Evening star., 1934-08-18
BY HELEN FETTER COOK.

"A building with a pre-Revolu-
4 4 tionary wing at 1897 Twenty
ninth street, has always been
mystery house" in Georgetown
Recently, the mysteries surrounding
it have been considerably increased.
At present it is the home OF Mr.. and
Mrs. Robert Hayes Van SAINT and
their two children. 1t is the charming
young daughter Of the house, Miss
Ruth Elizabeth Van SAINT, who has
had a couple of experiences that, as
she says
We'll, they may not have been
ghosts but just the same, l don't use
the front stairs any more"
1t seems that one night during the
past Winter when coming home from
party zone of those post prohibition
parties where no liquor was served)
she was going into the hall to 60 up
stairs when she saw lovely young
lady in a blue crinoline gown slowly
going up the stairs before her. Needless
to say, it startled Miss Van SAINT con-
siderably. Another time as she
paused for a moment at the head of
the same flight of innocent-looking
old-fashloned stairs in the broad hall
way, she felt as though some one were
standing beside her
II turned and looked and there was
o tall, misty white thing. 1t scared
me so shook all over" she confessed
with a reminiscent smile, "and I
haven't gone up or down those front
stairs at night since"
Ghosts in Europe.
Miss Van SAINT is a very attractive,
normal young lady with definite talent
for painting. She has studied con-
siderably abroad and told, incidentally.
of a couple of ghosts she had heard
and also heard Of, in Poland and along
the Riviera in Europe.
''I wouldn't really say I'd seen a
ghost, because I'm not sure what a
ghost should look like" she added, II
only know / was terribly startled, es-
pecially by the apparent realness Of
the girl In the blue crinoline." This
ghost Is news.
Admiral Weaver's house, so-called
because it was long the home Of the
distinguished Rear Admiral Aaron
Ward Weaver, who died October 2,
1919, has long had the reputation of
having q ghost. However, it was a
masculine ghost that tradition hazily
gave this house. In the readable
book by Grace Dunlop Ecker, "a
Portrait of Old Georgetown" recently
published, a paragraph says:
The picturesque house on the
northeast corner is always called 'Ad-
miral Weaver's House The back por-
ton is very old. Long ago, an officer
who was living there came out on his
porch one night to demonstrate with
a crowd Of Negroes gathered on this
corner and making disturbance. He
was promptly shot by one Of them"
Tradition says that this oficer is
the one whose ghost haunts the lovely
old square rooms of the house. How
ever, another Georgetown authoress,
whose book, "Doorways and Dormers
of Old GEORGETOWN" is we'll known
Alice Coyle Torbert-says, personally,
she thinks 1t probable that this ghost
really belongs to another house, the
former home of Gen. Christopher
Colon Augur, which stood on the
southeast corner of Twenty-eighth
street and Dumbarton avenue, where
O new church now is located. There
the story that Gen. Augur was an
noyed one night by the noise made by
neighboring colored people. He step
ped out on his balcony and berated
them, whereupon one of them shot
him. He was only slightly wounded,
however. and did not die as the re-
suit Of the shot, according to such
records as are available.
At any rate, Miss Van SAINTS ex-
periences seemed to deal with en-
tirely different ghost entities than q
wounded oficer.
Mrs. Elder Owner.
Admiral Weaver's house has be-
1onged for some years now to the
Elder family. The present owner,
Mrs. z. H. Elder, is at her Summer
place, Elmhurst in Newport, r. l.,
now. The Van SAINTS, who have
leased the house and already spent
about year there, came from Cali
fornia originally, but decided to make
their home in Georgetown after
spending three years of travel in Eu-
rope. They anticipate really settling
there for some time to come.
The old wing, undoubtedly the
original house, at 1907 Twenty-ninth
street, was built in l760, but again
mystery steps in and surrounds the
name of the original owner. Nobody
seems to have been able to find this
information anywhere. It Is esti-
mated that the much more imposing
front part of the building, facing on
n street, with tall Ionic columns for
its porch and balconies, was built
about 1880, probably by the family
of Admiral Weaver. AS the girl in
the blue crinoline seems to have a
special penchant for the wider stair
way in the spacious hall OF this part
OF the house, it would seem likely
that she was either a member or
guest at one time of the Weaver
household. But just who she might
have been nobody seems to know
The original name of the place is
RoSedeen, says Mrs. Van SAINT, but
both she and her daughter think II
quite uniting to the dignity and
beauty Of the house. AS Miss Van
SAINT says, 1T sounds like the name
for o cottage with a thatched roof .
New Mystery Uncovered.
There seems, with the exception o.
the quoted paragraph from Mrs
Ecker's book, to have been nothing
written at any time about this de-
lightful and puzzling old house. More
over, to complicate things, a brand.
new mystery has been uncovered Git.
erally) within the past few weeks ir
the cellar OF the older wing Of the
house Mrs. Van SAINT says that be-
cause Of the immense amount Of work
needed to restore the rooms of the
house and the garden to order since
their occupation of the place, she ha.