e time he was Secretary of State in John Adams's administration
that he occupied this house.

Mr. Jefferson was never happy living in a town. I found this interesting
little tidbit about him in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_: "For eight
years he tabulated with painful accuracy the earliest and latest
appearance of 37 vegetables in the Washington market, and after his
return from France for 23 years he received from his old friend, the
superintendent of the JARDIN DES PLANTES, a box of seeds which he
distributed to public and private gardens throughout the United States."
So I think we might easily call him the founder of the Garden Clubs of
America, certainly of the Georgetown Garden Club.

Mr. Foxall was a convert to Wesleyanism, and a lay minister. He was in
the habit of entertaining the members of the Methodist Conference at
this home, and was once good-humoredly twitted by one of them in regard
to his inconsistent roles of "proclaimer of the gospel of peace and
forger of weapons of war." To this he replied: "If I do make guns to
destroy men's bodies, I build churches to save their souls."

At this foundry (then the only one south of Philadelphia), cannon were
cast for the American troops during the War of 1812. The artillery and
indeed all the military arms of this country were then very imperfect.
Foxall was the only founder in America who understood the proper mode of
manufacture. Here began the first manufacture of bored cannon in this
country, being vastly superior to the old ordnance. The abandonment and
recasting of the old-style guns speedily followed.

Commodore Perry would have no others on the little fleet he built at
Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie. The battle of Lake Erie was deferred until
Foxall could fill an order from the government for guns, and transport
them over the mountains on carts drawn by ten or twelve yoke of oxen to
the scene of the engagement. From the deck of his flagship _The
Lawrence_, manned by these guns from George Town, Perry sent his famous
message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours!"

[Illustration: HENRY FOXALL]

In 1814, when the British entered Washington and burned the Capitol and
the White House, this foundry, upon which the country depended so
largely for its supplies, was in imminent danger, and its owner vowed
that, if God would spare it, he would build a church to His glory. The
enemy had their face set in its direction when a sudden and violent
storm turned them fr