r. Corcoran. Mr. Eustis, who had been
appointed Confederate Secretary of Legation at the same time that the
Honorable John Slidell was appointed Minister to France, after being
held a prisoner in Maine, went over to France, where he was joined by
his wife. Neither ever returned to this country. They made their home
there, their three children were born there, they died there, were
finally brought back and buried in Oak Hill under the beautiful little
Doric temple Mr. Corcoran had erected for his first Louise.

Those three grandchildren then became his pride and joy. But more and
more he absorbed himself in his benefactions. It is impossible to tell
all of them. Beginning with his gift of Oak Hill to Georgetown in 1849,
in 1850 a loan to the Roman Catholic Church there which, like all of his
loans, he eventually turned into gifts; in 1851 he gave an organ to the
Lunatic Asylum in Staunton, Virginia, saying he knew of nothing better
than to give music to those whose souls were so troubled. About this
time he gave the lot for the Washington City Orphan Asylum, and a little
later the one for the Y. M. C. A. For many years he had been collecting
painting and sculpture, both on his trips to Europe and from the various
persons who wrote to him soliciting his patronage. These were at first
kept in his own house, but then he decided to build a gallery and give
them to the City of Washington, so he erected the building on
Pennsylvania Avenue at the corner of 17th Street, directly opposite the
State, War and Navy Building. It was just nearing completion when the
Civil War began and was taken over by the United States Government as an
annex to the War Department, so that it was not until 1869 that it was
opened as the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1897 the collection was moved
to the beautiful new building lower down on 17th Street and was formally
opened on February 22nd by a brilliant reception at which were President
and Mrs. Cleveland and all of their Cabinet.

Above the doorway of the old building, in the stone, is still seen a
carved medallion with W. W. C. intertwined.

Just about that time, also, Mr. Corcoran began to build another of his
beneficent gifts to the city. His beloved daughter had died, and the
city and the country was filled with ladies who had been made penniless
by the cruel fratricidal war. In 1871 he turned over to the trustees the
Louise Home on Massachusetts Avenue, between 15th and 16th Streets, as a
hom