LOCAL LORE: Wealth, Scandal, and Tragedy
The story of Metropolis View and Edgewood (Part 1)
That chunk of land to the west of Colonel Brooks’ estate and south of the Middleton estate (where Catholic University is now) was once a 410-acre tract known as Metropolis View and owned by Washington Berry.
Approximate location of the Metropolis View tract and Berry mansion.
Berry was the son of Zachariah Berry, a wealthy Maryland planter who is estimated to have owned over 8,000 acres of land in Maryland, the District, and Kentucky. His manor house, named Concord, still stands in District Heights. At his death in 1845 various tracts in and around DC were willed to his sons and grandsons. Washington Berry served in the War of 1812, married Eliza Thomas in 1822, and shortly thereafter moved here and built a grand home he called Metropolis View, which the Evening Star described this way:
The original house was a large double structure, with wide halls and immense rooms on either side, the ceilings of which were remarkably high. The frescoes running around the upper parts of the walls in these rooms were excellently executed and represented the fruits of agriculture. This house was built of bricks burned on the place in a kiln erected on the plat near present Eckington.
Washington Berry became a gentleman farmer, using primarily slave labor to tend the place. He and his wife appear in the 1840 census with seven children and ten slaves. In addition to the brick mansion, there were stables, a carriage house, a barn and other outbuildings. His sons owned a tract called Bellevue, at the extreme southern tip of the District, and Berry managed their farm as well as his own.
Of its 410 acres, about a quarter of Metropolis View was heavily wooded and became known as Berry’s Woods, a popular picnic and event spot for generations of Washingtonians. Washington Berry died in 1856. In his will, he left substantial amounts of land in the District and Prince George’s county to his sons. He left Metropolis View to his wife, and when she died 5 years later, it passed to their daughters.
The Berry family gravesite in Rock Creek Cemetery
During the Civil War, the property and house were used by numerous Federal officers and troops, and the soldiers encamped there did considerable damage. Shortly after the war, a book called “American Bastile” documented some of the abuses Confederate sympathizers underwent in the border states. Thomas Berry, son of Washington Berry, was one of the complainants. He had been arrested in 1862 on suspicion of being a Confederate officer, and in addition to his own rough handling, related how the soldiers treated the family home:
They had taken possession of the old homestead, "Metropolis View" about a mile from Washington, and had permitted the soldiers to wantonly mutilate and destroy the dwelling, which was elegantly finished and furnished; that the soldiers had thrust their bayonets into the plastering on the walls and ceiling, and had shot into the ornamental work. A party of them even went so far with their vandalism, as to break into the family vault, and desecrate the remains of the dead, tearing the silver-plated handles and screws from the coffin which contained the ashes of his father; while the coffins of his infant brother and sister were broken open at the same time and their bones left lying on the floor of the vault; that when John Maguire, an honest Irishman, went to them, and with tears in his eyes entreated them to desist and respect the dead, and not to desecrate the remains of the family, as they had been good to him, he was met by these unfeeling men with jeers and laughter, and the remark that they were all rebels, and that they had heard there was jewelry buried with the dead.
Even though the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act had freed the slaves here in 1862, almost all the landowners in our area had been slaveholders, and it wasn’t unusual for Union soldiers to treat them like the enemy. Other soldiers camped nearby burned down Queen’s Chapel in 1863, having heard that the Queens were confederate sympathizers. And soldiers from Fort Bunker Hill raided a gravesite on the property of Jehiel Brooks to steal the bricks for their own housing. When the Civil War ended and all the soliders left, many of the estates had been damaged, Metropolis View so badly that it was no longer functional as a farm. In 1865, the estate was made available for sale.
At the same time, the government was giving serious consideration to finding a new location for the Executive Mansion. The established White House site was considered unhealthy in the summer, thanks to the putrid Washington City Canal (Tiber Creek) that ran through downtown and spilled into the Potomac in the swampy area just south of the mansion (see 1861 map above, Library of Congress). Major Nathaniel Michler of the Army Corps of Engineers was assigned to “inquire whether a tract of land of not less than 350 acres adjoining or very near the city can be obtained for a reasonable price for a park and site for a presidential Mansion…” Michler scouted a number of sites, and Metropolis View was a leading candidate:
Metropolis View is beautifully situated, having a high and commanding position; it is partially covered with groves of fine old trees, deciduous and evergreen, and possessed of an abundance of timber. A fine spring rises in the place, and two small streams, tributaries of the Tiber, course through it. In nearly every direction the eye meets with charming landscape scenes, and it overlooks the Capitol and the broad valley of the Potomac. This locality possesses many attractions, and is susceptible of great improvement. It is easy of access by some of the finest avenues and streets leading out of the city, and is at a very convenient distance from the most prominent public buildings.
Portion of Michler’s 1867 map that accompanied his report. Metropolis View is circled. Click to enlarge. (Library of Congress)
Michler said the property could be bought for $200,000, but he also recommended the adjacent Eckington tract be purchased as well for $155,000 more. “The two tracts of land united would furnish ample grounds to surround the mansion and also open a fine park to connect with the city on the direct line with the Capitol.” A park stretching from present-day Catholic University to Florida Avenue sounds awfully nice, but the whole idea of moving the Executive Mansion died after Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868 and put the kibosh on the plan.
Since no one else was likely to buy the whole tract, Metropolis View was broken up into large lots of 5 to 10 acres and offered at auction. In 1869, one of the most prominent men in the country, remembering pleasant visits with Washington Berry and his family forty years earlier, decided to buy the old mansion and some of the land to make into his country home. It would be the beginning of a new era.
Item from the National Republican, September 23, 1869 (Library of Congress)
Next: Salmon and Kate Chase remake Metropolis View into Edgewood.
Shirley Rivens Smith, President
US Africa Sister Cities Foundation, Inc.
DC-Dakar
2000 Upshur St., NE
Washington, DC 20018
202-635-3138
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