Brentwood (Washington, D.C.) facts for kids

Brentwood is a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C.. It was named after the Brentwood Mansion, a large house built in 1817. This mansion was a wedding gift from Robert Brent, the first mayor of Washington City, to his daughter Eleanor and her husband, Congressman Joseph Pearson. The gift included the mansion and a big farm around it. Congressman Pearson bought even more land, making the Brentwood estate very large. This old estate was much bigger than the Brentwood neighborhood we know today.

History of Brentwood Mansion

Many people believed that Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who designed the United States Capitol, also designed Brentwood Mansion. However, Latrobe was going through tough times when the house was built, and his records from that period are not very clear.

Social Life and Changes

During the time of President Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877), Brentwood Mansion was a lively place for social events in Washington. Many parties were hosted by Elizabeth (Eliza) Worthington Patterson, who was Joseph Pearson's daughter, and her husband, Carlile Pollock Patterson. Patterson knew President Grant well. His brother-in-law, David Dixon Porter, was the highest-ranking Admiral in the U.S. Navy, and his brother, Thomas H. Patterson, commanded the Washington Navy Yard. Patterson Street, which is next to the old property, was likely named after the Patterson family.

Carlile P. Patterson was a Naval officer and scientist. He wasn't very good at managing the large farm and forest land as the city grew around it. After he died in 1881, the family faced money problems. In 1884, Congress passed a special law to help his widow, Eliza W. Patterson, by excusing the property taxes owed on the land. President Chester A. Arthur allowed the bill to become law without his signature. He felt that the government should have paid the taxes directly from the national treasury instead of making the District of Columbia lose money.

Developing the Land

After more confusion, in 1889, Patterson's son-in-law, Lt. Francis Winslow (II), left the Navy. He decided to focus on dividing, renting, developing, and selling parts of the Brentwood property. He was very successful. A part of this land later became the subject of a lawsuit that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Patterson/Winslow family won this case, which was about renewing a lease of some land to a railroad company.

Francis Winslow (II) also became an expert on oysters! He led government surveys about them in the late 1800s. His work is still considered important and accurate today. He also led U.S. government trips to Nicaragua to study possible routes for a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Mansion's End and New Beginnings

Francis Winslow (II) died in 1908, possibly from illnesses he got in the Nicaraguan jungle. This led to another period where the property wasn't managed well. In 1917, exactly 100 years after it was built, the empty Brentwood Mansion burned down. The land then became a military camp for World War I soldiers, called Camp Meigs. Some of Francis Winslow (II)'s sons were officers in World War I, and they might have even stayed at this camp on their own family land. In 1919, the partly burned house was finally torn down. Part of the property later became the first lumberyard for Hechinger Co., a building supply store that was well-known in Washington for many years.

In the 1920s, Francis Winslow (III), Lt. Winslow's son, took over managing the Brentwood land. His biggest achievement was developing the Union Market. For many years, it was called the Florida Avenue Market. It is still open today, over 80 years later, as the city's main wholesale market for food and produce.

Modern Developments

In the early 1940s, the District of Columbia used a process called "eminent domain" to buy a large piece of the Patterson land. This land, known as "square 710," is now where the new headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) is located.

Francis Winslow (III) felt the payment offered for the land was too low and sued the District. He won the lawsuit and was awarded a larger amount of money. However, the District reportedly said they didn't have the money to pay the higher amount. Around this time, Winslow was saddened by his 17-year-old daughter's death in a car accident in 1946, and he was then diagnosed with cancer. He died in 1948.

His youngest brother, Cameron, an insurance executive, became the trustee. It's not clear if Francis or Cameron ever received the full payment for "square 710." Cameron Winslow decided that no one in the family wanted to manage the property anymore. Since he couldn't manage it daily from far away, he began selling all the remaining parts of the property in the 1950s and 1960s. This finally broke up the large estate that Robert Brent had put together two centuries before.

Brentwood Today

Gallaudet University is located in Brentwood.

Over the years, much of the land was bought by or given to Gallaudet University. This is a famous school for deaf students. Cogswell Hall, a dorm at Gallaudet University, is believed to be built where the old Brentwood Mansion once stood. Some people say that students have reported seeing the ghost of a little girl there! They claim blankets have been pulled off beds, an unplugged alarm clock went off, and papers moved by themselves.

The Brentwood neighborhood today has a unique shape, like a trapezoid. It is bordered by New York Avenue to the south, Montana Avenue to the east, Rhode Island Avenue NE to the north, and the tracks of the Washington Metro's Red Line and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor to the west. You can easily get there using the Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood Metro station. Politically, Brentwood is part of Ward 5 in Washington, D.C.

Important Facilities

Brentwood is home to the main post office for Washington, D.C. This was the postal sorting center where mail containing anthrax passed through during the 2001 anthrax attacks. This mail was addressed to two members of the U.S. Senate. The Post Office is now named after Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr., who were postal workers who sadly died after being exposed to the anthrax. The large facility was closed on October 21, 2001, because of the anthrax and did not reopen until December 21, 2003.

The area also has a major maintenance facility for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA). This is the main company that runs public transit in the Washington, D.C. area. The New York Avenue Metrorail station also serves this area.

Images for kids

• 

  13th Pl. and Bryant St. NE, Brentwood, in February 2019

• 

  Rhode Island Avenue-Brentwood Station of the Washington Metro

See also

In Spanish: Brentwood (Washington D. C.) para niños