with a note from the captain, asking to have it cashed, and
specifying the number of dollar bills, fifty-cent pieces, quarters,
dimes, nickels, and pennies. A little colored boy who lived nearby was
commissioned occasionally to purchase necessary food, but the old man
himself never went out except after dark.

Finally, one day when the little boy came to do the errands, he could
get no answer to his knock, so he got a man to lift him up where he
could peer over the high board fence at the side and look into an open
window. Through it he saw the old gentleman, sprawled out in a big
chair, immovable. They broke into the house and found that he was
paralyzed. He could not speak, but shook his head when they said they
wanted to call help from the police. He was laid on a mattress on the
floor, and before long, all his troubles were over.

His nephew came from Chicago, bought a lot in Rock Creek Cemetery and
had the old gentleman decently buried. But not long after, his son in
New York, reading of it in the paper, came down and had his father
reinterred in the family lot in Oak Hill. So, in death, the old
gentleman was accorded the honor of two funerals.

[Illustration: _Courtesy Frick Art Reference Library_.

WASHINGTON BOWIE]

Chapter XIV

_Stoddert (Q) Street_

Coming east from Valley (32nd) Street is the lovely old house which the
Seviers bought in 1890. It has never had a name. It was built by
Washington Bowie, another of the shipping barons. His wife was Margaret
Johns before becoming Mrs. Bowie. This whole block was his estate and
was entered in his day through the double iron gates on West (P) Street.
The carriages passed up and around a circle of box to the path, bordered
with box leading to the porch with its lovely doorway. The doors opening
into the hall that runs right through are of solid mahogany with big old
brass locks. In the dining room is an especially beautiful white wood
mantel, carved with a scene of sheep and shepherds. The tradition is
that L'Enfant planned the garden, and also left his spectacles lying on
the piano.

In 1805 the place was bought by William Nicolls of Maryland, whose wife
was Margaret Smith, a descendant of Captain John Smith. They had two
daughters, Roberta, who married William Frederick Hanewinckel of
Richmond, and Jennie, who married Colonel Hollingsworth. The
Hanewinckels used to come back to the old home sometimes in the summer,
even to the grandchildren, and t