Evening star., 1951-01-22

Medieval archways surprise
By George Kennedy
Forest Glen is such a fantastic
place that it should be promoted
as one of the places the tourist
must see.
It's an incredible place. hard to
believe at first sight, and surpris-
ing even when revisited.
It's attraction for the tourist
would be the amazing conglom-
Grafton of architecture, the senti-
mental statuary and romantic
landscaping of the long time
school for girls which the Army
now uses as a Walter Reed Hos
pital outpost for convalescents.
Medieval archways carry COW
cred corridors over roads from
building to building. Bronze
castings of sphinxes. lions and
barking dogs decorate bridges
which span wooded valleys Of
great depth. Cast iron figures in
flowing robes hold street lamps
aloft. Rampant horses gush water
in fountain at the entrance.
There is long colonnade sup
ported by concrete caryatids (col-
umnS in human form) and each is
the figure of a school girl at
sweet sixteen.
School Was Popular.
The school was the National
Park Seminary. an institution
whose catalogue in its day tempted
daughters of prosperous families
across America. If all the girls
who pleaded with their parents
for permission to attend had won
out, it would have been too big
today even for an Army hospital.
Forest Glen Is almost directly
north of the northern corner of
the District. The Baltimore g.
Ohio railroad at that point cuts
through the wooded hills in which
Rock Creek has it sources. Its
knobs have an elevation of as
much as $50 feet above the
Potomac.
Along the B. & o. right of way
is a narrow band of old houses
built at the turn of the century.
They are hidden in the woods in
the Montgomery County area
where the open country is sprawl
ing with mass-produced Cape Cod
cottages and ramblers. They are
the homes of the old railroad
suburbs, Linden, Forest Glen and
Kensington, built when the steam
cars were the only means of rapid
transit.
The school took over the build
ing of a railroad summer resort
hotel which failed. But Forest
Glen is much older than the rail-
road. It was the home of Daniel
Carroll. the Commissioner of the
District Of Columbia.
Old Chapel Duplicated.
It was here that his younger
brother, John Carroll, who later
became the first bishop and first
archbishop of the Catholic Church
in the United States, started his
pastorate in 1773. His tombstone
is at the crossroads which skirt
the little cemetery near st. John
the Evangelist Church. Behind
the marker is a reproduction of
the chapel he built in 1774.
Last year the railroad station at
Forest Glen was torn down. The
Postoff1ce was closed some time be-
fore. The Carroll Springs Inn,
one of the hotels of the COS when
Forest Glen was a summer resort,
is being torn down for the lumber
| it will render. Forest Glen might
seem to be in danger Of losing
its identity. Of being swallowed up
by Silver Spring, "Maryland's Sec
ond Largest Community" an un-
incorporated community which,
having no boundaries, has a way
of claiming everything in sight.
But one thriving institution
keeps the name of Forest Glen
alive-the Army hospital. Young
men who lost arms or legs in
Korea are learning the use of arti-
fetal limbs there. It is the center
of the Army Medical Corps re-
search on prosthetics (replace-
ments for lost member. It is also
the center of the Army's work in
speech correction, a project that
is interesting leaders in elementary
education.
Eye Forest Inn" Is still lettered
on a panel over the main en-
trance to the hospital. It was an
early attempt to enable the city
Executive to live in the country.
Similar establishments had been
successful outside New York and
Philadelphia. But Washington
was not ready for commuting-in
fact it has been a bit reluctant to
this day in adopting that way of
life.
Bought Hotel for School.
The change from the hotel to a
school came about as result of a
chance meeting on a steamer COM
ing UP from Norfolk of school,
master named John Irving Cas-
sedy and his wife. Vesta Harvey
Cassedy, with the wife of the ar
lchitect who had designed the Inn.
Z