forth
to church, the long veil floating out behind. One evening she was struck
by an automobile and killed instantly. The niece to whom she had left
her little house had made an arrangement with a middle-aged woman living
there that if she took care of "Aunt Martha" she could have the house
tax free all her days. Her days are still continuing--and with all the
advance in prices of houses, the niece can't do a thing about the house!

The dear little white frame cottage just above here on Montgomery (28th)
Street, was built about 1840, and occupied by Benjamin F. Miller, who
came from Saugerties, New York, as an engineer, to construct the
Aqueduct Bridge which carried the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal across the
river to Virginia. And, on the corner of Montgomery (28th) and Stoddert
(Q) Streets is the last of the big Dodge houses on the corners of
Georgetown. It is the one built by Robert Perley Dodge in 1850. He and
his brother, Francis Dodge, junior, used practically the same plans for
their houses. Robert Dodge was a civil engineer, and, I think, had
something to do with the planning of the Aqueduct Bridge.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert Dodge became a paymaster in the
Union Army. After the war, he became identified with the government of
the District of Columbia, serving as treasurer and auditor for several
years until he died. It is said he planted the enormous maple trees that
adorn this block of 28th Street.

During the first World War, when this house had stood a long time
untenanted and sad, it was opened up as a night club called "The
Carcassonne," and postals were sent out advertising "Coffee in the Coal
Bin." These were the days of prohibition. Somebody who lived there
played the piano, incessantly. The Ballengers had lived here; the
Powells, and Major Gilliss; and then Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick (now Mrs.
Albert Simms), lived here until she bought three houses down on 30th
Street below N Street, and made them into one very attractive house with
an unusual and lovely garden.

Later Honorable Warren Delano Robbins, a first cousin of Franklin D.
Roosevelt and one of the ushers at his wedding, and at one time Minister
to Canada, bought this house, changed it somewhat and made it very
lovely in its new dress of yellow paint on the old plaster.

When he went to Ottawa he leased it to Honorable Dwight F. Davis, former
Secretary of War, once Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, and
also donor of th