d on H Street at the corner of Connecticut Avenue. Daniel
Webster had lived there before him. The flowering trees in the spring
hung over the high brick wall on the Connecticut Avenue side and
gladdened the hearts of all who saw them. It was a sad day for
Washington, historically, when that whole square was reconstructed. If
only one could endow old houses!

At last, on the 24th of February, 1888, W. W. Corcoran, as he was always
known, was laid to rest in his own beautiful Oak Hill. I remember as a
little girl standing at the window of my home facing 31st Street and
hearing the bell of near-by Christ Church toll ninety strokes as
carriage after carriage passed slowly up the hill. My brother and I
counted them, and there were ninety-nine.

George Peabody, the third of my trio of philanthropists who got their
start in Georgetown, was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, on February 18,
1795. He was descended from an old yeoman family of Hertfordshire,
England, named Pabody or Pebody. At eleven years he was an apprentice in
a grocery store, and at fifteen, by his father's death, he was left an
orphan and was cheerfully helping to support his mother and sisters. He
soon after left Danvers and became an assistant to his uncle in his
business in Georgetown. When he was seventeen he served as a volunteer
in the War of 1812 in the artillery company of Major George Peter
against the British, which is interesting, as in later life he was
offered a baronetcy by Queen Victoria, which he refused.

[Illustration: GEORGE PEABODY]

After the war, when he was about nineteen, he became a partner with
Elisha Riggs in a dry goods store in Georgetown and through his energy
and skill the business increased tremendously. They moved to Baltimore,
and when his partner retired, about 1830, he found himself, according to
_The Encyclopaedia Britannica_, at the head of one of the largest
mercantile concerns in the world. About seven years afterwards he
established himself in London as a merchant and money-broker at Wonford
Court in the city, and in 1843 he withdrew from the American business.

He was never married. He was a very intimate friend of Mr. Corcoran's,
and in several letters to him speaks jokingly of himself as a confirmed
old bachelor, and in one flouts the idea that he is attentive to a
certain lady, saying that he never but once seriously thought of
marriage.

Of course, he and Mr. Corcoran were near the same age and were both
maki