These rights. [applause] when i say all americans, i mean all americans. [applause] our immediate past is to remove to remove the last remnants of the barrier, which span between the millions of our citizens and their birth rights. There is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry or religion or race or color. [applause] join American History tv as we visit the u. S. Botanic garden at the foot of capitol hill. Executive director ari novi discusses the history of the oldest Botanic Garden in north america originally proposed by George Washington at a 1796 letter. Thats today at 6 00 p. M. And 10 00 p. M. Eastern time on american artifacts here on cspan3s American History tv. Coming up next author and architectural historian Steven Hansen chronicles washington d. C. s most famous neighborhoods, Dupont Circle. How and why weelth couples moved into the area in the guilded age and the 20th century. Mr. Hansen is the author of the history of Dupont Circle, center of high society in the capitol. The society hosted this event at the Anderson House in washington d. C. Its just under an hour. Good evening. I am kendall casey, the manager for the American Museum institute. Im pleased to welcome you here for our First Program of our winter spring 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 Public Programs mailing list and would like to be you can fill out the form you found in your chair when you arrived and also you can pick up a copy of our latest calendar events out front. Before this house became the headquarters for the society and its American Revolution institute, it was the home of lars and Isabel Anderson. In the early 20th century, the andersons desired a home in washington where they could entertain american and foreign dignitaries in a grand setting. They purposefully selected a lot in a fashionable neighborhood of Dupont Circle to be in the center of social activity. Tonight, we are pleased to welcome Steven Hansen to discuss his book on the socialites of dupont home and their homes in the guilded age, including the Anderson House. Mr. Hansen is a longtime resident of washington d. C. , he is a historian, preservation specialist, sometimes actor and an author. He is principal at the Preservation Firm d. C. Historic designs, llc, 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 newspaper. Mr. Hansen. [applause] thank you for coming tonight. And id like to start saying its a major honor to be able to talk about my book in the ball room of the anderson mansion. Would like to start off talking about how this book came to be. Initially, i didnt want to write this book. I was writing for the intowner monthly newspaper, a monthically column, and i was writing about areas all over the city but when i wrote about people in the Dupont Circle or history related to Dupont Circle and events i got a lot of positive feedback and i realized i was having a lot of fun writing articles about Dupont Circle, so i was writing more and more, and eventually colleagues and friends had said, youve already written a book on the history of the triangle, why dont you do it on the Dupont Circle which i thought it was a big task. You can probably a somewhat adequate and accurate history of Dupont Circle by selecting certain people and events over time. Not all of them, but a string of them would give you a sense of the neighborhood over time upon so and i decided i would try to do it, and once i got into it, i started having a lot of fun and i signed a book contract with a publisher, and i was limited to 160 pages, and i was up to 160 pages in the first two weeks, so i kept fighting with the editor, and finally, they said, okay, 260, no more. So i had to start cutting things out and the result of the book, i couldnt go into any person or event in extreme depth like i wanted to. So that was a challenge, and i apologize to those who have written the book and have left things out. With that, id like to Start Talking about the book and i think a lot of you are familiar enough with Dupont Circle to know that it was once home to such noble people as james blain, Theodore Roosevelt twice, william taft and siszy patterson. But was it was also home to people you didnt know that they lived here, president grants widow and entire family Alexander Graham bell and the bell clan, george hurst, senator george hurst who is William Randolph hursts father, and a cast of societies from the finest in the early 19th and 20th centuries, but im not going to talk about those folks tonight. Theyre in the book, and its a lot of them. But i want to discuss the development of Dupont Circle also specifically how Isabel Anderson fit into the history of the neighborhood. But before Dupont Circle was born, id like to go back to about 1800 when the city itself was starting up, and there are basically two classes of folks in what was considered high society at the time. That was the Residential Society, and the official society. Members of Residential Society consisted of land and southern slave owning and democratic families who came to washington during the first administrations, jefferson madison, and they just stayed, and some of the notable Residential Society members were stephen decatur, general talo and dolly madison. Official society consisted of those Holding Political offices, president ial appointees, and members of the foreign diplomatic core. Your status as an official society was dependent upon how long you were actually in town during a given year. Those in town the longest, president ial appointees Supreme Court members who were at the top end of that pecking order, and it worked its way down to senators, and sometimes congressmen but they were only here briefly and much too busy to socialize. So that was basically the social makeup of washington until, up until the civil war. And as a result of the civil war, the democrats republicans took over power, and the cave dwellers, the Residential Society, were democrats, and a lot of them had lost their money and their lands during the war and they left town, but some decided to stay. And they had to go underground socially, because they were not in favor of the new incoming republican administration. So they became known as cave dwellers. They basically went under ground and only came to light once in a while when a grand daughter needed a cotillion or would host a small intimate tea, and would generally only socialize with each other at that point. So cave dwellers was an appropriate name. They also stayed where they had first settled, around Lafayette Square, and also when the 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, theres not really a lot going on. Woops. Didnt want that one. Down to the south, you see connecticut avenue. Down here is Lafayette Square and thats basically where the cave dwellers were living. There are a couple of notable exceptions on the map id like to point out. First of all, the area was not very attractive. There was a stream running through, and it came down from 17th street, and down towards 17th street. It was called flash run, and it made all this land pretty mucky and swampy. Additionally, john little, who was a butcher, put his butcher shop at the top of the stream at the top of the street, and he would throw blood into the stream and it would work its way down until it ended in rock creek down here. Strangely enough in the second half of the 19th century, there was kind of a swamp that had formed here, which was now the site of the mayflower hotel, a very popular swimming hole. Go figure, standards have changed since then. A notable resident, one of the first was willy oneal or billy oneal who was the proprietor of the franklin house, one of the boarding houses, where they stayed. He had a daughter, peggy oneal 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 so peggy had an on and off again relationship with the society herself. Also, to the very north, this is now what is florida avenue, which was then called boundary street and 19th is the Burial Ground or the western Burial Ground. That was started around 1801 and was one of two Public Cemeteries in washington. The other was congressional cemetery. So as you can imagine over the years, it filled up and was not a very 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 the middle of the night and bury them. When florida avenue or boundary street was lowered, it left the cemetery 7 or 8 feet high above the grade of the street. So a lot of times, caskets would be falling into the street hitting carriages going by, and also by the 1870s, there were School Children in the neighborhood, and people were upset to look out the window and find boys running around with human bones using the swords and at one point one boy had a skull on top of a bone that he was using as a standard, leading other kids down the street. Anyway, the cemetery over the years had some notable burials. One was billy oneill himself. Another was james mcgurk, who was the first man hanged in washington. He was hanged in 1803. He was sentenced to death for coming home and brutally beating his wife. So he was buried there, because it was a public cemetery. Relatives of those buried immediately around mcgurk were upset, so the night he was buried, they snuck him dug him up, and reburied him outside of the cemetery. Mcgurks clan, he was irish, found out about this. The next night, they went back down to the body and redeposited it back in where it was supposed to be. Well, following suit, the next night, the same gentleman came back, dug up the body, and buried it in flash run never to be found again, they thought. But about four years later somebody was excavating for their house and their basement and found human remains, and those in the know admitted that thats where they had put mcgurk. Also buried in the cemetery was lincoln assassination conspirator, lewis payne. And i just read the other day that John Philips Susa was buried here, but i dont see how thats possible. So dont always trust wikipedia. Another notable thing in the neighborhood was hopkins brick yard. Hopkins were two brothers from georgetown who set up a brickyard in the 1850s. As you can see, they just spread all over the area, because even though la fant had planneded it, the streets didnt go through. It was just basically a big field. So when they were extending massachusetts avenue, hawkins brick yard was right in the way, so they had to knock some of those out, put the avenue through, and then some of the more prominent early residents into the 1870s were complaining that the smoke from the kilns was coming through their homes at night so there was an act of congress to close down the hawkins brickyard. This is basically how everything looked until about 1871 when Congress Passed the organic act which gave washington a governor, president iallyappointed governor, henry cook Legislative Assembly and a house of delegates, and it also created a fivemember board of public works, of which alexander vause shepherd was on the board. He wasnt the director of the board. Actually, the governor was. But shepherd was so strong and opposing, that henry cook just stopped going to the meetings, and shepherd got his way. Hes probably best known for his time for his citywide improvements, which involved paving streets, laying sewer drainage, lights planting trees. But he was very selective in where he did this. Generally, when they were paving streets, they were generally ground stone, sometimes tar, which was kind of experimental at that point, and some of the prime streets were reserved for poured concrete, which was very popular and really took off later. So shepherd went on with his program, he was paving streets and planting here and there around the city. But suddenly, folks woke up one morning and saw connecticut avenue was paved with concrete five lanes wide with sidewalks, lights, water, all the way north to florida avenue. Well, whats going on . At the same time, some of the silver miners who had made their fortunes in nevada and california had set their sights on washington and decided washington was the place to invest and settle. They formed a real estate syndicate, which was officially called the pacific pool. Others called it the honest miners club, but im not quite sure how honest these miners were. And it was headed up by three gentlemen, judge curtis justin hiller, who is a lawyer, obviously, representative William Stewart, from nevada, and thomas sutherland. But one of the problems is well, to start off they started buying up all the land around Dupont Circle. And they claimed they had no idea that Alexander Shepherd was going to be improving the area at the same time. Actually, i do believe this, for some reason. But what happened was, the bottom fell out of the silver market, and there was a big push at the time to start making gold the standard, monetary standard. So the gentlemen really suffered from this and their fortunes were compromised. Hillier 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, and he had sort of 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 which he did amass another big fortune. So what happened was you have these three gentlemen still owning all this land and their fortunes were diminishing quickly. They thought, well, weve got to build something in the neighborhood that will attract investors and buyers to buy up all our lots and well start making back some of our money, and hopefully a huge profit. So they pressured William Stewart into building first. So in 1873 he contracted adam clouse, who was former architect for the board of works. Not that they didnt know what was going on with the public board of works. To construct a very large house, which was then one Dupont Circle. It was called stewarts castle and sometimes stewarts folly, because it was in the middle of nowhere, and people thought, well, youre trying to get investors, and you built 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. He was upseated by william clark, who was another story i wont get into tonight, and decided and went back to nevada. His wife got tired of the west coast and moved back to the house alone with a companion and it was in the winter. It was in december. So she was invited to the british ambassadors house for dinner new years eve. She got there, got all settled, and someone was banging on the door saying, mrs. Stewart, mrs. Stewart, your house is on fire. So she went back to the house and found the whole house totally in flames. What had happened was no one had checked to see if water if there was any water in the boiler, so up to that point, it had been an unseasonally warm winter, so the house caught fire and had to be rebuilt. Shortly after stewart had finished his house hillier jumped in too and built his house at the very edge of town on massachusetts avenue, and florida avenue, and he was and it was a fine second empire house. In the 1880s, stewart, in need of money, decided to rent out stewarts castle and rented the Chinese Ambassador and the litigation staff, which was quite an interesting period for the house. He wanted the guests to leave a burned red pepper in the room, which would burn the guests eyes, to the point where they would be running out the front door, but the problem was years of burning red pepper left a lot of stai