Wills and Other Old Documents Aid Rambler’s Study of Local History

Believing that you would not eat breakfast before reading your ramble, the Rambler hastens to meet your yearning and takes up the story of lands beyond the Eastern Branch. It is a long walk from the car line and it is August. The pine stump on which he rested last Sunday beckons and there are few things harder to resist than temptation.

Sitting on the stump, thinking how to get facts for his story, he thought of old times and the difference between those times and new times. Customs and manners change. That fact was known some time ago.

A few years ago - I think about seventy or seventy-five - I had occasion to bring to the notice of the President the claims to high office of a friend. I was living on the Island, but I had acquaintance in Foggy Bottom, Swampoodle, the Sixth Ward, around Glass House Square and on Windmill Point, Crow Hill, Camp Hill and other residence sections of Washington.

On the way uptown I called on my old friends Fritz Reuter, George Driver, George Harvey, Andy Hancock, Shoemaker and Gerstenberg, and it was past the usual bedtime of the President when I got to the White House.

I knocked on the front door. A second-story window went up, and the President, putting his head, half-hid in a nightcap, through the window, called, “Who’s there?” I told him, and he answered, “All right, John, I’ll be down as soon as I get my boots on.” But he came down in his carpet slippers and, as it was a warm night, we sat on the front steps.

I told the President of the ambition and pecuniary need of my friend for a high office. The President was thoughtful and then said: “He ought to make a capable official. He seems to have all the qualifications. With his talent he might be elected to a better job than I can give him, but I will send his nomination to the Senate tomorrow.”

The business closed, the President led the way to the kitchen and what we took there is nobody’s business, but when I left the White House the Vanderwerkin omnibuses were running on the Avenue. That was only seventy or seventy-five years ago, and you see how times and customs have changed in Washington.

It is but a short walk from the pine stump to the lands of Matthew Wright, which were on the tracts named Marshall’s Adventure and parts of Bayley’s Purchase and Fortune Enlarged. On part of the farm which Wright left by will to his nephews, William Trimble and Joseph Trimble, at his death, in 1847, is the settlement of Bradbury Heights. The house in which William Trimble lived was taken down about eight years ago and a village street passes across its site. About the house was a grove of box oak trees and many of these shade the space where children of Bradbury Heights School play.

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The Rambler told last Sunday many facts concerning Matthew Wright, who came to Washington from Ireland in 1796 and had become in the early part of the first decade of the nineteenth century an important and prosperous man. You were told the substance of the deed by which Samuel Marshall, owner of Marshall’s Adventure, and his wife, Drucilla, conveyed that tract to Wright in 1818. In the deed Wright is described as of the County of Washington and the inference is that he was living in the highlands of the Eastern Branch, on one of the tracts of which he was in possession when he died. The Rambler has not found in District records a deed of land in the county to Wright antedating the deed conveying Marshall’s Adventure.

The first deed to Matthew Wright recorded in the District is dated November 26, 1804, and conveys from Ralph Charlton to Wright lot 26 in square 882, “being part of a lot heretofore sold and conveyed by Benjamin Stoddert to Andrew Armstrong.” Square 882 I bounded by Sixth and Seventh, L and M streets southeast and is the square west of that covered by the old Washington and Georgetown car stables at the navy yard gate, foot of Eighth street. Lot 26 is on the west side of Seventh street.

The second deed to Wright is one from Peter Provott, dated May 19, 1808. Provott is described as “of the County of Washington,” and sells for $1 part of lot No. 27 in square 904. That square is bounded by Seventh, Eighth, G and I streets southeast, and the east side of the square faces the Marine Barracks.

The Provott-Wright lot is about one-third the length of the block north of I street and opposite the barracks. The third deed to Wright, May 21, 1808, is from William H.P. Tuckerfield of the County of Washington to a lot in the same square (904), and it is mentioned in the deed that the lot was once owned by Thomas Law. The fourth deed to Wright, May 30, 1808, is from Robert Brown, conveying for $800 a lot in the same square. Wright’s fifth deed is from William Nevitt of Georgetown, conveying for $180 lot 13 in Square 881. In giving the bounds of the lot is this reference: “Beginning at Mr. Notley Mattox’s house, south.” Square 881 is between K and L streets southeast, Seventh street and a Government reservation on the west. Lot 13 fronts on Seventh street and nearer K than L street.

On November 16, 1811, three deeds were recorded by Mr. Wright. One was from Walter Chandler to a lot in square 881, one was a deed from Nicholas Voss and wife to lots 7 and 8 in square 846 for consideration of $2,400, and one was a deed from Thomas Tingey and Samuel N. Smallwood for lots in square 881 belonging to Voss and on which Voss had given a deed of trust to Tingey and Smallwood. Square 846 is between Fifth, Sixth, G and E streets southeast. On February 18, 1812, Matthew Wright bought from Lewis Clephane, Andrew McDonald and the latter’s wife, Catharine McDonald, a lot in Georgetown on Causeway street at the intersection of Fishing Lane, and in bounding the lot Jefferson street is mentioned. The price paid was $1,900. I have found no deed to Wright between the Causeway street purchase in 1812 and Wright’s purchase of Marshall’s Adventure in 1818, though I hope to find Wright’s first purchase of land in the District beyond the Eastern Branch.

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Will Fisher of the Columbia Title Insurance Company has sent the Rambler a reference to a deed to Matthew Wright to part of the tract called Bayley’s Purchase. The date of the deed is November 3, 1846, and is from James Dundas of Philadelphia, trustee. Wright is described as of the County of Washington, which indicates that the house in which he was living was on the District side of the Maryland-District line, which runs through Marshall’s Adventure.

The deed recites that William Berry Warman conveyed, December 21, 1793, a tract called Bayley’s Purchase, on he east side of the Eastern Branch, to James Greenleaf, who conveyed the land, September 30, 1796, “upon certain trusts,” to George Simpson. Simpson conveyed the land, Mara\ch 23, 1797, to Henry Pratt, Thomas W. Francis and others, to hold upon the same trusts. Sheriff Notley Maddox, by deed, February 28, 1798, conveyed the rights and title of James Greenleaf to William H. Dorsey and John M. Gantt, which they conveyed, July 30, 1803, to Henry Pratt, Thomas W. Francis and others. Henry Pratt, surviving trustee, conveyed the land, October, 1837, to Benjamin A. Tighlman, and Tighlman conveyed “all his estate and property in the ‘said trust’” to Henry Pratt, James Dundas and Clement I. Miller. Pratt and Miller died and James Dundas had the tract resurveyed and subdivided by Lewis Carberry, surveyor of the County of Washington. The plat is dated October 15, 1845.

The property was advertised in the National Intelligencer and the Daily Union for sale, and lot No. 15, containing 95 plus acres, was bought by Matthew Wright for $1,403.63. The bounds of the land are closely described, and it was touched by the Marlboro road, now Alabama avenue, and the Benning road to Boones hill, which is the road east from Benning Bridge to Marlborough road.

The Rambler has before him a copy of the will of Matthew Wright, witnessed May 11, 1847, by James Crandall, Robert M. Coombs and John R. Queen, and recorded May 28, 1847. The Rambler also has a copy of the will of Joseph Trimble, one of the two legatees of these Eastern Branch lands. Joseph Trimble died in 1885. We are too far along in this story to give the contents of the wills today, and in the ramble last Sunday the promise was made to tell something of the man who bought large tracts of the Wright-Trimble lands. His name is Robert F. Bradbury. He was born April 23, 1859, son of John Wesley Bradbury of Baltimore and Martha E., daughter of Andrew French of Southeast Washington, October 13, 1886, he was married to Annie Laurie Smart, daughter of Henry Smart, who came from Vermont to Washington during the Civil War. Annie Laurie Smart’s mother’s maiden name was Anne Maria McFarland, and she was a daughter of the celebrated Billy McFarland of the Marine Band. He served as a fifer in the band and became master, or whatever the title is, of the school for fifers and drummers. It is said that he served in the Continental Army. When Billy McFarland died the Marine Barracks were locked up, because every man, commandant to recruit, went to Billy’s funeral, at Congressional Cemetery.

Robert F. Bradbury served in the Navy from 1878 to 1884, serving for years as paymaster’s yeoman. He built the first house in Twining City, in 1890, when the “new” Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge was built. In 1908 he bought 107 acres of the Trimble tract, and in 1909 subdivided that part which lies south of Bowen road, or Alabama avenue. The town of Bradbury Heights is on that tract.

In 1912 he bought 87 acres north of the Bowen road and subdivided it. In 1924 he bought 110 acres south of the Trimble lands and which was the home of Squire S.E. Cox. On all these tracts are subdivisions and “Bradbury” forms part of the name of each. Bob Bradbury’s brother, George J., in 1904, bougt seven acres of Wright-Trimble land on the top of Boones hill, which the District line crosses. He lives there. He also owns the site of Fort Meigs, on Alabama avenue, bought from Mr. Pairo and Eugene Evans of Washington.