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Village in the City
Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail
13 War and Peace
The mansion of Samuel P. Brown, Mount Pleasant's founder once stood in the middle of the block to your left. During the Civil War, Brown bought 73 acres here for a song from William Selden, a former U.S. treasurer. Selden believed the Confederacy would win the war, so he sold his holdings and retreated home to Virginia. Brown planned to sell Selden's land as building lots once peace arrived.
As the war raged (1861-1865), Union camps and hospitals filled these hilltops. Brown regularly hosted wounded soldiers from Maine, where he had been a state legislator.
The Union's wartime occupation of Washington left the city in terrible shape. Congress debated moving the nation's capital to St. Louis or another heartland location. Fortunately, after Alexander "Boss" Shepherd's Board of Public Works rebuilt and improved the city, the government decided to stay. Well-connected land speculators such as Brown, who was also a member of the Board of Public Works, profited as a result.
In 1906 a group of neighbors purchased this triangle in order to stop commercial construction here. The group then sold the property to the city for use as a public park. In the process they also revived the Mount Pleasant Citizens Association to bring community concerns to the three presidentially appointed commissioners then governing Washington, DC.
During the early 1960s, the triangle park was a favorite hangout for area teenagers. "You could always find your friends there or at the Argyle drug store," recalled Bob Sciandra, a former resident. |