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DISTRICT HISTORIC WASHINGTON, D.C. WASHINGTON, ANACOSTIA D.C. Historic Preservation Office 801 North Capital Street, NE Suite 3000 Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 442-8800 1 Frederick Douglass, The sage of Anacostia. Revised March 2007 Courtesy National Archives Anacostia Historic District East Of The River east of the Anacostia River, in sight of the U.S. Capitol, lies an area of unusual natural beauty and rich heritage . A narrow ridge of land 200” – 300” high Eparallels the river once known as the Eastern Branch of the Potomac. The ridge drops off abruptly to the broad bank of the Anacostia, its steep slope slashed by intersecting ravines. on the side away from the river, the ridge descends precipitously into Oxon Run, a small stream that flows into the Potomac about 3 miles below the mouth of the Anacostia. This isolates the ridge and the river bank from the countryside to the east as effectively as the Anacostia itself separates the community from the monumental center of the capital city. On a clear day the panoramic views from the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church and St. Elizabeths Hospital overlooks are breathtaking. They are rivaled only by those from the Washington Monument on the National Mall, yet they are not public views. They are the special treasure of those who live in Anacostia, glimpsed briefly by outsiders who travel along Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue or visit the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. View of Washington from Across the Eastern Branch, engraving by William J. Bennett (after a painting by George Cooke), 1833. Courtesy Kiplinger Washington Collection Territory of Columbia, 1794 by Andrew Ellicott with Benjamin Banneker. Detail showing topography, drainage, and existing roads of Anacostia and Alexandria with plan of Federal City. Courtesy Library of Congress East Of The River Establishment Of The Federal City ative Americans were the first inhabitants of the area he land east of the Anacostia River was included within living along the river as early as 10,000 years ago. the boundaries of the Federal City as a line of military During his voyage of exploration in1608, Captain John defense and in order to claim the commercial and Smith visited the Indian village of Nacochtank on the river Trecreational potential of the river for the new city. Developers Nbank here. He found that Nacochtank was a large trading and land speculators in the 1 790s anticipated the center, ideally situated for its purpose along two natural trade establishment of a port at the confluence of the Anacostia and routes - east-west across the mountains and north-south along Potomac Rivers. This, they believed, would inevitably lead to the fall line. Archaeologists tell us that the Necostins, called major expansion of the city to the southeast. As part of this Anacostans by the English settlers, fished the river and farmed speculation, a sugar factory and wharf were built on Greenleaf the rich river banks. They lived in small groups near their Point at the southern tip of the federal city and at the fields. The chief was housed inside a palisaded enclosure confluence of the rivers. which was also the site of other important tribal activities. The Smithsonian Institution has thousands of artifacts collected A canal that was planned through the city to connect from the surface in the late nineteenth century when the area Anacostia to a point 1.5 miles upriver to encourage industrial was still agricultural. In 1897, a note scholar issued an alert maritime growth, was eventually abandoned as the city faced that "the most important ancient village-site in the whole tide- opposition from the competing ports of Georgetown and water province is situated on the Anacostia River within the Alexandria. Later, runoff from land cleared for agricultural city and little more than a mile from the Capitol. "Today, purposes upstream of the city caused the Anacostia to silt up, warnings ignored, the substance of Anacostin culture remains forming wide marshes at its bank and further hampering a largely unexplored mystery, the evidence of it destroyed or construction of an active commercial port. In 1804, a wooden buried under the Blue Plains sewage treatment plant and the drawbridge was constructed through private enterprise to runways of Bolling Air Force Base. replace a ferry that crossed the river at Pennsylvania Avenue and connected Anacostia to the city. During the War of 1812, this bridge was burned by the Navy in a futile attempt to obstruct the advance of British troops after the Battle of Bladensburg (1814). The British simply crossed the Anacostia upstream at Benning Road and burned the Navy's ships in their docks before entering the city to burn the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and other public buildings. nglish exploration soon led to settlement. Blue Plains, a 1 O0O-acre tract patented to George Thompson in 1662, was the first land grant in the Washington area. It Eincluded the river frontage that is now the site of the Blue Plains plant. The adjacent tracts of St. Elizabeth and Giesborough were also patented to Thompson in 1663. The land was planted in tobacco raised by tenant farmers, indentured servants, and African staves. Although death, marriage, and land speculation lad to frequent changes of ownership, land was still held largely by a few individuals. The descendants of Colonel John Addison, one of the earliest residents, owned much of Anacostia for 150 years. When the federal city was laid out in 1791 by Andrew Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker, a free African American, speculation redoubled in Anacostia. James Barry of Washington City purchased St. Elizabeth. His name is perpetuated today in the Barry Farm community. An active land speculator, William Marbury of Georgetown, purchased Blue Plains and several Addison properties. Marbury was appointed inspector of the Blue Plains tobacco warehouse in 1809, but his name is enshrined in American history as the plaintiff in Marbury v. Madison, the case that established the constitutional principle In 1874, after many years of wooden replacement bridges crossing the of judicial review of acts of Congress. Anacostia at the Navy Yard, Congress authorized the construction of a wrought iron truss bridge (at left in photo). As the 1874-75 bridge become inadequate for motor and rail traffic, a new steel arch bridge, shown under construction in this 1908 photograph, was built to replace it. The present, twin-span Eleventh Street Bridge replaced these earlier bridges in Background Image: Colonel John Addison, who earned his rank in the 1965-70 Maryland Volunteer Militia, was among the first colonist to establish a Courtesy of the Division of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Smithsonian Institution permanent residence in Anacostia. During the 1670’s Addison obtained several land grants, purchased large holdings, and built his estate Colebrook (in present-day Prince Georges County) near the upper portion of the Giesborough tract. Courtesy of Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts The Washington Navy Yard was the new nation’s first navy yard and its first home port. It was also one of the city’s largest employers. It became a center of early 19th-century naval operations during a critical period of growing nationalism. The Dorothea Lynde Dix, a illustration on page three is an 1833 view of Washington from nationally renowned the Anacostia highlands. The romantic beauty of the Anacostia reformer, came to farmland and the river itself are seen in the foreground, with Washington in 1848 in the Navy Yard shown to the right on the opposite shore. The what proved to be a early sailing ships of the U.S. naval fleet were built in the successful effort to lobby distinctive triangular, tentlike structure. The U.S. Capitol, still Congress to establish a under construction, is on the hill above and the White House national hospital for the appears to the left. The Navy Yard Bridge at 11th Street is insane. Dix was particularly influential in barely visible at the far right. convincing the reluctant owners of the St. Elizabeth tract in Anacostia to sell their farm on behalf of the suffering of the insane. Courtesy of St. Elizabeths Hospital View of the Washington Navy Yard from eastern shore of the Anacostia River, with shad fisheries in the foreground. From Harper’s Weekly, April 26, 1864. Courtesy National archives The Center Building of St. Elizabeths (opened in 1855)., shown here in an early photograph, was the first building to be constructed and is the last St. Elizabeths Hospital original structure standing on the hospital grounds today. In accordance with 19th century asylum design, the Center Building was arranged for maximum light and ventilation. n 1852 Dorothea Dix, advocate for the humane Courtesy of St. Elizabeths Hospital treatment of the mentally ill, persuaded the U.S. Congress to provide an asylum for the insane of the District of Columbia. The site chosen was part of the Ioriginal St. Elizabeth grant Iying along the Anacostia ridge on the Piscataway Road (now Martin Luther King, Jr. The Subdivision Of Land: Uniontown Avenue). This remains today one of the most beautiful areas of Washington, with extraordinary views over the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. The hospital was planned n the years before the Civil War, increasingly smaller as a campus with grounds designed and lavishly planted parcels of land were subdivided from the original in the romantic rural landscape manner used by Andrew Anacostia holdings. Some were bought by speculators, Jackson Downing on the National Mall and by Frederick others purchased by truck farmers. The earliest of several Law Olmsted at the U.S. Capitol. This bucolic setting was I settlements - the town of Good Hope - developed in the considered a healthy and beneficial environment for 1820s around a tavern on the southbound road on the treatment of the mentally ill - far different from the jails heights above the bridge to the Navy Yard.

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