Under the city

Talk about creepy. Just in time for Halloween, the Washington Post Answer Man reported recently on rumors of buildings in DC that had underground doors leading into the dark and swirling remains of Washington's old Tiber Creek. Naturally, many of these are unfounded claims, but it prompted me to do a little investigating of my own.

The creek was originally known as Goose Creek before it became part of the territory of Washington DC and was renamed in honor of Rome's Tiber River. Early maps show that its course ran south from around the intersection of today's 1st St NE and North Capitol Street down towards the Capitol building before turning west and following today's Constitution Avenue and meeting the Potomac near the Washington Monument.

Historic image of the city showing Tiber Creek, and present day Washington

In his master plan for the city L'Enfant actually proposed using the Tiber as a canal to the Potomac, and in 1815 the part of the creek that ran along Constitution Avenue was added to the Washington City Canal system. Unfortunately, without sufficient infrastructure, by the 1870s the Washington Canal had become little other than a giant sewer and was eventually paved over as part of a city improvement project. Board of Public Works lead architect Adolf Cluss was responsible for the construction of the giant brick tunnel which housed the river and allowed for the construction of the roadway above it. Parts of the tunnel still exist in deteriorated form today, and the Old Post Offce building does indeed have a manhole cover in the basement which reveals the much diminished creek trickling by when opened. There are also the remains of an historic C&O canal lock keeper's house at the corner of Constitution Avenue and 17th Street, which is where the mouth of the Tiber Creek once opened into the Tidal Basin.

Because of the instability of the old creek bed, many of the buildings on or near Constitution avenue, including the IRS building, The National Archives, and the Warner Theater had to be built with deep pier like foundations. The Warner Theater was actually supposed to be named the "Cosmopolitan Theater", but after its owners spent so much money on the construction of the foundation, they ended up having to seek investors and named it the Earle Theater after one of their investors instead. It was later renamed the Warner after being bought by Harry Warner. Engineers working on the construction of the massive Ronald Reagan Building in the 1990s appeared to have finally found a way to successfully divert the water, but their methods actually reduced the water level so significantly that the IRS building's foundation lost stability and began to sink.

Today the creek is mostly a silent, hidden piece of Washington's past, but every now and again it rears its head. Before being diverted underground, in 1804 the creek caused one of the most significant floods in Washington's history, sending sewage, livestock, and people racing down Pennsylvania Avenue. More recently, the remains of the riverbed became saturated during heavy rains in June of 2006, and caused terrible flooding in the downtown area, threatening among other things, the copy of the Constitution kept at the National Archives. Thankfully, nothing major was lost.

Sources:
Kelly, John. Answer Man, Washington Post.Sunday, November 1, 2009. http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/ article/2009/ 10/31/AR20091031 01607_2.html
Tiber Creek, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiber_Creek

Image Source: Tiber Creek, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiber_Creek

Speaking of Georgetown...

Potomac River and C&O canal in Georgetown circa 1862

Now that DC tourist season is in full swing, one of the places in the city most certain to be teeming with visitors is chic, glamorous Georgetown. Home now to elite DC residents, charming old houses, expensive restaurants, and of course – Banana Republic, the Georgetown of today is a symbol of Washington old money and power. It is however, amusing, to imagine the thoughts of the port city’s original inhabitants if they knew that their modest dwellings and butcher shops were now home to upscale boutiques and outrageously priced frozen yogurt shops. I am of course embellishing, to a point. There always were large houses on the hillside that led up from the Potomac river basin into Maryland, but the areas closest to the river – today’s K and M streets – were originally filled with the simple structures of a working port city and Washington’s only claim at a manufacturing history.

British settlers arrived in the area in 1696 and immediately drove away all of the Nacotchanke Indians who maintained a small village in the area. Perfectly situated on the river to receive and send off the shipments of Maryland and Virginia tobacco headed for the homeland (Europe), Georgetown eventually became one of the largest tobacco ports in the colonies. The town was incorporated in 1751 as part of the British colony of Maryland, and contrary to popular belief, named not for soon to be first president George Washington, but for King George II of Great Britain. (Although there is some speculation that it was possibly named for land-owners George Gordon and George Beall). The Old Stone House, the oldest house in the District of Columbia, was built during this period of Georgetown’s history, and is maintained today by the National Park Service as a rare survivor of colonial Washington.

After the American Revolution, the city was incorporated into the District of Columbia in 1791 in a deal reached at the well-known Suter’s Tavern, a frequent haunt of George Washington. The location of Suter’s Tavern is today unknown, but the most likely location is thought to be on K Street, underneath what is now the AMC movie theater. (Perhaps why they can get away with charging $20.00 for a movie and popcorn?) Shortly after, Georgetown reached an early heyday, with money pouring in from the ports and high profile DC residents like Thomas Jefferson and Francis Scott Key purchasing properties in the area. Water powered mills, producing mainly flour and other processed grain, also brought money and work into the area, including droves of slaves, who are a long forgotten part of Georgetown’s past.

The heyday was unfortunately a little short lived, as the Potomac River began to silt up (some speculate because of the increased traffic and manufacturing in the area) and merchant boats were no longer able to make it all the way up to Georgetown. The early solution to the problem was the construction of the C&O Canal, which connected the District with Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. The success of the canal kept Georgetown afloat through most of the 19th century, but by the 1880s the problems with the river were again severe, and in 1890 a massive flood virtually destroyed all travel along the canal.

As the trade and manufacturing left, Georgetown became what can only be called a slum, with a large portion of its population consisting of the poverty stricken African American workers who had no place to go once their jobs were gone. They continued to live in cramped housing on K and M streets, and much of the structures that still remain there today - in what is now the heart of historic Georgetown – survived simply because there was no money to do anything else with them.

Meanwhile, in upper Georgetown near Rock Creek Park, luxury apartment buildings began to go up in the 1920’s and construction slowly made it’s way down towards the Potomac. In the 1930’s the area was given a new cache when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt purchased a home there. In the 1950’s a historic neighborhood association was formed to protect the area’s wealth of historic properties, and in the 1960’s Georgetown was effectively saved when John F. Kennedy, who owned a home there while serving as a Congressman, was elected President. Today the magnificent homes in Georgetown remain populated by the DC elite, and the port city-turned slum town-turned new Apple store location of K and M streets continues to attract the trade and commerce of visitors from around the world.

Photo Source: National Archives and Records Administration

Sources:

Ecker, Grace Dunlop (1933). A Portrait of Old Georgetown. Garrett & Massie, Inc..

Mitchell, Alexander D (2000). Washington DC Then and Now. Thunder Bay

Press.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071401398.html

The Major majorly loses it...and with good reason

You’re standing outside 8 Jackson Place, when suddenly you hear footsteps and Wait! Was that a woman’s voice? How can it be, there’s no one standing around you? You, the tourist, quickly consult your DC guide book. Aha there it is! 8 Jackson Place—the Rathbone House—former home of Major Henry Rathbone, who shot his wife and stabbed himself. They say the place is haunted!

Major Rathbone is most famous for having been in the box at Ford’s Theatre the fateful night President Lincoln was shot. Rathbone’s fiancée Clara Harris was a close friend of the Mary Todd, and after General Grant could not make it to the play, Harris and Rathbone accompanied the Lincoln’s to the viewing of Our American Cousin. It was Rathbone who witnessed Booth entering the box, and it was he who made a grab at Booth, suffering a slash across the chest from Booth’s knife. Clara Harris soon found her dress covered in Rathbone’s blood.

Though our favorite president met this end, Rathbone recovered. The couple married in 1867 and eventually had children. Recovered in body Major Rathbone, never fully recovered in spirit. He blamed himself for failing to prevent Lincoln’s assassination. He suffered headaches and grew paranoid that his wife and children would leave them. His condition forced him to resign his commission in the army and take his family to Europe in search for a cure.

Early on Christmas Eve morning in 1883, Rathbone entered his wife’s bedroom fully dressed in a suit. He asked for the children. Clara pointed out the early hour. Rathbone took out a revolver and shot his wife. He then stabbed himself with a knife six times. His wife quickly died and was buried in Hanover, but the tortured Henry survived yet again. He was placed in an asylum in Germany and spent the rest of his days shouting about people in the conspiring to get him. The US Consul in Germany declared him “hopelessly insane.” Rathbone died in 1911, and was buried next to Clara with little fanfare. Incidentally, his son went on to become a member of the House of Representatives representing the great state of Illinois.

As to whether or not the Rathbone house is haunted, I’ll leave it to you to decide. Personally though, I find it difficult to believe that the ghosts of the Rathbones would cross the Atlantic Ocean and take residency there. It would be a chilly swim… even for a ghost.

Sources: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals.

Michael E. Ruane, “A Tragedy’s Second Act,” The Washington Post, page W14 (April 5, 2009).

Gene Smith, “The Haunted Major,” American Heritage, February/ March 1994, Vol 45 Issue 1.

And In-flew-Enza

The photo of the flu ward at Walter Reed Army Hospital inspired me to learn about the Great Influenza of 1918. Too often, the Capital is isolated from the rest of the country; it’s a place that hears the problems of the nation but doesn’t necessarily see them. The influenza pandemic in 1918 is a great example of how the city shared in a national tragedy. As the worst pandemic in history, the Great Influenza or Spanish Flu infected 20-40% of the World’s population, causing 50 million causalities. With sudden symptoms of aches and fever, pneumonia, and hemorrhaging of the lungs and intestines, the flu managed to kill 675,000 Americans in a mere 6 months.

Though the virus appeared in the United States in March 1918, the first casualty in the District was on September 21st; the victim had been a railroad brakeman who had been exposed to it in New York. From his DC headquarters, Surgeon General Rupert Blue was just beginning to recognize that the flu outbreak was about to wreak havoc. Just one day later 65 cases were reported at Camp Humphrey (now Fort Belvoir, near Arlington Cemetery). That day the government issued its first warning to the public, stating among other things to:
“-Avoid needless crowding
-Smother your coughes and sneezes
-Food will win the War—Help by choosing and chewing your food well
-Avoid tight clothes, tight shoes, tight gloves.”

By September 26th Senator John Weeks of Massachusetts called for a resolution appropriating a hefty one million dollars toward combating the outbreak. The resolution sped through the Senate and House in two hours, passing without a single dissent. The United States Public Health Service (now the NIH) set up an emergency hospital in the District that could accommodate 500 patients, and the Surgeon General of the Navy made available 40 medical officers. At Walter Reed the mortality rate of flu victims with pneumonia reached 52%. For 1918, the mortality rate in DC reached 23.6 deaths out of 1000 dying compared to 16.8 in 1917. To give a comparison, the average mortality rate in 1918 for the 46 largest US cities was 19.6.

In a short time coffins became a scarcity. At one point, DC Health Commissioner Louis Brownlow seized two railcars full of coffins bound for Pittsburgh, another hard-hit city. Local funeral home owner Bill Sardo later recalled that “from the moment I got up in the morning to when I went to bed at night, I felt a constant sense of fear. We wore gauze masks. We were afraid to kiss each other, to eat with each other, to have contact of any kind. We had no family life, no church life, no community life. Fear tore people apart.”

Though the USPHS, the Navy and Army worked diligently to create vaccines that had moderate success, people were generally at the mercy of virus and could only wait it out. Over the next few months the emergency hospital in DC reduced its size to one hundred beds and by March 1919 it had dispensed operations all together. The flu had disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived, having left its mark of fear across the nation.

Sources: John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (New York: Viking Penguin, 2004).

Alfred W. Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic, Second Edition (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

“Death Rate Increase in 1918,” New York Times, January 6, 1918.

United States Department of Health and Human Services, The Great Pandemic (available online: 3/20/09).

Picture Source: "Walter Reed Hospital flu ward", Harris & Ewing glass negative, c. 1919 (available online: 3/20/09). *Shorpy is a fantastic hi-def vintage photography website, with many collections from DC.

The Great Knickerbocker Storm of 1922

The title of this storm alone merits mentioning it. Washington, DC’s single largest snowfall began in South Carolina on January 27, 1922, pushing slowly north. By the morning of the 28th, accumulation in the Capitol City reached 18 inches. The snow did not stop until the morning of the 29th, with the official record of snowfall reaching 26 inches, though Rock Creek Park recorded 33 inches that day.

The sheer weight of the snow collapsed the roof upon moviegoers at Crandall’s Knickerbocker Theatre; the largest theatre in DC at the time. The collapse killed 98 and injured 133; making it one DC’s all time worst disasters. To make it more tragic, the owner owner of the theatre, Harry S. Crandall, committed suicide in 1937, leaving a note reading, "I'm despondent and I miss my theatre so much." For more information on the storm visit the Washington Post's article (A Winter's Tale of Tragedy) or the DCist's blog posting (Knickerbocker Storm).

As for me, I’m trying to come up with a name for last night’s 6 inch snowfall that will go down in history like the “Knickerbocker Storm.” The best I’ve got so far is the “Day of the Ugg Boots 2009.”

Picture Source: Washingtonian Division, DC Public Library.