Last week, we looked at the life of the first interviewer: Anne Royall. Today, a little more about her time on Capitol Hill – and especially when she found herself on the wrong end of public opinion. When Royall returned to Capitol Hill in January, 1829 to finish the third of her ‘Black Books’ she […]
One of the largest ships in the US Navy during the Civil War was finished at the Washington Navy Yard. After having built various parts of the USS Pensacola in navy yards in states that had seceded, it was fortunate that the final work was done at the Yard: that way, the US Navy could keep it. […]
When researching the early history of Capitol Hill and the Navy Yard –particularly the neighborhood surrounding the Yard–, I discovered that there was one name being used that I was unfamiliar with: Navy Yard Hill. Today, I will look at this usage. In the early years of Washington D.C., there were clearly two neighborhoods on what […]
I have previously written of the changes made to the names of streets on Capitol Hill, in particular how both B Streets were renamed Constitution and Independence Avenue. Today, I will look at a different sort of street name change. While the most important street on Capitol Hill in its early days was, without doubt, […]
Paging through old newspapers, you often come across classified ads that would not have been out of place in the Agony Column of the London Times, which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had his creation, Sherlock Holmes, describe as “a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings! A rag-bag of singular happening! But surely the most valuable […]