Georgetown

History of Georgetown Homes

Georgetown - Rich in Architectural History

Georgetown presents an excellent collection of homes in both the Federal period and Victorian architectural styles. These houses are as interesting for who lived there long ago as they are for the celebrities who live there now. They include the stately mansion of a tobacco merchant, later owned by Robert Todd Lincoln, which is currently home to two of Washington's high-octane journalists. In true eclectic Georgetown style, a few blocks away there is a tiny 18th century ship captain's house.

Rare records from the Underground Railroad show that in 1858 a young enslaved woman slipped away to freedom from a house directly across the street from where Pamela Harriman entertained Raisa Gorbachev. And a stately Federal period home that is now the Washington base of a well-known U.S. Senator was once a tenement for nine families. Before that it was the home of Count Alexander de Bodisco, the Russian Tsar's representative to the United States. The portly but charming 58 year-old Bodisco shocked all of Washington when he married the beautiful 18-year-old Harriet Beall Williams of Georgetown.

Civil War links abound in Georgetown, including the site where Louisa May Alcott nursed injured soldiers fresh from the fields of Fredericksburg. Did you know a Confederate son of a wealthy Georgetown merchant was captured when he slipped through Union lines to visit his family on N Street?

And when you need to buy khaki's why not go to the "historic Gap" in Georgetown that was once a jail for Union troops in trouble with the law.

Georgetown's homes are a beautiful physical reminder of the history our wonderful neighborhood has lived through.