THc gABtiesT PPcpeieToes Of 014 442 >3c5t) / ^: HoUinger Corp. pH8.5 F 202 .C2 D6 Copy 1 Lxvcpiiuted from The Records of The Columbia Historical Society, Vol. 21, 1918.] THE EARLIEST PROPRIETORS OF CAPITOL HILL. By MAEGARET BRENT DOWNING. (Read before the Society, January 16, 1917.) In the strict historical sense, the earliest proprietors of Capitol Hill were the American Indians. But in the restricted meaning as deriving title from the Pro- prietaiy government of Mainland, the names of George Thompson and Thomas Grerrard appear on the records as the first owners of that portion of the National City which is colloquially known as "Capitol Hill." Under the '^ Conditions of Plantations" imposed by the Baron of Baltimore under his charter as absolute lord of the domain, Thompson and Grerrard in 1662-3 acquired title to an extensive acreage which now includes all of Capitol Hill, parts of Anacostia and the outlying coun- try and a generous slice of the city proper from about Ninth and K streets northwest to the Potomac where the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has been erected. Among the several names under which these tracts were patented were Duddington Manor and Pas- ture, New Tro}^, Blue Plains, Giesborough and St. Elizabeth ; the first three on Capitol Hill and the others embracing Anacostia and its environs. The names of Thompson and Gerrard are linked in many early ventures in real estate along the Potomac as well as in the older portions of Charles County, for in that remote day, the District of Columbia formed part of the Province of Maryland which had l)een named to honor the King who had granted Lord Balti- more his charter. Gerrard, however, previous to his 2 1 2 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. Potomac purchase had become involved in the conspi- racy of Governor Josias Fendall to proclaim the '^Lit- tle Republic of Marji and "and it seemed prudent to dis- pose of all remote land holdings. Thompson took over his associate's interests and was apparently sole pro- prietor, when in November, 1670, he sold the Capitol Hill propert}^, Duddington Manor and Pasture, and New Troy to Thomas Notley, then attorney and gen- eral land agent for Charles Calvert, and afterwards Deputy-Governor of Maryland, 1676-79. Notley filed the deeds of transfer on November 20, 1670, and he relates their names as given by Thompson and Ger- rard, namely, the Duddingtons and New Troy. This is a strong piece of evidence that the estate of Dud- dington, an integral portion of the National Capital, did not originate in the Carroll family, as the impression universally prevails. It was familiarly known under the name of Duddington from 1662-70, and Charles Carroll, the immigrant and afterwards Attorney- General of the Province, did not land on the shores of Maryland until 1688, or twenty- six years later. Thomas Notley paid forty thousand pounds of to- bacco for the Duddington estate. A few months after the purchase, on March 1, 1671, he petitioned the pro- vincial court to unite his three tracts into one manorial holding, to be known as '' Cerne Abbey Manor." The deeds for this grant as well as all subsequent ones may be found in chronological order among the Land War- rants issued from Saint Mary's City, Maryland's first capital, which are now reposing in the State House at Annapolis. Thompson, Gerrard and Notley may, therefore, be accorded the honor of being the first pro- prietors of Capitol Hill under the provincial govern- ment of Maryland. The first patent was issued in 1662, but little more than a quarter of a century after Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 3 the landing of the Ark and the Dove. To study the chronicles relating to Capitol Hill is therefore to turn back the leaves of history to the opening chapters of Lord Baltimore's Palatinate. Few cities of the larger and more cultured class have displayed a greater indifference towards the orig- inal owners of the land on which it has been built than the National Capital. It is within the memory of the present generation, when nothing of practical moment was known of the proprietors of the Ten Miles Square, when the federal government made its memorable pur- chase. It is a matter of congratulation to the members of the Columbia Historical Society that it is mainly due to their efforts that details and incidents of the affair, and especially from the personal standpoint, have been collected and permanently preserved. But the men who owned the land prior to the governmental purchase have been, heretofore, mere names on a legal document. Their personalities have become merged in the uncertainty which shadows their day and the general idea is that their acts were too remote to be known accurately, and if they could be known, it would not prove very valuable information. Yet Thompson, Gerrard and Notley wrote their names in large letters in the annals of Maryland during the first half cen- tury after its settlement. To follow the outline of their activities is to sketch a fascinating and histor- ically worthy picture of the royal Palatinate during the closing years of the seventeenth century. Thompson, Gerrard and Notley were members of families mentioned in *' Burke's Landed Gentry," with estates situated in Somerset and Dorset at points where the two shires merge and form one of the loveliest por- tions of England's Midlands. In addition to vast es- tates, their families possessed ancient lineage and tre- 4 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. mendous political importance and all three may be accepted as types of the aristocratic and refined gentle- men of their era who, finding conditions intolerable in England, preferred at any sacrifice of their titles and possessions, to seek freedom of conscience in the New World. Many of the adventurers took this course of a necessity, since they had become completely impover- ished by religious persecution or the devastating civil wars. The ''Conditions of Plantations" offered by Lord Baltimore made a wide appeal to those of adven- turous trend, as well as to those who sought freedom in every sense and with the added hope of retrieving their fortunes. It is assumed that the history of Maryland is accepted as that of a royal Palatinate, boasting a landed gentry, with all the privileges of the class and that it was never at any time a penal settlement or the resort of felons. Nor was it peopled through any phi- lanthropic project of the Crown. Hester Dorsey Rich- ardson in her admirable work, ' ' Side-Lights on Mary- land History," cites an example of the indigestible in- tellectual food which the St. Nicholas Magazine can serve on occasion to its juvenile readers. According to Mrs. Richardson, Hezekiah Butterworth wrote a sketch of Maryland of which the subjoined is the opening paragraph : "King Charles I, you remember, founded a colony in this country in very early times in honor of his young and beau- tiful Queen Henrietta Maria. He called it Terra Mariea or Maryland. He gathered fifteen hundred orphan children from the streets of London and sent them to Maryland, and there those early settlers loved to hear and recount the leg- ends of the court of Charles." As Mrs. Richardson remarks, the veriest tyro at his- tory knows that Charles I did not settle Maryland, but Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 5 that honor belongs to Cecilius Calvert, who at his own expense sent a goodly company to the Province in 1633. George Thompson, the first of the original proprie- tors of Capitol Hill, was undoubtedly the son of that pioneer, John Thompson, who came over in the Ark and who took out land in the same company with the Reverend Andrew White, the Jesuit missionary, and others whose names have become historical. The elder Thompson made his will in 1648 and left the landed portion of his property to his son, George. For forty years after this pious will was probated the name of George Thompson is familiar to those who peruse the court records or the Acts of the Provincial Assembly. Thompson was an eloquent pleader before the Provincial Court and apparently he represented the legal interests of Thomas Gerrard who was a sur- geon, and Thomas Notley, who was an attorney and land-agent. Thompson makes hundreds of appear- ances in the court records during the tedious legal bat- tles which his brother-in-law, Raymond Stapleford, waged against Lord Baltimore's authority. He was the executor of this pioneer litigant's will and a bene- ficiary under it. In addition to what must have been a lucrative legal practice, Thompson was engaged in commercial pursuits, such as exchanging land for sta- ples which he could ship to England, as for instance his little flj^er in tobacco with Thomas Notley. He had heavy interests in ships bearing commerce from Vir- ginia, Maryland and the West Indies to English and European ports. He presents two interesting aspects in the personal sense. He must be given priority over all other speculators in real estate on the Maryland side of the Potomac, and since he charged Notley forty thousand pounds of tobacco for the grant and as much of this had still to be raised, he leads the list of specu- 6 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. lators in nicotine futures. He conferred the name St. Elizabeth on the lovely wooded hills above the Ana- costia River, and it is worthy of note that of all the colonial names given to the estates which are now the National City, this alone survives in its original situa- tion and gives title to the Government Hospital of the Insane. Dr. Thomas Gerrard is a name which fairly bristles on Provincial pages. He plays a variety of roles. He was one of the earliest and most successful "chirur- geons" in Maryland and when he was banished for par- ticipating in Fendall's rebellion, he established himself in Virginia and made a large fortune attending the gentry of Jamestown and thereabout. Dr. Gerrard was the lord of St. Clement's Manor and there he pre- sided over the Court Baron and his steward held the Court Leet after the prevailing custom in England. The records of these courts at St. Clement's Manor are the only ones which are in existence, though the authorities hold that all the great manorial lords en- joyed similar privileges. Bromly, the splendid manor house of St. Clement 's, was built of brick made on the estate by retainers of Dr. Gerrard after he had brought out from England some skilled artisans with their moulds and other appliances. He was one of the ear- liest brickmakers in Maryland and did a thriving busi- ness, selling to less provident lords who wished to erect handsome homes without the trouble of maintaining kilns. Bromly was a renowned social center and fig- ures in the annals perhaps more frequently than any contemporary house except those occupied by the Pro- prietor or his family. Gerrard was a rigid Catholic and he is the figure always produced to bear evidence of the broad religious toleration of Maryland's charter. He was fined five hundred pounds of tobacco for lock- Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 7 ing the chapel at St. Mary's, and refusing to open it in time for Protestant service. It was at Bromly that the first Declaration of Independence was voiced in the western world, when Josias Fendall threw off allegi- ance to Lord Baltimore and proclaimed Maryland free and independent. Grerrard adhered to the faith of his fathers most tenaciously, but his daughters married men who were equally zealous on the Protestant side. The elder was the wife of that Nehemiah Blackiston for whom was named that beautiful island in the Poto- mac, long a resort of Washingtonians. The other mar- ried John Coode, leader of the Protestant army which besieged Saint Mary's City and caused its capitulation. Thomas Notley appears on the records of 1660, about the time that Charles Calvert arrived in the Province to act as Grovernor in behalf of his father, Cecilius, second Baron of Baltimore. It is a logical supposition that Charles Calvert and Notley had been on terms of friendship in London and that the departure of the former furnished the reason of the latter 's venture into the wilds of Maryland. Notley belonged to that illus- trious family of Dorset, the Sydenhams of Coombe, his being the cadet branch of that ancient barony. His arms were: Argent — Three bezants on a bend cotised. Or — First and fourth quarterly. Crest — A lion's head from a mural. Motto— Noli Mentire. The Sydenhams were nobles in 1275. The clironi- cles of Dorset contain many a thrilling tale of their prowess in the holy wars, and their achievements and possessions make entire chapters in the annals of that shire. They counted heroes galore in the Crusades and the wars of the Roses and with France and in the 8 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. succeeding civil strife. Nor was their fame wholly martial, for Doctor Sir Thomas Sydenham was among the colleagues of William Harvey, discoverer of the theory of the circulation of the blood, and was his im- mediate successor as head of the London College of Surgery. Another Thomas Sydenham, a near kins- man of Thomas Notley, was an eloquent archdeacon of the Church of England and quite a court favorite. Among the records of Sydenham estates in the opening seventeenth century, is one which throws a clear light on the name which Notley chose for his Potomac manor. It is to be found in Hutchins' "History of Dorset ' ' under the subhead of the domain of the Syden- hams of Combe, and says: ''The Manor of Cerne Abbey. "When or by whom it was given does not appear. 19 Ed- ward, the Abbot had a grant of one shilling in land here. In 1293, the temporalities of the Abbot of Cerne in Winifred E.agle were valued at sixty-four shillings and four pence. 36 Henry VIII., this manor had farms belonging to the Abbot of Cerne, which were granted to Richard Buekland and Robert Homer, who 37 Henry VIII. had license to alienate to Thomas Sydenham Esquire, gentleman and his heirs ; value four pounds and three shillings."^ The Sydenhams had obtained control of the Abbey lands of Cerne many years previous to the time of Notley, and as a boy, he may have played on the old Abbey lands and a touch of homesickness have sug- gested the name. It may be, as some have deemed probable, he was an admirer of the renowned Aelfric, the grammarian, once Abbot of Cerne and sought to perpetuate his memory in the New World. The origin of the name Duddington can be_ clearly traced by fol- 1 Hutchins' "History of Dorset," Vol. 2, p. 706. Westminster, 1868. Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 9 lowing the lineage of Thompson and Gerrard through the labj'rinths of "Burke's Peerage and Landed Gen- try." There was on the earliest records of Somerset and Dorset, a noble family of Doddington with a cele- brated countrj^ seat, Doddington Manor. As Gerrards and Thompsons, Sydenhams and Notleys had inter- married with the Doddingtons for nearly two hundred recorded years, it is evident that the first proprietors, Thompson and Gerrard, had this famous seat of their family in mind, when they took out patents for the land on the Potomac, on which subsequently was erected the noble national Hall of Legislation, the stately Li- brary of Congress and several other imposing Federal buildings. That the Manor in Somerset is spelled Doddington does not confuse the issue, since this dis- crepancy may be easily explained as the error of the registering clerk, as the " o " in London and in Monroe is pronounced as though it were "u" and there is the familiar illustration, typically British, saying ''His Lu'dship" for His Lordship, as Americans and the remainder of the world would do. It must be borne in mind that in the early part of the seventeenth century the families of Thompson and Gerrard held estates contiguous to Doddington. Notley had no special reason to perpetuate the name of Doddington, so very naturally he fixed on some re- nowned holding in his own immediate line and changed the Doddington estate to Cerne Abbey Manor. It is under this appellation that the grant figures in that well-known legal document which is the key to clear titles to all properties situated on and about Capitol Hill. This was the will of Thomas Notley, dated April 3, 1679. As the sole landed bequest mentioned in a great mass of personal legacies, he leaves Cerne Abbey Manor to his godson, Notley Rozier, son of Colonel 10 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. Benjamin Rozier and his wife. This lady was Anne Sewall, daughter of Jane, second wife of Charles Cal- vert, third Baron of Baltimore. Notley was Deputy- Governor of the Province from 1676 until his death three years later. During this period he had disposed of nearly all his landed estates. Lord Baltimore being in almost every instance the purchaser. The Proprie- tary became owner of the celebrated country seat on the Wicomico River, Notley Hall, a splendid home mentioned in the social annals of the Province from 1668 until late in the eighteenth century, when it was probably destroyed by fire. In the earliest chronicles of Georgetown College there are recurring permissions granted young seminarians from Whitemarsh to stop at Notley Hall and partake of its hospitality while en route to the college on the Potomac. Notley Rozier, heir of Cerne Abbey Manor under the will of Governor Notley, was apparently reared by his grandmother. Lady Baltimore, at Notley Hall, the fa- vorite estate of his godfather and benefactor. Colonel Benjamin Rozier died soon after his friend and asso- ciate at the council table of the Lord Proprietor, and his widow married Colonel Edward Pye and went to preside over another stately home. When Notley Rozier 's only surviving daughter and heiress, Ann, married Daniel Carroll, second son of Charles Carroll, the immigrant and Attorney-General of the Province, the bride is described in social annals of the day as of Notley Hall. Notley Rozier, reared in the mimic court of the third Lord Baltimore, was no doubt a local ce- lebrity in his era, but mere fragments have floated down to this age as to his importance in the political sense in his step-grandfather's councils. He had mar- ried young, as nearly all colonial lords did, and his first cousin, another custom of the Maryland aristocracy. Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 11 His wife was Jane, one of tlie several daughters of William Digges, of Warburton Manor, and Elizabeth Sewall Wharton. This lady was the sister of Jane Sewall, who became the wife of Colonel Benjamin Eozier and of Nicholas Sewall, all children of the second Lad,y Baltimore. Previous to her alliance with William Digges she had married Dr. Jesse Wharton, of Virginia, and in 1675 Deputy-Governor of Mary- land, a well-known medico at the residence of Sir Ed- ward Digges, governor of the royal colony. William Digges and Elizabeth Sewall Wharton had ten children and their descendants may be found in many states. The Lord of Warburton was the eldest son of Sir Edward Digges, an appointee and loyal ad- herent of the Stuarts, who had acquired a splendid estate at Bellefield, Virginia. A handsome tomb, still in excellent preservation, tells that he was the son of Sir Dudley Digges,Knight and Baronet of Kent, Master of Rolls under Charles I. This Dudley Ddgges, for the name is multiplied in the colonial records of Maryland and in the English chronicles of the line, was the author of the celebrated book, ^'The Compleat Ambassador," which in its day enjoj^ed great prestige and popularity as containing an epitome of the polite accomplishments necessary in court circles and comparable only to that earlier work, ''The Courtier or the Golden Book," by Baldassare Castigloione, and considered a classic of the sixteenth century. Jane Digges brought to her husband, Notley Rozier, as dower one thousand acres, which lay across the Anacostia River and known as Elizabeth's Delight. It was adjacent to Giesborough and Blue Plains, which later became part of the patri- mony of Notley Young. Rozier was, April 19, 1714, by the will of Edward Digges, eldest son and chief heir of William, affectionatelv called brother and made the 12 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. executor of that instrument in which full title to Eliza- beth's Delight is made over to him and his wife Jane. Ann Rozier, for the name is so spelled in connection with her marriage to Daniel Carroll, and which should have always been so written, since it was French, fur- nishes another of those familiar examples of colonial widows who captivate a second lord after less than a year of mourning. No more fascinating phases of that early day in Maryland's chronicles exist than those caught in snatches of letters which are preserved in many a horsehair trunk in the older counties, wherein it is related that cousin this and that had sent to Lon- don for a widow's complete garb and that she looked so bewitching in the weeds that she cast them aside, after a few wearings, for a new bridal trousseau. This may explain why mourning suits, mourning jewelry and other emblems of bereavement figure as assets in so many colonial wills. Ann Rozier Carroll, after less than a year of sorrow for her young husband, who was not twenty-eight when he died, married Colonel Ben- jamin Young, a Commissioner of Crown Lands, who had come to the Province about 1735. Though she is described in the narration of her first marriage as the heiress of Notley Hall, she was also sole heiress of Cerne Abbey Manor. From court records, it is known that she had built a commodious mansion on the Potomac estate prior to 1758, for in a petition made in that year she asks permission to retain title to it, though by the same instrument she is dividing her legacy from Governor Thomas Notley equally between her two sons, Charles Carroll and Notley Young. By this division, Cerne Abbey Manor was divided into the original tracts which Notley had purchased from George Thompson, nearly a century before. Charles Carroll, the older son, received the Duddington tracts, Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 13 Manor and Pasture, and other parcels on Capitol Hill. Notley Young's inheritance included the land and ad- joining acres on which his mother's home was built, parts of New Troy and a vast area across the Ana- costia River, including Giesborough and Blue Plains. Giesborough in later years was made over as a legacy to the Fathers at Georgetown and proved so heavy a burden on their slender resources that they permitted it to be sold for taxes. It is obvious that Duddington, whether meant for Doddington in Somerset or some other obscure holding of Thompson and Gerrard which has become untraceable after this lapse of time, had no connection whatever with the Carroll family until Daniel married Notley Rozer's heiress. It is mislead- ing and untrue to describe that Daniel Carroll who was the husband of Ann Rozier, as the first of the Dud- dington branch. Charles Carroll, who is called as of Carrollsburgh to distinguish him from his eminent cousin, the Signer, might be so called, and so also his son, Daniel Carroll, who later built a mansion which he called Duddington Manor. This Charles Carroll and Daniel Carroll inherited directly from the daughter of Notley Rozer, who inherited by will the estate which Governor Notley had purchased from Thompson in 1670. Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, great grandson of Notley Rozer, and Notley Young, his grandson, were the last owners of Capitol Hill in the manorial sense. They disposed of their rights to the Commissioners who represented President Washington, and for the worthy purpose of securing a site for the permanent seat of government. The negotiations which led to tliis transfer of ownership began in 1790, but were not brought to a successful issue until a year later. It may be timelv to remark that the numerous Daniel Carrolls 14 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. who figure in the annals at this particular time hav^e led to some amazing blunders. An historian with every facility to reach authentic sources is the former pastor of St. Patrick's church in Washington City and now the Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina. Yet in his work, ''The Land of Sanctuary," Bishop Russell subjoins a Carroll family tree which could not have been founded on recognized genealogical charts, for among other easily detected errors it is shown that Daniel Carroll of Duddington was the brother of the Archbishop and identical with the Commissioner who acted with Thomas Johnson and David Stuart. As Daniel Carroll of Duddington sold one of the largest and most valuable portions of the Capital City, it is plain he did not sell to himself. This same mistake is several times repeated in the Catholic Encyclopedia, a publication where the reader would logically expect historical accuracy in this vital point of Catholic asso- ciation with the founding of the National Capital. Under the caption of Daniel Carroll, Thomas F. Meehan writes that Daniel Carroll, brother of the Archbishop, was born in Upper Marlborough in 1733 and died in Washington in 1829, whereas he was, as many Carroll family papers show and all of which are accessible to historical students, born in 1737 and died at his home near Rock Creek on May 6, 1796, less than sixty years of age, instead of nearing the century mark, as Mr. Meehan makes him. Members of the Columbia Historical Society will be further astounded by perusing Mr. Meehan 's biog- raphy of Daniel Carroll, the Commissioner. "The choice of the present site of Washington was advo- cated by him and he owned one of the four farms taken for it, Notley Young, David Burns and Samuel Davidson being the others interested. The Capitol was built on the land Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 15 transferred to the government by, Carroll and there is ad- ditional interest to Catholdes in the fact that in 1663, this whole section of country belonged to a man named Pope who called it Rome/' It is to be hoped that should the Encyclopedia issue a second edition, this remarkable collection of errors will be eliminated in favor of the facts. But since the au- thorized history of the American branch of the 'Car- rolls of Ely, published under the auspices of the late Governor Carroll, of Maryland, contains the state- ment that Daniel Carroll the Commissioner was the Daniel Carroll of Duddingion who built the mansion in the new Federal City, lesser fish in the historical line may be pardoned for following what seemed the last clue through the bewildering labyrinths of ge- nealogy.- Daniel Carroll, who figures as grantor in the deeds which gave the Federal government title to the estate inherited from the will of Governor Notley, may be traced back to the immigrant of his line, Charles Carroll, the Attorney-General, his great grandfather. His grandfather was that Daniel Car- roll who married Ann Rozier and his father was the older son of that lady, Charles Carroll, of Carroll s- burg. He is, therefore, of the younger branch of the Carrolls of Doughreagan Manor and was the second cousin of the Signer. Through his mother he was the great-grandson of Notley Rozer and was therefore closely akin to the most illustrious families in the Province, the Sewalls of Mattapony, the Digges of Warburton, the Lowes, Darnalls and Hills. Daniel Carroll, the Commissioner, was the son of Daniel Car- roll of Upper Marlborough, the immigrant in his line 2 Rowland, ' ' Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrolton, ' ' Vol. 11, p. 441. 16 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. of Carroll s. There is no convincing evidence that this Daniel Carroll came of the line of Carrolls of Ely, rep- resented by Charles Carroll, who was later Attorney- General. But it is clear that the two men were friendly. Shortly after Daniel Carroll had established a successful business enterprise in Marlborough about 1720, he married an heiress and well-known provincial belle, Eleanor Darnall of Woodyard, Maryland. The gentry drew sharp class divisions against the business and agricultural class and it is safe to assume that the young merchant of Upper Marlborough would never have penetrated into the circle which his lady graced had he not been presented by a powerful sponsor. That Charles Carroll had married Mary Darnall, aunt of Eleanor, points unerringly to the clever matchmaker. Daniel of Marlborough left two sons who survived to manhood, Daniel of Rock Creek, who was Associate Commissioner of the District of Columbia with Judge Thomas Johnson and Doctor David Stuart, and John, who became first Archbishoi^ of Baltimore. There were four daughters, two of whom, Anne and Eleanor, married into the Brent family of Woodstock, Acquia Creek, descendants of George Brent, the immigrant who settled in Virginia in 1672, Mary, who became the second wife of Notley Young, and Elizabeth, a spinster. Elizabeth Carroll was the last survivor of her family and on March 16, 1810, she made a deposition before her nephew, Robert Brent, first mayor of Washington, which is now part of the Catholic archives of the Uni- versity of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. To this paper and to others written by various members of the Carroll family of Marlborough or of Rock Creek and to the older branch more intimately connected with the ownership of the Ten Miles Square I am indebted for Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 17 such original data as is here presented for the first time in concrete form.^ 3 Carroll Papers, Catholic Archives of Notre Dame. "Deposition of Elizabeth Carroll, spinster, taken in the City of Washington, D. C, March 16, 1810." ' ' Said Elizabeth Carroll, aged sixty-five, in the city of Washington on the sixteenth day of March, one thousand eight hundred and ten, before Robert Brent, Esquire, Mayor of the city of Washington aforesaid; and said Elizabeth Carroll being first duly cautioned and sworn upon the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, by said Mayor did then and there upon her oath aforesaid testify and depose as follows, viz : "That she is the daughter of Daniel Carroll of Upper Marlboro in the State of Maryland and Eleanor, his wife; that she recollects her said father who died as she believes and always has understood in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and fifty; that the said Daniel Carroll, as she has likewise always understood and believed, was the son of Keane Carroll of Ireland, and that as she has also understood and believed, he emigrated to this country from Ireland some time before he married her mother, whose maiden name was Darnall ; that the said Daniel Carroll and Eleanor had several children all of whom are dead, except the deponent and her brother, the Right Rev. Dr. John Carroll, Bishop of Baltimore and Mrs. Mary Young, her sister ; that Henry, the oldest son, as she has heard, was drowned some time before her birth, when he was a boy at school and many years before the death of his father; that Daniel, the second son departed this life on the sixth day of May in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and ninety six in the sixtieth year, as she believes, of his age; that the said Daniel Carroll intermarried with Eleanor Carroll, the sister of the present Mrs. Mary Digges, and had from this marriage two children whose names were Daniel and Mary, and none others than those two; that both these two died before their said father several years; but this deponent doth not recollect the precise period of the death of either of them ; that Daniel the son of the brother just mentioned intermarried with Elizabeth Digges of Warburton in the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and seventy six, this deponent being present at the marriage, and that he had issue from this marriage several children of whom William Carroll is the oldest surviving son; that the surviving children are all single and unmarried and that no one of them, either of those who are dead, or of those who survive has ever been mar- ried; that the said William was born as she perfectly recollects, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty two; and that as she has always heard and believes neither of the three Daniels men- tioned and particularly referred to by this deponent was ever married a second time." Ibid., Carroll Papers. Extract of a letter from Daniel Carroll of Rock 3 18 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. A point of interest wliicli always recurs when the earliest proprietors of Capitol Hill are under consid- Oreek to James Carroll of Ireland, dated Upper Marlborough, Maryland, December 20, 1762, and presented by Miss J. Carroll. "As you express a particular desire of having a particular account of your relations in this part of the world, the following may be agreeable to you. My father died in the year 1751 and left six children, — myself, Ann, John, E. W., Mary and Betsy. He left me land amounting in value between 4 & 5000 pounds. Some time after I was married to a lady of our name, E. W. Carroll to whom I was contracted before my father's death. Her fortune was 3000 pounds in money. I had been returned two years from Flanders where my father had sent me for my education, and had been there for six years. I have a son named Daniel about ten years old and a daughter named Mary about eight years old. The lady I married is a daughter of Daniel Carroll, son of Charles Carroll, Esq. of Littertone who came from Ireland and settled in this country. His abilities and prudent conduct procured him some of the best offices under this govern- ment, for then Eoman Catholics were entitled to hold place in this prov- ince. By this means, his knowledge of the law and by taking up large tracts of land which have since increased in value some hundred per cent he made a very large fortune — ^two of his sons only survived out of a great many children — Charles and Daniel — the latter my wife's father, who died in the year 1734 and left three children, Charles, E. W. (my wife), and Mary. Charles inherits about 600 pounds per annum — will not probably marry and Mary is married to one Mr. Ignatius Digges. Charles Carroll, Esq., eldest brother to my wife's father is living and is worth about 100,000 pounds and second richest man in our province. He has one son named Charles who has a very liberal education and now finishing his studies in London. In case of his death that estate is left to my son, Daniel by Charles Carroll, Esq. My eldest sister, Ann is well married to one Mr. Eobert Brent in Virginia, a province to the Northward. of this, divided by the river Potomac. He lives about 60 miles from us. They have one child named George. My brother John was sent abroad for his education on my return and is now a Jesuit at Liege, teaching Phi- losophy and emminent in his profession. E. W., my second sister is mar- ried, likewise very well to one Mr. William Brent in Virginia, near my eldest sister. She lias three boys and one girl. My sisterSj^JIaJX-SSi Betsex^are un marr ied and live chiefly with my mother who is very well. This account of your friends I hope will be satisfactory to you. [But, as frequently happens, Charles, brother of E. W., wife of Daniel Carroll of Eock Creek, did not realize the hopes which his relatives placed in him. He is identical with that Charles Carroll, known as of CarroUsburgh, who married the daughter of Henry Hill, Esquire, of Baltimore, and became the father of Daniel Carroll of Duddington, Charles Carroll of Bellevue and Henry Hill Carroll of Litterluna, near the city of Baltimore."] Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 19 eration is the identity of the mysterious Jenkins of Jenkins' Hill, who figaires in every description of the tract during the transaction which finally converted it into Federal property. Jenkins' Heights probably is mentioned for the first time in a chatty letter which Eight Reverend John Carroll wrote in 1784 to his English Superior, in which he tells that his young kinsman, Daniel Carroll of Duddington had proposed this eminence as a suitable position for the College which is now an ornament of the older of the two cities in the District of Columbia, Georgetown. Bishop Carroll's letter is recalled in a charming retrospect of the College in a paper read before the Society by Rev. Edward I. Devitt, S. J., in 1909 ; and he relates that the future Primate of the American Catholic Church did not realize the possibilities which L 'Enfant saw in this hill. He declined Daniel of Duddington 's gift because the spot was too far away in the woods to make a thriving boarding school for boys. President Washington alludes to Jenkins' Hill in a stately de- scription sent to Major L 'Enfant in 1791 in a detailed description of the boundaries of the Federal territory. This occurs in the letter sent from Mount Vernon by the President to his representative on the ground, L 'Enfant, and he designates the spot beyond all reason of misapprehension. The seat of government is to be built on "lands lying between Rock Creek, to the Po- tomac River and the Eastern Branch and as far up the latter as the turn of the channel above Evans' Point, thence including the flat, back of Jenkins' Hill."^ I am indebted to Mr. Allen C. Clark for the only obtain- able data extant about the Jenkins who resided on the domain of Cerne Abbey Manor at the time it passed under governmental control. In a letter recently re- 4 Records of Columbia Historical Society, Writings of Washington Eelating to the National Capital, Vol. 17, p. 23. 20 Records of the Columbia Historical Society. ceived from Mr. Clark he states no title of ownership was at any time vested in Jenkins. Christian Hines one of Washington's earliest historians, is the author- ity that a Thomas Jenkins leased a farm from the Carroll estate of Duddington and that the confines of this rural plot could be described as commencing some- where about H Street North and Seventh Street West. Hines' description of this plantation indicates that it is the estate known as Fort Eoyal, acquired in 1794 by Dominic LjTich and Comfort Sands. It was consid- ered a valuable jDroperty even in those remote days, and Lynch and Sands paid more than $40,000 for the title. Apparently it was one of the most flourishing and i^roductive tobacco and general produce planta- tions hereabout and had been in continual cultivation for several years before the Eevolutionary War. Jen- kins possessed a mansion which figures at the time of the Federal purchase and this was located in the same block as the Union Labor Building now stands or ad- jacent to New York Avenue near Ninth Street. There was a record of small houses standing in 1791, but there was none on the hill where the United States Capitol overlooks the city and the exact reason that the name Jenkins is continually associated with this hallowed spot remains to be explained. The connecting link between the old and new pro- prietors of Capitol Hill is the brilliant, dashing but irascible French engineer, Charles Pierre L 'Enfant. It was his genius whicli transformed the woodland of ThomiDson and Gerrard and Notley and the tobacco farms of the Carrolls and the Youngs into the splendid panorama of boulevards and parks and provided a fitting site for the buildings which adorn the Capital of the great North American Republic. The Columbia Historical Society played a stellar role in the long- Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 21 drawn-out drama wliicli preceded the act of justice paid to the French patriot, when his ashes were re- moved from Green Hill and laid under a granite block on the western hills of Arlington. From every view- point, members of this Society have laid bare the truth about L 'Enfant and the monstrous injustice from which he suffered living and dead. A finer tribute was never paid than that in Mr. Glenn Brown's paper read in 1909 on ''The Plan of L 'Enfant for the City of Washington and its Effect upon the Future Develop- ment of the city. ' ' In this, among scores of other popu- lar fallacies, this eminent architect who has accom- plished a fair share in beautifuing the National Capi- tal, showed how erroneous was the statement that L 'Enfant had taken the boulevards of Paris as the model of his plan. L 'Enfant submitted his map in 1791 and all the world knows that Napoleon com- manded the work of remodelling the French capital along its modern magnificent lines. But in 1791 the figure of the great Corsican has not 3^et darkened the pages of history. Mr. Brown showed how largely L 'Enfant 's plan was original, but if it were reminis- cent of anything he had known, Versailles, the court city, presented some points of resemblance. The French ambassador has recently placed the American nation under a lasting obligation for his exertions to draw aside the veil which surrounded the antecedents of the brilliant engineer. In that delightful book, "With Great Americans Past and Present," he de- votes two lengthy chapters to Washington's founder, giving, in the first, the personal side of the man who played such a complex role in Revolutionary history with his military career amplified more satisfactorily than hitherto, and in the second, an adequate and tact- ful narration of L 'Enfant 's part in the upbuilding of .22 Records of the Columbia Historical Society, one of the world's most beautiful cities. Dr. James Dudley Morgan on May 11, 1911, read before the Co- lumbia Historical Society a paper descriptive of the reinterment of the brilliant French patriot from the passing of the Sundry Civil Bill authorizing the re- moval of the hallowed ashes from the lonely spot in Green Hill to the last taps at Arlington, where he had been laid among the nation's heroes to await the Eesurrection. But it may not be amiss to trace briefly the principal reasons which led to the national recogni- tion after almost a century of neglect. The past quar- ter of a century has witnessed the renaissance of American history, of which the visible tokens are the many patriotic societies. Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, par excellence, and at least a dozen others of varying degrees of influence. Histori- cal novels multiplied themselves, and that splendid crusade for good roads has led to the marking of sacred places on the highwaj^s of the national progress and to the erection of monuments to the path blazers of the early day. To this general trend towards his- torical truth must be assigned the final success of an effort which had gone forward for nearly fifty years looking to the full reparation to L'Enf ant's memory and his restoration to his proper place as a jDatriot, an artist and an engineer. The last decade has seen another equally important historical recognition of eminent services rendered the Republic in its infant days, the belated honors paid to John Paul Jones and his imposing interment at Annapolis, traceable di- rectly to the impetus given such measures by patriotic societies and the steady stream of historical romances pouring out to the public after ''Richard Carvel." Members of this society have regarded the reparation to L 'Enfant as a solemn obligation, and paper after Downing: Earliest Proprietors of Capitol Hill. 23 paper recording his claims to national honors have been read at its meetings. Bnt the impetus given the cause by the letter which Right Reverend D. J. 'Con- nell, then rector of the Catholic University of America, now Bishop of Richmond, Virginia, wrote the Commis- sioners of the District of Columbia cannot be dis- counted. Bishop 'Connell asked that since the grave of L 'Enfant was neglected and inaccessible to the public, he might be accorded the privilege of removing them to a worthy mausoleum which he would erect on the campus of his university. This request focused all the scattered forces in the Institute of American Architects, in the patriotic societies, in the Columbia Historical Society and among men and women gener- ally of broad patriotic impulses, and the result happily met the desires of all interested. The orator of that solemn occasion when L 'Enfant was placed to rest on the brow of the hill directly overlooking the Capital City was M. Jusserand, who was six years later to become his biographer. Though a marble sarcopha- gus marks the spot, the stone was useless, since, as M., Jusserand said, ''His monument is your beautifu! citv." iLS?"^ OF CONGRESS Pii 014 442 336 7 L LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 442 336 7 •