page_title: Woodley Mansion
section_title: Benjamin Stoddert
hierarchical_section_title: Woodley Mansion / Residents / Benjamin Stoddert
caption_attribution_description: English: Philip Barton Key (1757-1815) http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/002000/002060/images/key.jpg
context_page_description: Woodley is a Federal-style hilltop house in Washington, D.C., constructed in 1801. It has served as the home to Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, and Henry L. Stimson, and is now the home of the Maret School. When originally built, it was based on the Woodley Lodge in Reading, England. Coincidentally, given the mansion's original site, the word "Woodley" means "clearing in the woods." A Maret School-based organization called the Woodley Society was created in 1994 to study its history. Since then, it has become an association of students, faculty, and alumni, which has conducted research in a number of archives and libraries in the Greater Metropolitan Washington area and beyond. In 2008, the head of the group, historian Allerton Kilborne, published a book about Woodley.
context_section_description: Benjamin Stoddert was a successful merchant and veteran of the Revolution who went on to become the first Secretary of the Navy. The appointment came during the "Quasi-War" with France in 1798, when French ships were seizing American vessels on the high seas. Under Stoddert's direction, the American navy not only grew exponentially, but also won the undeclared naval war against France. Earlier in the decade, at the request of George Washington, he had formed a partnership with Uriah Forrest and purchased the site of Woodley and its environs to prevent the land from being bought up by speculators who would then have sold it to the government for huge prices.
caption: Philip Barton Key, the creator of Woodley.
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