Category: History

Comparative White DC Home Owner- Georgetown- James D. McKenna- 1513 33rd Street NW

Although the African American home owners of Truxton Circle are my focus, I am looking at a few other blocks in Washington, DC to compare them to. So I looked at the census for blocks in the city that were in the F1 or red-lined category, but happened to be 90%-100% white. I included Georgetown, and this is the story of one household.photo of property

I stumbled on this one because James D. McKenna was the son of Thomas McKenna. I’m guessing at the address because in the Recorder of Deeds online system they owned a property on Square 1255 lot 163. I cannot locate lot 163 on the 1919 map.

I was looking for McKennas on square 1255 and found James around the same time period as his father.

James a single man at the time bought lot 163 from Henry W. Offutt a widower from Montgomery County on July 3, 1943. He borrowed $5,300 from trustees Hubert R. Bauckman and Wendel C. Shoemaker. March 27, 1946 James and his wife Eve Ruth McKenna sold the property to Fanny Fiske Eaton. James D. McKenna was released from his 1943 mortgage in November 1946. So, he owned it just 3 years.

I could not locate any useful information about James and Eva McKenna after this sale. James Doyle McKenna died in Florida on July 19, 1980 and is buried in Montgomery County, MD.

Comparative White DC Home Owner- Georgetown- Thomas McKenna- 3233 P Street NW

Although the African American home owners of Truxton Circle are my focus, I am looking at a few other blocks in Washington, DC to compare them to. So I looked at the census for blocks in the city that were in the F1 or red-lined category, but happened to be 90%-100% white. I included Georgetown, and this is the story of one household.photo of property

There honestly isn’t a lot in the Recorder of Deeds online records. The Recorder of Deeds trove of records start around 1921 and the records for square 1255 lot 187 or 3233 P Street NW in Washington, DC starts in October 1947 when three of the 5 McKenna adult children sold the property to Loulie M. Wilson.  Thomas McKenna died December 16, 1940, at home.

Thomas Patrick (?)McKenna was born August 15, 1866 in Ireland. I arrived in America in 1879/1881. He married Irish-American Angela Doyle in 1901. In the 1910 census Thomas and Angela were living at 3233 P St NW with their four children, 7 year old James Doyle, 5 year old Theresa M., three year old Thomas Pierce, and infant John J. McKenna. Patriarch Thomas worked as a grocer with his own shop.

In the 1920 census there was a change. The family was still at 3233 P St NW. Thomas was 54 years old, working as a watchman for the government supporting a wife and five children. M. Delores was the fifth child and eight years old. In the 1930 census he was still a guard working for the US government. His wife Angela had died in 1923. Daughters Theresa and Maria Delores lived with him and sons Thomas and John were in the plumbing trades. The 1940 census was Thomas the elder’s last at the age of 72. He lived with James, Thomas Pierce, Theresa and Delores. Sons James and Thomas worked as cab drivers.

After the death of their father, as mentioned above, Theresa, Thomas and Marie Delores sold the family home in 1947. In the 1950 census Theresa, an insurance clerk for the VA, married Joseph E. Crowley and had adult siblings, Thomas and M. Delores living with them at 2417 39th Street NW. The siblings were not employed.

2417 39th Street NW, Washington, DC
2417 39th Street NW

I will have another post about eldest son, James D. McKenna who owned another property on the block.

John Joseph McKenna married Mary Dorothy Poore in 1938. In the 1940s they lived at 648 1/2 Morton Street NE and he worked as a plumber. By the 1950 census they lived at 3614 T St NW, had three kids under the age of 6.

Shaw Neighborhood Convenience Stores, 1970

Everybody in the car,
So come on let’s ride
To the liquor store
around the corner
The boys say they want
some Gin & Juice
But I really don’t wanna
-Lou Bega ‘Mambo No. 5’

If you can’t see the details of the map above go to this link, and click on it to see the details. It shows where the liquor stores, grocery stores, drug stores, barber and beauty shops and other stores in the Shaw neighborhood.

Comparative White DC Home Owner- Capitol Hill- Herman Hoffman- 505 3rd St SE

So just to get an idea to see if what I am seeing with the Black Homeowners of Truxton Circle is normal, or not, I am comparing them with white home owners.  I am looking at blocks that were over 90% white in 1950 but also in the same “red lined” zone, which was F1.

photo of property

Well, looking at the DC Recorder of Deeds site there really isn’t much going on with 505 E St SE. The first document is from 1933 where owner Herman R. Hoffman and wife Rose E. Hoffman transferred their property to Norman E. Daly, who immediately (w/ wife Nelly Daly) transferred it back to Herman, Rose and daughter Ione/Irene Hoffman. Aaaaaaaand nothing else happens until 1980 when the conservator of Rose Eva Hoffman’s estate, William L. Fallon, sells the property to George L. and Goldie L. Mamakos.

There are no mortgages, but there is a racial covenant in the two 1933 documents. It reads as:

“Subject to the covenants that hereafter no building or structure other than bay windows or porches shall be erected or constructed within a line drawn 12.85 feet from and parallel with the front or street line of said lot and that said property shall never be rented, leased, sold, transferred or conveyed unto any negro or colored person under a penalty of $2000.00 which shall be a lien against said property.”

It’s  unclear to me who the $2,000 ($46,671.23 in 2023’s money) would be paid to if the property was rented or sold to an African American. If there was a mortgage I’d assume it would have been the lender, but there is no lender here. The Hoffmans own it free and clear.You can wander over to Mapping Segregation DC’s site to learn more about DC racial covenants.

So who were the Hoffmans?

So let’s start with the 1920 census where then 37 year old, California born musician Herman Roy Hoffman lived with his wife Rose E. B. Herrler Hoffman, their 6 year old daughter Ione, and German mother-in-law Wilhemina Herrler at 505 3rd St SE.  He appeared again in the 1920 Census stationed at the Marine Barracks as a 1st Class Musician. So he was counted twice. He appears on several Marine Corp muster rolls as a 1st Class musician. He enlisted in 1907, starting off as a Private. Sometime around 1910 he became Musician Second Class and then 1st Class around 1915.

He married Rose Herrler May 1910 in Washington, DC. They had one daughter Ione, named after Herman’s sister, Ione R. Hoffman Symmes.

Music was a part of the family’s life. Herman taught and played the violin for children at the Friendship House and the YMCA. Ione was a mezzo soprano, contralto, and piano teacher. The pair appeared often in the local papers for performances around town.

Herman Hoffman died February 13, 1949 after a short illness at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery.

Memory Lane: Richardson Place and Jim’s Garden

Before Common there was a long battle between the residents of Richardson Place and a developer named Mondie. And before Mondie, there was a garden where part of the current shared apartments sit.

View from alley near Richardson looking towards 4th St NW. Taken December 14, 2005.

photo of Richardson Place House in 2004The garden belonged to Jim Norris who owned the house next to it. It was a cute and sweet little garden perfect for a bachelor. The houses on Richardson back then were on the very small side. I remember one Christmas, Jim had his whole living room packed with many creches/nativity scenes. He managed to make the best of the small space. Jim owned it from 2001-2018.

Armstrong and Maybe the Homeopathic Hospital

Military unit in Armstrong Technical High School being trained by an U.S. Army lieutenant. Library of Congress.

This is a 1942 photo of the military unit for Armstrong High School. I think, and I could be wrong, they are on the Dunbar High School’s field. From this view there are two tall buildings in the background. Those buildings do not exist in current day Truxton Circle. I think they are part of the Homeopathic Hospital.

WSIC-1950 Sell Off- 94 Bates Street NW

The Washington Sanitary Improvement Company (WSIC) was a late 19th century charitable capitalism experiment that ended in the 1950s. This blog started looking at the homes that were supposed to be sold to African American home buyers, after decades of mainly renting to white tenants.

94 Bates St NW is the red house behind the second car on the right. Circa 2005

Looking at WSIC properties they tend to have a pattern where the properties were sold to a three business partners, Nathaniel J. Taube, Nathan Levin and James B. Evans as the Colonial Investment Co. for $3 million dollars. Those partners sold to African American buyers. There was usually a foreclosure. Then the property wound up in the hands of George Basiliko and or the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA). Then there was the odd lucky ones who managed to avoid that fate.

photo of property

Let’s see what happens with 94 Bates St NW:

  • December 1950 Evans, Levin and Taube sold all of 94 Bates St NW to Carrie N. and Willie Burns.
  • December 1950 the Burns borrowed $6,300 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
  • August 1961 the Burns borrowed $5,500 from trustees Junior F. Crowell and Samuel Scrivener Jr., who have lent to other Black Truxton Circle home owners.
  • October 1961 the Burns paid off their mortgage debt to Levin and Weightman.
  • June 1975 Carrie N. Burns took out a rehabilitation loan from the DC Redevelopment Land Agency with trustee Ralph Werner for $9,150 at 6% interest. It was paid off in 1985.

So this one was unusual. Basiliko doesn’t get involved. The property was sold in whole and the DC RLA was only involved as a lender.

WSIC-1950 Sell Off- 229 P Street NW

The Washington Sanitary Improvement Company (WSIC) was a late 19th century charitable capitalism experiment that ended in the 1950s. This blog started looking at the homes that were supposed to be sold to African American home buyers, after decades of mainly renting to white tenants.

Looking at WSIC properties they tend to have a pattern where the properties were sold to a three business partners, Nathaniel J. Taube, Nathan Levin and James B. Evans as the Colonial Investment Co. for $3 million dollars. Those partners sold to African American buyers. There was usually a foreclosure. Then the property wound up in the hands of George Basiliko and or the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA). Then there was the odd lucky ones who managed to avoid that fate.

photo of property

Let’s see what happens with 229 P St NW:

  • January 1951 Evans, Levin and Taube sold one-half of 229 P NW to Johnnie M. Alford and Oliver Rembert Jr.
  • January 1951 Alford and Rembert borrowed $3,400 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
  • December 1950 (recorded 1/18/1951) Evans, Levin, and Taube sold the other half of 229 P St NW to Mattie L. Jones.
  • December 1950 (recorded 1/18/1951) Mrs. Jones borrowed $3,250 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
  • March 1956 Alford and Rembert lost their half to foreclosure. Evans, Levin and Taube regained the property via an auction.
  • November 1961 new partner Harry A. Badt, his wife, Levin’s survivors, Evans, Taube and their wives, sold their half to Sophia and George Basiliko.
  • January 1962 Mattie L. Jones was released from her mortgage…..and that is the last we hear from her.  There are a lot of Mattie L. Joneses, mainly in Texas, and I don’t have a lot of other information to go on to find her.
  • Sometime between 1973 and 1980 the DC Redevelopment Land Agency gained ownership of the whole of 229 P St NW, because later records treat it as one singular property.

Sometime in the future I need to look at document #8000020221, a 32 page contract between the DC RLA and the BSA Limited Partnership recorded June 27, 1980. There are a lot of Truxton Circle properties mentioned in the document. Before I do that I would need to complete the whole WSIC sell off series, analyze Basiliko’s takeover and sell off to DC RLA, which maybe might lead to the mystery document that seems to be missing from this database showing when he sells certain Truxton WSIC and non-WSIC properties to DC RLA. Maybe I need to look at Truxton Circle properties owned by the government. But for right now, I’ll keep chugging away with the 1950s WSIC sell off.

Look Ma No Safety Goggles- Armstrong High School 1942

Learning to use an electrical jigsaw to make model airplanes for the U.S. Navy at the Armstrong Technical High School. Library of Congress.

African American students at Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, DC use a jigsaw in 1942.