hold its sessions in the stone building across the stretch of commons, which was called the Capitol Square. Then, again, the immediate vicinity was the scene of perhaps larger expenditure of money in buildings than any other in the city. The new post road through the city was via Maryland Avenue past the Capitol and thence by the F Street ridge west towards Georgetown. It was probably these conditions that led Mr. Tunnicliff, in connection with Mr. George Walker, to go into the new hotel enterprise.

1417 to 1427 Pennsylvania Avenue

Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, was spending a good deal of money in erecting substantial residences on the squares immediately to the west. Thomas Law was also investing some of the rupees gathered in India in improvements on the east side of Delaware Avenue between B and C Streets, northeast, while farther to the west, facing North Capitol Street, Gen. Washington had built two houses. Four large houses had been built by Mr. Law on New Jersey Avenue, which are still standing, three at the northwest comer of New Jersey Avenue and C Street, southeast, and one on the opposite side. By the fall of 1801 a range of buildings extended on the east side of New Jersey Avenue, north to B Street, and also along the latter street.⁸

There seemed to have been no buildings on the west side of New Jersey Avenue near B Street, and one explanation might be found in the fact that a large frame structure for the use of the workmen on the Capitol had been built along B Street, covering the street and extending over New Jersey Avenue. This may have had the effect of checking improvements on the west side of the block. It is probable that the Intelligencer, for the first year in this city, was published in a building on the east side of that thoroughfare. The editor announced rather vaguely that it was printed on New Jersey Avenue.

If the statement of Mathew Brown is correct in an advertisement which appeared in the Intelligencer, April 6, 1801, describing a house he had for sale or lease on the west side of New Jersey Avenue, just north of C Street, "as the nearest dwelling on the south of it (the Capitol) on Capitol Hill," it is evident that the buildings on the east side of the street must have been used for other purposes than for dwellings.

In the vicinity of the Capitol, in addition to Tunnicliff's Hotel, was the hostelry of Pontius D. Stelle. The latter name is, perhaps, more prominently identified with the early hotels of the city than that of any other man. His place is mentioned by many visitors, and much of the life of the infant city centered there. He evidently believed in printers ink, and at one time kept an advertisement running in the columns of the Intelligencer continuously for over a year. Some of the descendants of Mr. Stelle still live in this city, and as stated by his great granddaughter in a paper read before the society in February last, Mr. Stelle came here from Trenton, New Jersey, in the year 1799. He must have begun the hotel business soon after, for there is a record of a bill, presumably for lodging, paid by the Government to Mr. Stelle as part of the expenses of the removal of one of the clerks to this city from Philadelphia. So that it is evident Mr. Stelle was in business as early as June, 1800.

There is no definite information available by which the location of his hotel at that time can be determined with any precision. The first statement, and that is rather vague, is found in a notice of January 8, 1802, in the Intelligencer, for a meeting of citizens to be held at Mr. Stelle's tavern, which is described as being on New Jersey Avenue. Some eight years later, when his career as a hotel man was drawing to a close, he states that he had removed to the house formerly occupied by himself, fronting the south wing of the Capitol. It is a reasonable conjecture that he may have begun business in the year 1800, in a house on the south side of Capitol Square, presumably on New Jersey Avenue, but it is also quite certain that for some time prior to 1802 he occupied one of the buildings erected by Daniel Carroll on Square 687, now a part of the Capitol grounds, but then bounded by A, B, First Streets and Delaware Avenue, northeast.

Carroll Row
Removed for the New Library, winter of 1886-1887

It was at Stelle's Hotel on New Jersey Avenue that the polling place for the third ward in the first city election in June, 1802, was held. There is reason to believe that sometime between this date and December 3, 1804, Stelle shifted his abode across Capitol Square and was again in Square 687. For on March 22, 1805, Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, offers for sale "the tavern on Capitol Hill occupied for some years previous by Pontius D. Stelle," and that gentleman on March 25, 1805, in announcing to the public that he had bought Tunnicliff's Hotel, First and A Streets, northeast, expresses his thanks "for their favors whilst on the Capitol Square." The latter term as thus used is probably technical, not general, for in the latter sense his recently acquired place could be described as on or overlooking Capitol Square.

The true meaning of Capitol Square in those days is perhaps indicated by the plats of original surveys of the city squares. In this particular instance the continuation of A Street, on the south side of Square 687, is termed Capitol Square, as is also the case with the continuation of Delaware Avenue on the west side. A similar designation of the spaces on the north and west sides of Square 688, occupying the corresponding position on the south side of the Capitol grounds, and also now included within these grounds, points undoubtedly to the real meaning of the designation as employed by Mr. Stelle. Mr. Carroll was the owner of Square 687, but owned no part of Square 688.

While to the modem mind this shifting about on the part of a hotel keeper, from one building to another, in the same locality may appear to be a curious procedure, still it was then by no means uncommon. The case of the Suters, hotel tavern keepers of Georgetown, is one in point. As early as November 25, 1789, the name of John Suter appears as a tavern keeper in Georgetown. It was probably his widow who is spoken of as keeping a tavern on the east side of High, then Water Street, now Thirty-second Street, just south of Bridge or M Street. In the spring of 1795 this place was known as Mrs. Suter's Fountain Inn. On the opposite side of the street, and occupying the site of the present fire engine house, was located in the year 1797 a Fountain Inn, then under the management of Clement Sewall, the latter subsequently going to the City Tavern adjoining the Bank of Columbia on Bridge Street. The name of Mrs. Suter is also connected with a tavern on Bridge Street, and subsequently with the Union Tavern, and during her management of the latter place the large room in the hotel, known as the assembly room, was opened as The Theatre.

Unless Mrs. Elizabeth Leslie was still running the Capitol Hill Tavern, and there is no mention of it in the Intelligencer and on this ground it is highly probable that she had gone out of business, there is no record of other houses of public entertainment in the vicinity of the Capitol during the first five years after the removal of the government, than Tunnicliff's and Stelle's. There was, however, the boarding house of Conrad and McMunn, who had leased from Thomas Law the large buildings erected by him at the northwest corner of New Jersey Avenue and C Street, northeast. Across the street, in a house, also the property of Thomas Law, Robert W. Peacock kept a boarding house. In both instances the enterprises were not successful, in spite of the fact that Conrad and McMunn gave shelter to Mr. Jefferson at the time he was inaugurated President and for some weeks after and until the President's House could be prepared for his reception. The marshal of the District, however, seized their furniture and offered it for public sale early in the fall of 1801. At a still earlier date, namely, March 4, 1801, Mr. Peacock apparently gave up the boarding house business or supplemented it, for he notified the public that he had begun the practice of law and had opened an office on New Jersey Avenue.

It is not clearly known what use was made of the Eastern Branch Hotel building after Mr. Tunnicliff deserted it for a nearer location to the Capitol building. It is probable he was succeeded by William R. King, whose place is spoken of as King's Tavern, near the Navy Yard, although there were other taverns mentioned during this period, and vaguely described as near the Navy Yard. One was Dobbins' Tavern⁹ and the other Qatton's.¹⁰ The former cannot be identified with the Eastern Branch Tavern, for a little later Hugh Drummond became the proprietor and it is described as being on Seventh Street, in Square 881.¹¹ David Dobbin was in business as late as the year 1815, when he had a tavern at Twelfth and F Streets, northwest.

Mr. William Tunnicliff was in the management of his hotel at First and A Streets, northeast, in August, 1804, when he lost his wife. A notice of her death appeared in the Intelligencer, with the following quaint couplet attached.

"An ancient poet hath said Death takes the good too - good on earth to stay
And leaves the bad - too bad to take away."

A few days later a deed was placed on record by which George Walker and Wm. Tunnicliff transferred Lots 16 and 17, Square 728, to Pontius D. Stelle. It is stated that Mr. Walker had mortgaged Lot 17 to George Washington and Thomas Law, but that the debt had been paid. In this way the name of Washington is connected with a piece of property that is noted in the history of the city.

With the giving up of this property Mr. Tunnicliff drops out of the hotel history of the city, having been identified with it since December 14, 1796, when he announced the opening of the Eastern Branch Hotel, a period of nearly eight years, a long time for one man to survive the vicissitudes of hotel keeping in the nation's capital during the early years of the nineteenth century. In his house near the Capitol, President Adams stayed while on a brief visit to this city in June, 1800.

Mr. Stelle was no sooner settled in the hotel, which he had purchased but only paid for in part, when his ambition was probably aroused by the spectacle of the splendid hotel building which Mr. Daniel Carroll was erecting on the adjoining square to the south. This structure was the largest building of the kind in the city, as well as the most extensive reared by private enterprise. It was part of the scheme of improvements which had been begun by Mr. Carroll about the year 1800 with the view, no doubt, of enhancing the value of his realty holdings, which were extensive in that section.

He had announced his purpose in the spring of 1799 to erect a large hotel building, but did not carry it out at that time. Then in the spring of 1804, in connection with Thomas Law, he offered to present a comer lot in Square 687 as the site of a hotel building, and invited subscriptions from the public towards the erection of the structure. Nothing came from this attempt to interest the public. In the following year he erected the large hotel on First Street, between East Capitol and A Streets, southeast, just referred to.

As a part of Carroll Row, this building is within the recollection of the present generation, as it was only removed to make room for the erection of the building for the Library of Congress. This was the place which Mr. Stelle leased in the latter part of 1805. He advertised persistently for over a year for a tenant for his former place in the square to the north, but without result.

As described by Mr. Stelle in an advertisement in April, 1810, offering for sale the Tunnicliff Hotel, ''the house is of brick, three stories high, well built, with a large brick stable, a house for the family and other outhouses. The house fronts on A Street and Maryland Avenue, being the avenue which leads from the Baltimore road and by the Capitol to the Washington Bridge. It has long been occupied as a tavern. The lots are 16, 17, and 18 in Square 728, with the presumptive right to Lot 19."

The lot on the corner of First and A Streets was number 16, and as stated by Mr. Stelle, the hotel building was erected on the adjoining lot or lots to the east, so that the comer lot was left vacant, which enabled the Intelligencer on the 12th of December, 1815, proudly to record the fact as indicative of public enterprise that the building erected by the citizens during the past summer for the accommodation of Congress, referring of course to the structure on the First Street front of the square which is still standing, occupied ground where five months before a flower garden bloomed.¹²

In addition to the misfortune of not finding a tenant, Mr. Stelle experienced complications over the balance of the purchase money secured by deed of trust, which finally resulted in a law suit. It was not until the fall of 1810 that a tenant was secured in the person of Samuel J. Coolidge, who continued there until the spring of 1812. Then there ensued another long tenantless period. When in August, 1814, the British invaded the city, the old Tunnicliff Hotel was occupied by Robert Long. He soon gave it up and John McLeod succeeded to the business, coming there from the Washington Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, of which he had been proprietor for several years. Mr. McLeod remained there but a short time and his occupancy seems to have ended the history of this building as a hotel. In December, 1815, or soon after the completion of the new meeting place for Congress to the west of his hotel and on the same square, he announced that he had opened a house near the ruins of Tomlinson's Hotel.

Daniel Carroll was more fortunate than Mr. Stelle, for he at once leased to Wm. R. King the house northeast of the Capitol formerly occupied by Mr. Stelle. He had just completed the building on First Street when Mr. Stelle took possession of it. It had made a narrow escape from destruction by fire a few weeks before. The Intelligencer of September 6, 1805, records that ''fire broke out in the spacious hotel building owned by Mr. Carroll, but was extinguished without material damage." On the 13th of November, 1805, came the announcement from Mr. Stelle under the heading ''Stelle's Hotel and City Tavern,'' that he ''has taken the spacious hotel lately erected by Mr. Carroll near the Capitol." He adds that the building ''is about 100 feet front and contains fifty rooms."

If Mr. Stelle added a few feet to the frontage of the building it could be attributed to the enthusiasm which a structure of such proportions would naturally arouse in a less interested mind. There is no doubt that it was a large building for those days. Its size as contemplated by Mr. Carroll in his advertisement for estimates for the work, was 54 feet front by 40 deep, and three stories in height. In a deed of transfer of the property, made in the year 1842, the hotel building, as it then existed, is described as being 64 feet front, with a house adjoining on the south of 25 feet front, making a total of 84 feet, which comes within reasonable distance of bearing out Mr. Stelle's assertion of a frontage of ''about 100 feet." Furthermore, the Intelligencer of December 2, 1805, in an article giving an account of a public dinner in honor of Gen. Wm. Eaton at Stelle's soon after it was opened, says, ''the room is very spacious and much superior to any one heretofore used on public occasions."

Before tracing further the development of the hotel business in the infant city, illustrating as it does, in part, a shifting of the centers of importance, it might be well to cite other circumstances which indicate that the hotel men were only going with the stream. Perhaps as good an illustration as any of the growing consequence of the section of the city, which may be described in general as north of Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the President's Square, may be found in an advertisement in the year 1801 of Thos. Herty, a conveyancer. He informed the public that he has an office on New Jersey Avenue, where he spends the mornings of each day during the sessions of Congress, and the balance of the day at his office, fronting the President's Square.

Further light in the same direction is supplied by an examination of the few pages constituting the Congressional Directory of 1809, the first list printed of members of Congress giving their places of abode in the nation's capital. Twenty-seven places are mentioned, and it is a curious fact as showing the preference of the national legislators of that day to boarding houses rather than hotels, only two out of the entire list are hotels, one is Mr. Stelle's, and the other Mr. Long's. But the important contribution made by this list in the present connection is that more than half of the lodging places mentioned are located on Capitol Hill. The exact number is fourteen of the total of twenty-seven.

The inference is that the permanent interests of the city were beginning, even at that early day, to group themselves away from the locality of the Capitol. The rise of what is undoubtedly today the principal section of the city had evidently begun as early as the fall of 1801. At that time, after a year on New Jersey Avenue, Samuel Harrison Smith, the editor of the Intelligencer, concluded to remove his printing establishment to what he termed in the announcement to his readers, ''a more central location." This was on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue, about midway between Sixth and Seventh Streets, northwest.

A row of three houses had recently been put up there, and one of them was leased by Mr. Smith. There he had his printing office and presumably his residence. The first market house in the city was opened in December, 1801, in a building erected by public subscription and located on a portion of the site of the present Center Market, at Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventh Street.

Rapine, Conrad & Co., printers and booksellers, came over from Philadelphia, as Mr. Smith had done, in November, 1800. They opened the Washington Book Store at the comer of South B Street and New Jersey Avenue. William Duane, however, the editor of the Aurora, a Jeffersonian newspaper published in Philadelphia, came to the new city a year later, and immediately purchased the property at the northwest comer of Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, northwest, and, erecting a two story frame building there, opened the Aurora Book Store. After carrying on the business for six years, Mr. Duane sold out to R. C. Weightman and returned to his newspaper and book store in Philadelphia, With the exception of some two years, when Lund Washington was city postmaster, and the office was kept in his house on Capitol Hill, its location was in the central portion of the city.

To the west of Mr. Duane, William Woodward, who is described as a builder,¹³ bought a site on the 28th of April, 1802, from Wm. H. Dorsey on a perpetual ground rent. This site is now covered by the eastern end of the Metropolitan Hotel. It is apparent that Mr. Woodward put up a building on this property, which he opened as a hotel, for on December 28, 1804, appears the first record of a building used for such a purpose in that locality, when in the columns of the Intelligencer is a notice of a meeting of residents and proprietors to form a citizens' association, which, by the way, is the first announcement of the sort there is any knowledge of, and that an adjournment had been decided upon to the hotel of Wm. Woodward. Later this house is spoken of as Woodward's Centre Tavern. In order to secure a supply of water for his tavern Mr. Woodward, on September 14, 1803, bought from Thos. Tingey a lot on the north side of C Street, just west of Four-and-a-half Street, where there was a fine spring. The water was conveyed by pipes to the hotel, and when Mr. Woodward parted with the property in January, 1806, to Robert Underwood, the right to the use of the water for the hotel was reserved.

This is the first hotel in that section of the city there is any record of, with the exception of a notice in the Intelligencer of January 14, 1801, that board and lodging for six or eight gentlemen can be had at the White House, between the city post can be had at the White House, between the city post office and Pennsylvania Avenue. As the former was located in a house owned by Dr. John Crocker, at the northwest corner of Ninth and E Streets, northwest, the general location of the place is determined.

In point of time the establishment of Mr. Woodward's place follows, and the next house of public entertainment, is the Centre House Inn, which Mr. Solomon Meyers announced, October 24, 1804, he had opened on Ninth Street, "about 30 yards north of Pennsylvania Avenue and opposite Messrs. Her ford's distillery," the latter being at the southwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Ninth Street. The exact location was the southwest corner of Ninth and D Streets. Unlike the great majority of men engaged in the hotel business at that time in this city, Mr. Meyers purchased this property, but, then, a few months later he made an arrangement with Mr. Woodward, by which he leased not only the building used as a tavern by Mr. Woodward, but the adjoining house, also erected and owned by Mr. Woodward. He made formal announcement of the change in the Intelligencer, July 29, 1805, wherein he christens his new place the Pennsylvania House and Meyers City Tavern. The tavern, which was a two story brick structure, adjoined on the west Duane's book store at the corner, and then, on the other side, was the house "lately occupied by Mrs. Wilson as a boarding house." His lease from Mr. Woodward was for three years at $250 per year.

It is evident that the Centre House of Mr. Meyers ceased to be used for hotel purposes and in 1806 it was occupied by the Messrs. Way, with their printing office. Their imprint is found on a large number of the documents issued by the Government in early years. It is an interesting fact that this comer is still occupied by a building which is used in part as a printing office. Here also was located for many years the well-known printing establishment of the Gideons, famous printers in their day.

There were others beside Mr. Woodward and Mr. Meyers, who thought the locality was a good business place, for, on the 25th of November, 1805, John Doyne states in the Intelligencer that he has fitted up two houses opposite Mr. Duane's store, containing thirteen rooms, which he describes as a genteel private boarding house. Then in the fall of 1806 Miss Finagin gives public notice that she will take boarders in the house next door to Mr. Samuel Harrison Smith's printing office, and three years later the same authority indicates that Miss Finagin has survived the uncertainties of the business and is still at the old stand. However when the lease of Mr. Meyers expired on the 20th of June, 1808, the property was offered for rent by Mr. Robert Underwood, who had purchased it from Mr. Woodward, and at the same time Mr. Meyers advertised his furniture for sale. As far as the records show, Mr. Meyers no longer figured in the early history of Washington hotels. About a year and a half later, namely on February 10, 1810, he announced his purpose of beginning the publication in the following March of a political magazine, but there is no evidence that this project was carried out.

At this house soon after he became the proprietor, the stage coaches plying between Washington and Baltimore stopped regularly, showing that as early as 1806 at any rate the post road through the city via Pennsylvania Avenue was in use. A similar notice appears in regard to Stelle's Hotel, and also Rhode's.

When Meyers gave up the Pennsylvania House, as he named it, his successor was Geo. W. Lindsay.¹⁴ The first record of this inn keeper is his own announcement made in the Intelligencer of October 19, 1807, that he had taken "the house on Capitol Hill lately occupied by Mr. Frost, and formerly by Mr. Stelle." He called it the Lindsay House. It is unfortunate that the location of this place cannot be more definitely fixed, but, as stated, it is believed to have been the property owned by Mr. Carroll, and occupied for several years by Mr. Stelle, on Square 687, north side of the Capitol grounds.

The history of the house after Mr. Stelle left it to occupy the hotel building on the square to the east, which he had bought from Mr. Tunnicliff, is, in brief, as follows: Stelle gave up the house in the spring of 1805 and during that summer Mr. William R. King, a Navy Yard hotel keeper, leased the building. Mr. King retired after an experience of about a year, and on the 14th of November, 1806, Frost and Quinn informed the public that they have opened the place under the name of the American House. In less than seven months failure was their fate, and they offered their furniture for sale, and on the 19th of October 1807, Geo. W. Lindsay notified the public that Lindsay's Hotel is ready for business. In less than two years, however, he sought the field made available by the retirement of Mr. Meyers from the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. During Mr. Lindsay's stay on Capitol Hill the Circuit Court of the District held its regular sessions in his hotel, having occupied a room in the Capitol from the organization of the court in the spring of 1801 down to 1808. Then the sittings were held in Lindsay's Hotel and in the following year, the meeting place of the chief judicial authority of the District was fixed at the hotel of Mr. Long, who in the fall of 1809 followed Stelle in the occupancy of the large hotel built by Daniel Carroll on First Street between East Capitol and A Streets. However in the winter of 1809 the court was back again in the Capitol, the change having been made because of the repairs in progress in the Capitol building.

In the spring of 1810 Mr. Lindsay's furniture was advertised for sale and a few months later appeared an advertisement of a dry goods store conducted by Mr. Lindsay on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue, about opposite his old hotel. The latter came under the management of Mr. John Davis, who evidently took charge in the summer of 1810 and enlarged the assembly room and made other improvements. He gave the place the name of the Indian Queen Hotel and under his management it soon became the leading hostelry of the city. Later it was known as McEwen's Hotel.

A pathetic interest attaches to the close of the career of Mr. Lindsay, who was at one time the proprietor of the principal hotel in the city. For it was in all probability Geo. W. Lindsay, the hotel man, concerning whom the following obituary notice appeared in the Intelligencer, April 18, 1814.

Died

Hardly a year had elapsed after Robert Long, who had, in the fall of 1809, taken Stelle's place as proprietor of Carroll's big hotel, when the owner offered the place for sale, adding that possession could be given by the first of October, 1810. In the meantime Stelle informed the public under date of August 10, 1810, that "he has removed to the house formerly occupied by himself, but last by Miss Wilson, fronting the south wing of the Capitol."

Within a year, however, the usual notice appeared of the public sale of the furniture belonging to Mr. Stelle. In the fall of 1811 he announced that he had opened a boarding place on Pennsylvania Avenue, opposite to Mr. Weightman's book store, only to encounter in the following summer the fate of seeing his household furniture sold at public sale. It is probable that about this period Mr. Stelle concluded to try another line of business. At any rate he subsequently entered the government service and was employed in one of the departments at the time of his death, which occurred in the year 1826. He was secretary of the Common Council from 1812 to 1817.

There is no evidence that the large building erected by Daniel Carroll on First between East Capitol and A Streets, southeast, was soon again occupied as a hotel after Mr. Long left it, which was probably sometime in the year 1810. For after this date there are a number of allusions to Carroll Row which evidently refer to this property and the adjoining houses. An advertisement of Dr. James Ewell informs the public on May 16, 1811, that he has opened an apothecary shop "in the corner of Mr. Carroll's row, opposite the Capitol." The Bank of Washington, then newly organized, began business in one of the buildings in this row and remained there until the structure built by the bank on the east side of New Jersey Avenue, a short distance south of B Street, was ready for its use. Some years later N. L. Queen opened a hotel in this row which was long known as Queen's Hotel.

When Mr. Long left Mr. Carroll's big hotel he evidently leased the smaller house in Square 687, northeast of the Capitol. He remained there only about a year, when his place was taken by B. H. Tomlinson, who called it the City Hotel. Mr. Long still continued in business on Capitol Hill, occupying the old Tunnicliff Hotel.

Tomlinson's Hotel has the historic distinction of being one of the few pieces of private property in the city burnt by the British on the occasion of the invasion of the city. It was the only hotel in the city that was burnt and there is nothing to explain why this particular hostelry was singled out for such a purpose, as it is doubtful whether it was even occupied at that time.

It is not claimed that all the hostelries that were in existence in the period covered by this paper, from the origin of the District down to the year 1814 have been mentioned. For example, Wm. Caton announced on November 28, 1809, that he would open a hotel "in the house lately occupied by the Hon. R. Smith, Capitol Hill,'' and subsequently a notice appeared of a meeting to be held at Wm. Caton's Hotel to make arrangements for the Washington Dancing Assembly. Three years later Mr. Caton disposed of his furniture and gave up the hotel. In the vicinity of the Navy Yard there were several taverns, which changed proprietors and sometimes locations with the facility that was characteristic of the business in other sections of the city. Mr. Hugh Drummond became quite a veteran in this calling, for he apparently entered upon his career in the year 1806 and was actively engaged at the close of the year 1813. He seems to have removed his place from Seventh Street, in the vicinity of the Eastern Market, and located on Eighth Street, opposite the Marine Barracks. Mr. Shumway also had a tavern on Eighth Street, but nearer the Navy Yard gate than Mr. Drummond's house. The first reference to the latter place is on December 13, 1810, and in May of the following year the polls of the fourth ward in the city election were located at his house. There is also a reference on May 14, 1811, to a tavern in this locality kept by Mr. Shraubs.

The first announcement of a hotel on F Street, east of Fourteenth Street, appears in the Intelligencer of September 28, 1804, when Thomas Thorpe states that he has opened a house opposite the bank. This reference is, of course, to the branch bank of the United States, or as it was termed, the office of discount and deposit In the fall of 1801 this great financial institution, which had branches in seven of the principal cities of the country, located one in this city, and by December of that year a building was in progress of erection on the lot which had been bought at the northeast corner of Thirteenth and F Streets. The hotel business proved to be so profitable, or perhaps he had begun in a very small structure, at any rate by June 20, 1806, Mr. Thorpe was able to make the gratifying announcement that he had considerably enlarged his tavern, which was at the southwest corner of Thirteenth and F Streets. Two years later is found a notice of the Spring Garden Hotel, and it states that Honore Julien "has taken the house adjoining the spring on F Street, near the Chapel."¹⁵

The spring spoken of was located in the square bounded by E and F, Ninth and Tenth Streets, while the chapel is undoubtedly St. Patrick's Church, which was located on the north side of F, between Ninth and Tenth Streets. It is also evident from the advertisements that in 1808 there was a house called Speeden's Tavern, in Square 290, on the north side of C Street, between Four-and-a-half and Sixth Streets, and near the spring which supplied Lindsay's Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Then the next year, August 2, 1809, is found an allusion to Charles Jones' tavern on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the Center Market Two years later his death is announced, but no allusion is made to the tavern. Another tavern in this locality, evidently used by the market people, is described as located on the corner of C Street, facing the Center Market. The property was owned by Samuel Stetinius, who was a merchant with a store on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, and who advertised in October, 1811, for a young man capable of taking charge of the tavern.

Opposite the west market, which was located then on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Twentieth and Twenty-first Streets, in the year 1806, was the tavern of Owen Bradley. With the exception of the announcement in that year that the polls of the first ward in the annual city election would be held there, nothing is known of this place.

A history of the early hotels of Washington would not be complete without some reference to William O'Neal, who in later years was the proprietor of the Franklin House, and was the father of the beautiful Peggy O'Neal. As early as June 29, 1796, Mr. O'Neal was occupying a portion of the site where his hotel subsequently stood, fronting on the north side of I Street, between Twentieth and Twenty-first, on the square just east of the one where the six buildings were located. At that time he had not attained the chrysalis stage of many hotel keepers, and was not even keeping a boarding house. He had a threes tory brick house on Lot 2, Square 78, and evidently engaged in the making of barrel staves and hoops. It was not until December 2, 1805, that a record is found of the beginnings of a career, which has connected his name inseparably with the hotel business of the city. Then he announced that he could board twenty gentlemen, but evidently not wishing to confine himself to that industry, he added a clause in the same advertisement to the effect that he had coal and wood for sale.

His house must have been of good size, for he states he can furnish separate rooms for twenty gentlemen. However, the following year he is more modest, as he announces that he has accommodations for six or seven gentlemen. He also adds that he furnishes coaches to and from the Capitol for members.

The coal yard of Mr. O'Neal was in Square 78, but that branch of his business was, no doubt, abandoned when the Franklin House was enlarged and became one of the leading hotels of the city. The building is still standing, but changed into a row of residences. The title Franklin House is first found in connection with this place in the fall of 1813. At that time Mr. O'Neal announced that he had built an additional house, fifty feet front and containing twenty rooms, completely furnished. It was there Mr. Clinton, Vice President of the United States, died in April, 1812.

Mention should be made of the first road house of which any record has been found. This was known as Sebastian Spring and was under lease to A. Lindo, who, in November 28, 1808, announced that he had opened the place which he describes as located on the turnpike road, between Washington and Alexandria and about half a mile from the Washington Bridge, as the Long Bridge, opened for travel the following spring, was then known. Mr. Lindo was evidently a man of expedients for attracting trade, but in spite of the new bridge and his own efforts, in about a year he offered to sell his unexpired lease for three years. One of his ambitious projects was providing a dinner for 500 persons on the 4th of July, 1809, in the grove adjoining the spring. That form of celebrating the national birthday was general in this locality at that period, and in the same year the Democratic citizens of Washington sat down to a dinner at the Center Market House, prepared by Geo. W. Lindsay, while citizens without regard to political distinctions dined and listened to patriotic toasts at the tavern of Mr. Long.

In the year 1814 the principal hotels in the city were:

Drummond's and Thumway's, near the Navy Yard
Tomlinson's, on Capitol Square to the northeast of the Capitol
Carroll's big hotel and Coolidge's, standing vacant
Davis', on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets
McLeod's, on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth Streets
O'Neal's, at Twentieth and I Streets.

Footnotes:
1. Washington Gazette, September 10, 1797.
2. U. S. Gazette, April 20, 1793.
3. Travels in America 100 years ago. By Thomas Twining. New York, 1894
4. National Intelligencer, March 2 and April 8, 1801.
5. National Intelligencer, May 28, 1802.
6. National Intelligencer, April 18, 1810.
7. Centinel of Liberty, December 11, 1801.
8. An enumeration of the houses in each square of the city of Washington made November, 1801. American State Papers Miscellaneous, Vol. 1. pp. 256-257.
9. National Intelligencer, May 3, 1805.
10. National Intelligencer, September 3, 1805.
11. National Intelligencer, May 30, 1806, and May 8, 1809.
12. National Intelligencer, December 12, 1815.
13. Deed of William Woodward to William Duane, April 13, 1804.
14. National Intelligencer May 19, 1809.
15. National Intelligencer, May 6, 1808.

AHGP District of Columbia

Source: Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington DC, Committee on Publication and the Recording Secretary, Volume 7, Washington, Published b the Society, 1904.