On this self-guided walking tour of Barracks Row, historic markers lead you to: • John Philip Sousa’s birthplace and training ground • The oldest continuously manned Marine installation in the nation • Home of the first woman White House correspondent • Washington city’s oldest Episcopal church, where Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams worshipped • Some of Washington’s oldest houses • Washington’s earliest and largest industrial plant
Tour of Duty
1 BARRACKS ROW HERITAGE TRAIL
U.S.Marines and neighborhood children pose outside the old Marine Barracks,circa 1890.
Tucker’s Grocery (1919) operated from the house you can see to your right at the corner of Seventh and D from 1903 until 1935.
Edge of the Row ’ are just blocks from where you are standing. This is the northern edge of a Capitol Hill community shaped by the presence of the U.S.military.Eighth Street is its commercial center.The Washington Navy Yard anchors the far end, where Eighth Street meets the Anacostia River.At this end, just one block from here, is the Old Naval Hospital.And halfway in between is the Marine Barracks,home of the United States Marine Band and inspiration for a local boy who made good: John Philip Sousa. Eighth Street was planned as a commercial avenue leading to a natural harbor on the Anacostia River, where city designer Pierre L’Enfant desig- nated a future trade center.But in President John Adams decided instead to give the site to the Navy for its Washington shipyard. Either way,Eighth Street was destined to be a street of business.In President Thomas Jefferson added another military installation: the Marine Barracks at Eighth and I streets. Soon, as the Navy Yard became a major employer,small businesses emerged along Eighth. This spot became an early crossroads.Here Eighth Street intersected with a road that led from the ferry landing on the Anacostia to the site for the Capitol and beyond to Georgetown.That road is today’s Pennsylvania Avenue. This community grew with the young nation.As you walk this trail, you’ll see a variety of th- and early th-century building styles.They are reminders of the neighborhood’s economically diverse population – laborers,merchants,marines and sailors,and the politically powerful.
President John F. Kennedy speaks to sailors aboard the U.S.Coast Guard sail training ship Eagle at the Navy Yard.
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The brand-new Wallach School (1863),designed by noted architect Adolf Cluss,was locat- ed where you can see today’s Hine Junior High School across Pennsylvania Avenue.
L’Enfant’s original plan for Washington placed a mercantile exchange (trading center) where the Navy Yard is today.
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