Brentwood is a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., and is named after the Brentwood Mansion built at Florida Avenue and 6th Street NE in 1817 by Robert Brent, the first mayor of Washington City. He built it as a wedding present for his daughter Eleanor on her marriage as second wife to Congressman Joseph Pearson, and it stood for a hundred years before burning down in 1917.
13th Pl. and Bryant St. NE, Brentwood, in February 2019
The mansion stood on a large expanse of land, a farm owned by Mayor Robert Brent, that also went to Eleanor. Congressman Pearson also purchased additional properties and expanded the estate further. The property then known as Brentwood was larger than the present neighborhood known as Brentwood. Images of the mansion may be found in the book Capital Losses: A Cultural History of Washington's Destroyed Buildings by James W. Goode, and in several books in the collection of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.[1] A descendant (Edward Sisson) of the family that owned the mansion throughout its existence has posted a collection of paintings, drawings, photos, and histories of the mansion on-line in an "album" titled "Worthington House and Brentwood Mansion" on a Mac Web Gallery site.[2] The Frick Art Reference Library[3] has drawings, paintings, and perhaps photographs (although none appear to be accessible on-line as of late 2007). On the Web, a small drawing of the mansion, together with a brief description of its owners in 1873, Capt. and Mrs. Carlile Pollock Patterson, may be found in "Washington Outside and Inside" by George Alfred Townsend, at page 620, searchable as a Google book.
The design of Brentwood Mansion has traditionally been ascribed to the Capitol's architect, Benjamin Latrobe. The definitive 2006 book, The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, by Michael W. Fazio and Patrick Alexander Snadon (who call the house the Pearson House), states that this is uncertain. At the time of the house's design, Latrobe was suffering family troubles and his records for this period are poor.
During the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877), Brentwood Mansion was a center of Washington social life, with many parties hosted by Elizabeth (Eliza) Worthington Patterson (daughter of Joseph Pearson and his third wife Catherine Worthington Pearson) and her husband Carlile Pollock Patterson. Patterson had known Grant since 1852; Patterson's brother-in-law David Dixon Porter, married to Patterson's sister George Ann, was the highest-ranking Admiral in the US Navy; and Patterson's brother Thomas H. Patterson was commander of the Washington Navy Yard (1873–1876) before becoming the Rear Admiral in command of the Asiatic Squadron (1877–1880). Patterson Street, N.E., which is adjacent to the property, was probably named for the Patterson family.
C.P. Patterson, a Naval officer and ship captain turned scientist and administrator of a government department, had neither the interest nor the aptitude to manage the transformation of a large rural farming and forest property into an urbanized part of the city growing around it. After C.P. Patterson's death in 1881, long-delayed financial problems came to a head, and on June 6, 1884, three years after Patterson's death, Congress enacted a private bill, House bill No. 4689, entitled "An act for the relief of Eliza W. Patterson," C.P. Patterson's widow, excusing accumulated District of Columbia property taxes on the Patterson land. President Chester A. Arthur neither signed nor vetoed the bill, but held it ten days and allowed it to become law without his signature. In a message dated June 21, 1884, the President explained "I do not question the constitutional right of Congress to pass a law relieving the family of an officer, in view of the services he had rendered his country, from the burdens of taxation, but I submit to Congress that this just gift of the nation to the family of such faithful officer should come from the National Treasury rather than from that of this District, and I therefore recommend that an appropriation be made to reimburse the District for the amount of taxes which would have been due to it had this act not become a law."
After five more years of drift in management of the property, in March 1889, Patterson's son-in-law, Lt. Francis Winslow (II) USN (oldest brother of future Rear Admiral Cameron Winslow), after 19 years of Naval service during the slow-promotion post-war years, resigned from the Navy to devote himself to subdividing, renting, developing, and selling portions of the property. He was successful. A portion of this property later became the subject of a lawsuit that reached the United States Supreme Court, Francis Winslow v. Baltimore & Ohio RR Co., 188 U.S. 646 (1903),[4] which includes excerpts of the will by which Mrs. Patterson came into the property on the death of her mother, Catherine Worthington Pearson, in 1868. The suit, which the Patterson/Winslow family won, involved renewal of a lease of some of the land to a railroad. (Winslow (II) also developed an expertise in oysters, having led government surveys in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. A "google" search on "Francis Winslow" and "oyster" returns dozens of "hits," referring to the Francis Winslow who managed the Brentwood property. His work is still cited today (2007) as authoritative and accurate.[5] Winslow was also a leader of US government survey expeditions in Nicaragua, studying potential routes for a canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific.).
The death of Francis Winslow (II) in 1908, suspected to have been caused by illnesses contracted in the Nicaraguan jungle, led to another period of drift in the management of the property as his four sons pursued other careers. In 1917, 100 years after it was built, the vacant Brentwood Mansion burned, and the land became the site of a World War I Army staging camp, Camp Meigs. Three of Francis Winslow (II)'s sons were officers in World War I, and they may have staged in that camp, on their own family land. In 1919 the partially burnt house was finally demolished. Part of the property became the first lumberyard for the building supply and hardware company Hechinger Co., a store that was prominent in Washington into the 1990s.
In the 1920s, Lt. Winslow's son, Francis Winslow (III), ended his career as a mining engineer and took over active management of the Brentwood Patterson/Winslow land. His most notable achievement was the development of the Union Market. For years called the Florida Avenue Market, it still operates after 80 years as the city's principal wholesale food and produce market.[6]
In the early 1940s, the District of Columbia used eminent domain to acquire a large parcel of the Patterson land known as "square 710", on which stands the new headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (200 Florida Avenue, N.E.). The seizure of square 710 led to a suit by Winslow (III) as trustee, asserting that the compensation offered by the District was inadequate. Winslow won the suit and a judgment for a larger sum, whereupon, according to the family, the District informed him that it simply didn't have the money to pay the larger judgment. Regardless of payment or nonpayment, title had vested in the government. At about this time, Winslow was demoralized by the death of his 17-year-old daughter in a 1946 car accident, and was then diagnosed with cancer. He died in 1948.
His youngest brother Cameron, an insurance executive in Hartford, CT, stepped in as trustee, but it is unclear whether either Francis or Cameron ever received payment from the government of the court-ordered price of "square 710." If not, there may be the ironic situation of a government law-enforcement agency headquarters located on land for which the government did not comply with the law by paying the lawful price. Cameron Winslow, determining that no one in the next generation appeared interested in managing the property, and unable to manage the properties day-to-day from Hartford, began selling all remaining parts of the property in the 1950s, completing the last of the sales in the 1960s, breaking up the landed estate that Robert Brent had assembled some 200 years before.
Over the decades, much of the land was acquired by or donated to Gallaudet University, a prominent school for the deaf. Cogswell Hall, a residence hall of Gallaudet University, is said to be built on the site of the old Brentwood Mansion. According to a website on Washington ghost stories, students have reported that it is haunted by the spirit of a little girl. Allegedly, blankets have been yanked off, an unplugged alarm clock went off, papers have moved with no draft or breeze, there are feelings of being watched, and at least one student has been tapped awake with no one there.
Brentwood neighborhood as it is today (whose boundaries are somewhat different than the original Brent property, as increased by Pearson) is trapezoidal in its geography. It is bounded by New York Avenue to the south, Montana Avenue to the east, Rhode Island Avenue NE to the north, and the tracks of the Washington Metro's Red Line and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor to the west. It is serviced by the Rhode Island Ave–Brentwood Metro station. Politically, Brentwood is in Ward 5.
It is best known as the site of the Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr. Processing and Distribution Center, the postal mail sorting facility through which anthrax-contaminated mail addressed to two members of the U.S. Senate passed in the 2001 anthrax attacks.[7] Curseen and Morris were members of the American Postal Workers Union, AFL–CIO who died after exposure to the anthrax in the incident. The 633,000-square-foot (58,800m2) facility was closed October 21, 2001, because of anthrax contamination and did not reopen until December 21, 2003.
North Brentwood is a town in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 593 at the 2020 census. The municipality of North Brentwood is located north of Washington and is surrounded by the communities of Brentwood, Hyattsville, and Cottage City, and the nearby Mount Rainier. The Town of North Brentwood was incorporated in 1924, and was the first African-American-majority municipality in Maryland.
Rhode Island Avenue station is a Washington Metro station in Washington, D.C., on the Red Line. The station is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Northeast, on an elevated platform crossing Rhode Island Avenue NE
Robert Brent was the first mayor of City of Washington, federal capital of the United States of America. Brent was born into a prominent Catholic family, members of which emigrated to the Maryland colony in the 17th century and for which the Brent Society is named.
Brookland, also known as Little Rome or Little Vatican, is a neighborhood located in the Northeast (NE) quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is best known for its numerous Catholic institutions, including schools, religious communities, shrines, institutes, and other organizations built and based around the Catholic University of America.
Eleanor Josephine Medill "Cissy" Patterson, Countess Gizycki was an American journalist and newspaper editor, publisher and owner. Patterson was one of the first women to head a major daily newspaper, the Washington Times-Herald in Washington, D.C.
Eckington is a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., located south of the Prospect Hill and Glenwood Cemeteries. Eckington is less than one mile (1.6 km) southeast of Howard University and exactly one mile north of the United States Capitol. Eckington is also the home of the District of Columbia office of Sirius XM Radio.
Avengers Mansion is a fictional building appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. It has traditionally been the base of the Avengers. The enormous, city block-sized building is located at 890 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City.
Florida Avenue is a major street in Washington, D.C. It was originally named Boundary Street, because it formed the northern boundary of the Federal City under the 1791 L'Enfant Plan. With the growth of the city beyond its original borders, Boundary Street was renamed Florida Avenue in 1890.
Joseph Pearson was a Congressional Representative from North Carolina.
Ivy City is a small neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., in the United States. About half the neighborhood is industrial or formerly industrial, dominated by warehouses. The Ivy City Yard, a railroad coach yard and maintenance facility for the passenger railroad Amtrak, is situated northwest across New York Avenue NE. Ivy City was laid out as a suburban development for African Americans in 1873. Development was slow. From 1879 to 1901, the neighborhood hosted the Ivy City Racetrack, a major horse racing facility in the District of Columbia. Construction on the rail yard began in 1907 and was complete within a year, although much of the facilities there were demolished in 1953 and 1954 as railroads switched from coal-fired locomotives to diesel-fueled or electric engines. The Alexander Crummell School, a major focal point of the community, opened in 1911. After some years of enrollment decline, it closed in 1972 but has not been demolished. The area has undergone some gentrification in the 21st century, although people living in the residential core of Ivy City remain very poor and unemployment is high.
Carlile Pollock Patterson was the fourth superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. He was born in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, the son of Commodore Daniel Todd Patterson. He was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy in 1830. He studied Civil Engineering at Georgetown College, graduating in 1838, and returned to the Navy, assigned to work with the U.S. Coast Survey. He left the Navy in 1853 and captained mail steamers in the Pacific Ocean. In 1861, as a civilian, he was appointed as Hydrographic Inspector of the U.S. Coast Survey. In 1874, he was made Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, a position he held until his death. In 1880, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.
Edgewood is a neighborhood located in Ward 5 of Northeast Washington, D.C. Edgewood is bounded by Michigan Avenue NE to the north, Rhode Island Avenue NE to the south, North Capitol Street to the west, and the Washington Metro's Red Line to the east. The eastern boundary originates with the establishment of the former Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1873, creating the physical barrier which today separates Edgewood from Brookland to the east.
The Clayton-Cedarmere Estates are located in Roslyn Harbor, New York, United States, listed jointly on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Clayton, the bulk of the property, is the large landscaped Bryce/Frick estate, now home to the Nassau County Museum of Art. Cedarmere, the smaller of the two, is William Cullen Bryant's estate, currently undergoing interior renovation, is located on the west side of Bryant Avenue; overlooking Hempstead Harbor, now a historic house museum. The grounds are open to the public. The two combined properties, with input from several notable architects, illustrate the development of estates on the North Shore of Long Island over a period of nearly a century.
Paul Amos Batholomew (1883–1973) was an architect in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. From the beginning of his practice, he received a variety of high-profile commissions for both residential and non-residential structures, mainly in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. His buildings typically had historicist facades, with neoclassical or Italianate ornamentation covering a modern framework. It was only in the 1950s, toward the end of his career, that he created buildings that were purely modern in design. During the Great Depression, a particularly trying time for architects, he received the commission to design Norvelt, which was a new town created as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal policies.
The Sulgrave Club is a private women's club located at 1801 Massachusetts Avenue NW on the east side of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. The clubhouse is the former Beaux-Arts mansion on Embassy Row built for Herbert and Martha Blow Wadsworth and designed by noted architect George Cary. During World War I the Wadsworth House was used as the local headquarters for the American Red Cross.
The Henry Clay Frick House was the residence of the industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick in New York City. The mansion is located between 70th and 71st Street and Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was constructed in 1912–1914 by Thomas Hastings of Carrère and Hastings. It was transformed into a museum in the mid-1930s and houses the Frick Collection and the Frick Art Reference Library. The house and library were designated a National Historic Landmark in 2008 for their significance in the arts and architecture as a major repository of a Gilded Age art collection.
The Patterson Mansion is a historic Neoclassical-style mansion located at 15 Dupont Circle NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was built by Robert Wilson Patterson, editor of the Chicago Tribune newspaper, and used by him and his family for entertaining when he was in the city. Completed in 1903, it was deeded to the American Red Cross in 1948. The Red Cross sold it to the Washington Club in 1951. The structure was renovated and a small, two-story addition added in 1955. As of December 2013, the property was up for sale after plans to convert it into a boutique hotel fell through. In June 2014, the Washington Club sold the mansion for $20 Million to developer SB-Urban. The Washington Club sold the property because "it is disbanding and no longer needs the space, according to John Matteo, an attorney at Jackson & Campbell, who represented the club in the sale."
Union Market is a food hall located in Washington, D.C. It was formally known as Union Terminal Market when it started as a replacement market center for the old Center Market located near the National Mall in 1931. It became an important part of the Washington food infrastructure to feed a growing city population. It featured retail and wholesales stores as well as a farmers' market which ran into trouble with the city in the 1960s due to its failure to comply with sanitation and safety standards. A new building was completed in 1967 to replace it and is today the food hall carrying the name "Union Market".
West Virginia Avenue is an avenue in Washington, DC running from K Street NE to New York Avenue NE. It was named after the State of West Virginia which entered the Union in 1863.
The Triple Palace, also known as the William H. Vanderbilt House, was an elaborate mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue between 51st Street and 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The urban mansion, completed in 1882 to designs by John B. Snook and Charles B. Atwood, was owned by members of the Vanderbilt family. It was composed of two portions: a single-family unit to the south and a two-family unit to the north. William Henry Vanderbilt owned and lived in the southern portion. Two of his daughters, Emily Thorn Vanderbilt and Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard, along with their respective families, occupied the two residences in the northern portion.
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