Dumbarton House
|
Dumbarton House
|
|
Dumbarton House, viewed from the front in 2006
|
|
 |
|
| Location | 2715 Q St., NW Washington, D.C. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°54′39″N 77°3′22″W / 38.91083°N 77.05611°WCoordinates: 38°54′39″N 77°3′22″W / 38.91083°N 77.05611°W |
| Area | 0.6 acres (0.24 ha) |
| Built | 1800 |
| Architect | Samuel Jackson |
| Architectural style | Georgian, Federal, Adamesque |
| NRHP Reference # | 90002148 |
| Added to NRHP | January 28, 1991 |
Dumbarton House is a Federal style house located in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C.. It was completed around 1800. Its first occupant was Joseph Nourse, the first Register of the Treasury. Dumbarton House, a federal period historic house museum, stands on approximately an acre of gardens on the northern edge of Georgetown, District of Columbia. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Displaying a fine collection of period decorative arts (furniture, silver, ceramics, etc.), it gives the visitor a concrete sense of a substantial private residence in the early 1800s. Constructed in 1798-99, the house was a private residence until The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA) purchased it for its headquarters in 1928 and gave it the name it has today. In addition to meeting its administrative needs, the NSCDA wanted to illustrate domestic life in Georgetown in the early federal period. To achieve this, its two principal floors were opened to the public as a house museum in 1932, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington.
Dumbarton House was built by Samuel Jackson, a Philadelphia merchant, just before the Federal government moved from Philadelphia to the newly established national capital of Washington, a separate town in the District of Columbia. However, Jackson and his family lived there only briefly and the mortgage he had given, and then title to the property, soon passed to the United States. In 1804, the property was purchased at auction by Joseph Nourse, the first Register of the United States Treasury. An advertisement for the upcoming sale described the interior of the house in some detail: ". . . a large two story brick house with a passage through the center, four rooms on a floor & good cellars. The front rooms are about 17 by 18 feet – the back rooms are semicircular and are about 22 by 17 feet – the passage 9 feet wide and 38 feet long – two brick offices [wings] two stories high 17 feet 6 inches square & are connected with the House by covered ways. . . ." In 1813, the Nourses sold the property to Charles Carroll of Belle Vue.(He was a cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence.)The purchaser was also a friend of President James Madison and his wife Dolley. It is this “Mr. Carroll” to whom Dolley is referring in her famous letter describing the events of August 24, 1814, the day the British burned the "President's House" in the War of 1812. ". . . Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall .... " When Dolley was finally satisfied that the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington was safe, she came to Dumbarton House, as Mr. Carroll told her the President had requested, to await further word on where the couple should meet.
...
Wikipedia