Washington, DC

The Decatur House is located across from Lafayette Square. It was the first private house built on the square, which was at the time known as President’s Park and still considered part of the White House grounds. The only other structures on the square when it was built were the White House and St. John’s Episcopal Church. The house was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who also worked on the Church and White House.

Decatur House gets its name from Stephen Decatur, who had the house built for him and his wife in 1818. Stephen Decatur’s claim to fame came from his conquests in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. They did not live in the house long, though, because he was killed in a duel in 1820. His wife kept the house for some years afterwards renting it out to different dignitaries, including Henry Clay and Martin Van Buren. In 1836, she sold it to John Gadsby, who owned the famous tavern in Alexandria, Virginia, that is to this day still operating. He added a two story building to the back of the house, which now serves as the special exhibit space for the museum and a shop with all kinds of gifts. In 1956, the Decatur House was given to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

You can see the inside of the Decatur House by taking a tour. When I visited back in January the tour was limited in what you could see, as they were working on a major renovation, but they said that part of the house should be reopened this month (March 2008). Tours are offered Fridays and Saturdays 10am to 5pm with tours leaving at a quarter past the hour and lasting about 30 to 45 minutes. Tours are also offered between 12pm and 4pm on Sundays. Tours cost a suggested donation of $5 per person, which can be placed in the box near the entrance to the Museum. The museum entrance is located at 1610 H Street, NW and the nearest Metro stops are Farragut West on the Blue and Orange Lines and Farragut North on the Red Line.

This Thursday I visited the Lincoln Cottage. It is easily accessed about 0.75 miles from the Georgia Avenue Metro Station on the Yellow and Green Lines. You just walk up Rock Creek Church Road to get there. There are also nearby Metrobus stops including the H8 that runs to/from the Georgia Avenue Metro Station or Brookland Metro Station if you go the other way on it. Note that the Georgia Avenue Metro Elevator is closed because of construction and this is not listed on the Metro’s elevator outage website. It was a minor inconvenience to have to take my brother, who uses a wheelchair, up the escalator because they never even announced it on the train when we got off that the elevator was out at this station, which they usually do. Anyways on the way back we took the H8 to the Brookland Metro Station, thanks to research done by the helpful staff at Lincoln’s Cottage.

We arrived about 30 minutes before our tour time and browsed through the exhibits at the Visitor Center. The exhibits are well done including interesting movies to watch in one area. There is also the interactive exhibit where you can look at the desks of different cabinet members in Lincoln’s time on a touch screen and touching the different papers zooms in so you can read them.

The tour starts in a small room in the visitor’s center. It starts with a short introductory movie about Lincoln and his times at the cottage. You are then taken over to the Lincoln Cottage for a guided tour. Since we had my brother we were taken around to a side entrance that led to an elevator to get to the first level of the house. The elevator is small and barely big enough for more than a wheelchair and two people. Probably best that just one person accompanies the person in a wheelchair. This elevator also goes to the second floor, which is kind of just a landing. From here there is a wheelchair lift to go up to the third floor, which is the second floor shown on the tour. The lift has not proved reliable to them and it has been working on and off since opening. When we visited it was not working. It was only about eight steps though to carry my brother and then the chair up the stairs.

On the tour we were shown a variety of rooms and told more about Lincoln and his time here, such as receiving guests and an assassination attempt that happened as he was riding home on night. Throughout the tour many of the rooms have a television that shows images as it is narrated in part by the tour guide, but mostly by a narration playing through speakers in the ceiling. Some rooms have just speakers and narration is played based on quotes people said. In fact the tour guide says very little themselves, but it is not that they are not knowledgeable because they will take questions and for the most part had no problem answering them. The only one she could not answer was understandable because it was not related at all to his time at the cottage.

Overall this is an interesting historical place to visit, although the rooms are all pretty bear because they have no original furniture. There is some replicated furniture placed in some of the rooms and you are welcome to sit on all the chairs. There is even a desk replicated from the original that used to be here, but is now in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House.

Today for the first time ever the President Lincoln Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home opens to the public. It has just completed a seven year renovation project sponsored through the National Trust of Historic Preservation. Guided tours are the only way to see the Lincoln Cottage. Tickets must be purchased for the tours and it is recommended you purchase them online here in advance. Tickets cost $12 for adults, $6 for children ages 6 to 12, and $8 for National Trust Members. The tours last about an hour. Tours begin on the hour starting at 10am Monday through Saturday with the last tour starting at 3pm. On Sundays the first tour is at 12pm and the last tour is at 3pm. Starting April 1st they will go into summer hours and the last tour times will be 4pm with the starting tour times staying the same.

The visitors center is open daily 9:30am to 4:30pm (6:30pm when summer hours begin April 1st). It appears this is free and does not require a ticket. Here there are four self-guided exhibits related to Lincoln, the Civil War, and the Lincoln Cottage. There is also an interactive exhibit called Lincoln’s Toughest Decisions and a Special Exhibitions Gallery. The Special Exhibitions Gallery will have the Emancipation Proclamation on display with associated artifacts as its first exhibit.

President Abraham Lincoln used this home as a seasonal home from June to November in 1862, 1863, and 1864. He would commute to the White House alone in his early days as President, but later as the Civil tensions increased he was talked into allowing a cavalry escort. In 1864, there was an assassination attempt that failed when President Lincoln was riding alone to the cottage. From then on he was assigned a personal bodyguard to be with him at all times, which obviously in the end did not work out too well.

This sounds like a great historical site that is new in that the public can see it and is by far easier to get into than the White House, but has also served a similar purpose in the past. I sure cannot wait to get over here in the next few weeks and when I do I plan to write a special post about seeing it along with some photos (depends on what they allow).