DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68288#0041
EARLY WASHINGTON 19
the Pourtaleses, for the way was both rough and muddy,
or, if by the paved avenue, circuitous.
Each of these great houses had its story, only threads
of which stay in my memory, and each of them was swept,
gradually, inevitably swept, in the devastating march of
improvement, into oblivion. There were also numberless
smaller houses, commodious and dignified, where lived
the old families of Washington, or at least that fraction of
them with which I at that time came in contact, the Chil-
tons, the Middletons, the Brents — my grandfather’s
house, upon New Jersey Avenue among them, though he
and his family were not originally Washingtonians.
My grandfather was named Peter Brady and had come
over from Ireland with his English wife and settled in
Washington, goodness knows why, for it must have seemed
a forlorn place in 1812, with the new White House at one
end of a wilderness, the Capitol at the other, and here and
there an estate such as Duddington, each in its own little
wilderness, miles apart. My grandfather’s house upon
New Jersey Avenue was by no means one of the grand
houses, but it was large, with high ceilings and mahogany
doors, and here, backing up on the very crest, so that it
was, in the back, to us children’s great delight, some seven
stories down the bank.
Here, at times, came Andrew Jackson, his friend, and,
when the latter was President, my grandfather was his
private secretary. There were many intimate stories of
‘Old Hickory,’ but the special one which I remember, is
of my grandfather’s taking his two little girls to visit the
President. They were taken upstairs into the President’s
office, where he sat in a big armchair near the window.
the Pourtaleses, for the way was both rough and muddy,
or, if by the paved avenue, circuitous.
Each of these great houses had its story, only threads
of which stay in my memory, and each of them was swept,
gradually, inevitably swept, in the devastating march of
improvement, into oblivion. There were also numberless
smaller houses, commodious and dignified, where lived
the old families of Washington, or at least that fraction of
them with which I at that time came in contact, the Chil-
tons, the Middletons, the Brents — my grandfather’s
house, upon New Jersey Avenue among them, though he
and his family were not originally Washingtonians.
My grandfather was named Peter Brady and had come
over from Ireland with his English wife and settled in
Washington, goodness knows why, for it must have seemed
a forlorn place in 1812, with the new White House at one
end of a wilderness, the Capitol at the other, and here and
there an estate such as Duddington, each in its own little
wilderness, miles apart. My grandfather’s house upon
New Jersey Avenue was by no means one of the grand
houses, but it was large, with high ceilings and mahogany
doors, and here, backing up on the very crest, so that it
was, in the back, to us children’s great delight, some seven
stories down the bank.
Here, at times, came Andrew Jackson, his friend, and,
when the latter was President, my grandfather was his
private secretary. There were many intimate stories of
‘Old Hickory,’ but the special one which I remember, is
of my grandfather’s taking his two little girls to visit the
President. They were taken upstairs into the President’s
office, where he sat in a big armchair near the window.