And couples moved to the area in the gilded age and into the 20th century. He is the author of a history of Dupont Circle center of high society in the capital. The society of cincinnati the cincinnati hosted this event. It is just under one hour. Good evening. I am the Museum Education manager for the American Revolution institute. I am pleased to welcome you tonight for our First Program of our winterspring series. The American Revolution institute of the society of cincinnati is a Nonprofit Organization that works to promote the knowledge and appreciation of the achievement of american independence by supporting advanced scholarship conducting programs, advocating preservation and making Resources Available to teachers and students. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to be, you can fill up the form in your chair. You can pick up a copy of our latest calendar of events out front. Before this house became the headquarters for the society and institute, it was the home of lars and Isabel Anderson. In the early 20th century, they desired a home in washington where they could entertain american and foreign dignitaries in a grand setting. They selected a lot in a fashionable neighborhood of Dupont Circle to be in the center of social activity. Tonight, we are pleased to welcome Stephen Hansen to discuss his book on the social life of Dupont Circle and the homes during the gilded age including the Anderson House. Mr. Henson is a longtime resident of washington. He is architectural historian and specialist and sometimes activist and author. He is the principal at the preservation term in washington. He also served as a trustee for the committee of 100 on the federal city and authors the monthly column what was once in washington, d. C. For the intowner newspaper. [applause] thank you for coming. It is an honor to be able to talk about my work in the ballroom of the anderson mansion. I would like to start off by talking about how this book came to be. Initially, i did not want to write this book. I was writing for the intowner newspaper, a monthly column. I was writing about areas all over the city. When i wrote about people and events of Dupont Circle, i got a lot of positive feedback. I realized i was having a lot of fun writing articles about Dupont Circle, so i was writing more and more. Eventually, colleagues and friends said you have already written a book on the history of Kalorama Triangle why dont you write one on the history of Dupont Circle . I thought it was a gargantuan task. As i gave it thought i realized i could tell an accurate history by selecting certain people and events over time. Not all of them, but a stream of them which would give you a sense of the neighborhood over time. I decided i would try to do it. Once i got into it, i started having a lot of fun. I signed a book contract with the publisher and was limited to 160 pages. I was up to 160 pages in the first two weeks so i kept fighting with the editor and finally they said 260. No more. So i had to start cutting things out. I could not go into any person or event in extreme depth like i would want to. That was a challenge. I apologize to those of you who think i left things out. With that, i would like to Start Talking about the book. I think a lot of you are familiar enough with Dupont Circle to know it was once home to such notable people as james lane theodore roosevelt, twice William Howard taft, and Cissy Patterson. It was also home to other people that a lot of you are not familiar with or did not know they lived here. That was president grants widow and her entire extended family, Alexander Graham bell, and the bell clan, senator george hearst, bloody randolph hearsts father and the cast of the finest from the 19th and 20th century. They are in the book. I want to discuss the development of Dupont Circle and how larz and Isabel Anderson fit into the history of the neighborhood. Before Dupont Circle was born, i would like to go back to about 1800 when the city was starting up. There are basically two classes of tools in what was considered high society. That was the Residential Society and the official society. Members of the Residential Society consisted of landed, southern, slave owning, democratic families who came to washington during the first administrations of jefferson madison. And they just stayed. Some of the notable Residential Society members were stephen decatur, and dolley madison. Official society consisted of those Holding Political offices president ial appointees, and members of the foreign diplomatic corps. Your status within official society was dependent on how long you were in town during a given year. Those in town the longest president ial appointees, Supreme Court members, were at the top of the pecking order. It worke its way down to senatorsd and sometimes congressman, but they were only here briefly and were too busy to socialize. That was the social makeup of washington until the civil war. As a result of the civil war the democrats republicans took over power. The Residential Society were democrats. A lot of them lost their money and land during the war and left town. Some decided to stay. They had to go underground socially because they were not in favor with the new incoming republicans. They became known as the cave dwellers. They basically went underground and only came to light once in a while when a granddaughter needed a cotillion or they hosted one of their small intimate teas. They generally only socialized with each other at that point so cave dwellers was an appropriate name. They stayed where they settled around Lafayette Square. One official Society Members were moving to washington, they moved around as close to Lafayette Square as they could themselves. This is a map of the Dupont Circle area in about 1860. As you can see, there is not a lot going on. Down to the south, he see connecticut avenue. Here is Lafayette Square. That is where the cave dwellers were living. There are a couple of notable exceptions on the map. First of all, the area was not very attractive. There was a stream running through it. It came down from 17th st down towards 17th street. It made this land swampy. John little, a butcher, put his shot at the top of the street at champlain street. He would throw the blood into the stream. It was slowly work its way down into rock creek. In the second half of the 19th century, there was kind of a swamp that had formed here which is now the site of the mayflower hotel. A very popular swimming hole. Go figure. Standards have changed since then. A notable resident was william oneill, the proprietor of franklin house, one of the first boarding houses in town where congressman stayed when making to washington. He had a famous daughter who was the genesis of the petticoat scandal which cost jackson his administration. Due to an unfortunate marriage she had shortly after her first husband died. It was believed she was having an affair with this gentleman while her husband was overseas and he possibly committed suicide. Peggy had an on and off again relationship with society herself. To the very north this is what is now florida avenue, which was then called boundary street. 19th is the Burial Ground were also called the western Burial Ground. That was started in 1801 and would will was one of two cemeteries. The other was congressional cemetery. Over the years it filled up. It was not a large space. It was less than one city block. It was condemned in the 1870s, at which point people were burying relatives 3 deep and not always legitimately. They would sneak in in the middle of the night and bury them. When boundary street was lowered, it left the cemetery seven or 8 feet above the grade of the street. A lot of times, caskets would be falling into the street hitting carriages. By the each 70s, there were schoolchildren in the neighborhood. People would look out the window and find boys running around with human bones using them a sword straight at one point, a boy had a sword with a bone he was using as a standard to lead other kids down the street. The cemetery had notable burials. One was billy oneill himself. Another was james mcgurk, the first man hanged in washington in 1803. He was sentenced to death for coming home and brutally beating his wife. He was buried there because it was a public cemetery. Relatives of those buried around mcgurk were upset. At night, they snuck in, dubbed them up, and reburied them outside the cemetery. Mcgurks clan found out about this. The next night, they found the body and redeposited it where it was supposed to be. The next night, the same gentleman came back, doug of the body, and buried it never to be found again that he thought. About 40 years later, someone was excavating for the house and found human remains. Those in the know admitted that is where they put mcgurk. Also buried in the cemetery was the lincoln assassination conspirator, lewis payne. I read the other day John Phillips sousa john was buried here, but dont believe everything you read. The hopkins brothers set of the brickyard in the 1850s. They spread all over the area. Even though will follow the font lenfant planned it, it did not go through. It was a big field. Hopkins brickyard was in the way. They had to knock some of those out to put the avenue through. Some of the prominent early residents into the 1870s complained the smoke from the council kil was coming into their homes at nightm, so there was an act of congress to close the brickyard. This is how things looked until 1871 when Congress Passed the organic act which gave washington a residentially appointed governor, henry cook, legislative assembly, and a house of delegates. It also created a fivemember board of public works of which Alexander Shepherd was on the board. The governor was the director of the board. Shepard was so strong and imposing that henry cook stopped going to the meetings and shepard got his way. He is probably best known at the time for his citywide improvements which involved paving streets laying sewer and drainage, lights, planting trees. But he was very selective in where he did this. When they were paving streets they were generally ground stone sometimes star, which was experimental at that point. Some streets were reserved for poured concrete which was popular and took off later. Shepherd went on with this program paving streets and planting around the city. Suddenly, folks woke up one morning and saw connecticut avenue was paid with connecticut five lanes wide with lights and water north to florida avenue. What is going on . At the same time, some of the silver miners who made their fortunes in nevada and california had set their sights on washington and he cited washington was the place to invest and settle. They formed a Real Estate Syndicate officially called the pacific pool. Others called it the honest miners club. I am not quite sure how honest these miners were. It was headed up by three gentlemen. Judge hiller, representative William Stewart from nevada, and thomas sutherland. They started buying up all the land around upon circle. They claimed they had no idea Alexander Shepherd was going to be improving the area at the same time. I do believe for some reason. What happened was the bottom fell out of the silver market. There was a big push at time to start making gold the standard, monetary standard. So the gentleman really suffered from this, and their fortunes were compromised. Hillard survived because he was a good lawyer and kept his practice in california so he kept a steady income and could stay the course in washington. William stewarts fortunes were wiped out. The head an on and off again political career in washington and was forced to go back to nevada and work as a lawyer to try to make more money. He did amass another good fortune. What happened was you have these two gentleman still owning all this land and their fortunes were diminishing quickly. They said we have got to build something in the neighborhood that will attract investors and buyers to buy up our lots, and we will start making back some of our money and hopefully a huge profit. They pressured William Stewart into building first. In 1873, he contracted at employees adam plouth to construct a large house, which was then 1 Dupont Circle. It was called stewarts castle and sometimes stewarts folly because it was the middle of nowhere. People thought you are trying to get investors and you build a house out here . But it did become the center of social life, and people made the trip up to Dupont Circle for lavish dinners and parties. Stewart lost his seat to william clark, another story i will not get into tonight. He went back to nevada. His wife got tired of the west coast and moved back to the house alone with a companion. It was in the winter, in december. She was invited to the british ambassadors house for dinner new years eve. When she got there someone was banging on the door saying mrs. Stewart, your house is on fire. So she went back to the house and found a house in flames. No one had checked to see if there was any water in the boiler. Up to that point, it had been a warm winter. The house caught fire and had to be rebuilt. Shortly after stewart finished his house hillard jumped in and built his house at the edge of town on massachusetts avenue n florida avenue. It was a fine second empire house. In the 1880s, stewart, still in need of money, decided to rent out stewarts castle. The rented it to the Chinese Ambassador and the litigation staff. This was an interesting period for the house. The ambassador did not entertain much. He had the habit when he wanted his guests to leap to burn red pepper to burn their eyes to the point they would be running out the front door. The problem was years of burning red pepper left a lot of stains on the walls and furniture. Also, the chinese were big opiate smokers which also left a lot of stains. The fine european furniture stewart the stewarts brought back from europe had been burned and soiled. While the chinese were there they became a public spectacle. They did things like take their laundry out to Dupont Circle to lay it out to dry. They would run around and play hide and seek in the bushes at night. This attracted a lot of curious washingtonians. One of the popular sunday afternoon endeavors was to come to Dupont Circle and see if you could spot the chinese staff doing things. The problem was when they gathered on the balconies in the summer to get air, crowds would gather steering staring. So the police had to come along and shoo them away. We have our first two big houses in the Dupont Circle area. Things did not start to take off until 1873 when the british minister at the time, this was before it was an embassy. Sir Edward Norton decided england should build a permanent building in washington. This was the first foreign building built in washington. Before that for years, the british delegation had been next to st. Johns church. That building is still there. Sir edward hired john fraser, a philadelphia architect, to build this wonderful second empire house on the corner of connecticut avenue. As soon as this house was built the british delegation became the center of washington high society. You were not anybody until you have been invited to a reception or dinner at the legation building. That would knock your status up even higher if the legation staff came to one of the functions in your home. In 1880, a representative from maine, james blaine, also decided to build in Dupont Circle. Blaine was a twotime president ial candidate and a professional secretary of state. I think he served under four separate president s. By 1880, he amassed enough money, probably legitimately, to build this large house at 2000 massachusetts avenue which still stands today. He had just been appointed secretary of state to garfield. Garfield was assassinated months later, so blaine did not last long in the new administration and did not have enough money to support this house the staff and entertaining that went with it. In 1883 by 1883, he had bought a house on Lafayette Square renovated it, and moved there. He rented this house out to a relatively unknown family from chicago called the lighters leiters. Over time, they would change the face of washington society. At the same time blaine was building his house washington was seeing a new wave of immigration. This was two different sets of people. It was the military set and the nouveau riche. The military set consisted of highranking military officers following the great Union Generals to washington, namely ulysses s. Grant philip chariton, hoping to fill the newly created positions highpaying positions, in the navy department. That was one set of the military. The others followed t