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East-of-the-River View
Anacostia Heritage Trail #17
Uniontown, DC's First Suburb
Today's Anacostia Historic District began in 1854 as Uniontown, Washington's first planned suburb. The Union Land Association saw the large Navy Yard workforce across the Anacostia River as potential customers for building lots they carved out here from 240 acres of farmland. The association named streets after presidents and designated this block-long park as a town square and market place. As was common practice, the developers barred sales to "any [N]egro, mulatto, or person of African blood."
Half of the lots sold quickly. Land association partner John Van Hook built himself a gracious two-story brick house on a nine-acre hilltop overlooking Uniontown. A handful of elegant houses rose along the new streets, including one for Dr. Charles H. Nichols, superintendent of the new Government Hospital for the Insane (later called St. Elizabeths). But building proceeded slowly. Unfortunately for Van Hook and his partners, after the Civil War ended in 1865 Navy Yard ship production slowed, and then in 1873 economies around the world crashed. The Union Land Association declared bankruptcy, and Frederick Douglass purchased Van Hook's property. Other developers took over, building more modest houses.
In 1886 Congress changed Uniontown's name to Anacostia because numerous "Uniontowns" had appeared around the nation after the Civil War.
Anacostia Lodge No. 21 of the Free and Accepted Masons built 2002 14th Street in 1890, leasing its first floor as a movie theater. After the Masons moved to Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in 1963, a succession of churches used the solid structure. |