Existing comment:
MBT
The Metropolitan Branch Trail (MBT) is an 8-mile trail following the Metropolitan Branch Line of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad. The trail passes through numerous vibrant and historic neighborhoods connecting the National Mall to the Georgetown Branch Trail.
Where are you?
What is now the neighborhood of Edgewood was originally outside the boundaries of the District of Columbia. Part of a 30-acre farmland estate called Metropolis View, Edgewood was purchased in 1863 by Salmon Chase, who built Edgewood Manor, naming it for its location on the edge of the woods.
Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873) was an American politician, jurist, supporter of women's rights and public education, and abolitionist who worked defending escaped slaves, arguing the constitutionality of fugitive slave laws before the U.S. Supreme Court. He came to Washington in 1861 as the US Treasury Secretary under Abraham Lincoln and remained as Chief Justice from 1864 until his death in 1873, at which time his daughter, Kate, moved into the estate. Known as an intelligent beauty and nicknamed "the Belle of the North," she earned high praise from The Washington Post, which called her the "most brilliant woman of her day None outshone her."
By the 1890s the Metropolitan Branch Line of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had been built east of the estate and was being used by commuters accessing weekend and summer homes. As the frequency of the trains increased, city residents considered residing full-time in what had been considered "the country." At this time, much of the Edgewood estate was platted for residential purposes. The streets were named in the District's alphabetical fashion, though the streets of Bryant, Channing, Douglas and Evarts were named after cities and were called Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Emporia and Frankfort.
In the mid-1900s, the manor made way for the St. Vincent Orphanage Asylum and Catholic School to the south, and later to the Edgewood Terrace Apartments to the north.
Rail History:
By the time of the Civil War, the importance of railroads, and especially a connection to Washington, had been realized. President Abraham Lincoln endorsed the construction of the Metropolitan Branch Line -- which connected Washington, DC with the main line of the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad, the first long-distance railroad in the US.
The 42.5-mile line, completed in 1873, originally had nine stops: "Terra Cotta, Silver Spring, Knowles, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Boyd's, Dickerson's, and Tuscarora." Six trains ran each way, three local and three express. Service quickly expanded to 28 stops as the B&O added connections for mills, dairy farms and burgeoning suburban developments. The express trains took one hour and 20 minutes to go from Washington to Point of Rocks, and the locals a half-hour longer. By 1893 the railroad hit its high point with 18 passenger trains a day, a figure that would continue through the 1920s.
With the establishment of the railroad, for the firs time the country became accessible to the city, and the markets of DC became accessible to the farmers to sell perishable goods such as garden produce, fruit and milk.
The railroad also brought many new residents to the area and transformed the life of the city. Takoma Park, Linden, Woodside, Forest Glen, Capitol View, Kensington and Garret Park were all park of a brand-new concept in the 1880s -- railroad suburbs. |