Over the last two weeks, we have looked at the first school in D.C. – and on Capitol Hill. It all started with a picture taken about 1917 with the caption “Said to be the first school in the District of Columbia, 4th & C Streets S.E.” Today, we will see whether this really does show what it purports to.
The caption is partly correct, as the intersection shown is indeed the corner of 4th and C Streets SE. More accurately, what you see in the background is the corner of Pennsylvania and 4th; the photographer would have been standing in the intersection of 4th and C. This is clear from the street sign in the far right. On one side (facing the camera) it says Pennsylvania Avenue, on the other, it says 4th. The blur that can be seen behind the sign is a streetcar speeding down Pennsylvania.
The address of this location is, according to early 20th century maps, and the dimensions are about right for the school: 50 by 20 feet.
Looking at the shop window seen to the left of the street sign, a number of bats can be seen, making it a reasonable guess that it is a sporting goods store. And indeed, in the mid-1910s, a sporting goods store run by an Arthur Joll is listed at 431 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The same address was used by a John H. O’Donnell, a Justice of the Peace and, according to his obituary, a friend of President McKinley’s, to sell tea in the late 19th Century,
So, the question becomes whether this was where the school originally was, and then sold and repurposed. Most histories of the DC schools list the address of the Eastern Public School as unknown. However, an 1822 City Directory does state that it is to be found at the “corner Ds and 3e,” ie, 3rd and D Southeast. Since no school buildings were built between 1807 and 1822, this would seem to be the original site.
Detail of the picture from two weeks ago. (LOC)
The most accurate pre-Civil War map shows nothing on the corner of 4th and C, while there is an – otherwise unmarked – building to be seen on the northeast corner of 3rd and D. Furthermore, in the 1876 school report, there is a table “School Sites, Buildings, Furniture, &c.” In it, each building owned or operated by the school district is listed. In the third district, there is a line for “Corner of 3d and D streets s.e.” It refers to a lot of 4,000 square feet that is quite empty: The value of the building is listed as zero. The only reason it remains in the list is that it is owned by the city.
Thus, it appears that this is the original location of the Eastern Free School, and not the building shown in the picture.
If you are interested in seeing the original site, that is easy to arrange: It is still used as a school, and was named after the man who opened the first meeting of the board of trustees: Robert Brent. Since this is the second school bearing his name on this site, absolutely nothing of the original building remains. It would have been located right where the climbing structure in the SW corner of the playground now stands.