Truxton Is In Shaw

Currently, this property (the red house on the right) has been carved into two condos. But in 1920 it was home to African American couple William and Emma Despert, and Emma’s son Herbert.

I’m going to admit to being a judgy person. I like people to be simple and stay in stable traditional families so I can best track them. At one point it looks stable but then…. and I’m not happy.

In 1900 it appears William Henry Despert was living with his wife Bertha and 4 year old daughter Beatrice at 456 N St NW as renters. Mr. Despert was working as a huckster.  According to the census the Desperts were married for 5 years. That confirms the 1985 marriage between Bertie Irvin (Irving?) and William H. Despert (Desperate).

By the next census William is divorced from Bertha. He was in the beginning of his long career as a Pullman porter. He was shacking up at 307 Oakdale Place NW with Emma Green. I can’t find a record of their marriage, but by the 1920 census they are living as man and wife.

Being a Pullman porter was a pretty good job, but even food service workers could buy a Truxton home. It makes sense that by 1917/1918, William was a home owner of 139 P St NW. In 1920 Emma was Emma G. Despert. Emma Green had a son, Herbert who lived with them as William’s step-son.

In 1930, the Desperts were living with Emma’s mother, 69 year old widow Annie Green and 32 year old son. In 1910 Annie Green was a laundress living at 1721 5th St NW with her grandson Herbert Gray.  Could he be the same Herbert who changed from Gray to Green? Anyway, Herbert was working as a chauffeur in 1930.

The 1940 census is the last available census and when it is harder to trace the family. Amazingly, Annie Green was still alive, at the age of 84*, and still living on P St. William was still a porter. Herbert was unemployed.

The land records pick up and tell the rest of the story. Emma Green Despert died March 31, 1948. William was dead by 1959.

Before William passed away and after his Emma died, he added a woman named Beatrice E. Johnson to the property. Who the heck is Beatrice? At first I thought she could be William’s daughter from his first marriage. But the Beatrice Johnsons in DC around that time were a good 10-14 years younger than Beatrice Despert. And the records don’t state a relationship. Yeah.

In 1974 Ms. Johnson lost the property to George Basiliko (he’s like everywhere) in a trustees deed. In 1959 Johnson borrowed $6000 from trustees with the Perpetual Building Association. In April of 1974 there was a substitution of trustees from the Perpetual Building Association to the National Bank of Washington. Then in June of 1974, two months after the substitution, National Bank of Washington advertises the auctioning of 139 P St NW in the Washington Star newspaper. George Basiliko was awarded the property in a trustees deed for August 1974 and immediately sold it to Robin Enterprises Inc.

*Yes, I realize that she gained 3 extra years in age from one census to the next.

Okay. What is George Basiliko doing in this history? It doesn’t look like he bought this property but it got included in the the results for a search. I looked at the document and could not pin down how this lot got included in the batch of lots owned by Basiliko. There was a big handoff of property from Basiliko to the District of Columbia in the 1970s, but beyond this document, there is no evidence that Basiliko owned 131 P St NW.

So who did own 131 P St NW in 1920? According to the census for that year, African American Nathaniel and Minnie Gibson.

Nathaniel Henry Gibson was born in April 1873/1875/1876 to Lottie Gibson in North Carolina. He had grey eyes. In 1892 he married Minnie R. Webster in Rockingham, NC. Like Nathaniel, she did not know her father.

According to the 1900 census, the Gibsons, Nathaniel, Minnie and 2 year old daughter Mabel lived in Elkhorn, WV. Nathaniel had a very West Virginia job, he was a coal miner.

By 1910 the Gibsons moved to Washington, DC. They lived at 1824 10th St NW. Nathaniel worked as a laborer for the US Senate. Minnie was a laundress.

Around 1918 they lived at 214 T St NW. Nathaniel was a Pullman porter.

Which then brings us to 1920, where the Gibsons lived with lodgers at 131 P St NW. However the lodgers had Minnie’s maiden surname. Unfortunately, I cannot find a link between the lodgers and Minnie. Nathaniel was still working as a porter, and Minnie was a maid. In the next census, Nathaniel was a janitor for the YMCA. Mabel had changed her surname to Sparks and was a public school teacher. The family had adopted a young woman from West Virginia, Minnie G. Ford, who was a 19 year old waitress in 1930. There was also a lodger living with the family, 40 year old waitress Agnes Boyd of New York.

In 1940 it was just the 3 main Gibsons living at 131 P St NW. Nathaniel was a taxi driver. Mabel was still a teacher and married. I don’t know when Minnie died, but it was in the 1940s. Nathaniel died in 1967. Mabel Sparks died February 1970.

So that’s the genealogical story. Let’s see what the Recorder of Deeds’ land records say… ignoring the Basiliko part. There wasn’t a lot of activity. The first document is a trust from July 1929, for $450.00 at 6% from trustees, Nathan and R. Levins. A release, proved they paid the 1929 loan in 1931. In a March 3, 1945 deed it mentioned Minnie was dead.

In 1945 there was one of those deals where the owners transfer the property to someone who in the next document on the books transfers it back to one of the owners. The purpose appears to change the name of or add owners. So they transferred it to Helen M. Kuykendall, who immediately transferred it back to Nathanial Gibson and daughter Mabel G. Sparks.

The property leaves family control when Lloyd G. Webb, the devisee under Mabel’s will, (and Llyod’s wife Hilda J.)  when he sells to the Potomac Building Corporation January 1973. Potomac Building Corporation flipped it to J. Gerald Lustine (1345 14th St NW– his Reality Office).

 

Currently, what is left of lot 230 on Square 615 is part of 85-89 P St NW’s backyard. So this is one of those addresses that no longer exist.

George G. Harris and his wife Roberta both of Virginia. He was born in Fairfax, she Prince William county. He was born in 1872 the son of a farmer Anthony Harris and Sarah Harris. She in 1874, the daughter of Manassas laborer, Charles, and housekeeper, Roberta Coleman.

In 1900 George was a school teacher, living with his parents and siblings in Centerville, VA. They were married in 1904 in Prince William, VA. At the time Roberta was a 30 year old widow with a son named Benjamin Chavers. By 1910 the family was at 32A O St NW as George worked for the Post Office. By the 1920 census, when they lived at 1511 1st St NW,  George’s stepson had taken on his surname as Benjamin Harris, a 27 year old young man working as a chauffeur. George was still working at the Post Office for both the 1920 and 1930 census. Roberta passed away December 27, 1933.

The online DC Recorder of Deeds records go back to 1921, and the earliest record for 1511 1st St NW is a 1924 release for a March 1919 debt to trustees with Washington Loan and Trust Co. This is followed by a 1924 trust (loan) with trustees, with names I’ve seen several times, Henry H. Bergmann and Chapin Brown, with the Oriental Building Association. It looks like the Harris borrowed $2400. There are several more trusts and releases between 1924 and 1935.

In 1937 there are two deeds. It looks like the purpose of the two deeds were to acknowledge the death of Roberta Harris and to add George’s new wife Beulah E. Harris (formerly the widow Beulah E. Jetter) to the deed. They married December 31, 1936. But  by 1940 she was living a few blocks away at 1719 2nd St NW with the Adams family (in-laws).

Not sure what was going on with this 2nd marriage. There is no mention of Beulah in the releases George paid off in 1947. But these were trusts that were signed before the marriage.

The Harris name last appears in 1970. Supposedly they sell the property to the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency. I say supposedly because the document isn’t there. The correct one is not the one shown, but the metadata says they sold it to RLA. Beulah could have signed the document as she didn’t die until 1984.

 

In this case, not only was Otho Peters a Black home owner, he was also a doctor. If you consider pharmacists doctors. It’s 1920, so the rules may have been different.

Dr. E. Otho Peters would give health talks around town. That is what I could tell from looking him up in various publications. I discovered there was a publication called National Negro Health News. In the October-December 1946 edition of National Negro Health News, Dr. Peters is mentioned as heading Metropolitan Baptist Church’s health program. None of these publications cough up a photo of him and most are about the program his started at Metropolitan.

He also had an office on the next block at 100 P St NW, as an optician. In 1920 he was a druggist. In 1922 (where I found the ad in the Howard yearbook) he was an optician. Maybe medicine wasn’t so hyper specialized back then or a Black doctor could wear all sorts of hats. I don’t know.

So in 1920 Dr. Peters was living with his wife, Clara (ne Clara R. Wilson) who hailed from Massachusetts. They were newlyweds having been married on March 8, 1919, it was at least his second marriage. Also in the house was his new mother in law, the widow, Mary A. Wilson.

Looking back for the wife he divorced, I went to the 1910 census. He was a 25 year old lodger living at 939 R St NW working as a porter for a drug store. But looking for his past was hard. He changed up his birth year. In the 1920 census his estimated birth year is 1888 in West Virginia. The 1910 census has him at 1885 in Virginia. Then there is a variation on his name that pops up, E Otho Peters Jr.’s WW2 draft registration has his birth place as Martinsburg, PA in 1893. The other Othos would have been far too young to father a child. His contact person is Mrs. C. Roma Peters at 3335 Sherman Ave NW. He was also unemployed at the time (1942). I did find an Evening Star (9/11/1942) that stated Mrs. Peters was an artist and a well known singer(?). Her background says she was a teacher before marrying. This guy (and his wife) seem hard to pin down so I’ll end the genealogical portion here.

Let’s see what the land records say. The Recorder of Deeds land records go back to 1921, and the earliest record there are two 1923 trusts. I’m getting the feeling, looking at the trusts, that the property was in Clara’s name and Otho was added. That’s the ‘feeling’ I’m getting. I could be wrong. Anywho in the two March 1923 trusts were for $3500 and $1200 borrowed from individually named trustees at 7% interest. One of those trustees, Walter R. Wilcox is named on both of the trusts.

A release from April 1923 paid a March 17, 1921 debt in both Otho and Clara’s names. There are several more trusts and releases for years 1923, 1924, and 1925.

The Peters sell their home in November 1925 to William W. McClaine, another African American.

I should make a tag for Black home owning food service workers of Truxton Circle. In 1920 one did not need to have a fancy job to own a home in Truxton Circle. There have been several waiters and the odd cook who owned reasonably decent homes in this DC neighborhood, and John C. Weekly, waiter, was no different.

John Clauzell Weekly was born August 27, 1876 in northern Florida. It appears he and his older brother Charles, were raised by their grandparents William and Ellen Cole in Pensacola, FL. He married Mary Emma, who was born in Alabama, probably in Florida as that is where they lived in 1900 with their 3 year old son Gerner/ Garner. In 1910 the family was still in Florida where John was working as a bartender in a saloon. Around 1917/1918 they had moved to Truxton Circle but were living at 209 O St NW. After that, they moved to 79 P St NW.

It appears they were members of Ebenezer M.E. Church at 4th and D, SE. It was where funeral services for Mary Emma were held.

When I took a quick look at the DC Recorder of Deeds online records, which go as far back as 1921, I saw a trustees deed. When I see that, it tells me the homeowners defaulted on their loan and their creditors auction off the property to a new owner. I’ve seen this a couple of times. However, it appears the Weeklys were able to save their home.

In June 1924 the Weekys took on two mortgage like debts. One was in both John C. and Mary E. Weekly’s names with individual trustees for $250.00. The other was solely in Mary E. Weekly’s name with the Columbia Building Association, for $2,500.

In March 1927, the trustees (the Columbia Building Assoc. isn’t mentioned) advertised the auctioning of 79 P St NW in the Evening Star. It appears Mary E. Weekly had defaulted on the loan. The winner of the auction was John C. Weekly, who paid $4550 for the privilege of not losing his home.

In 1925, Mary died. There is a deed from February 1925 where Mary’s only surviving sister, Missie Ervin of Chambers County, AL deeded her interest to John.

John married Diamond F. Blair in 1925. In 1933, John died. His widow Diamond sold the property in late 1939.