Quincy House (Brookland)
Encyclopedia
Quincy House is a notable residence for students located in the historic Brookland
neighborhood of the Washington, DC.
Within easy walking distance of the Catholic University of America, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
and the Franciscan Monastery
, Quincy is something of an epicenter of Catholic young adult culture, best known for its celebrations of the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's Day
, and for its monthly coffee house events, of which recordings are regularly produced and posted online. A "Best of Quincy, vol. 1" is anticipated within the next year.
Residents of Quincy House have been known to study philosophy, theology and national security at CUA
,http://www.cua.edu the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America,http://www.johnpaulii.edu and The Institute of World Politics
,http://www.iwp.edu respectively.
Famous Quincy-ites include John-Mark Miravalle, Instructor at the School of Faith at St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, University of Kansas
,http://www.st-lawrence.org/stlawrence.aspx?pgID=879, Aaron R. Linderman, two-time Arizona State Geography Bee Champion,http://www.nationalgeographic.com/society/ngo/geobee/1997.htmlhttp://www.nationalgeographic.com/society/ngo/geobee/1998.html.
of Virginia forced the closing of the college and ended the lively intellectual life he had come to love. One of the founding members of Phi Beta Kappa, Cunningham came from a family of some means and intended to take up the life of a learned gentleman, living off his estate's income while undertaking a life of moral, civic and intellectual virtue. (Cunningham was a second cousin the parliamentarian Edmund Burke
, sharing great grandparents on his mother's side. Like Burke, he was a practicing Anglican, though accused at various times in his life of being a crypto Catholic.)
Cunningham chose the site for his new home because he appreciated the natural scenery, a feature which latter caused George Washington to select the area for the national capital. Nine years after the construction of Quincy House, on July 16, 1790, Congress created the District of Columbia, with the house becoming part of the new entity of the County of Washington
. (In 1871 Congress passed legislation uniting the District under an eleven-member legislature, which included two representatives of the County of Washington. In 1878 the County of Washington ceased to exist as a result of the District of Columbia Organic Act.)
Among the friends of Cunningham who visited him at the original Quincy House were William Short
(1759–1849), a classmate from William & Mary and a fellow Phi Beta Kappa, who stopped by in 1786 before leaving with Thomas Jefferson for Paris, acting as Jefferson's personal secretary while the future president served as ambassador. Short would return to visit Cunningham again in 1793 when he was back in the States between his ambassadorships to France (1790–1792) and Spain (1794–1795), though it was his third visit was probably the most important. In 1796 Short enthusiastically told Cunningham about the man he had spent time with in Europe, John Quincy Adams, then serving as US minister to the Netherlands. (At the time, John Quincy's father, John Adams, was serving as Vice President to George Washington.) For years Cunningham had been toying with different names for the House, without settling upon one he liked, but on December 5, 1796, the 20th anniversary of the founding of his old college society, Jeremiah Cunningham christened his home the Quincy House.
Jeremiah Cunningham was not only a man of letters but also an amateur whiskey distiller. To satisfy his interest in both, the builder of Quincy House constructed an extensive basement which housed the better part of his (growing) collection of scholarly works, his distillation equipment and several rooms for aging casks of Scotch whiskey. This honeycomb of various tunnels and chambers played a crucial role in the life of the second Quincy House.
As the new American capital grew, Cunningham established relationship with men of similar tastes: learned gentlemen with interests in moral and civic matters. Among them were two men who went on to importance in the War of 1812, Dr. William Thornton
and Lt. Col. Franklin Wharton
. Thornton, whose design was chosen for the Capitol building
in 1793, was named first Superintend of Patents in 1802. When British forces attacked Washington in August, 1814, in retaliation for the burning of York (today Toronto
), Dr. Thornton convinced them to spare the Patent Office, pleading that the loss of the knowledge it contained would be a loss for all mankind. Franklin Wharton became the third Commandant
of the US Marine Corps in 1804 and when the British were busy burning the White House
, Capitol and Treasury building, his home at the Marine Barracks
was spared, according to Marine Corps lore as an act of respect for the brave rearguard action fought by the Marines at the Battle of Bladensburg
earlier in the day.
In 1835 a neighbor of note moved into the area, Jehiel Brooks
http://www.aladin.wrlc.org/gsdl/collect/brooks/brooks.shtml, who had just returned from negotiating a treaty with the Caddo
Indians of Louisiana
. On a plot of land belonging to his wife, Ann Margaret Queen, Brooks built a Greek revival mansion http://www.dcpreservation.org/endangered/1999/brooks.htmlhttp://www.thebrooklandinn.com/brookland2.html and the 246 acre (0.99552756 km²) Bellair Estate came to life.http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/dch_tourism2608/dch_tourism_show.htm?doc_id=44032 Jeremiah Cunningham of Quincy House befriended the Brooks family and the two men would often stay up late at night drinking Cunningham's scotch and discussing the numerous essays Brooks was known to write.
The first Quincy House was burned to the ground by an anti-Catholic Know Nothing
mob in 1844. The mob, apparently inspired by the Nativist Riots
in nearby Philadelphia, attacked Cunningham's house, believing he was a closet Catholic. To this day, the record on that point remains obscure. Cunningham was known to be friends with several of the Catholic bishops of Baltimore, including and the Jesuits John Carroll
and Leonard Neale
and bishop Samuel Eccleston
. However, Cunningham was never known to have officially entered the Catholic Church and remained a practicing Anglican his entire life. (It is worth noting that, in addition to his friendships with a number of Catholic bishops, Cunningham was a known friend of several of the Anglican bishops of Maryland, including James Kemp
and William Murray Stone
.) In any event, Jeremiah Cunningham, at the advanced age of 88 when his beloved Quincy House was burned, never really recovered from the event. He sold the property to James Baer (a Pennsylvania
Catholic, which did nothing to dispel the rumors about Cunningham's faith) and died a year later. All that Baer inherited of the original building was the basement; luckily, much of the distilling equipment, many of the scholarly texts and several casks of Scotch survived the fire.
The American Civil War
broke out in 1861. To provide for the defense of Washington City, a series of forts was erected, encircling the city. Roughly 100 yards from the Quincy House was Fort Bunker Hill
, a rectangular emplacement with thirteen guns. Ft. Bunker Hill saw no action during the war, but its proximity to the Quincy House was significant when the young Miss Emily Sawyer, daughter of an officer from the 11th Vermont Volunteer Infantry, came to visit her father, stationed at Ft. Bunker Hill. Lt. Colman O'Higgins may have been staying at the Quincy House at the time. In any event, his daughter and James Baer rapidly struck up a courtship which soon resulted in their marriage.
There are reports that Baer had been involved in the operations of the Underground Railroad
prior to the Civil War, though these stories may result from a confusion about the arrival of run-away slaves at the forts around Washington and Baer’s employment with the Freedman’s Bureau
from 1865 until 1867.
Colman O'Higgins - whose grandfather had been a cousin of the legendary Bernardo O'Higgins
- was a dairy farmer and cheese maker in civilian life. When he died in 1877, the family farm, located near Middlebury, passed to his only child, Emily Baer née O'Higgins. Though remaining in the District of Columbia, the Baers chose not to sell the dairy farm, but continued to operate it through a manager, and began selling the occasional cheese - along with beer and whiskey - at the bookstore outside Washington. This happy arrangement lasted until the death of James Baer in 1880, at the age of 61. Emily, a quarter century his junior and with young children still at home, chose to remarry, wedding Hans von Eisenwaller (b. 1844), the son of Austrian revolutionary Johann von Eisenwaller, who had participated in the failed revolution of 1848
and fought with the Illinois 1st Hecker Jaeger Regiment
during the Civil War. (The elder O'Higgins and von Eisenwaller may have met at some time during the war, though their units fought in different theaters, making this unlikely.) Eisenwaller took up the operation of Baer's bookstore cum liquor store, though the dairy farm was finally sold off a few years later.
In spite of his father's radical politics, Hans von Eisenwaller was of more moderate bent and a devout Catholic. As Catholic bishop John Lancaster Spalding was working to establish the Catholic University of America, von Eisenwaller provided what financial assistance he could (though it was considerably less than such Catholic greats as Mary Gwendoline Caldwell were giving). In 1898 he provided funds to the Franciscans then establishing the Memorial Church of the Holy Sepulchre
a few hundred yards east of his house. However, it seems that von Eisenwaller's fortunes were declining at this time, since when the Dominican House of Studies
was established in 1905, von Eisenwaller this time simply donated a significant portion of his stock of books, providing an early boost to the Dominican library.
In 1907 Emily O'Higgins Baer von Eisenwaller was killed in a carriage accident, at the age of 63. Her husband was devastated, dying more or less of grief the following year. By this time even the youngest children had all left home and the Washington area. The house was abandoned for several years, falling into a state of disrepair, and for a time being frequented by vagrants and troublesome youths. In 1913 it was finally sold by the children to a real estate agent and demolished.
Brookland, Washington, D.C.
Brookland is a neighborhood in the Northeast quadrant of Washington, D.C., historically centered along 12th Street NE. Brookland is bounded by 9th Street NE to the west, Rhode Island Avenue NE to the south, and South Dakota Avenue to the east...
neighborhood of the Washington, DC.
The House
Quincy House is a home to Catholic graduate students from across North America, located in the historic Brookland neighborhood of the District of Columbia.Within easy walking distance of the Catholic University of America, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a prominent Latin Rite Catholic basilica located in Washington, D.C., honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the Patroness of the United States...
and the Franciscan Monastery
Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery
The Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery is located at 14th and Quincy Streets in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington, D.C. It includes gardens, replicas of various shrines throughout Israel, a replica of the catacombs in Rome, an archive, a library, as well as bones of Saint...
, Quincy is something of an epicenter of Catholic young adult culture, best known for its celebrations of the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's Day
Lord's Day
Lord's Day is a Christian name for Sunday, the day of communal worship. It is observed by most Christians as the weekly memorial of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is said in the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament to have been witnessed alive from the dead early on the first day of...
, and for its monthly coffee house events, of which recordings are regularly produced and posted online. A "Best of Quincy, vol. 1" is anticipated within the next year.
Residents of Quincy House have been known to study philosophy, theology and national security at CUA
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
,http://www.cua.edu the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America,http://www.johnpaulii.edu and The Institute of World Politics
The Institute of World Politics
The Institute of World Politics is an independent, regionally accredited graduate school of national security and international affairs. Founded in 1990 and located in Washington, D.C., U.S., the school focuses on the development of leaders in the intelligence, national security, and diplomatic...
,http://www.iwp.edu respectively.
Famous Quincy-ites include John-Mark Miravalle, Instructor at the School of Faith at St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
,http://www.st-lawrence.org/stlawrence.aspx?pgID=879, Aaron R. Linderman, two-time Arizona State Geography Bee Champion,http://www.nationalgeographic.com/society/ngo/geobee/1997.htmlhttp://www.nationalgeographic.com/society/ngo/geobee/1998.html.
The First Quincy House
The original Quincy House was built in the summer of 1781 by Jeremiah Cunningham (b. 1756), a graduate of the College of William & Mary, who left Williamsburg earlier in the year when the British invasionSouthern theater of the American Revolutionary War
The Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War was the central area of operations in North America in the second half of the American Revolutionary War. During the first three years of the conflict, the primary military encounters had been in the north, focused on campaigns around the...
of Virginia forced the closing of the college and ended the lively intellectual life he had come to love. One of the founding members of Phi Beta Kappa, Cunningham came from a family of some means and intended to take up the life of a learned gentleman, living off his estate's income while undertaking a life of moral, civic and intellectual virtue. (Cunningham was a second cousin the parliamentarian Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
, sharing great grandparents on his mother's side. Like Burke, he was a practicing Anglican, though accused at various times in his life of being a crypto Catholic.)
Cunningham chose the site for his new home because he appreciated the natural scenery, a feature which latter caused George Washington to select the area for the national capital. Nine years after the construction of Quincy House, on July 16, 1790, Congress created the District of Columbia, with the house becoming part of the new entity of the County of Washington
Washington County, D.C.
The County of Washington was one of the five political entities contained within the geographic region comprising what was originally the 100-square-mile District of Columbia. These were the City of Alexandria, the County of Alexandria, Georgetown, the City of Washington, and the County of...
. (In 1871 Congress passed legislation uniting the District under an eleven-member legislature, which included two representatives of the County of Washington. In 1878 the County of Washington ceased to exist as a result of the District of Columbia Organic Act.)
Among the friends of Cunningham who visited him at the original Quincy House were William Short
William Short (American ambassador)
William Short was Thomas Jefferson's private secretary when he was ambassador in Paris, from 1786 to 1789. Jefferson, later the third President of the United States, referred to Short as his "adoptive son". Short, along with Jefferson, was a co-founder of Phi Beta Kappa at the College of William &...
(1759–1849), a classmate from William & Mary and a fellow Phi Beta Kappa, who stopped by in 1786 before leaving with Thomas Jefferson for Paris, acting as Jefferson's personal secretary while the future president served as ambassador. Short would return to visit Cunningham again in 1793 when he was back in the States between his ambassadorships to France (1790–1792) and Spain (1794–1795), though it was his third visit was probably the most important. In 1796 Short enthusiastically told Cunningham about the man he had spent time with in Europe, John Quincy Adams, then serving as US minister to the Netherlands. (At the time, John Quincy's father, John Adams, was serving as Vice President to George Washington.) For years Cunningham had been toying with different names for the House, without settling upon one he liked, but on December 5, 1796, the 20th anniversary of the founding of his old college society, Jeremiah Cunningham christened his home the Quincy House.
Jeremiah Cunningham was not only a man of letters but also an amateur whiskey distiller. To satisfy his interest in both, the builder of Quincy House constructed an extensive basement which housed the better part of his (growing) collection of scholarly works, his distillation equipment and several rooms for aging casks of Scotch whiskey. This honeycomb of various tunnels and chambers played a crucial role in the life of the second Quincy House.
As the new American capital grew, Cunningham established relationship with men of similar tastes: learned gentlemen with interests in moral and civic matters. Among them were two men who went on to importance in the War of 1812, Dr. William Thornton
William Thornton
Dr. William Thornton was a British-American physician, inventor, painter and architect who designed the United States Capitol, an authentic polymath...
and Lt. Col. Franklin Wharton
Franklin Wharton
Franklin Wharton was the third Commandant of the United States Marine Corps.-Biography:Wharton was born into a prominent Philadelphia, Pennsylvania family, the son of Joseph Wharton...
. Thornton, whose design was chosen for the Capitol building
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
in 1793, was named first Superintend of Patents in 1802. When British forces attacked Washington in August, 1814, in retaliation for the burning of York (today Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
), Dr. Thornton convinced them to spare the Patent Office, pleading that the loss of the knowledge it contained would be a loss for all mankind. Franklin Wharton became the third Commandant
Commandant
Commandant is a senior title often given to the officer in charge of a large training establishment or academy. This usage is common in anglophone nations...
of the US Marine Corps in 1804 and when the British were busy burning the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, Capitol and Treasury building, his home at the Marine Barracks
Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.
Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C. is located at 8th and I Streets, Southeast in Washington, D.C. Established in 1801, it is a National Historic Landmark, the oldest post in the United States Marine Corps, the official residence of the Commandant of the Marine Corps since 1806, and main ceremonial...
was spared, according to Marine Corps lore as an act of respect for the brave rearguard action fought by the Marines at the Battle of Bladensburg
Battle of Bladensburg
The Battle of Bladensburg took place during the War of 1812. The defeat of the American forces there allowed the British to capture and burn the public buildings of Washington, D.C...
earlier in the day.
In 1835 a neighbor of note moved into the area, Jehiel Brooks
Colonel Jehiel Brooks
Colonel Jehiel Brooks was a soldier, territorial governor, and plantation owner.-Life:He was First Lieutenant, in the First Regiment of Infantry with the Ohio Militia, in the War of 1812....
http://www.aladin.wrlc.org/gsdl/collect/brooks/brooks.shtml, who had just returned from negotiating a treaty with the Caddo
Caddo
The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma...
Indians of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. On a plot of land belonging to his wife, Ann Margaret Queen, Brooks built a Greek revival mansion http://www.dcpreservation.org/endangered/1999/brooks.htmlhttp://www.thebrooklandinn.com/brookland2.html and the 246 acre (0.99552756 km²) Bellair Estate came to life.http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/dch_tourism2608/dch_tourism_show.htm?doc_id=44032 Jeremiah Cunningham of Quincy House befriended the Brooks family and the two men would often stay up late at night drinking Cunningham's scotch and discussing the numerous essays Brooks was known to write.
The first Quincy House was burned to the ground by an anti-Catholic Know Nothing
Know Nothing
The Know Nothing was a movement by the nativist American political faction of the 1840s and 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to Anglo-Saxon Protestant values and controlled by...
mob in 1844. The mob, apparently inspired by the Nativist Riots
Philadelphia Nativist Riots
The Philadelphia Nativist Riots were a series of riots that took place between May 6 and 8 and July 6 and 7, 1844, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, and the adjacent districts of Kensington and Southwark...
in nearby Philadelphia, attacked Cunningham's house, believing he was a closet Catholic. To this day, the record on that point remains obscure. Cunningham was known to be friends with several of the Catholic bishops of Baltimore, including and the Jesuits John Carroll
John Carroll (bishop)
John Carroll, was the first Roman Catholic bishop and archbishop in the United States — serving as the ordinary of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He is also known as the founder of Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States, and St...
and Leonard Neale
Leonard Neale
Leonard Neale, S.J. became, in 1800, the first Roman Catholic bishop ordained in the United States, and the second Archbishop of Baltimore...
and bishop Samuel Eccleston
Samuel Eccleston
Samuel Eccleston, P.S.S. was an American clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the fifth Archbishop of Baltimore from 1834 until his death in 1851.-Early life:...
. However, Cunningham was never known to have officially entered the Catholic Church and remained a practicing Anglican his entire life. (It is worth noting that, in addition to his friendships with a number of Catholic bishops, Cunningham was a known friend of several of the Anglican bishops of Maryland, including James Kemp
James Kemp, Bishop
The Right Reverend James Kemp was the second bishop of the Diocese of Maryland The Right Reverend James Kemp (1764 – October 28, 1827) was the second bishop of the Diocese of Maryland The Right Reverend James Kemp (1764 – October 28, 1827) was the second bishop of the Diocese of Maryland...
and William Murray Stone
William Murray Stone
William Murray Stone, D.D. was an American Episcopal clergyman from Maryland. He was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland at Baltimore from 1830....
.) In any event, Jeremiah Cunningham, at the advanced age of 88 when his beloved Quincy House was burned, never really recovered from the event. He sold the property to James Baer (a Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
Catholic, which did nothing to dispel the rumors about Cunningham's faith) and died a year later. All that Baer inherited of the original building was the basement; luckily, much of the distilling equipment, many of the scholarly texts and several casks of Scotch survived the fire.
The Second Quincy House
In 1845 James Baer built a new house on the site of Cunningham’s Quincy House, incorporating the remains of the basement into the new building. Though Baer himself was neither brewer nor distiller, he paid to have Cunningham’s distillation equipment refurbished and had his brother Thomas, a Pennsylvania brewer, install a small brewery on the back of the house. James, himself a book merchant, never personally operated either set of equipment, but made sure the complement of house servants always included a few men who could both brew and distill, providing an added source of income. Likewise, those portions of Cunningham’s library which had survived the fire were sold with the property to Baer. It is unknown, however, whether he retained the books for himself or sold them off at his business. Perhaps because of these legacies, Baer retained the name Quincy House for his new structure.The American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
broke out in 1861. To provide for the defense of Washington City, a series of forts was erected, encircling the city. Roughly 100 yards from the Quincy House was Fort Bunker Hill
Fort Bunker Hill
Fort Bunker Hill was a brick and earthenwork fortification built as part of the defenses of Washington, D.C. during the American Civil War.The fort was built in late 1861 by soldiers from the 11th Massachusetts Infantry regiment and was intended to assist in the defense of the northeast approaches...
, a rectangular emplacement with thirteen guns. Ft. Bunker Hill saw no action during the war, but its proximity to the Quincy House was significant when the young Miss Emily Sawyer, daughter of an officer from the 11th Vermont Volunteer Infantry, came to visit her father, stationed at Ft. Bunker Hill. Lt. Colman O'Higgins may have been staying at the Quincy House at the time. In any event, his daughter and James Baer rapidly struck up a courtship which soon resulted in their marriage.
There are reports that Baer had been involved in the operations of the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
prior to the Civil War, though these stories may result from a confusion about the arrival of run-away slaves at the forts around Washington and Baer’s employment with the Freedman’s Bureau
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands
The Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. federal government agency that aided distressed freedmen in 1865–1869, during the Reconstruction era of the United States....
from 1865 until 1867.
Colman O'Higgins - whose grandfather had been a cousin of the legendary Bernardo O'Higgins
Bernardo O'Higgins
Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme was a Chilean independence leader who, together with José de San Martín, freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. Although he was the second Supreme Director of Chile , he is considered one of Chile's founding fathers, as he was the first holder...
- was a dairy farmer and cheese maker in civilian life. When he died in 1877, the family farm, located near Middlebury, passed to his only child, Emily Baer née O'Higgins. Though remaining in the District of Columbia, the Baers chose not to sell the dairy farm, but continued to operate it through a manager, and began selling the occasional cheese - along with beer and whiskey - at the bookstore outside Washington. This happy arrangement lasted until the death of James Baer in 1880, at the age of 61. Emily, a quarter century his junior and with young children still at home, chose to remarry, wedding Hans von Eisenwaller (b. 1844), the son of Austrian revolutionary Johann von Eisenwaller, who had participated in the failed revolution of 1848
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
and fought with the Illinois 1st Hecker Jaeger Regiment
24th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment
The 24th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, also known as the 1st Hecker Jaeger Regiment, was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It was made up almost exclusively of German and Hungarian immigrants...
during the Civil War. (The elder O'Higgins and von Eisenwaller may have met at some time during the war, though their units fought in different theaters, making this unlikely.) Eisenwaller took up the operation of Baer's bookstore cum liquor store, though the dairy farm was finally sold off a few years later.
In spite of his father's radical politics, Hans von Eisenwaller was of more moderate bent and a devout Catholic. As Catholic bishop John Lancaster Spalding was working to establish the Catholic University of America, von Eisenwaller provided what financial assistance he could (though it was considerably less than such Catholic greats as Mary Gwendoline Caldwell were giving). In 1898 he provided funds to the Franciscans then establishing the Memorial Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery
The Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery is located at 14th and Quincy Streets in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington, D.C. It includes gardens, replicas of various shrines throughout Israel, a replica of the catacombs in Rome, an archive, a library, as well as bones of Saint...
a few hundred yards east of his house. However, it seems that von Eisenwaller's fortunes were declining at this time, since when the Dominican House of Studies
Dominican House of Studies
The Dominican House of Studies is a Priory of the Province of St. Joseph of the Order of Preachers. It houses the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and the Priory of the Immaculate Conception...
was established in 1905, von Eisenwaller this time simply donated a significant portion of his stock of books, providing an early boost to the Dominican library.
In 1907 Emily O'Higgins Baer von Eisenwaller was killed in a carriage accident, at the age of 63. Her husband was devastated, dying more or less of grief the following year. By this time even the youngest children had all left home and the Washington area. The house was abandoned for several years, falling into a state of disrepair, and for a time being frequented by vagrants and troublesome youths. In 1913 it was finally sold by the children to a real estate agent and demolished.
Third Quincy House
According to the publicly-available records of the District of Columbia tax assessor's office, the current Quincy House was built in 1915, as a single family residence. The current home is unassuming and of contemporary age with the rest of the neighborhood.External links
- Quincy House official site
- Quincy House blog, "dedicated to the forwarding of authentic Catholic culture, thought and art (at least on our good days)."