Death of President Lincoln, April 15, 1865. John Hay sits in the foreground at the left.
HAY CENTENARY DISTRICT EVENT
Cabinet Officer From Washington an Author and Statesman Whose
Life Was Associated With Great Days in History—Other Leaders
in H Street Circle—Arlington Hotel Story.
By John Clagctt Proctor.
A CENTURY of years is, to many,
a very long time, and yet, his
torically speaking, it is but yes
terday, and though we pride
ourselves upon being good American
citizens, few of us have any general
idea as to what has transpired in this
country’ during that time. Few could
even tell, without looking the matter
up. what men have served as Presi
dent during these years, what out
standing things they did, if any. and
Where they are buried.
Indeed, it is quite probable that the
average person would not make 50 per
cent on this question, even if the time
were reduced to 20 years instead of a
hundred, which clearly indicates how
very soon our conspicuous men pass
from memory.
/"'VUR own Washington and Lincoln
will always be the best remem
bered of our Presidents, and yet, if a
poll were taken, it is more than likely
that not more than one adult in four
could tell where either President is
buried.
But, after all, though this lack of
knowledge may seem lamentable, yet
it only demonstrates that we are really
soon forgotten and that greatness
exists but for a short while and then,
like John Brown's body, lies moldering
in the grave for eternity.
America has brought forward many
important men. aside from those who
have held the office of Chief Executive,
and many of these, as in the case of
our Presidents, have almost dropped
out of sight. To the former group the
District of Columbia contributed one
very important national character, not
a native of the District, but one who
established himself here and claimed
this city as his official home. This
man was John Hay, statesman and
author, who, when assuming the office
of Secretary of State, on September 30,
1898. in the cabinet of President Mc
Kinley, did so as “John Hay of the
District of Columbia.'’
Of course, it is very unusual for the
District to have accredited to it a
cabinet officer. The only other occa
sion when this occurred was when
President Lincoln made Montgomery
Blair his Postmaster Oeneral, unless
we include Secretary Daniel C. Roper,
who has lived here off and on, and
generally on. long enough to qualify
for membership in the Association of
Oldest Inhabitants.
Yi/’HAT makes reference to John Hay
” of particular interest at this time
Ls the one-*hundredth anniversary of
his birth, which occurred yesterday,
he having been born at Salem,
Ind., on October 8, 1838, his parents
being Dr. Charles Hay and Helen
(Leonard) Hay. John Hay's middle
name was Milton but this he dropped
when he left Brown University. In an
address made by Mr. Hay before the
Ohio Society of New York. January 17,
1903. he summed up his family con
nections and his life’s activities,
Baying:
‘‘When I look back on the shifting
scenes of my life, if I am not that
altogether deplorable creature, a man
without a country, I am, when it comes
to pull and prestige, almost equally
bereft, as I am a man without a State.
“I was born in Indiana, I grew up
In Illinois, I was educated in Rhode
Island, and it is no blame to that
scholarly community that I know so j
little. I learned my law in Springfield
and my politics in Washington, my
diplomacy in Europe, Asia and Africa.
I have a farm in New Hampshire and
deskroom in the District of Columbia.
"When I look to the springs from
which my blood descends, the first
ancestors I ever heard of were a
Scotchman, who was half English, and ;
a German woman, who was half \
rrench. Of my immediate progenitors, j
fhy mother was from New England
and my father was from the South.
In this bewilderment of origin and
experience I can only put on an aspect
of deep humility in any gathering of
favorite sons and confess that I am
nothing but an American.”
TOHN HAY’S first residence in
** Washington was at the White
House, and his first job here was as
assistant secretary to Mr. Lincoln when
the martyr President came here in
1861. He was then 22 years old. a
graduate of Brown University, Provi
dence, R. I., a city that has recently
undergone so much distress caused by
the ravages of the hurricane and tidal
wave that also did so much damage
to property in other parts of New
England, and which resulted in the loss
of many lives. He also studied law,
but seems to have preferred w’riting to
Blackstone's Commentaries, and it was
not long after he came to Washington
that we find him writing a story for
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine on
Col. Edward Dickison Baker, United
States Senator from Oregon, who died
In battle near Conrads Ferry, October
21, 1861. This death was also com
memorated by lines written at the time
by the youthful son of the President,
William W. Lincoln, published in the
National Republican, November 4, 1861,
M follows:
•'Lines
On the Death of Col. Edward Baker. I
There was no patriot like Baker
So noble and so true;
He fell as a soldier on the field,
His face to the sky of blue.
His voice is silent in the hall
Which oft his presence grac'd,
No more he’ll hear the loud acclaim
Which mng from place to place.
1
JOHN HAY,
Author and statesman, born
October 8. 1838; died July 1,
1905. He claimed the District
of Columbia as his residence.
—Star Staff Photo.
No squeamish notions filled his breast,
The Union was his theme,
"No surrender and no compromise"
His day thought and night’s dream.
His country- has her part to play,
To'rds those he left behind,
His widow and his childreff all,
She must always keep in mind."
From this time on. John Hay's writ
ings, including his many poems, form
part of the country's best literature.
However, his crownifig accomplishment
was the part he performed ;n the writ
ing of the well-known 10-volume work
on the life of Abraham Lincoln, of
which he was joint author with John
G. Nicolay.
JOHN HAY'S most important posi
tions were those of Ambassador to
Great Britain and Secretary of State.
He came to the latter office a month
after the close of the Spanish-Amer
ican War, but soon demonstrated his
great ability as a diplomat in the
framing of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty
to remove objections to the construc
tion of the Isthmian Canal, and the
modus vivendi with Great Britain by
which a temporary boundary line was
fixed with Alaska. His success in urg
ing upon the powers the "open-door”
policy in China also made him notable.
He seems to have had plenty to do
in his high and responsible office, and
he also showed much tact and ability
in arranging a settlement of the
Samoan question.
The message he sent to the Sultan
of Morocco in 1904 has been often
quoted. A person named Perdicaris,
it seems, and his stepson had Wen
seized and carried off to the moun^
tains of Morocco by the principal ban"
dit chief, Raisuli. Perdicaris was sup
posed to be an American citizen, and,
according to Fred A. Emery, "the
bandit haggled with the Sultan over
ransom terms. The Washington Gov
ernment was disgusted with the Sul
tan’s hesitancy.
" ‘What message would you send as
an ultimatum?’ Secretary Hay asked
Edwin M. Hood of the Associated
Press one day. ‘Perdicaris alive or
Raisuli dead,’ replied Hood. Imme-,
diatoly Secretary Hay sent that famous
ultimatum, the consulate at Tangiers
delivered it to the Sultan, and Perdi
caris and his stepson were hack home
I in two days. Here, however, is a
hitherto unrevealed sequel: The State
Department later found that Perdicaris
had not yet acquired American citizen
ship.”
TT IS quite unusual for any one to
took unfavorably upon the office of
President of the United States, but
the story is told that Mr. Hay actually
dreaded ever being elevated to this
office, for which he had twice been
in line—once when Vice President
Hobart died, November 21, 1899. and
when President McfcinJey passed away
at Buffalo September 14, 1901.
Although John Hay had been a sick
man, yet his sudden passing away at
Newburg N. H, on July 1, 1905, w'as
not looked for, and proved a shock
to the Nation, and especially to his
many close friends. In addition to
Mrs. Hay. he left two daughters, Helen
and Alice, and a son, Clarence L.
Miss Helen Hay became the wife of
Payne Whitney in 1902, and Alice
married James Wolcott Wadsworth, jr.,
in September of the same year. Adel
bert Stone Hay, the Secretary’s eldest
son, died in 1901 from an accident
which occurred in New Haven, Conn.,
and is buried in Lake View Cemetery,
Cleveland, Ohio, where also lie John
Hay and Mrs. Hay.
James Wolcott Wadsworth, to whom
Alice Hay was married, later served in
the United States Senate and is now
a member of the House of Represent
atives.
At the time of Mr. Hay’s death,
President Theodore Roosevelt said:
Arlington Hotel, Vermont avenue and H street N.W., formerly on the site now occupied by
the Veterans’ Administration Building.•__*
The Corcoran Mansion, Connecticut avenue and H street N.W., built by Thomas Sicann and
once occupied by Daniel Webster and W. W.Corcoran. It was on the site 0/ the National
Chamber of Commerce.
__,<
"The Ame»‘can people have never had
a greater Secretary of State."
William Howard Taft, then Secre
tary of War, said of the deceased:
"Secretary Hay was a remarkable
man; remarkable in more ways than
one I count it one of the greatest
privileges and pleasures to have been
associated with him. He was America's
premier diplomat,” and The Staj- said:
“He was a master of the English'
language, both spoken and written,
and his fame in this regard was inter
national. His 'Pike County Ballads,’
including 'Jim Bludso’ and ‘Little
Breeches,' written in his college days
and shortly thereafter, have long been
famous. His mast pretentious work
was the ‘Life of Abraham Lincoln.’
which he wrote in collaboration with '•
John G. Nicolay.”
IN 1885 John Hay and his near
friend. Henry Adams, built adjoin
houses on H street near St. • John's
Church. The Hay residence was on
the northwest corner of H and Six
teenth streets, facing Sixteenth, and
the Adams house came next, facing H
street. Both houses overlook Lafayette
Park. Here the Hays entertained in
an eminently dignified way quite fre
quently during the early part of his
premiership, but the falling health of
the Secretary and the disinclination
of Mrs. Hay practically retired them
from active participation in social
affairs for several years. However,
the festivities surrounding the mar
riage of Miss Helen Hay to Mr. Payne
Whitney were perhaps the event of
their residence here in which the
greatest public interest was centered.
After the marriage of the second
daughter to Mr. Wadsworth, which
event look place at the family summer
home, they were relieved of any
necessity of extending or accepting
hospitality outside of that required by
official custom. And following the
death of Mr. Hay, the Wadsworths
occupied the Hay residence.
Henry Adams, who resided next to
the Hayff-esidence—and both of these
sites are now covered by the Hay
Adams House—was a noted historian.
Mrs. Adams died in 18851 and the .
Saint-Gaudens statue was erected to
her memory in Rock Creek Cemetery
in 1891. Saint-Gaudens, the cele
brated sculptor, was a friend of the
Adams and one of the few of a small
group of friends privileged to visit
their home, and Mr. Hay declared the
memorial to Mrs. Adams as inde
scribably noble and imposing and a
masterpiece. “It is full of poetry and
suggestion." he said, and “infinite wis
dom: a past without beginning and a
future without end; a repose, after
limitless experience: a peace to which
nothing matters—all embodied in this
austere and beautiful face and form.”
Perhaps of equal artistic merit is
the Kauffmann Memorial in the same
cemetery, of similar design. It was
erected in 1897 and is the work of
William Ordway Partridge.
H street from Vermont avenue to
Seventeenth street has been a wonder
ful thoroughfare in its day, and many
will still recall the Arlington Hotel
which stood on therfite of the building
occupied by the Veterans' Administra
tion. This old hotel building was built
in 1865 by that eminent Washing
tonian, W. W. Corcoran, and for sev
eral years thereafter was known as
the Arlington House, subsequently be
ing simply called “The Arlington.”
though popularly referred to as the
“Arlington Hotel.”
the Vermont avenue side of the site
was occupied by at least, three dwell
ings. The first one, which was near
the corner of I street, was from time
to time the home of such distinguished
Americans as Reverdy Johnson, Sen
ator from Maryland and Minister to
England, and James Buchanan, before
he became President.
To the south of this residence was
the home of William L. Marcy. who
served as Secretary of War during
the administration of James K. Polk
and later as Secretary of State in
the cabinet of President Franklin
Pierce.
Lewis Cass lived in the third house
The Matthew Saint-Clair Clarke House, 1525 H street N.W.,
now the home of Mrs. Margaret C. Buckingham, is a house
replete with history. —Star Staff Photo.
, Residence of John Hay, 800 Sixteenth street N.W., formerly
on the site now occupied by the Hay-Adams House. The home
of Henry Adams, historian, is to the left.
south of I street. He was a man who
had achieved great honor on the
battlefield during the War of 1812-15.
under Gen. William Henry Harrison,
who promoted him to be a brigadier
general for his part in the decisive
victory over the British under Gen.
Proctor and the Indians under Te
cumseh. President Jackson made him
Secretary of War and President Bu
chanan made him Secretary of State.
THE northwest corner of Ver
mont avenue and H street lived
Charles Sumner, Senator from Massa- '
chusetts and one of the most ardent
and active anti-slavery members of
the United States Senate, It was dur
ing the bitter discussion on the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise in May,
1856, that Senator Sumner was as
saulted by Representative Preston S.
Brooks, a nephew of Senator Butler of
South Carolina, to whom Sumner had
referred in his speech* So severely
injured was the Massachusetts Senator
that he was unable to appear in the
Senate for nearly four years thereafter.
At his H street residence, where he
died March 11, 1874, were many por
traits of celebrated men, engraved by
masters of the art of engraving, to
which he would sometimes call the at
tention of his visitors, and after speak
COMMUNICATION REVOLUTIONIZED BY FIRST ATLANTIC CABLE
- A------A A___„_-A _
News of Laying Was
Received With 91
Gun Salute.
By A. G. West.
J7IGHTY years ago the United States
naval frigate Niagara landed
the first Atlantic cable at Newfound
land, the joint enterprise of British
and American men-of-war.
The afternoon of August 4, 1858, had
found the ship standing up Trinity
Bay for Bulls Mouth Island. Ice
bergs had been sighted in the west
and the convoy vessels, H. M. S.
Porcupine and Gorgon, were ahead as
the squadron passed the Tail of the
Banks.
Seven bells had struck as the cap
tain of the British warship came
aboard to confer with Capt. Hudson
on the Niagara as the vessel proceeded
slowly into the cove. The critical
moment that' two continents had
awaited for more than a year had
at last arrived. The frigate continued
to pay out cable until midnight, when
all hands were called to bring the
ship to anchor.
Officer of the Deck McCauley wrote
in his log, “Lowered the boats and
buoyed the cable with them.” The
stern anchor was dropped in 15 fath
oms of water and at 3 a.m. the cable
cut and the crew commenced to pay
it into the second cutter for landing
on shore.
When drawn broke the boats of
the squadron had left the ship with
the cable and commenced pulling it
toward shore. By 6 o'clock of August
5, officers and men had proceeded
•with the American end of the Atlantic
cable to the telegraph station house
where Capt. Hudson offered “Thanks
to Almighty God for the successful
termination of the expedition.”
The historic event was not cele
brated on the Niagara by festivities.
Officer of the Deck John Guest tersely
marked up his log, “At 8:30 a.m. piped
the hammocks down to refresh the
crew. Loaded the electrician and
baggage.”
'T'HE following day a telegraphic
dispatch was received that the
British man-of-war Agamemon had
landed the European end of the cable
at Valentia Bay. Knightstown, suc
cessfully. This message was evi
dently the first telegram ever trans
mitted over the North Atlantic, and
marked an epoch in international com
munications.
The message was received with a
salute of 91 guns, and as soon as the
news was flashed to New York, where
the Amerecan Telegraph had its of
L
flee at 10 Wall street, the crowds of
visitors began to collect. Queen Vic
toria dispatched a telegram of con
gratulations to President Buchanan
in honor of the achievement and Sep
tember 1 was set aside as a day of
national rejoicing for this “cable Ju
bilee.”
The year 1858 had been an Im
portant milestone in the advancement
of international trade. The first let
ter-box collections had been taken up
from boxes erected in New York and
Boston in early August, while the
first overland mail had been for
warded between San Francisco and
St. Louis on October 9, exactly 80
years ago today, though it was then
but 11 years after the experiment
of postage stamps had been author
ized in the United States.
The new-fangled contraption, the
railroad, which had commenced to
carry mails in 183*. had speeded mat
ters up a great deal, though letters
were still carried by stage coaches,
sulkies and post riders in many parts
of the Nation. The zone systerti of
charging for 'postage was in effect
in that transition period, and rates
were so high and so oppressive that
conditions were very little better than
they had been a century earlier, when
Benjamin Franklin had been the post
master at Philadelphia.
jyjAILS were carried to the West
Coast by way of Panama, and
trade with the Pacific was thus un
endurably delayed. Capt. Sir John
Franklin had sailed in 1845 with
Capt. Crozier in the Erebus and
Terror in search of the Northwest
Passage, but when no news of them
had been reported three years, the
British government dispatched three
expeditions for their relief. That
was the inauguration of the most
important era of Arctic exploration,
by England, France and the United
States.
The first whaler,- Capt. Roys, had
ventured through Behring Strait in
1848 with the American 8uj£ior, and
his success was such that 154 Amer
ican whalers followed the next year,
and thus the whale fisheries were es
tablished permanently in that sec
tion, Gold was discovered on Capt.
Sutter’s farm in California, and the
following year, 1850, California was
admitted to the Union. Commodore
Perry, who had sailed in November,
1852, for Japan, had reached Yeddo
Bay, where he wintered, and con
cluded the treaty with Japan by
March, 1854.
The way for trade between the
United States and the Orient was open.
But international trade is closely de
pendent upon international communi
cations. Weeks and months elapsed be
tween shipments between the Atlantic
and Pacific Coasts, and the effort to
establish a cable across the ocean to
link up, the European nations with
k
This is the type of vessel that formerly carried passengers
and freight between ports of the world in the days when tele•
grams and radiograms were unknown. Cargoes often took
months, or even a year, to reach their destination, and news
was subject to many delays. —Photo by U. S. Coast Guard.
the New World was therefore a vital
link toward trade with the Far East,
and was to have a far-reaching effect
upon the development of foreign de
mand for the rich grain areas and ore
mines of the Middle West.
The need for fast mails and reliable
telegraph communication between na
tions had long been apparent to the
merchants of Europe The victory
achieved by the successful laying of
the first Atlantic cable was pointed
by the transmission of news from
abroad of the collision of the steamers
Arabia and Europe in rapid time,
which normally would have taken
weeks if carried by the mails.
rpHIS piece of intelligence alone was
sufficient to prove the value of an
ocean cable. But the victory was to
be short-lived, for by mid-October the
cable had expired because of the in
tensity of electrical charges for which
the materials had not been sufficiently
prepared.
In spite of the early defeat of the
original cable, a meeting was called in
Paris in 1865 that was to have a pro
found result in the stimulation of
American trade. The great overland
routes in Europe had not yet been
completed. Telegraphs were isolated
and Alexander Bell had yet to receive
a patent on his new idea, the tele
phone.
The messages between nations were
<
beset with difficulty, harassd by in
finite delays and irritating and restrict
i ing rules. Costs were exorbitant. An
early cable over the North Atlantic
rand to around $100 for 20 words,
with a charge of about $5 for each
extra word. The parley in Parts was
to found a new organization to be
known as the International Bureau
of Telegraph Administrations. Prom
it was to flow the law and order of the
international telegraphs for the next
50 years, as administered by the great
Telegraph Union, to which every im
portant nation in Europe belonged.
The first telegraph parley at Paris
was succeeded by the second at Rome,
in 1870. Five years later there was a
conference at St. Petersburg, to which
the United States was extended an in
vitation by the Imperial Russian Gov
ernment. The American commercial
telegraph companies waited upon Sec
retary of State Hamilton Pish, with
the result that the United States held
only a watching brief at the most mo- ;
mentous meeting on telegraphs and
cables ever held.
'T'HE treaty that was formulated at
1 t)iat conference in Russia endured
for over half a century. Upon it hung
the regulations for telegrams and the
rates for messages throughout the
world, and though the United States
was not a party to the treaty, and had
no vote In Us making, this Nation
• A
found itself bound in its international
communication* by the terms of the
covention framed by the nations of
Europe.
In 1927 the International Telegraph
Union met in Washington, D. C.,
simultaneously with the International
Radiotelegraph Union at the United
States Chamber of Commerce. This
conference was one of the most im
portant held in the history of com
munications, for the assignment of
the radio spectrum was plotted out
by United States Government experts
in a new and novel form. Congress
appropriated $96,000 with which to
defray the necessary expenses of en
tertaining the distinguished foreign
delegates and their technical experts,
who were luxuriously housed at the
Hotel Carlton and receptions, balls
and entertainments filled in the mo
ments between plenary sessions and
committee meetings of the radio dip
lomats.
The era was the cross-roads between
the use of long wave and short wave
radio. The noted scientist. Dr. HOyt
Taylor, working at the Naval Labora
tory at Bellevue, Anacostia, had just
perfected a new series of transmitters
which were even then being installed
at the Naval Radio Station at Ar
lington, Va. But these ultra-modern
sets, which embraced the theory of
using a variety of wave lengths best
suited to transcontinental transmis
sion, were not put into active use
until the last of the foreign delegates
had set sail for Europe. Short-wave
transmission over long distances was
a success. But it was not fully ap
preciated to what an extent for many
long months, due to the discreet silence
of the American experts.
DY 1931 the cat was out of the in
ternational bag. The Washington
treaty had gone into effect. Madrid,
which had made the successful bid
for the next parley, was on the horizon
for 1932. The rise of broadcasting
had been a triumph, but ehiefly for
the Americans, whose far-sighted tal
ents in the amateur fleld had culmi
nated in their success in commercial
radio.
Between 1932 and 1938, when the
Telecommunications Conference closed
at Ma4rld and opened at Cairo, are
only six years. But in that period
radio had become a vast international
force, extending to aviation, as well
as to communications, shipping and
broadcast interests.
Senator Wallace H. White, Jr., of
Maine, chairman of the United States
delegation at the Cairo conference on
radio and telegraphs last spring, has re
cently submitted his official report
to the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull.
Chief among the results obtained at
this Telecommunications Conference
were the assignments of radio fre
quencies for seven interocean air com
merce flights. These radio highways
4
Today Is the Birthday
of Transcontinental
Mail Service.
of the air will now have their own
specific radio allocations, which will
be used by the planes of any nation
on their way to and from the ports
of Europe.
“The heavens filled with commerce,
argosies of magic sails” that Alfred
Tennyson wrote about so long ago, has
now come true. The poet did not
live to see his prediction of the "Pilots
of the purple twilight, dropping down
with costly bales,” as. the aircraft
of Paris and London and Newark or
Chicago are filled today with modem
airliners.
'T'HE race to secure the most de
sirable radio frequencies for the
ocean lanes to be flown in the future
by the air transports of Europe was
an Important part of the conflict this
year at the Cairo parley. Half a doten
nations, led by Germany, Great Brit
ain, Prance, Netherlands and Russia,
opposed the United States with respect
to aircraft radio assignments, accord
ing to Senator White's report.
Over two months were taken up
with this battle to secure an agree
ment on aeronautical matters at the
radio meeting. The conference was
frankly air-minded, but aviation in
Europe, is chiefly on the medium wave
lengths and by telegraphic systems,
as opposed to the general and wide
spread use in America for domestic
air services of radiotelephony on the
short waves.
This meant a struggle to force this
country to use what Europe is accus
tomed to use in aircraft equipment.
Efforts were made to clear the short
wave bands above 6,000 Kilocycles for
international flights, but at the ex
pense of existing American stations.
The United States delegation refused
to accept this recommendation and
Europe finally decided to adopt what
were known as “spot” assignments on
the radio spectrum for their interna
tional flights between Asia, 8outh
America, North America and over the
Pacific.
4 Aviation radio has arrived. It is
no longer the Cinderella of the world
of aeronautics. In 10 short years,
from the date of the discovery of the
shielded spark plug by Malcom Han
son at Anacostia, and the test fight
by Lt. George De Baun, U. 8. N.,
over the Potomac, radio has come
into its own in aviation, and the
air transport line of the future will
convey messages from the upper air
lanes, as the Atlantic cable first trans
mitted them underseas, just SO yean
ago this fall
ing of their artistic merits would pro
ceed to give biographical sketches of
the originals, together with brief his
tories of the times in which they lived,
thus making each picture the text of
a historical and biographical discourse ►
to which it was both pleasant and in
structive to listen.
His love for children is said to have
been a prominent trait of his char
acter. and few men possessed a happier
faculty of inspiring their confidence
and winning their affection. His in
fluence over them is believed to have
been truly magnetic.
Other residents of the Sumner house
were Walter Q. Gresham. Secretary of
State under President Cleveland, whose
remains now lie in Arlington National
Cemetery, and Henry C. Payne, Post
master General in Thodore Roosevelt’s
cabinet.
AD JOINING the Sumner residence
to the west was the home of Sen
ator Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas,
another enthusiastic Republican. Some
time after the Arlington Hotel was
built these two residences were com
bined and formed the H street en
trance. though they were not a part
of the main building. ,
When the Arlington Hotel was erect
ed it was considered an uptown hotel.
indeed from the follow
ing description of the neighborhood,
made by George Alfred Townsend, as
it appeared in 1865, we might even be
justified in calling it suburban. Mr.
Townsend in speaking of the assassina
tion of President Lincoln and the at
tempt made upon the life of his Sec
retary of State, William H. Seward,
says: ,
“Vermont avenue was such a sluice
of desolation that in 1865, after stab
bing Mr. Seward, the assassin, Payne,
galloped half a block and disappeared
out this street among the stables,
shanties, dumping piles and ditches
which pressed close up to Lafayette
Square.”
In addition to the houses already
mentioned on H street near Vermont
avenue, there was also the home of
Mrs. Ann Cazanave, the widowed -
daughter of Notley Young, one of the
city’s original proprietors. This house
was probably erected shortly after the
year 1800, though Mrs. Cazanave, be
coming homesick for South Wash
ington, sold the property to' John D
Barclay about 1811 and subsequently
it was occupied by Fielder R. Doriett,
a well-known carpenter of that period.
Benjamin Gilpin is said to have
owned the lot adjoining the one men
tioned, which he bought about 1818. '
Soon, however, it passed into the
hands of George Hay, a prominent
lawyer, who built a home and lived
there some years with his brother
Charles Hay of the Navy Department.
The next owner of this property was
Matthew St. Clair Clarke, clerk of
the House of Representatives, 1822
1834, and he, we are told, rebuilt the
house then on the ground, the builder
being John C. Harkness. It was the
eighth house built on Lafayette Park,
and Mr. Clarke had planned erecting
on the front a pretentious <5,000
marble portico. But due to the loss *
of a fortune of <200,000 the stone
ordered was left in the marble yard
in Baltimore. Mr. Clarke resided here
at least until 1846.
This house, which is numbered 1525
H street, subsequently became the
home of Joseph Gales, editor of the
National Intelligencer, and later of
Lord Alexander Baring Ashburton,
when the Webster-Ashburton treaty
was drafted defining the present ,
Canadian boundary. This treaty was
later signed in the old State De
partment, which stood at the north
end of the Treasury Building, the lite
of which was marked a decade ago
with a bronze tablet by the Kiwanis
Club, under the auspices of the Per
manent Committee on Marking Points
of Historic Interest in the District of
Columbia.
The house was also the home of the
British Legation while Lord Dalling.
otherwise known as Sir Henry Bulwer
Lytton, was Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary to the United
States, 1849-1852. There his talented*
nephew and secretary. Edward Robert
Bulwer-Lytton, later Lord Lytton,
whose pen name was "Owen Meredith,"
began his celebrated poem. "Lucille."
It was during Lord Dalllng’s tent
I (See PROCTOR, Page C-5.)
i ~