1887 Hopkins Maps of Washington, DC

Just a quick break from posting individual histories to talk a little about the great 1887 Hopkins maps that covered all of the present day Washington, DC.  If you ever perused them at Washingtoniana Room or other archives, you know they are GREAT!   All hand colored, they show what was on each Square in 1887, with brick houses in red and frame houses in yellow.

They also show lots of other cool stuff, like streams running through the Square (that would explain why your basement always seems damp), horse drinking troughs, sewer lines, and even what type of paving (or not) your street had that year.  We purchased a complete set of these maps from the Historical Society Book Sale about 15 years ago (they often sell duplicates, not to worry) and had them scanned in real size (they measure an impressive 2 by 3 feet or so) at 400 dpi for our own use so as to not damage the originals during our research.

Update 2/20/12: all original maps have sold!  Over time, I've sold the originals, and have only map 1, map 14, and map 21 still available in our eBay store.  You can find them by clicking on the map number itself and buy them today!  We're selling them CHEAP on eBay live auction this week (Auction closes Feb 19th about 5 pm).  You can see them HERE.

I've enjoyed bringing the maps to the masses via excellent quality prints that we also sell on eBay.  You can order any of the 44 maps in all, and they make for a great piece of interesting wall art.  I'll link you to the popular Dupont Circle map HERE to get you started.

Feel free to ask me to research which map your house or building might be located on, and I'm happy to point you to the correct map.  They are quite the conversation starter, and you'll find yourself quickly immersed in their detail.  

Builder Francis A. Blundon and 100 W Street, NW

Blundon's House at 100 W Street, NW

     Francis Blundon was born in Loudoun County, Virginia on April 14, 1867.  The son of contractor John V. and Fannie (Nolan) Blundon, Francis was educated in the public schools, and served as an apprentice and journeyman in carpentry for about eight years thereafter.  He then started independent work as a builder, erecting approximately 700 houses in Washington, DC during the first ten years of his career alone.  His successful commercial ventures included building the Virginia Flats for Joseph R. Portner, one of the first apartment houses in the city.  Many of his projects were done in partnership with his brother, Joseph A. Blundon who lived in his father’s house at 3219 O Street in Georgetown.  

On January 5, 1893, Blundon married Mamie Schenable, who had been born in August of 1873 in Virginia.  They had two sons together, Francis Edward (b. Jan 31, 1894) and Victor Sylvester (b. Feb 7, 1896) that eventually became salesmen in their father’s real estate business. 

Some of examples of Blundon’s developments in Washington include the seven homes from 1408 to 1420 Hopkins Place, NW built in 1896, six homes between 2817 and 2827 13^th Street, NW and 1228-1230 Harvard Street, NW built in 1904, and three at 2019-35 13^th Street, NW, built in 1911.  

100 W Street seen in 2011, sans the clay tile roof. 

The Blundon family lived in his own designed and built house at 100 W Street, NW, illustrated here about 1902.  In June of that year, he sold the adjoining four houses for an impressive $23,000.[1]  The Blundon family had moved there from a house located close-by at 67 S Street, NW.  His brother Robert, a salesman in the real estate business joined them at the house in 1910, according to the census.  That year, Blundon had a live-in black chauffeur named Frank R. Payner, age 23, and a live-in black cook named Hattie Clement, then age 30.   The house was later home to the Soul Saving Center Church of God until 2011.    

Early in his career, Blundon maintained an office at 1220 G Street, NW, and joined with partners Abin G. Belt and Robert Lee O’Brien in a construction firm coined Blundon, O’Brian & Belt, Inc., specializing in “real estate, loans, and insurance.”  At the time, Belt resided at 3117 13^th Street, NW and O’Brian at 439 Rhode Island Avenue, NW. 

Passenger lists from the 1920s indicate that Blundon and his wife enjoyed steam ship vacations, such as a trip to Bermuda in 1926.  The Blundon’s and their two grown yet unmarried sons moved to a 50 acre farm at 10000 Georgia Avenue in Forest Glen, Maryland by 1918, where they continued to reside together until after 1930.[2]  It was once part of the Getty farm, and is

Bodies Under the John Burroughs House at 1332 V Street

The house built over bodies at 1332 V Street, NW

Although all of the squares and blocks south of today’s Florida Avenue were laid out by architect Pierre L’Enfant in 1792, most were not developed into rows of town houses until nearly 100 years later.   However, they were utilized for a variety of purposes such as orchards and gardens, and one very large square in particular, surrounded by U, V, 13^th and 14^th Street, once served as a large cemetery for St. Matthew’s Catholic Church.  Today the square is site of the Ellington apartment building (built in 2003), the Harrison School recreational playground and baseball field, commercial buildings, nightclubs, and a row of homes along 13^th Street.    

Where did the cemetery go?  While everyone thinks they have moved a cemetery and the bodies within, inevitably a few remain, or in this case, dozens remained (and likely do even today).  St. Matthew’s church had begun using the square for cemeterial purposes shortly after it was established in 1837.  Hundreds of graves were to have been relocated by the time that rows of houses were being built on the square in the 1870s, but several were still being unearthed as late as 1945.                       

John Burroughs

The square was also home to noted poet, naturalist, and writer John Burroughs, who built a house at 1332 V Street in 1867.  Historian John Clagett Proctor wrote about both the cemetery and the John Burroughs house in the Washington Evening Star in 1945, when it was still standing.  

            Fortunately, due to Burroughs published writing on a wide variety of nature issues, a fascinating record exists of his home’s construction, his interaction with interred graves, and the areas rural nature.  In 1867, Burroughs (1837-1921) moved from a home on Capitol Hill to a new, ten room brick house he had built at 1332 V Street.  According to his writing, he raised tomatoes and corn, which proved to be difficult as he stated “There’d been an old Catholic cemetery on the spot, and what with original digging of the graves and the more recent removing of the bodies, dirt had been thrown up on top that ought to have been below.”                

            Burroughs went on to write about the construction phase of his house, which was supposed to have been on vacant land.  “The removal of the bodies hadn’t been done very thoroughly, and when we were putting in a cistern we unearthed two coffins.  They were decayed, but not broken, and were buried them alongside the fence.  While we were burying the chimney and had it completed up to the second floor, it settled one night nearly two feet.  Evidently it was right over a grave and had gone down on the body.  We kept on.  The man under the chimney was held down by great weight, and I expected to hear him groan, but never did, and I never saw any spooks on the premises.” 

OK, so the picture at left has nothing to do with the site, but it is creepy, so I thought it would create a mood.  Bonus points to the person that correctly identifies the body!               

Burroughs had first come to Washington in 1863, with the intention of going into the Army, but changed his mind once he witnessed the mangled and injured arriving at local hospitals from the field.  He secured a clerk position at the Treasury in 1864, earning a salary of $1,200 per year.  He moved to 1332 V Street along with his wife and a cow named Chloe, adding two additional cows and chickens a short time later. 

            He was visited by a number of literary figures, including Walt Whitman, with whom he carried on an affair, with both gentlemen confessing love for one another in myriad stories and writings.  Whitman stayed at the Burroughs house for weeks at a time.    

        

The Crazy 1920s Craze Known as the Krazy Kat Club

A bohemian club located just steps away from Thomas Circle in the teens and 1920s must have been an unusual sight to behold for those lucky enough to locate its entrance and know about its whereabouts during the era.  It was located at what was then 3 Green Court, across from what is today’s Green Lantern gay bar, located in an old stable building in an alley just southeast of Thomas Circle.  It was coined the Krazy Kat.   

The club’s entrance was along the side of the Green lantern building today leading to Massachusetts Avenue, with a small sign that read “Syne of ye Krazy Kat” seen in the images here, taken on July 15, 1921, along with a warning at the top of the door that read “All soap abandon ye who enter here.”  Inside, patrons found a tree house reached by a precarious ladder, pebble floor, and al fresco dining.  It was the site of frequent artist exhibitions and painting classes. 

The establishment was described by the Washington Post in 1919 as “something like a Greenwich Village coffee house” that had “gaudy pictures created by futurists and impressionists.”  Its name came from a popular comic strip at the time titled Krazy Kat, whose main character was copied for use on both the front door and on shirts worn by the waiters.  The strip was the genius of artist George Herriman, who created a stir at the time because he stated that Krazy Kat was androgynous: sometimes Krazy was a male, and sometimes a female, willing to be both.  The cartoon strip ran in major newspapers throughout the country, and featured two protagonists: Krazy Kat and Ignatz, a mouse.  

The androgynous namesake of the club seems to have been a green light for early gay people in Washington, DC to roundevouz and meet with like individuals without exposure.  The Krazy Kat club was mentioned in the published diary of Jeb Alexander called “Jeb & Dash,” written by a gay man living in 1920’s DC. He wrote that the club was a “Bohemian joint in an old stable up near Thomas Circle ... (where) artists, musicians, atheists, professors gathered.”   

Despite prohibition, the club offered liquor to its patrons, and was raided several times during its existence from about 1918 to about 1925.  The Sheppard Act introduced prohibition of intoxicating liquors in Washington, DC effective on November 1, 1917, a full two years before a national prohibition.  Both were repealed in 1933.

One raid in February of 1919 was initiated when a police officer heard a gunshot emulating from the club at 1 am.  The raid resulted in “25 prisoners, including three women — self-styled artists, poets and actors, and some who worked for the government by day and masqueraded as Bohemians by night.” Most of those arrested faced charges of drinking in public. (Washington Post, February 22, 1919).

The club was run by Cleon “Throck” Throckmorton, seen at the easel on the terrace of the club, and outside the entrance.  He had been born in Atlantic City in 1897, and studied engineering at Carnegie Tech and at George Washington University before embarking on a career as a landscape and figure painter.  His parents, Ernest U. and Roberta Cowing Throckmorton moved to Washington, DC and resided at 1536 Kingman Place, NW, just off of Logan Circle. 

Italian Anarchist Blows Himself Into Pieces in 1919

Damage from Bombing

The Foiled Bomb Plot at
2132 R Street, NW

 The image at left, captured in front of the elegant house at 2132 R Street, N.W. on June 2, 1919, first appeared on the front page of the now defunct Evening Star newspaper under a headline that shocked many in Washington at the time: Explosion at Attorney General’s Home Starts a Nation-Wide Round-Up of Anarchists.[1]  The bombing occurred in front of the home of U.S. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, who had been the intended recipient of the package bomb, which in all likelihood would have been successful if the bomber had not tripped on a series of iron wickets lining the front entrance of the home, blowing himself and his identity into thousands of pieces.

            What prompted such a dramatic event on the peaceful 2100 block of R Street 93 years?   The perceived threat of Communists “Reds.”  Worried by the revolution that had taken place in Russia, Palmer became convinced that Communist agents were planning to overthrow the American government.  His suspicions intensified at about 11 pm on June 2, 1919 when he was sitting between the upstairs windows of his home along with other government officials when the bomb went off outside.  Uninjured, Palmer rushed outside to find no remains of the Italian assassin, but instead floating propaganda from his destroyed suitcase that read: “There will be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder; we will kill, because it is necessary; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.”  In all, a total of thirty-eight bombs had been sent to leading politicians throughout the country.              

Alexander M. Palmer

The Evening Star reporting from over eighty years ago brings to mind the contemporary criticisms of newsprint and television journalism as being too sensational.  The story was divided up into several stories, as it was in the Washington Post the following day. 

Warning!  The following is not for the faint at heart!

(you can skip safely to the next paragraph). 

The reports read in parts: “Fragments of the anarchist’s body were literally driven into the back of the trees, the woodwork of nearby houses, scattered over the pavements and smeared on the front roofs of houses, while a large portion of the man’s torso was found hanging to the cornice of a house on S Street a block from the spot where the explosion occurred.  A part of the man’s liver was found on the top of an automobile standing nearly 100 feet away.”  “John Bryn, 14, son of the Norwegian Minister, was asleep in 2137 R Street when a section of the “Red’s” spinal column smashed through the window and landed beside his bed.”  “The enormous force of the explosion…was most clearly shown in the distance in which pieces of the scattered remains were hurled.  The legs were found across the street from Mr. Palmer’s home.  The scalp reposed on S Street, to which it had to rise 50 feet in the air and transverse a distance of more than 75 yards.”  Adding to the yawning house fronts where doors had been blown from their hinges and the litter of glass and leaves in front of the houses, was a spectacle of hundreds of minute flesh pieces covering the street and adhering in ghastly fashion to the fronts of dwellings and doors.”  “Cleaners and window washers were put to work after headquarters had collected all the remains needful.”                 

2132 R Street in 2012

Instead of Palmer going after the person or persons whom directly planned the bombing, he went after everyone who had any association with suspected Communist ties.  They discovered that most Communists or ‘Reds’ were usually immigrants, therefore they found immigration laws that they could easily work under to arrest these persons.  Palmer looked to arrest all members of these groups, with a plan to arrest large numbers of unsuspecting persons at one time, thus gaining the name ‘Palmer Raids’ which began after his bombing in the spring of 1919. 

Copyright Paul K. Williams

---

[1] Reproduced later in the Literary Digest, June 14, 1919.

The Bizaare Last Will of Rainmaker George Dyrenforth

1606 19th Street, NW

Major media headlines on controversial or unusual inclusions in an individuals Last Will and Testament often make readers reassess their own wills, or to write one for the first time.  This has happened for well over a hundred years, and a particular Will written in 1909 by D.C. resident Robert G. Dyrenforth made sensational headlines in the local papers the following year, and was no doubt the hot gossip that summer.  Divorced in 1902, the contents of his Will revealed a streaming discontent with his former wife and the female gender as a whole, and set a multitude of impossible challenges for his only heir, a grandson by the same name.     

Robert St. George Dyrenforth was listed in the 1890 City Directory as a resident of a house coined “Laurelwood” in Mount Pleasant.  By 1896, however, he was listed along with his wife Jennie in the Elite List as a resident in a house at 1503 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W (replaced by a Holiday Inn today).  He listed himself as a patent lawyer, and as the “Commander-in-Chief” of the Union Veterans’ Union, with an office at 602 F Street, N.W.  He also was rather infamous for his attempts to create artificial rain.  They later moved to a house at 1311 21^st Street, N.W., where he would live until 1907.  Divorced wife Jennie moved into 1606 19th Street that same year.   

Robert Dyrenforth, WP July 1910

Dyrenforth had been born in Chicago, Illinois on October 17, 1844.  He was a cadet at Breslau, Neisse, and Berlin, Prussia from 1857 to 1861.  He graduated in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic school in Carlsruhe, Baden, and from the University of Heidelberg in 1869, with a Ph.D.  He attended law school and other programs at the Colombian (George Washington) University.  He had served in the United States Army for the Civil War, leaving service in the rank of Major. 

           

Once described as a flamboyant character, he served as a War correspondent for the Chicago Post and Times during the Austro-Prussian War in 1861, and entered service in the Patent Office in 1871.  He rose to the rank of Principal Examiner, before practicing as a patent and corporation lawyer beginning in 1885. 

           

He had married Jane “Jennie’ De Lacy in 1866.  They had four children together, including Bessie, who married Robert McGrath.  They had a son, and named him Robert St. George Dyrenforth, Jr., after his grandfather.  McGrath tragically died in 1899, when Robert Jr. was just 12 months old, and Bessie died just a year later.  In the meantime, Jennie, a Catholic, had obtained a then rare legal separation from her estranged husband, and had alimony set in the amount of $50 per month beginning in 1902.  She moved to 1606 19^th Street in 1907, with daughter Rose, while Robert moved from apartment to apartment with their son Donald, and his orphaned grandson, Robert, Jr.  

Unhappy Grandson Robert Dyrenforth, Jr.

Robert Jr., did not go willingly, however, because he had been abducted from a nurse during a stroll in DuPont Circle by Robert Sr., in 1904.  Jennie Dyrenforth later told The Post that “his grandfather turned him on me, as the affection years before was lacking.”  Courts later granted his wish to adopt his grandson.          

By the time his Will was written in 1909, however, Robert Dyrenforth had clear disdain for his wife, and all women, it seems.  Robert Jr., was set to inherit Dyrenforth’s estate, but not until 1926, at the age of 28.  He would have to meet many and often bizarre stipulations in the Will, however, in order to inherit the estate, which apparently included death benefits, property, furniture, etc.  His three brothers who lived in Chicago served as the Executors and Trustees.  Some of the challenges read: 

“I particularly request my executors thoughtfully and well guard my beloved son from women, and sensibly, that is, quietly, gradually, and impressively, though to no erratic extreme, to let him be informed and know the indirect, artful, and parasitical nature of most of the unfortunate sex, and to care that he may not marry beneath him.”

“That he [not] come under the influence of, or affiliate with, one Jennie Dyrenforth, or with her daughter, one Rose Marie Knowlton.”

“Should [Robert] be subject or exposed to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, or become a Catholic, I hereby direct that each and every bequest herein…shall become null and void...and pass absolutely to…the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.”

The Gruesome Death of Druggest Paul Reinlein in 1887

Anyone that has struggled with a tamper-proof medicine bottle or prescription pill container often recalls the days before such child-proof lids made the job of opening a vile a simple task.  What many don’t realize, however, that the debate over labeling and tamper-proofing medicine bottles began well over 100 years ago, a call for change highlighted by the mistaken and gruesome death of Washington, DC druggist Paul Reinlein in 1887.  I purchased several of his gummed labels from eBay about 10 years ago, and discovered his spectacular death once I began to research the man. 

Reinlein then resided at 1424 9^th Street, NW, near the intersection of P Street, where he owned a pharmacy close by, across the intersection at 1501 9^th Street (now a vacant lot).  His young business was successful, and he had recently opened a branch at 9^th and Florida Avenue just a few blocks north.  In the early afternoon of March 11, 1887, Reinlein would accidently drink a lethal shot of cincture of aconite, believing it to be a shot of whiskey.  His dying moments would be reported in grisly detail the following day in the Washington Post.  Oddly, nobody seemed to question why a druggist was drinking whiskey on the job in the first place.          

According to the federal census, Paul Reinlein was born Paulus Reinlein about 1830 in Germany, the son of Anton and Runigunda Reinlein.  He arrived in the United States along with his parents on July 20, 1837 aboard the Constitution, which had sailed from Bremen, Germany about a week prior.  They first located in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Paul and his wife Anna relocated to Washington, DC in 1875.  They first resided at 1428 6^th Street, NW, today the site of the Kennedy Playground, where they were enumerated in the 1880 census.  This was the second marriage for Anna, and the couple lived there with two children from her previous marriage; daughter Emma Fishback and son C.B. Fishback, who indicated that he worked as a newspaper correspondent.  Anna Reinlein died in 1885.      

At 1:55 pm on March 12, 1887, Reinlein called out for his store clerk, Theodore Melson, and exclaimed “I have taken an ounce and a half of tincture of aconite.  Get me the hot water off the stove, so I can take some ipecac, and then get a doctor quickly, for God’s sake.”  Aconite is an herbal or homeopathic medicine that is still used for nerve pain, headache, rheumatism, and to treat cold and flu symptoms, as well as fever, severe anxiety, and even nervous excitement.  It is derived from the aconite plant, and just 100 drops is enough for a lethal dose.      

Reinlein’s clerk ran south down 9^th Street and brought back Dr. S.S. Stearns, a good friend of the druggist.  In the meantime, a neighbor ventured into the store, and asked Reinlein how he felt.  He replied “Shut up – I’m going to tell the doctor all about it.”  Reinlein kept his whiskey in the same sort of bottle that the aconite was kept in, with a different label.  He had poured a shot of what he thought was whiskey about 1:50 that afternoon, and replaced the bottle. 

Stearns related that he “did not experience any unusual feeling immediately, and resumed his work.  Five minutes later, he felt a queer sensation in his stomach and with a sudden fear grasped the bottle and turned it around so that he could see the label.  He felt numb all over when he saw the word aconite on the bottle he knew that his chances for life after that length of time were very faint, but he determined to light for life as long as he could.”

Dr. Stearns described to a Post reporter the rather shocking and gruesome details that followed.  “I never saw a man appear as cool on the very threshold of death.  As soon as he saw me, he held out his hand and said just as calmly as I am talking to you now, “Doctor, I have taken an ounce and a half of aconite and I can’t throw it up.  Five minutes ago I took enough powered ipecac to make twenty men vomit, and I have drank a quart of hot water with no better effect.”  Stearns gave him “as big a dose of sulfate of zinc as he could swallow, and also a large cup of hot water” and sent the clerk to retrieve a stomach pump.  

Washington, DC Titanic Victim Clarence Moore

 The imposing former mansion at 1746 Massachusetts Avenue was commissioned by local stock broker Clarence Moore, who would only enjoy his residence for less than three years, having booked a journey on the fateful maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912.  The mansion has served as an embassy since 1927.  The Louis XV styled mansion was designed by Jules Henri de Sibour in 1906, and was completed in 1909 at a cost estimated at $200,000.   

Clarence Bloomfield Moore was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia on March 1, 1865.  After graduating from Dufferin College, he partnered with Senator Stephen Elkins and Henry Gassaway in developing several successful mineral mines in West Virginia.  His first wife, Alice McLaughlin, died in 1897, leaving two children; Frances Sarah Preston and Samuel Preston Moore.  Three years later, he married Mabelle Swift with whom he had two additional children, Jasper and Clarence, Jr.       

In 1900, Moore moved to Washington, when he became a member of the Washington, DC firm of William B. Hibbs and Co, stock brokers, who paid him an annual salary of $25,000.  At the time, the typical government worker earned less than $2,000.  Moore also owned a farm in Montgomery County, Maryland, where he raised cattle and horses, and had interests in real estate near Leesburg, Virginia.

Moore had been in England to shop for fox hounds for the Loundon Hunt. He purchased fifty pairs although they did not return with Moore on the Titanic despite them being portrayed in the recent movie Titanic.   

Just three years after completing the house at 1746 Massachusetts Avenue, Moore boarded the Titanic at Southampton as a first class passenger with ticket number 113796, costing £42 8s in April of 1912.  His manservant Charles Harrington, age 37, accompanied him. At the time of the collision Moore was playing cards in the smoking room with his compatriots and dining companions Major Archibald Willingham Butt, Harry Widener, and William Carter. 

Interior Staircase 1747 Mass Ave (HABS/HAER)

Moore, Harrington, and Major Butt were all residents of Washington at the time of the sinking, three of just five residents aboard the fateful trip traveling in first class.  The others included Archibald Gracie IV (1859-1912) and Helen Churchill Candee (1858-1949) - Candee survived (see blog entry below). 

Gracie was an American writer, amateur historian, real estate investor, and survived the sinking by climbing aboard an overturned collapsible lifeboat, and wrote a popular and valuable book about the disaster which is still in print today.  Candee was an American author, journalist, interior decorator, feminist and geographer who resided at 1621 New Hampshire Avenue who joined the “unsinkable Molly Brown” in lifeboat No. 6.  She is famous for writing "There were no more boats, water was swirling around the upper deck, people were beginning to panic.....and the band continued to play."  

Titanic Survivor Helen Candee, 1621 New Hampshire Ave

The "Unsinkable" Helen Candee

Many people walking by the large townhouse at 1621 New Hampshire, which seems to blend in with its neighbors so well that it often goes unnoticed, might be surprised to know that it was built and owned by a prominent woman’s rights suffragist and Titanic survivor, and was later the site of a major jewel heist.  A single woman by the name of Helen Churchill Candee obtained a building permit for its construction on April 27, 1905; she also had a then small fortune of $20,000 needed for its construction.

Candee indicated that the house was designed by the architectural firm of Wood, Donn, and Deming, and would be built by contractor John H. Nolan.  The architectural firm had been established just three years prior, in 1902, and was comprised of Waddy Wood, Edward Donn, and William Deming.

Candee was born Helen Churchill Hungerford on October 5, 1858, the daughter of New York City merchant Henry Hungerford and his wife, Mary Churchill.  She married Edward Candee of Norwalk, Connecticut, and had two children by him, Edith and Harold.  After the abusive Edward Candee abandoned the family, Candee supported herself as a writer for popular magazines such as Scribner's and The Ladies' Home Journal.  She initially wrote on the subjects most familiar to her - genteel etiquette and household management - but soon branched into other topics such as child care, education, and women's rights.

Candee was a strong feminist, as evidenced by her best-selling first book, How Women May Earn a Living (1900).  Her second book, An Oklahoma Romance (1901), was a novel that promoted the possibilities of settlement in Oklahoma Territory.  Having become an established literary figure, Candee moved to Washington in 1904 where she established herself as one of the first professional interior decorators; her clients included Henry Stimson and Theodore Roosevelt.  Candee’s book, Decorative Styles and Periods (1906), embodied her principles of design: careful historical research and absolute authenticity.

  

Candee was in Europe in the spring of 1912, when she received a telegram informing her that her son, Harold, had been injured in an automobile accident.  Candee hurriedly booked her passage home on a new luxury ocean liner, the Titanic.

Candee survived the great ship’s sinking, in spite of fracturing her ankle while boarding lifeboat No. 6.  Despite the pain of her injury, Helen managed to row with the others, clearing the side of the sinking ship by a few hundred yards. She was also able to lend moral support to Margaret “Unsinkable Molly” Brown, the legendary Denver millionairess and fellow suffragette, as she took control of the boat in the absence of leadership from the crewman in charge, Quartermaster Robert Hichens.  Under Molly’s direction, Candee and the other women rowed Boat 6 to the shelter of the rescue ship, Carpathia.

Candee eventually sold 1621 New Hampshire to a single woman by the name of Miss Mary Barclay Adams, the daughter of one of the owners of the Washington Evening Star newspaper.  Adams shared her new house with a close friend named Dora E. B. Merryman during the entire tenure of her ownership, which would last until 1928. Merryman was described in the local newspaper as “the most beautiful woman in Virginia.”

In March of 1911, both Adams and Merryman made headlines in the local newspapers when they reported a theft of jewelry from the house valued at $10,000, nearly half the value of the house itself.  The theft was “one of the largest of its kind ever known in this city.”  After contacting a local maid staffing service on March 21, 1911, Adams had hired a maid that said her name was Mary Miller, following an in-person interview that same day.  The maid reported to work the following day. 

Map of our "Scenes of the Past" Subject Locations

View the updated Google Map of our monthly "Scenes of the Past" column subject locations.  We've produced 132 columns for the InTowner newspaper since April 2001! 


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1430 Swann Street, NW and Swift Eagle

You never know what might be revealed when researching a house, and this was one of my favorites...which I first published the story in my Scenes of the Past column for the InTowner newspaper (July 2008).  Enjoy!

 

            The owner of the vacant lots where 1422 to 1430 Swann Street were to be constructed, George E. Emmons, applied for and was granted an Application for Permit to Build numbered 812 for their construction on November 20, 1883.  At the time, the Street was known as Pierce Place, a name designation that would not change until 1910 when other streets were also renamed to conform to the city’s alpha-numeric street naming system.  1430 Swann Street appears above.   

             The headline of the article that appeared in the February 2, 1932 edition of the Washington Post, seen at right, no doubt attracted attention to the morning readers of the paper.  It documents a renter of 1430 Swann Street beginning about 1932 who was allegedly ‘a full blood’ Native American named Swift Eagle, who was apparently able to live up to his name.   

            Swift Eagle was better known in local amusement and vaudeville theaters as the drum-beating and chanting sidekick to a wrestler called Chief Thunderbird from British Columbia.  Eagle’s actual life, however, might have been far less dramatic, although it did include time spent in the DC jail. 

Swift Eagle, his wife and son would rent 1430 Swann Street from 1932 to 1935.  He claimed to be either a half or full blooded Indian from New Mexico, but records show that he had actually been born in California.   

Swift Eagle and his wrestling partner, Chief Thunderbird, made headlines in Washington, DC beginning in October and November of 1937 when they were the feature attraction at the popular Joe Turner Arena, a 2,000 seat venue once located at the corner of 14^th and W Streets, NW, seen at left in a photo taken by John Ferrell in April of 1942 (LOC).  Chief Thunderbird wrestled Cliff “Swede” Olsen on October 28, 1937, and won the match, pinning Olsen in 26 minutes. 

Olsen, however, was not aware of the unusual tactics of Chief Thunderbird and his sidekick Swift Eagle, who often joined him in the ring, beating a tom-tom in concert with his Chief’s every move.  Adding chants to distract the opponent, Olsen often turned to attempt a hit on Eagle, whereupon Thunderbird would seize on the opportunity to the delight of the crowd.  Thunderbird, to the amazement of promoter Joe Turner and the crowd, had entered the stage in full Indian Chief regalia, complete with headdress, while Swift Eagle wore little more than his headband and tom-tom.          

Olsen demanded a rematch, and Joe Turner, sensing another sellout crowd, happily obliged.  The earlier match had been described in a Washington Post article on November 7, 1937, announcing the rematch to take place several days later.  It no doubt led to an interest in the upcoming match by reading: “Through the match Olsen was annoyed by Swift eagle’s tom tom.  The little Redskin released a barrage of beats every time the Chief was in danger, and this victory cry inspired Thunderbird to greater heights.”[1]  

Olsen filed a protest with Turner to prevent Swift eagle from accompanying his rival on or near the ring, but Turner’s showmanship and sense of promotion said that he could not keep Thunderbird’s “second stooge” from doing what he does best.  A full picture and article announcing the event appeared in the November 11, 1937 edition of the Washington Post, seen above.  It stated that “Swift eagle will take up his place in Thunderbird’s corner and hammer away on his antiquated tom-tom.  Whatever it is necessary during the course of the match he will go to town, so to speak, on the tom-tom and release Indian chants tantamount to a war whoop-de-doo.”      

           

            Chief Thunderbird (left) was born in 1896 in British Columbia, Canada as Jean Baptiste Paul.  He was the subject of a brief biographical article written by Greg Oliver of Slam!Sports wrestling magazine and website which reads in part:[2]    

“From his debut in 1933, until his retirement from wrestling in 1955, Saanich, B.C.’s Chief Thunderbird was the first big name native wrestler from Canada…He was born Jean Baptiste Paul in 1896, the hereditary chief of the Tsartlip Indians at Brentwood on Vancouver Island, son to Tommy Paul and grandson to Ben Paul, both who were noted chiefs with the tribe.

“My people wanted to make a medicine man out of me,” Thunderbird recalled in a 1965 interview with the Victoria Daily Colonist newspaper. “They kept putting me in cold water as part of the ritual. Finally, I ran away from home to attend a mission school at Kuper Island, near Duncan. I wanted to be an athlete more than anything else.”

At Indian college in Tacoma, Washington, called the Cushman School, “The Chief” was an active athlete, getting a remarkable eight sports letters in boxing, wrestling, baseball, basketball track and field, football, soccer and lacrosse. The feat made the “Strange As It May Seem” syndicated feature in newspapers.  As a boxer, Thunderbird won 27 of 32 pro fights, breaking both hands at various times. Wrestling would beckon. He often told the tale about being able to beat his adult coach in wrestling while at school.

He took part in an international water competition in 1933 in Coupeville, Washington, winning many events against other native warriors. During the festival, he got his first taste of pro wrestling, with a touring athletic carnival show. According to The Ring magazine from October 1936, “The Chief didn't pin the ‘carnival champion’ but he amassed the large sum of five dollars for the five minutes that he had spent in the ring before being pinned… Virgil Hamlin, a promoter in the Pacific Northwest, was instrumental in encouraging Thunderbird to take up pro wrestling…In 1937 in Walla Walla, Washington, he faced the great Ed “Strangler” Lewis in a outdoor bout at the ballpark. Thunderbird lost.

Updated Google Map of Our House Histories in Washington, DC

We've updated our Google map of completed "house histories" in NW Washington, DC, with a brief history tidbit for each location at the map pin: usually when it was built, who the architect was, the builder, and sometimes a bit more like how much it cost to build or who lived there.  We've done so many that the list is actually broken into three Google maps, so make sure you page forward to see if we have done a house near you.

In fact, if we have done a house history on your block, you save $100 off the price of having a complete house history for yourself: for a limited time only, we'll do any house history in Washington, DC for just $500.  Check out the map here!   




View NW Historic House and Building History in Washington, DC: NW Section in a larger map