The history and construction of the George Washington House.

THE HISTORY AND CONSTRUCT I OH

of
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON HOUSE

A THESIS PREPARED

by
JOHN H. I,' ITT ON

FOR INITIATION INTO
THE BETA CHAPTER OF MARYLAND
of the

TAN BETA PI HONORARY ENGINEERING SOCIETY

April 28, 1930

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SUMMARY.

INTRODUCTION

A short distance from Washington on the Washington-
i.timore Jioulevard is the town of Bladensburg which was once
a flourishing port hut later, owing to a variety of causes,
declined and practically passed into oblivion. The most
DOnular of the inns of this town was ttie "George Washington
House"

History

The fortunes of this inn have closely followed
those of the town. At one time the stopping place of such
famous oersonages as George Washington and Patrick Henry, it
s oraetically unknown at the beginning of the present cen-
tury, hut is again coming into its own, this time as a tour-
ist' s home.

Construction

This portion of the thesis describes the plan of
the inn, and the Trmterials and construction methods used,
giving soecial attention to those which differ radically
from modern construction practice.

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IWTRODUCTIOH

A few miles beyond the District of Columbia
Line on the Baltimore-Washington Boulevard, at the
juncture of this road with the National Defense High-
way connecting Washington and Annapolis, is the his-
toric old town of Bladensburg.

Bladensburg, chartered in 1742, was a flour-
ishing business -center long before anyone even dreamed
of the City of Washington. This town was one of a
series of similar places, of which Georgetown and Rich-
mond are examples, in Maryland and Virginia, situated
at the head of navigation of the streams, as near as
possible to the tobacco fields, because of the cost
of overland transportation, and serving as ports of
trade through which the tobacco and other produce of
the colonies were sent to England and manufactured goods
imported in return.

Bladensburg was located on the Anacostia
River, a stream which is so small today that the av-
erage person who crosses it scarcely notices it, al-
though it still goes on a rampage occasionally and

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floods the town, but which at the beginning of the
nineteenth century was forty feet deep and of which a
traveller records that in 1804, while crossing it, the
stage coach driver pointed out a tree in which the
passengers had taken refuge on a previous trip when
the flood waters overturned the stage and drowned the
horses .

But the deforestation of the upper reaches of
this river led to erosion of the soil and the filling
of the bed with silt. As the stream filled, navigation
became impossible and the town, once flourishing, came
to resemble Goldsmith's "Deserted Village".

It seems probable however, that this town
would have declined even though the stream bed had not
filled, for the growing importance of Baltimore and
the decrease of overland transportation with the build-
ing of the railroads took away the trade of these small
river stations and the founding of Washington tended to
overshadow its prestige. The founding of Washington
however, was a partial blessing, for many government
officials and dignitaries preferring the country or a
commercial town to the mud of the new Capital lived in

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or near Bladensburg. ?he Inns of Bladensburg were
also frequented by Washingtonians, particularly those
who ordered "coffee and pistols for two at dawn" and
followed the coffee by a visit to the duelling ground
near Bladensburg where the disputes of that day were
settled and honor satisfied.

The oldest and most famous of these inns
was the "George Washington House" built on the old
Georgetown- Philadelphia post road a decade before the
founding of Bladensburg.

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HISTORY

This inn, which was built in 1732, is the
oldest in the neighborhood although the Palo Alto
Hotel across the road, built in 1737, runs it a close
second.

This building seems to have been an inn from
the beginning although there is no definite proof that
it was built for that purpose. It is definitely known
however that it was used for an inn a few years later,
and inasmuch as it was customary to place private res-
idences some distance back from the road, it seems
probable that it has always been one.

The fortunes of this old inn have been closely
linked with those of Biadensburg and consequently its
history has paralleled that of the town.

It was at this inn, the oldest and best in the
town, that the stages stopped while the horses were
changed and the passengers refreshed themselves. And
numerous indeed were the important persons who stopped
here for food or lodging.

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It is one of the traditions of this old
house that George Washington often stopped here on
his way to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia
and this is not one of the legions of traditions which
has placed Washington's headquarter ' s in every house
old enough for this purpose, and many which are not
that old, "but an authenticated fact.

It is definitely known, for instance, that
Washington and Patrick Henry stopped here on their
way to Philadelphia in May, 1775, and that Martha Wash-
ington stopped here on her way North to join him in the
fall of the same year, and we also know that General
Washington also stopped here on his way to meet the
Marquis de Lafayette.

Just when it was named the "George Washington
House" is not definitely known, but we do know that
this was its name by 1810, and that the long sign
which was then hung from the front of the house was
not replaced until 1914.

When Eladensburg was a flourishing port this
was the stopping place of many visitors and many ships'

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Captalns spent the nights here while the ships were In
port.

later, when the new Capital of the young Re-
public was established, it became the stopping place
of many of the notables and of those who expected to
satisfy the code of honor on the duelling ground.

Gradually the Importance of the town as a
port diminished. Duelling was no longer in style,
and Bladensburg was no longer a fashionable place to
which to drive; and hard days had come upon the town.
The old Inn was particularly hard hit by the cessation
of stage traffic which came with the advent of the
railroads which were providing cheaper and better trans- %
portation.

The proprietor built a bar on the south end
of the old inn and began to cater to the carters and
teamsters who travelled this road.

These men had formerly gone to the Palo Alto
Hotel, where a more enterprising and less proud owner
kept a cheaper inn than the George Washington House

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and where the familiar "First Chance" and "Last Chance"
signs of the coitskirt saloon attracted the attention
of the thirsty traveler.

Still, however, business was not very brisk,
and at the beginning of the twentieth century a
traveler who passed would have decided that both the
town and the hotel were hibernating.

The salvation of both however, was already
in sight; the automobile had been invented and the
dawn of the Tourist Ira was drawing near. Travel a-
long the roads again became popular and refreshment
stands and tourist homes have sprung up over the coun-
try like mush rooms, and the once famous old inn has
again come into its own and a new era of prosperity
has dawned for Mrs. Mary J. Gafford who has owned the
inn for the past thirty-five years, since the long
weatherbeaten "George Washington liouse" sign has been
replaced by one reading "Rooms for Tourists".

With the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment
the bar was changed to a pool room and soft drink
stand and finally torn down and replaced by a larger

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refreshment stand farther to the left In front of the
old stables in which the coach horses were formerly
kept.

CONSTRUCTION;

There are two distinct parts to this house.
The original inn which is built of brick, and a
wooden part at the back which has been built on and
added to at various times since the construction of
the original inn. Since the construction of this
wooden addition Is so recent, some of it having been
built within the past year, that it follows modern
practice very closely and offers no points of Interest
to us, it will not be treated in this paper. It is
interesting, however, to note that the first floor of
this addition is one step below the level of the
ground floor in the original inn and that the second
floor leads off from a landing in the stairs by a
short flight of steps again one step below the old
floor level, and that no third floor has been built on

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this part of the structure although there is one on
the original inn.

The inn proper was built of bricks brought
to Bladensburg from England. It is three stories
high and has no cellar. The roof is of gable type
and has an unusually high pitch which can be noticed
in the pictures. The present roofing material Is
tin, but wooden shingles were originally used.

It has front porches at the level of both
the first and second floors but I do not think that
these are the original porches, for one of the two
trees in front of the house grows partly under the
porch floor and apparently has necessitated the chang-
ing and replacing of the porch supports.

The outer walls of the building are twenty-
one inches thick at the base and decrease four inches
at eacb floor, making them nineteen inches above the
first floor and fifteen above the second. The entire
four-Inch ledge is on the inside and is used as a
support for the floor beams, thus leaving a smooth
wall on the outside. The bonding of the brickwork is

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the Flemish "bond of alternate headers and stretchers
In the same course and apparently is uniform through-
out. There are no noticeable cracks in the brickwork
but the building is kept in excellent condition and
a few may have developed and been repaired. It is in-
teresting to note in this connection, that the bricks
are of the same size and apparently of the same quali-
ty as the common bricks in use in this country today
and that the bonding is accomplished by use of a flush
joint about three-eighths inches thick, which is
common today.

The inside carrying wall which is to the
left of the hallway is fifteen inches thick, but all
the other partitions have a thickness of only eleven
inches.

As one enters the doorway which consists
of a single wide door with a glass panel on each side,
he enters a hallway. The right side of the hallway
is taken up by the stairs; the left is a corridor
leading back to the door. There are only two rooms
on this floor, so the original inn must have had some

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sort of outkitchen in the space now occupied by the
wooden part of the building.

Each of these rooms originally had a large
fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite the door,
but the one in the South room has been removed and
bricked up, and a Latrobe has been put in the one in
the North room.

On the second floor there are three rooms,
the space over the South room being divided from Fast
to West and a hall leading along the front of the
south half of the house. m he fireplaces up here are
smaller than downstairs and have Latrobe s in them at
present.

A door above the front door downstairs
leads out onto the upper porch.

The writer has appended plans of these two
floors showing the size of the rooms as nearly as it
was possible to obtain them.

The third floor is reached by a stairway
above the one leading up from below.

The attic, like the first floor, is divided
into a hallway and two rooms ; but up here the original

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f looping remains and the fireplaces are small indeed,
but still intact. Light Is furnished by three dormer
windows in the front, one in each room, and one In
the hall, and by a small window just in front of the
fireplace in each end wall.

The roof joists are two Inches by ten Inches
and are spaced twenty-four Inches center to center.
The sheathing is one inch thick. As I have mentioned
before the present roof is tin, but the original one
was made of wooden shingles.

The windows on the first and second floors
are two feet, six inches by six feet and have wooden
sills and brick arches above. In the attic they are
smaller and are of the dormer type. On the first
two floors there are two on each side of the front
door and two in each of the end walls. There were
probably windows in the back originally but the
additions have necessitated bricking these up.

There is no cellar under this house and
the foundation walls extend to the ground on all sides
so that it is impossible to determine what size floor

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beams were used or to gain any idea of the condition
of these beams, but the floor does not show any evi-
dence of sinking, so it seems reasonable to assume
that they are in at least a fair state of preservation.

In this paper the writer has endeavored to
trace the history of this old inn as far as it is
known and to give some idea of the construction of
the inn with particular reference to the outstanding
differences between this construction and modern prac-
tice, and he trusts that he has been at least partially
successful in this endeavor.

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F/ftST FLOO/{ PLA/V
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South view taken shortly after the
passing of the Eighteenth Amendment t
showing the old bar as a pool -room
and the old "George Washington House"

1 1 board.

Front view today.

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Left -General view

looking North.

Right-South view showi
inscription and
the tree growing
partly under the
porch.

BIBLIOGRAPHY!

The information presented in this thesis
was obtained from the following sources;

The Transmitter, published by the Chesapeake
and Potomac Telephone Company.

The Washington Star,

The Washington Post.

Historic Highways of America by Archer Butler
Hulbert.