On Tuesday, November 8, local author Gordon S. Brown will deliver an Overbeck History Lecture on the growth of the Washington Navy Yard under its first commandant, Captain Thomas Tingey, and the terrible choice he faced during the British invasion of 1814.
Based on his new book The Captain Who Burned His Ships, Brown will trace the Yard's history during the quarter century of Tingey's command - a period when part of our neighborhood was known to many as Navy Yard Hill. For most of the past two hundred years, in fact, the Yard was a larger employer than the U.S. Congress and a dominant factor in Capitol Hill's social and economic life.
A retired diplomat, Gordon Brown has authored several other books, including Incidental Architect, on William Thornton and his influence on early Washington cultural history. He had a 35-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, where his many postings included director of Arab Gulf Affairs in the State Department, political advisor to General Norman Schwarzkopf during the 1991 Gulf War, and ambassador to Mauritania.
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
") are described as follows: