Robert Pohl worked for many years as a computer programmer but recovered from that and became a full time stay-at-home dad. With his son now in school, he has expanded his horizons and become a self-taught historian. He has written books about his house as well as Emancipation in the District of Columbia. You can reach Robert at Robert[at]thehillishome.com
Last week, we looked at the first public school for African Americans, opened in the Little Ebenezer church. Its explosive growth, fueled not only by the D.C. Emancipation Act but also by the law securing schooling for all children, meant that they soon outgrew their modest beginnings. And so, a new school – and this […]
I have written multiple times about schools on Capitol Hill, but there’s an important one that I have thus far missed. It’s an important piece of a tour I will be giving in April, as part of their Emancipation Day celebration. The first public school in the District of Columbia opened in 1806, next to the […]
The future of Reservation 13 is far from clear, and it is even uncertain when the future might become clearer. I will stick to discussing its past, as I have done many times already, whether about its jail, crematorium, or almshouse. Long before the site became a dumping ground for any buildings the good citizens of […]
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the first schools in the Navy Yard neighborhood, and how two buildings formerly used for other purposes were repurposed for this new task. Today, I will look at other schools, including some buildings that are still in use, in the neighborhood. In spite of their slipshod nature, the two […]
The Navy Yard neighborhood of Capitol Hill was the first real neighborhood to develop in D.C. While the city as a whole existed entirely to support the new Federal government and was therefore full of clerks, this neighborhood was there for the Navy Yard and so here lived all those needed to build and repair […]