Walt Whitman's Washington Part 2

A continuation of Walt Whitman's hangouts. At Left: Walt Whitman and companion Peter Doyle in 1865.

14th Street: From this thorough-fare for Union troops, Walt witnessed wounded soldiers returning from the fronts in thousands. Noting their disheveled states and pained gazes, so unlike the grand military reviews held near the White House, Whitman stated, “This is way the men come in now, seldom in small numbers, but always in these long, sad processions.”

Analostan Island (Teddy Roosevelt Island): Though Whitman was by and large a Unionist, he was not an abolitionist. In effort to convert him, abolitionist coworkers in the Army Paymaster’s Office took him on a trip to Analostan Island, near Georgetown, to watch the First Regiment US Colored Troops receive pay. Whitman conceded that the colored troops fought bravely and honorably, but still believed them to be genetically and intellectually inferior.

Pennsylvania Ave: After hospital duty, Whitman strolled down the Avenue in the night air, clearing his thoughts and taking in the scenery.
· On this street he would see President Abraham Lincoln walking to and from the White House. Though he never met Lincoln personally he commented, “Who can see that man without losing all wish to be sharp upon him personally? Who can say he has not a good soul?”
· Whitman found love and companionship toward the end of the war from Pennsylvania Avenue horsecar operator and Confederate deserter Peter Doyle. Though 25 years Doyle’s senior, the two became inseparable over the next five years. At night Whitman would ride the lonely streetcar from Georgetown to Capitol, talking and confiding in Doyle.
· At the Center Market on Penn and 7th, Doyle and Whitman purchased watermelon. Sitting on a curb eating it, with passersby laughing at the odd couple. Walt would say, “They can have the laugh—we have the melon.”

Union Hotel: Early in the Civil War, the Union Hotel in Georgetown (at 30th and M Streets) became a temporary hospital for those with contagious diseases. By 1864 the Hotel had reverted back to its status as a popular saloon. Tired after a late shift on the streetcar, Doyle would fall asleep at a table in the bar, awoken at the end of the night by Whitman.

Walt Whitman resided in Washington, DC until 1873, when working late one night in the Treasury Building he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. At age 54, he had become an old man. Relocating to be close to family in Camden, New Jersey, Whitman hoped that he would be well enough to return to Washington, DC and Peter Doyle. However, he never recovered fully enough to make DC his home once more and lived the rest of his days in Camden.

Sources: Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman: A Life.

Roy Morris, Jr., The Better Angel.

DC in the BC...and Later

Below: John Smith's Map of Virginia, 1612.

It was the end of the Ice Age, and things were looking up. The glaciers were receding, causing the rising sea levels that would form the Chesapeake Bay. The climate was warming. By ten thousand BC, the first Washingtonians settled into the area. Over the next few thousand years field and forest developed.

The surrounding land of present-day Washington was rich with game and stone to make tools. Around 800 CE, experiment with agriculture began with the growing of maize. Squash, beans, and potatoes were later added to the diet. By 1500, the people around the Potomac River had become so numerous that both hunting and farming were necessary in sustaining the population of the region. The people who had settled into the area were of the Piscataway Conoy Nation, a collection of tribes unified during the 16th century in order to ward off Iroquois invaders. These Eastern Algonquian-speaking Native Americans developed a system of chiefdom whereby the leader of a village, a werowance, was subject to a single supreme chief, known as the tayac.

One of the larger villages in the region was located in present day Anacostia. Identified by Captain John Smith in his 1612 Map of Virginia, the village and people were referred to as the Nacotchtank. Smith estimated the village population to be at around 200, with 60 warriors. The village encompassed the area from Bolling Air Force Base, following the Anacostia River to Anacostia Park. The word Nacotchtank has been translated to mean "a trading town," and this town along with the Patawomeke village were the two larger villages in the region. These towns served as "gateway communities," allowing the tayac to control long-distance trade, such as beaver pelts from the north. The Nacotchtanks were variably referred to as Nacostins or Analostans, deriving the name Anacostia.

Not much is known of daily life among the Nacotchtank. What we do know is that in 1622, the English colonists burned and plundered the Nactochtank village, in order to obtain corn. The following year, Captain Henry Spelman led a group of Englishmen on trading mission along the Potomac. Spelman was an interpreter for the British and presumed himself to be in good standing with the local Native Americans. However, whilst traveling Spelman and 19 of his men were killed by the Nacostins, with one survivor, Henry Fleet, becoming captive at the Nacotchtank village.

What happened to the Nacotchtank? Escaping 5 years later, Fleet later became a skilled trader and interpreter as Spelman had been before him. Fleet's writings mention that by the 1640s the Nacotchtanks were located at a small village in the Georgetown area. A fragment population had inhabited Analostan Island, later named Mason's Island and even later referred to as Theodore Roosevelt Island. Within 40 years of contact with the Europeans, the population of the Piscataway Conoys had dwindled to one quarter of what it was when Smith first greeted them in 1608. Violence and disease had taken its toll on the Nacotchtanks who faded into obscurity by the 1680s; their lands soon covered by farm, plantation and town.

Of Interest: Captain John Smith National Historic Water Trail, http://www.nps.gov/cajo/

Sources: National Park Service, "Civil War Defenses of Washington: The Native People, " Available online: http://www.nps.gov/cwdw/historyculture/the-native-peoples.htm (March 2009).

Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland, "History," Avaiable online: http://piscatawayconoy.com/content/learn/history.html (March 2009).

Stephen R. Potter, Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1993).

John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia (London: Printed by I.D. and I.H. for Michael Sparkes, 1624).

Photo Source: John Smith, "Map of Virginia," Library of Congress, 1612.