James H. Johnston 4907 Crescent Street Bethesda MD 20816 [email protected] (202)- 262-1375 January 7, 2015

Old Georgetown Board U.S. Commission of Fine Arts 401 F Street NW, Suite 312 Washington, DC 20001-2728 Re: 3324 Dent Place NW The property at 3324 Dent Place is one-of-a-kind in the racial history of America. It once belonged to Yarrow Mamout, a Fulani Muslim brought from West Africa to Maryland as a slave in 1752. Likewise, it is of singular significance to the history of racial diversity in old Georgetown, which has been about one-third black for most of its 365-year existence. Although this portrait of Yarrow by Charles Willson Peale is well known, little was known about Yarrow himself until I told his story in the book From Slave Ship to Harvard, Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family. My hope is that this submission about the property will serve both any applicant who plans to build on the property and the Board in reviewing such application. I will cover five things: 1) the importance of Yarrow (his last name) to Black History as well as to the history of Georgetown; 2) the history of 3324 Dent Place; 3) preservation issues to be addressed before construction on the property; 4) the place of the Old Georgetown Act in Black History; and, 5) architectural considerations affecting the property. 1. Yarrow Mamout. History has largely glossed over the fact that educated Muslims from Africa were caught up in the slave trade. This advertisement in the Maryland Gazette announced the arrival in Annapolis of the slave ship Elijah, carrying Yarrow on June 4, 1752. While Yarrow Mamout was the most prominent African Muslim in Georgetown, there were others such as the grocer Joseph Moor, Yarrow’s sister who called herself Free Hannah and later Hannah Peale, and a woman known only as Guinea Sarah. Shadrach Nugent, one of the founders of the Mount Zion Methodist Church in Georgetown and a contemporary of Yarrow, was the

grandson of a Muslim from Africa. Another Muslim slave with Georgetown connections was Abdul-Rahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori. He was taken from Africa to Mississippi as a slave. When freed in 1828, he was brought to Georgetown where he was feted before being sent back to West Africa. Georgetowners like Presbyterian pastor Stephen Bloomer Balch were active in the American Colonization Society, which thought sending free blacks to Africa was the solution to slavery.1 While Yarrow obviously symbolizes the West African Muslims who were caught up in the horrific slave trade and ended up in Georgetown, there is more to his story. His is a face that represents all Africans transported to the Americas as slaves. An estimated 9.6 million individuals were carried by the slave ships. Yarrow Mamout stands out in several respects. First, of those 9.6 million people on slave ships, only two had their faces and personalities captured in portraits by major artists. American portraitist Charles Willson Peale painted Yarrow. The other portrait is of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo. He was a Fulani Muslim and came to Maryland twenty-two years before Yarrow. Diallo got his freedom by writing a letter to his father in Africa and asking for help. The letter was intercepted and sent instead to wealthy men in England who were appalled that an educated Muslim was enslaved on a tobacco plantation in the far off Maryland colony. They arranged transportation to London where Diallo gained public attention. British artist William Hoare, a student of Thomas Gainsborough, the dominant portrait painter of his day, did this portrait.2 The faces of Yarrow and Diallo are the only images we have by major artists of any of the 9.6 million human beings who were “cargo” on the slave ships. The second reason Yarrow is different is because he left a comparatively full historical record for a slave. He was body servant to Samuel Beall of Maryland and lived on a plantation in Takoma Park before moving with Beall to Sharpsburg where Beall was building Frederick Forge. Upon Beall’s death, Yarrow became the property of his son Brooke on the 2,000 acre Beallmont estate near Potomac. When Brooke Beall moved to Georgetown, Yarrow went along. Even as a slave, however, Yarrow earned money for himself. As this excerpt from his obituary in the National Gazette of 1823 shows, he was a brick maker and earned top dollar for his work, 50 percent more than white brick makers. Buildings in Georgetown made with his bricks are probably still standing. He was also a jack-of-alltrades. He earned money making charcoal, loading ships, and weaving baskets. Among the prominent, early 1

Unless otherwise specified, the facts here are in From Slave Ship to Harvard. The Peabody Room of the Georgetown public library holds another portrait of Yarrow by the less skilled Georgetown artist, James Alexander Simpson. 2

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Georgetowners employing him were Thomas Peter, William Deakins, Joseph Brewer, William Marbury, and John Mason.3 The houses of several of these men have been protected by the Old Georgetown Act. Peale’s portrait of Yarrow was the result of Joseph Brewer telling the artist that the African owned a house and lot and stock in the Columbia Bank of Georgetown. The house and lot were of course the Dent Place property. Yarrow could write in English and Arabic as evidenced by this copy of his signature on a deed on the property. An Arabic expert who examined the signature concluded that “Josi” was Yarrow’s attempt to sign in English as “Jaro.” He then added the Arabic phrase “Bismallah,” which translates as “In the name of God.” The third reason Yarrow is different is that there are living heirs of his daughterin-law, Polly Turner Yarrow. While he has no living descendants by blood, the connection these women have to him is dramatic. Their grandmother, whom they remember, knew Polly Yarrow, and she knew him. Thus, only two lives separate people living today from Yarrow Mamout, a span of 192 years. Yarrow’s in-laws, the Turners, were as extraordinary as he was. Polly was a midwife and the Maryland community near Harpers Ferry where she lived is named Yarrowsburg after her. Her grandnephew, Simon Turner, fought in the Civil War with the 39th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops. And his grandson, Robert Turner Ford, shown in this photograph, graduated from Harvard in 1927. 2. History of 3324 Dent Place. This property was primordial when Yarrow acquired it. His was the first house to stand there since the beginning of time. It was the east half of Lot 217 in the then-new Beatty and Hawkins Addition to Georgetown. He acquired it in 1800 four years after being freed. The house was described in an advertisement for its tax sale in 1835 as a “log house.”4 The log house is no longer there. Available evidence suggests it was replaced after the Civil War by this wood-frame house in what some call Italianate style that was demolished in November 2013 after being crushed by a tree. Yarrow’s original house was standing when Peale did the portrait in 1819. The artist wrote that he went to Yarrow’s to arrange for the sitting. After Yarrow died in 1823, the taxes continued to be paid by “Yarrow’s heirs.” This was probably his son Aquilla Yarrow, the husband of Polly Turner Yarrow. The 1861 Boschke map of Washington shows Dent Place was not a solid row of houses as it is today. There is a 3

Yarrow is associated with many of the old historic homes of Georgetown. The Beall-Washington house got its name from a relative of the Bealls that owned him. The construction of Tudor Place was begun by Frances Lowndes, the son of the slave-trader that brought Yarrow to Maryland. 4 Daily National Intelligencer, November 4, 1835.

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house approximately where Yarrow’s was, but it is difficult to determine with certainty whether it was his. The Italianate house must have been put there before 1877 though because the city began requiring building permits in that year, and none has ever been issued for construction of a house on the property. An oral history says the Italianate house was moved to the property from the Mall where it was a Civil War hospital. This seems unlikely though because the house was too small to serve that purpose. 3. Preservation concerns. The Dent Place lot is the only property in the United States that is known to have been owned and occupied by a slave brought from Africa, meaning archaeology could be of enormous importance. Since the recently demolished Italianate house was the only other one believed to have stood on the property, artifacts from Yarrow’s occupancy should still be there, albeit under ground. Archaeology could provide insights into how African Americans of Yarrow’s generation lived. It might even tell if first-generation Africans were able to bring objects with them on the slave ships. Yarrow certainly brought African designs with him in his head. In Peale’s portrait, he wears a cap that is similar to Fulani caps, shown in the image to the left from a French study. Moreover, there is a second portrait of Yarrow, painted by the Georgetown artist, James Alexander Simpson. It hangs in the Peabody Room of the Georgetown public library a few blocks from the Dent Place property. In the portrait to the right, Yarrow is holding a smoking pipe that is of African design. The only known excavations on the property have been for a cellar and a swimming pool, both of which are still there. According to an owner, the dirt from the pool was spread over the rest of the back yard. Thus, though topsy turvy, the soil from Yarrow’s day is there. Anything that Yarrow left should be somewhere in the ground. The pool contractor told the owner that the pool area was once a creek. According to a review of building permits, a 10’ x 17’ fuel shed was put behind the Italianate house on the highest point on the lot in 1886 and asbestos siding was nailed onto the house in 1939.5 In addition, Yarrow’s body is buried on the land, and his remains are probably still there. An obituary in the Gettysburg Compiler said he was buried in a corner of his lot, the place where he resorted to pray. That should be in back in the southeast corner towards Mecca.6 The final remains on the land may be those of Yarrow’s house. Even log houses had foundations, and his might still be there. There is also the possibility that the brick cellar, right, of the 5

Permit No. 663, Sept. 8, 1886. Permit No. 224444, July 7, 1939. Since the meticulous Charles Willson Peale apparently wrote the obituary, it should be considered authoritative. 6

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demolished house may somehow hold bricks that date back to Yarrow, the best brick maker in Georgetown. The photograph was taken during demolition, and the cellar now is buried under debris and dirt. Two different types of bricks can be seen in the photograph. Could the older ones have been made by Yarrow? Log houses didn’t have true cellars but they often had root cellars. The cellar would have been nearby. There are several examples of root cellars in the Washington area such as the one to the left at the Claude Moore Farm. It is lined with wood, others were lined with field stone, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that a brick maker might have lined his root cellar with brick, particularly in an area, like Georgetown in 1800, where field stones were not readily available. In any event, it is clear that there may be artifacts, architecture, and at least one body under the ground at 3324 Dent Place that warrant recovery and preservation. 4. Old Georgetown Act. A visitor to Georgetown today will have a hard time imagining what the old Georgetown of Yarrow’s day was like. While he mingled with the rich and famous, like the Brewers, Marburys, Peters, Bealls, Lowndes, Balches, Custises, Washingtons and Peales, most Georgetowners then were men of more modest means and their homes less elegant. In 1760, a slave market stood at 3200 and P Street. In 1776, the population of Georgetown was thirty-three percent black. Yarrow is in the 1800 census, a time when Georgetown had 1,449 slaves and 277 free blacks and a total population of 5,120.7 Some slaves shared their owners’ houses, and others lived in slave quarters or shacks. A few free blacks, like Yarrow, owned houses. Relations between the races were complicated. Slavery and racism hung over Georgetown like a pall. While Yarrow owned stock in the Columbian Bank of Georgetown, he surely was not allowed to attend shareholder meetings. Even if he could, he probably didn’t since the meetings were held in the same tavern that served as a site for slave auctions. On occasion, the races showed a touching respect for one another though. For example, old Georgetown had a curfew against blacks being on the streets at night, but the curfew was lifted on Christmas Eve to permit African Americans to go around caroling at the houses of the wealthy. The next morning, Yarrow was entrusted with the duty of making the rounds again to collect donations. The caroling and collection was a tradition that continued well past Yarrow. Thus, an important question in dealing with this pioneering African American’s lot is: What is the “old Georgetown” that the Old Georgetown Act was intended to preserve? Was it a whites-only Georgetown of federal style brick houses, or was it an historic Georgetown? The sponsor of the legislation was New York State Congressman James Wadsworth, a Republican. His home was in the 3300 block on N Street west of Wisconsin Avenue. It was in the federal style. His wife was the daughter of Abraham Lincoln’s personal secretary John Hay. The Wadsworths’ home was full of Lincoln 7

Kathleen M. Lesko, Valerie Babb, Carrol R. Gibbs, Black Georgetown Remembered: A History of Its Black Community from the Found of “The Town of George” in 1751 to the Present Day, Georgetown University Press 1991, 2-3.

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memorabilia inherited from Hay. Supporting Wadsworth in his quest to preserve old Georgetown was his close neighbor David Finley. He owned a federal style house a block away from Wadsworth’s. He was the first director of the National Gallery of Art and Chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1950 until 1963. Admittedly, the title of the Act may be a misnomer. That is, Wadsworth and Findley may have wanted to preserve a fanciful Georgetown rather than an historical one. Wadsworth patterned the law on ones in New Orleans, Charleston, South Carolina, Alexandria, and Richmond. And, Findley was known more for preservation of art than for historic preservation. For example, after World War II, he was instrumental in recovering art the Nazis had seized in Europe. Nonetheless, despite his notable work preserving art, Findley purchased several dilapidated houses next to Yarrow’s property in 1941, razed them, and erected two row houses. The photograph to the right came from CFA records and shows the houses Findley put up together with the Italianate house on Yarrow’s property as they looked in 1984. Findley’s houses have since been demolished and replaced with contemporary style homes. The only witness to testify against Wadsworth’s bill in 1950 was Rev. J. D. Foy of the Mount Zion Methodist Church of Georgetown with a predominantly black congregation. Rev. Foy said that seventy percent of Georgetown’s black population had already been driven out by “this trend toward reclaiming, or remodeling, the community to conform to certain standards.” The bill, he warned, “further strengthens the hands of those who have power and wealth against the weak.” He compared Wadsworth’s bill to a “restricted covenant.”8 Although he didn’t use the precise words, he obviously felt Wadsworth’s bill was racist in effect and perhaps in intent.9 Rev. Foy’s arguments were rejected; the bill became law a few months later. At the same hearing, Congressman Wadsworth was asked if the bill would perpetuate “historical interests.” Wadsworth answered that it would but it would not be as “elaborate as what was done at Williamsburg.” 10 Similarly, most witnesses at the June 22, 1950 hearing on the bill – the only hearing held – felt its purposes were twofold: historic preservation and aesthetic. Thus, it is fair to say that the intended purposes of the Act were to do both.

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Rev. J. D. Foy, Testimony, Hearings, H.R. 7670 (June 22, 1950) 66. When asked by Congressman Wadsworth whether the laws in Alexandria, Richmond, or Charleston had had a unique and adverse effect on African Americans, Foy replied diplomatically: “The community complexion, the very air which is breathed there, would support any movement with total disregard to any minority group or the feeling you may have toward them.” Id. 68. 10 Congressman James Wadsworth, Id. 4. 9

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The historic preservation purpose of the Act is codified in Section 2. It stipulates that any proposed construction in Georgetown shall be referred to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, “[i]n order to promote the general welfare and to preserve and protect the places and areas of historic interest….” (emphasis added) The same sentence goes on to say the Commission should also preserve and protect “exterior architectural features and examples of the type of architecture used in the National Capital in its initial years.” (emphasis added) Aesthetics are mentioned in the context of saying that before issuing a permit for construction, alteration, reconstruction, or razing of a building in the Georgetown district, the city is to solicit a report from the Commission of Fine Arts “as to the exterior architectural features, height appearance, color, and texture of the materials of exterior construction which is subject to public view from a public highway.” The Act is confusing though. It mentions only exteriors in defining what the city should ask the Commission about, but it provides that the Commission’s report to the city should address anything “necessary and desirable to preserve the historic value” of the Georgetown district. Despite this confusion, the Act seems to require the city and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts – and the Old Georgetown Board -- to consider both historic preservation and aesthetics in passing on construction in Georgetown. 5. Architectural Considerations. From today’s perspective, Rev. Foy’s concern that the Old Georgetown Act would accelerate gentrification of Georgetown appears prophetic. Its African American neighborhoods are gone. A few buildings from those neighborhoods are still around, of course, but only Foy’s Mount Zion Methodist Church and the First Baptist Church still serve a black community, but one that no longer lives in Georgetown. Also largely absent from Georgetown is the diverse architecture that once characterized it. Instead, federal and modern styles have taken over, erasing the diversity of buildings one would have seen in old Georgetown. Of course, there are a few exceptions, such as the old Presbyterian meeting house and the stables.11 It doesn’t have to be this way. Other communities preserve and signal their history through architecture. Log houses, like Yarrow’s, may be found in Arlington County, for example. A replica of a 1771 log house stands on the Claude Moore colonial farm pictured on the right. It is patterned after the authentic Ball-Sellers House in Arlington. Log houses depend on logs for structural support, but, as shown in this photograph, they might be covered with wood framing and coated with pitch. This house was surely cruder than Yarrow’s which was built thirty years later and was in an urban area rather than a farm. Yet the replica is a reminder of how people in the Washington area, including Georgetown, lived. It is also informative. The 11

In Yarrow’s day the Georgetown Lutheran Church at Wisconsin and Volta Place was a log house.

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photograph on the left, below, was taken from inside the log house at the Claude Moore farm. Peale’s portrait of Yarrow is on the right. By looking at the room in the log house, one can visualize how Charles Willson Peale seated Yarrow next to a window to capture sunlight on the right side of his face and that the sunlight reflected on the wall behind Yarrow.

Log houses from Yarrow’s day are still in use in Montgomery County. They have been incorporated in later structures. The most relevant of these is one in Rockville pictured to the right. It consists of an original 1 ½ story log house that has been absorbed in later construction. The original house was owned by Adam Robb and is undoubtedly similar to Yarrow’s log house. Yarrow would have been familiar with this house because Robb’s daughter married Upton Beall. Upton was the son of Brooke Beall, who owned Yarrow, and Upton signed Yarrow’s manumission certificate. Yarrow sometimes traveled to Rockville where both Brooke Beall and his son Upton were clerks of the court and where Yarrow’s sister lived. Upton Beall built the Beall-Dawson house, seen at left with the Robb house in the background. The Robb house was an urban log house with a cellar and water well. The enlarged Robb house currently serves as the office of a Rockville law firm. Just down the street from the Robb house is a two-story log house shown on the next page that has been incorporated into a modern structure. Although Rockville is notable for its large, old, Victorian style homes, it has maintained its historical diversity

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by preserving even log houses as part of modern structures, thus keeping the architectural feel of old Rockville and at the same time providing owners with the space and functionality of a modern home. Yarrow’s original log house is gone, but that does not mean that the architecture of any new house on his property cannot be a symbol of the racial and architectural diversity of old Georgetown. Even Congressman Wadsworth and David Finley would probably agree that the purposes of the Old Georgetown Act are better served by new construction that informs the visitor of what the old buildings looked like rather than by stylish, contemporarylooking buildings that have no relationship to old Georgetown. In sum, 3324 Dent Place is a unique property in the racial history of America. It is the only land known to have been owned by a free black man who arrived on these shores on a slave ship. In the soil may be artifacts from his time, the foundations of his house, bricks he made, and his mortal remains. An archaeological survey should be made to determine whether there are things in the ground needing preservation before new construction is authorized. This is the only way to adhere to the preservation mandate of the Old Georgetown Act. Moreover, the architecture of any new structure on the land should somehow symbolize the racial and economic diversity of old Georgetown.

Respectfully submitted,

James H. Johnston

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