Walter Pierce Park adams mill road and ontario place nw
walter pierce park sits at the edge of the Rock Creek Valley. Once home to Native Americans, it had attracted European settlers by 1703 .Before John Quincy Adams became president in 1825 ,he pur- chased Adams Mills on Rock Creek from his cousin. The mills,just down the hill,processed flour and plaster.While other millers here relied on slave labor, the anti-slavery Adams refused to do so. The park was once part of a pair of cemeteries, African American and Quaker, established back when this hilltop lay beyond the city limits.After the Smithsonian began building the National Zoo in 1889 ,the cemetery associations moved remains nearest the zoo to other locations,including Woodlawn Cemetery in Northeast Washington. In 1941 excavations began for new apartments where the park is today.But more graves were uncovered, so work stopped.In 1981 residents succeeded in creating Community Park West on the empty site. In 1991 the park was renamed for the late Walter Pierce,a high-profile member of the coalition that created it. That coalition included Washington’s Society of Friends (Quakers) and Charlotte Filmore, founder of the Filmore Early Learning Center. Filmore was born in 1898 and experienced three centuries before dying in 2002 at age 104 .Her cen- ter provided low-cost and free day care to more than 500 African American children. The center’s last location was 1811 Ontario Place. During winter you can see a mansion on the Zoo grounds.It is Holt House,purchased in 1844 by Dr.Henry Holt,who farmed the area.
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