Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-09
HISTORIC VALLEY
PLANS PREPARED
Piney Branch's GIamorous
History Recalled in De-
velopment Project.

Tentative plans for development of
the Piney Branch Valley have been
prepared by the National Capital Park
and Planning Commission, and will be
carried out by the Office of Public
Buildings and Public Parks. Conrad L.
Wirth, the commissions landscape
architect. has had ior part in the
preparation of the plan, under which
the sides of the historic valley will be
given a rounded effect, to restore the
erstwhiIe contour of the historic region.
Contractors excavating earth in the
region are now permitted to deposit soil
in designated places, where stakes mark
off the plan of the development. When
sufficient earth has been deposited, the
program is to reforest the sides Of the
valley, in an effort to restore some of
its ancient beauty.
Part of the valley in the region of
Sixteenth street, has been utilized in
the past as dump but the Office of
Public Buildings and Public Parks has
now barred that practice. East of
Sixteenth street, Arkansas avenue is to
be improved. At present the District
authorities are permitting dumping of
ashes and other suitable material, and
later, when this material settles. it is
proposed to pave the thoroughfare.
Then the Office of Public Buildings and
Public Parks will connect Arkansas
avenue with road which will traverse
the valley, running under Sixteenth
street to avoid a grade crossing, and
linking up with the Rock Greek Park
system. Further plans for the develop
ment of the valley are now being drawn
up by Mr.. Wirth.
History Is Recalled.
The glamour of historic Piney Branch
was recalled in an address delivered re-
Gently before the Columbia Historical
Society by Fred A. Emery, president of
the Society of Natives, in this wise:
Long before your time and mine,
and our grandfathers' time, the Indians
meandered over what is now Meridian
Hill, Columbia Heights, Mount Pleasant,
and worked and camped along Piney
Branch. There are those who say that
the arrow heads and flint stones and
other Clipped fragments which scien-
lists found, and which I have seen,
along the Piney's picturesque banks
possibly indicate people of the stone age.
Smithsonian Institution reports refer to
these historic places along the Piney
Branch as the greatest aboriginal
boulder quarrieS known and their most
important implement shops yet observed
on the Atlantic slope DR.. ]. w. Put
name of the Peabody Museum Of
American Archaeology, at Cambridge,
Mass, on April Is, 1889, made this
statement:
THE hillsides at Piney Branch and
similar places seem to have been for
some centuries great sources of supply
of proper materials from which i'm
plements were Clipped by the people
who lived along this valley. 1t is
problem to ascertain if the Clipped
stones found did not date to the glacial
age
Who lived there in the Ice Age, de-
ponent saith naught. And inquiries of
Government experts as to what par
ttcular Indians lived there have been
fruitleSS. OF course, so far as the In
dams are concerned, they were part of
the powerful Powhatan confederacy of
the Algonquins. I asked the Bureau
Of Indian Affairs what Indians lived on
these hills and that valley. They didn't
know and passed the inquiry along to
the Bureau Of American Ethnology.
That burea's reply, dated October Is,
1929, signed by M. w. Stirling, chief,
addressed to me, says: 1t is not known
what tribes of Indians occupied the
area now occupied by Mount Pleasant
and Meridian HILL
No IgnobIe Stream.
"Piney Branch is no ignoble stream
ACS OuGllIleS are traced on washing
tons and Jefferson's maps. Today but
a shadow of its former self, it courses a
beautiful valley that eastward is yield
ing to the ravages of city development
and that east of Fourteenth fades into
Arkansas avenue. The Government re-
Gently purchased its forested hillsides
from Seventeenth to Eighteenth, in
Guiding the Indian quarry sites. 1t is
a steep, rocky ravine It's tiny rivulet
of today still sings over the lodges and
CLEANS in the lights and shadows that
pierce the forest coverings of its grav-
eled banks. City studies are being made
for the development of that valley.
High hopes may once have been held
of using Tiber or Goose Greek for water
traffic, but the rockbound beds of Rock
Creek and Piney Branch precluded any
such ancient avenue of commerce.
Anthony Holmead had his property
resurveyed April 10, 1875, and through
him and his descendants Holmead
Manor became historically famous upon
these hills. The Holmead property, we
are told. extended eastward across Sew