Ward 7 Heritage Guide

WARD 7 HERITAGE GUIDE A Discussion of Ward 7 Cultural and Heritage Resources Ward 7 Heritage Guide Text by Patsy M. Fletcher, DC Historic Preservation Office Design by Kim Elliott, DC Historic Preservation Office Published 2013 Unless stated otherwise, photographs and images are from the DC Office of Planning collection. This project has been funded in part by U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund grant funds, administered by the District of Columbia’s Historic Preservation Office. The contents and opinions contained in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Depart- ment of the Interior, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the U.S. Department of the Interior. This program has received Federal financial assistance for the identification, protection, and/or rehabilitation of historic properties and cultural resources in the District of Columbia. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or disability in its Federally assisted programs. If you believe that you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20240. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction......................................................................................................................5 Historical Perspective...................................................................................................6 Ward 7 at a Glance ............................................................................................. 12 Community Stakeholders Ward 7 Neighborhoods Attractions Preservation Framework...........................................................................................16 Lost Resources Preservation Challenges Quirky Cultural Resources Preservation Strategies Historic Sites.................................................................................................................. 20 Historic Landmarks in Ward 7 African American Heritage Trail Cultural and Heritage Resources Bibliography...................................................................................................................37 Arthur Randle, developer of Randle Highlands, with colleagues on Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, circa 1915. Chemical Engine Company No. 2 and Randle’s home, the “Southeast White House” are in the background. Library of Congress 3 N District of Columbia WARD 7 Ward Map (2012) INTRODUCTION In the far eastern corner of the District of Columbia east of the Anacostia River Boat is nevertheless a visual landmark and significant historically to most lies Ward 7, an area that straddles the dividing line between Northeast and Ward 7 residents. Southeast Washington at the city’s Maryland border. Considered the greenest ward in Washington, its distinctive location includes a river boundary that There are a number of other cultural resources in Ward 7, many of which are has contributed to the ward’s relative degree of isolation. This in turn has not widely acknowledged. Left unrecognized, they become vulnerable to fostered the sense of self-sufficiency that pervades the ward’s development devaluation and even loss as the ward seeks investment and development. and persona. The DC Historic Preservation Office, along with community partners, hopes to promote stewardship of the ward’s heritage by assisting residents in identifying Ward 7 possesses a wealth of buildings, structures, and sites that provide important cultural icons and places, and by facilitating initiatives to promote, concrete evidence of its unique history and culture formed over the past. preserve, and reuse the ward’s significant historic resources. The richness of the ward’s heritage encompasses its pre-seventeenth century settlement by the Native Americans, its setting as farmland and sparse villages in the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, to its burgeoning urbaniza- tion starting in the mid-twentieth century. This guide is intended to identify historic or culturally important places in Ward 7 and to provide a framework for developing strategies necessary to capitalize on, and, if necessary, protect these historic resources. A cultural or heritage resource is defined as a site, building, structure, object, or ritual of importance to a community or culture. The significance, whether traditional, historic, religious, educational, or other, is one of several factors that illustrates the hallmarks of a community’s way of life or identity. For many residents in Ward 7, one such resource is the Shrimp Boat at the intersection of Benning Road and East Capitol Street. The Shrimp Boat, under its various owners, first opened in 1953 and was one of the few integrated restaurants in a still racially segregated Washington. The restaurant served then as it does today as an unofficial landmark for Ward 7. Although it would District of Columbia not necessarily qualify for formal historic designation in the same way as Ward Map (2012) another Ward 7 historic site, the Nannie Helen Burroughs campus, the Shrimp The Shrimp Boat building circa 1954 5 HISTOricaL PERSPEctiVE Nacochtank have lost their Nacochtank Indians Europeans begin making lands to warfare, disease, and populate area contact in Anacostia area European land ownership 1608 1620 1632 1665 1666 1680 1696 1742 1600 1650 1700 1750 Captain John Nacochtank lose the Europeans settle in Ninian Beall’s rst Green’s Purchase, Tobacco plantations Prince George’s Bladensburg tobacco Smith travels up war with the the Anacostia area land patent Ward 7’s earliest use of enslaved labor County created, port, established at the Potomac River Piscataway Indians of open trading with recorded land grant in place including the head of Anacostia Southern Maryland the Nacochtank Ward 7 area River Ward 7 is defined by its varied history, abundant natural beauty, and its traditionally self-sufficient residents. The ward is composed of 29 neighborhoods, almost 72,000 people, and of the city’s eight wards, has the second largest number of the District’s children living within its boundaries. Ward 7 is bordered roughly by the Anacostia River on the west, Prince George’s County, Maryland on the north and east, and Ward 8 on the south. From the District of Columbia’s founding in 1790, the area was within Wash- ington County; it remained within the county until 1871 when the unin- corporated areas were consolidated under a single municipal government. Primarily a rural community until the mid-1900s, Ward 7’s early distinctive settlements included Benning, Deanwood, and Twining. In 1968, a new ward system and the general locations known today were set up, and the ward has remained the same geographic area with minor boundary changes. Though currently a predominantly African-American community, the earliest residents were the Nacotchtank Indians who fished, hunted and traded along the banks of the Eastern Branch River. The artifacts they left behind were scattered along the river later renamed the Anacostia in their honor. Many of these artifacts were later recovered and collected by non-Indian settlers including a member of the nineteenth century Ward 7 land- and slave- Andrew Ellicott map, showing the Potomac and Eastern Branch-Anacostia Rivers and the bluffs along the Anacostia, 1791 Library of Congress holding family, the Sheriffs. through disease and conflict. Some of the earliest land grants within what is Following explorations in 1608 by adventurer John Smith, Europeans claimed now Ward 7 had fanciful names such as Beall’s Adventure, Virgin Garden, and the land and gradually began to settle the area eventually forcing the local Fortune. The new settlers immediately set about cultivating tobacco, a Native American population from their traditional hunting and fishing camps 6 Nacochtank have lost their Nacochtank Indians Europeans begin making lands to warfare, disease, and populate area contact in Anacostia area European land ownership 1608 1620 1632 1665 1666 1680 1696 1742 1600 1650 1700 1750 Captain John Nacochtank lose the Europeans settle in Ninian Beall’s rst Green’s Purchase, Tobacco plantations Prince George’s Bladensburg tobacco Smith travels up war with the the Anacostia area land patent Ward 7’s earliest use of enslaved labor County created, port, established at the Potomac River Piscataway Indians of open trading with recorded land grant in place including the head of Anacostia Southern Maryland the Nacochtank Ward 7 area River cash crop for nearly two centuries, particularly for adjacent Prince George’s and Pennsylvania Avenues SE, had 9 slaves; Henry Naylor, near Fairlawn, had County, Maryland. By the 1700s, the labor-intensive tobacco production relied 6. George Washington Young, whose 150-acre Nonesuch Plantation straddled almost exclusively on the labor of enslaved Africans and African-descended Wards 7 and 8, and who owned 640 acres in Ward Eight, was the District’s larg- people as necessary for maximum profitability. est slaveholder. On the eve of the Civil War, he held at least 70 black people in bondage. The mid-nineteenth century home he had built for his daughter Although the terrain in many parts of the ward was too hilly to successfully

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