Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-02-11
THE EARLY SETTLERS IN WASH.
lNETON.
The Romantic History Of John p. Van
Nesss


The Romantic History of John p. Van
Ness.
From the American Register.
When Congress. during the latter part of the
last century. founded the capital of the nation
at Washington. there fiocked to the city all
kinds of people with all kinds of schemes. Much
was expected from the capital of the infant re-
public. 1t was to be land flowing with milk
and honey. Great investments promising
princely returns. were made. From all the
states from Holland and London. there came
the agents of companies investing unlimited
capital IN ample squares so beautifully subdi-
vided into building lots, which in FIVE years
were to he covered with the homes of one hun
bred and sixty thousand people. But the am
pie squares SO beautifully Subdiyided and the
broad avenues and streets existed only on
paper plats; in reality they were morasses. or
hid away under great hills. as the gold is hid in
the earth. and so they remained mostly for up
wards of sixty years. The golden promises
which the new capital gave she broke; the land
flowing with milk and honey was but mirage
and when. after ten years of existence. the city
returned only population of FIVE thousand
people. disaster. debt and misery followed
Pledges went unredeemed, contracts were
broken, endless litigation began. and opulence
became beggary. James Greeneaf. who bought
six thousand lots on certain conditions, shifted
the fulflllment of them upon Robert Morris and
made bankrupt of the great finaneier of the
Revolution. and spent the balance of his disap-
pointed life in writing communications to the
Inteu,gencer, warning spectators not to buy
lawsuits in purchasing his property. Away
from India came Tom Law, the private secre-
tary OF Warren Hastings. with ample fortune
and courtly culture, to invest his all in the new
capital. lis mind was fertile with thousand
projects for its advancement and his heart beat
responsive to his thousands of hopes, but he
dled emblttered and SOur-sOme said craZy-and
poor, with schemes unrealzed and aspirations
unattained. Carroll, of Duddington. who owned
large portion of Capitol Hill, held his lots at
fabulous prices, and saw the population finding
homes In Georgetown, just as one stands upon
the shore and sees the tide going out. He Dor
rowed large sums of money, mortgaging his
property as security, for his hopes were potent.
even as the auctioneer sang his dirge in the sale
OF his lots.
Sam Blodget. anticipating the increase of the
cty's population by fifty years, built an i'm
mense hotel on the site of the present General
Post Office. In it Congress held session or
two after the destruction Of the Capitol by the
British in 1914 and then it went piecemeal to
decay, serving as a monument of ruin and folly,
While BlOdget went into chancery, and died
there. The property of the Youngs was mostly
sold for unpaid taxes and the purchasers at the
sales could with difficulty find its location. By
and by, with the flight of years the feverish
spectators fled impoverished and the great.
magnificent distances of the capital. wild and
uninhabited. were left in solitude to become
the butt OF the poets wit and the satirists pen.
Tom Moore. while on a visit here in 1904 paws
his respects to the new capital thus:
SIN fancy, now, beneath the twilight gloom
Come, let me lead thee DER the second Rome.
Where tribune rule, where dusky ID wi bow,
Ana what was Goose creek once is TibeT now:
Ihis embryo capital, where fancy sees
Squares in mOrasSes, ObeiSkS in trees,
Which Second-sighted SPers, even now adorn
unhujlt bray VET nh
Among the original proprietors probably the
only one whom the new capital really enriched
was David Burnes, the Scotch farmer Washing
ton had much trouble with him in laying out
the city, and called him the obstinate Mr..
Burnes." Dayy retaiated by speaking of
Washington as 1.-The man who grew great bv
marrying the widow Custis'' Under the law of
prlmO@eniture existing in Maryland, Davy in
herlted his property. and while he was growing
in riches his younger brother, it is said, contem-
Tradition has it that he was dissolute and
drunken. Poor devil! Under the curse which
the law had pnt upon him for the crime of being
younger brother, he had nothing else to do
but drink and die, or wait for his elder brother
to die childless and intestate In a one-stOry
cottage near the river. the Scotch farmer lived.
He had one daughter, an only child named
Marcia. Her suitors we're many. charmed with
her wit and learning, and, above ALL with her
prospective wealth Congressman eagerly sought
n
tered by the greatest men of the time Amonr
all her suitors, Miss Marcia preferred John p.
Van Ness, the member from New York hand
some and dashing, and the two were married.
David Burncs' death occurred few gears after
the marriage Evidently John p. Van Ness he
lieved in the old English law maxim that the
husband and wife are both one and that the
husband is that one. for shortly after Burnes'
death we find Mrs. Van Ness conveying TO her
husband through the Intervention of trustee.
ali the property Of which her father died seized
and which she inherited,
with portion of the fortune thus acquired.
John 2. Van Ness built at the foot of 1tii street,
on the Potomac a handsome residence, costing
$50 goo. big sum in those days. 1t was
spacious and roomy. just like the pictures Of
Ieudal castle without the draw bridge. Ample
grounds, embellished with all kinds of rare flow
ers and trailing vines surrounded it: fancy
walks Zig-Zagged in all directions and the whole
was incosed by brick wall. 1t was palace
Mt for king. Entertainments the most costly
were inauguratel and maintained in it: wit and
song were heard within it, and elegance and dis
tinction assembled under its hospitab!e roof
From its windows could be seen ships from
Europe moored to the docks of Alexandria.
While gliding by daily on the river beside it were
merchantmen from the West Indies, laden with
tobacco for the port of Georgetown.
10 this house one day there came for protec-
ton and home, Ann G. Wight, a cousin of
Mrs. Van Ness. She was a runaway nun from
the Convent of the Visitation In Georgetown
and had been known in the community as Sister
Gertrude. No one ever knew rightly the cause
OF her sudden departure from the convent.
Some said it was disappointed ambition in not
being appointed snperOress; Others, that it was
case OF love. but she never told and the ladies
of the convent were Just as reticent. She be-
came an inmate Of the elegant mansion by the
river and was noted and brilliant woman of
society. Alas! the change which comes with
the years. here and everywhere. The mansion
still stands, but it is fast going to decay The
zig-zag walks are obliterafed. the trailing vines
are gone. the parterres are turned into weeds,
the scent Of the flowers vanished the brick wall
Is broken, battered and tumblng The river