Harry Country river road and chesapeake street nw
by 1900, 12 large families — often intermarried — came to dominate the village that was Tennallytown: the Burrows, Chappell, Harry, Hurdle, Paxton, Perna, Poore, Queen, Riley, Robey, Shoemaker, and Walther clans. This is Harry country, home to five generations of the Harry clan. Sign 11 stands at the edge of what once was “Harry’s Field,” a favorite commu- nity playground. The first Harry in Tenleytown was John O., the U.S. postmaster who died in 1864. His grandson John B. Harry, known as Bernard, was born at 4509 Wisconsin Avenue in 1867. At age 20, he and a partner opened a grocery store in Foggy Bottom. For the next 69 years, Brooke and Harry’s served neighbors and delivered to the local elite, including J. Pierpont Morgan and occupants of the White House. Their Tenleytown-grown strawberries were a favorite of President Franklin Roosevelt. Decades before, that earlier Roosevelt president, Theodore, was known to stop at the Harrys’ apple orchards here. Brooke and Harry also operated an ice com- pany, a bakery, and a car showroom on nearby Wisconsin Avenue. Bernard built 4301 River Road in 1907, and four of his six children later built homes on his land, their offspring running freely with pals in and out of the family households. During World War II, Bernard lent neighbors more than 50 plots on Harry’s Field for victory gardens. Bernard’s house and his son John’s house next door came down when Georgetown Day High School purchased Harry’s Field for a new campus.
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