If youre not on our Public Program mailing list and would like to be you can fill out the form you found on your chair and you can pick up a copy of our latest calendar of events out front. 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 in Dupont Circle to be the center of social activity. Were pleased to welcome Stephen Hansen to discuss his book. Hes a long time resident of washington, d. C. Hes an author. Hes principal at the d. C. Historic designs llc in washington. He serves as a trustee for the committee of 100 on the federal city and authors the monthly column what was once in washington, d. C. Mr. Hansen. [ applause ] thank you for coming tonight. Id like to start to say its a major honor to talk about my book in the ballroom of the anderson mansion. Id 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 newspaper monthly column. I was writing about all over the city and about people in Dupont Circle related to dupont circumstancescircle. I got a lot of positive feedback. I was writing more and more. Eventually friends said youve already written a book on the triangle why dont you write one. I realized you can probably tell the somewhat adequate and accurate history of Dupont Circle by selecting certain people and events over time. Not all of them but a string 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 assigned a book contract with publisher and i was limited to 160 pages. I was up to 160 pages in the first two weeks. I kept fighting with the editor. The result of the book, i couldnt go into person or event like i wanted to. That was a challenge. I apologize to those of you who have read the book and think i have left things out. With that id like to Start Talking about the book. I think a lot of you are familiar enough with Dupont Circle to know its home to people as james blaine roosevelt, William Howard taft. It was also the home to other people a lot you have arent familiar with or didnt know they lived here. That was president grants widow julia and her entire extended family. Senator george hurst and the cast of the hundreds of societys finest from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Im not going to talk about those folks tonight. Theyre in the book. Its a lot of them. I want to discuss the development of Dupont Circle and also specifically how lars and Isabelle Anderson fit into the history of the neighborhood. Before Dupont Circle was born id like to go back to about 1800 when the city itself was starting up. Theres two classes of folks in what was considered high society at the time. That was the Residential Society the society consisted of land and southern slave owning democratic families who came to washington during the first administrations jefferson, madison. They just stayed. Some of the notable Residential Society members were Stephen Decatur and madison. Official society consisted of those Holding Political offices, president ial president ial offices and members of the corps. Your status was dependent upon how long you were in town. Those in town the longest president ial appointees were at the top end of that pecking order. It worked its way down to senators and sometimes congressmen but they were only here briefly and much too busy to socialize. This was basically the social make up of washington until up until the civil war. The result of the civil war, the democrats, republicans took over power and the Residential Society were democrats. A lot of them had lost their money and their lands during the war. They left town. Some decided to stay. They had to go underground socially because they were not in favor coming in opening demonstrations. They became known as cave dwellers. They went underground and only came to light once in a while when a granddaughter needed a cotillion. They generally only socialized with each other. I think cave dwellers was an appropriate name. They also stayed where they settled around Lafayette Square. This is a map of the Dupont Circle area in about 1860. As you can see theres not really a lot going on. Down to the south you see connecticut avenue. Down here is Lafayette Square. Thats where the cave dwellers were living. First of all, the area was not a very attractive. There was a stream running through it. It came down from 17th street and down towards 17th. It made all this land pretty mucky and swampy. John little who was a butcher put his butcher shop at the top of the stream. He would throw the awful and blood into the stream and it would slowly 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 is the site of the may flower. Its a very popular swimming hole. Go figure. Standards have changed since then. Notable resident, one of the first was William Oneil or billy oneil. He had a very famous daughter peggy who was the genesis of petticoat scandal which caused jackson his Administration Due to an unfortunate marriage she had shortly after her first husband died. It was proved she was having an affair with this gentleman while her husband was oversaeseas and he committed suicide. Also, to the very north this is what is florida avenue which was caused boundary street because it was the edge. 19th is burial ground. That was started in 1801. It was one of two public senators in washington. As you can imagine over the years it filled up. It was not very large space. It was less than one city block. It was condemned in 1870 at which point people were burying relatives three deep. Not always legitimately. They would bury them. When florida avenue or boundary street was lowered it left the cemetery 7 or 8 feet high above the grave of the street. 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 them as swords and at one point a boy had a skull on top of a bone he was using leading other kids down the street. The cemetery over the years had some notable burials. One was billy oneil. Another one the first man hanged in washington. He was hanged in 1803. He was sentenced to death for coming home and brutally beating his wife. He was buried there because tft a pub it was a public cemetery. The night after he was buried they snuck in and dug him up and reburied him outside the cemetery. Same gentleman came back, dug up the body and buried it in run never to be found again. About 40 years later somebody was excavating for their house and basement and found human remains and those in the know admitted thats where they had put mcgurk. Also buried in the cemetery was lincoln assassination conspirator lewis payne. Ip just read the other day that yuan Phillip Sousa was buried here but i dont see how thats possible so dont always trust wikipedia. Another notable thing in the neighborhood was hopkinss brickyard. Hopkins were two brothers from georgetown who set up a brickyard in the 150s. As you can see they spread all over the area. Even though la fant had planned it it was basically a big field. So when they were extending massachusetts avenue hopkins brickyard was right in the way. So they had to knock some of those out to put the avenue through. Andrgap some of the more prominent early residents into the 1870s complaining the smoke from the kilns was coming into their house at night so there was an act of congress to close down hopkins brickyard. So this is basically how everything looked till about 1871 when Congress Passed the organic act which gave washington a governor president ially appointed governor who was henry cook. Legislative assembly and house of delegates. It also created a fivemember board of public works. Of of which Alexander Bosch shepherd was on the board. He wasnt the director of the board. Actually the governor was. But shepherd was so strong and imposing that henry cook stopped going to the meetings and shepherd got his way. Hes probably best known from this time for his citywide improvements which involved paving streets lay agsewer and 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 pour odd concrete, which was very popular and really took off later. So shepperd went on with his program. It 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,ings water, all the way north tore florida avenue. People aid whats going on . At the same time, some of the silver miner whos 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 jus tip hiller who was a lawyer obviously, representative William Stewart from nevada and thomas sunder land. To start off they started buying up all the land around Dupont Circle and 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 income california so he kept a steady income and cop 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 are ghirk quickly. They thought 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 adolph clues who was then a former architect for the board of public works not that they didnt know what was going on with the board of public works to construct a very large house which was then 1 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 Williams Clark who is another story i wont get into tonight. As i said, he 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 winter. It was in december. So she was invited to the british ambassadors house for dinner new years eve. When she got there got all settled and someone was banging on the door saying mrs. Stewart is, your house is on fire. She went back to the house and found the whole house totally in flames. What had happened was nobody had checked to see if there was any water in the boiler. So up to that point it had been an unseasonably warm winter so the house caught fire and had to be rebuilt. Shortly after stewart had finished his house it hillier jumped in too and built his house at the edge, the very edge of town on massachusetts avenue and florida avenue. And was a fine second empire house. In the 1880s, stewart still in need of money decided to rent out stewarts castle and he rented it to the Chinese Ambassador and a litigation staff. This is quite an interesting period for the house. The ambassador did not entertain too much. And he had a habit when he wanted his guests to leave to burn red pepper in the room, which would burn his guests eyes to the point they would be running out the front door. But the problem was, years of burning red pepper left a lot of stains on the walls and on the furniture and also the chinese were big opiate smokers which also left a lot of stains. The fine european furniture that stewarts had brought back from europe had been burned and soiled. Blug but while the chinese were there, they became quite a public spectacle. They did things like take their laundry out to Dupont Circle and lay it out to dry. They would run around and play hide and seek in the bushes at night. Well, this attracted a lot of curious washtonians. So one of the popular sunday afternoon endeavors was to come up to Dupont Circle and see if you could spot the chinese staff doing things. And the problems were when they gathered on the balconies in the summer to get some air, crowd would gather just staring so the police had to come along and shoo them away. So we have our first two big houses in due pop the circle area, but things didnt really start to take off until 1873 when the british minister at the time, this is before it was an embassy, sir Edward Norton decided that england should build a permanent litigation building in washington and this was the first foreign building built in washington. Before that, for years, the britishligation had been on 8th street right next to st. Johns church and that building is still there. So sir edward hired john frazier who was a philadelphia architect to build this wonderful second empire house on the corner of nnsa and connecticut avenue. What happened as soon as his house was built, are the britishligation actually became the center of washingtons high society. You werent anybody until had you been invited to a reception or a dinner at the legation building. And then, which would knock your status up even higher, it would be if british legation staff actually came to one of your functions in one of 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 basically a professional secretary of state. I think he served under four separate president s. By 1880 he had amassed enough money probably legitimately, others would say otherwise to build this large house at 2,000 massachusetts avenue which still stands today. But he didnt he had just been appointed secretary of state and garfield but as you know garfield was assassinated months later so blaine did not last very long in the new administration, and did not have enough money to support this house, this staff and the entertaining that went along with it. So in 1883, by 1883 had he bought a house on Lafayette Square the surety house, had renovated it and moved there and rented this house out to then a relatively unknown family from chicago called the lighters. Now the lighters over time would change the face of washington society. At the same time that blaine was building his house washington was seeing a new wave of immigration and this different sets of people. It was this military set and the new vo reach. This military consisted of high ranking military officers following the great generals to washington name there uly lis sees sgrant Phillip Sheridan hoping to fill the high paying positions in the war in the navy department. That was one secretarier of the military. The other also followed the generals to washington but they were already wealthy and they didnt have to work when they got here. They came to become involved inply power. And this included the andersons, lars father and mother from cincinnati, the boardmans from cleveland, william boardmans house still stands on the corner of p and 18th street and is now the iraqi counsel the other set were the knew voep reach. These people made their fortunes either during org based on the civil war either legitimately or not legitimately. And they had a lot of money at this point. Mark twain detested them. In his 1872 book the gilded age, he called them named them par venues. Which is a corruption of the french verb ver near meaning to have arrived. These people suddenly had arrived in society. He kooifzed the par venues in one family Patrick Oreilly his wife, and his daughter Patrick Oreilly had made a fortune selling overpriced shingle nails to the government during the civil war. So when the war was over he packed up his family and toured europe with the sole purpose of learning to speak english with a foreign language. He returned to washington to take his new place in warranted place in society. But he was now in the honorable pat trick and his wife was a lady. And they changed the spelling is of oreilly to what he thought was a french spelling of oreilly but it was actually the french word which i dont think he was aware meant ear and he still continued to pronounce his name oreilly but with the french. The par venues were considered crass, tactless and were not accep