Perched above the Potomac River, Mount Welby was nearly surrounded by the war in August 1814. Mary Welby DeButts describes hearing “every fire” from the Battle of Bladensburg and how the house was illuminated by fires in Washington. She writes of finding rockets “on our hill” and that a British fleet “lay directly before our house.”Mount Welby was in earshot of explosions that destroyed Fort Washington and within view of the plundering of Alexandria.
Conflicting Loyalties
The war was especially hard for Mount Welby’s owners, Dr. Samuel DeButts from Ireland and his wife Mary from England. Unable to access English banks and markets, the British sympathizers struggled to keep their farm.
“You know not how it hurt me to think I was so near my Countrymen, and must look upon them as Enemy.”
–Mary Welby DeButts to Millicent Welby Ridgehill, March 18, 1815.
(Inscription under the image on the right)
Congreve rockets, named for the inventor, were a new military weapon used by British land and naval forces. Three Congreve rockets landed near the DeButts home at Mount Welby.
(War of 1812) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
After the Civil Disturbances following the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, 14th Street appeared largely abandoned by day. By night, however, residents witnessed scenes of the “world's oldest profession,” Since the 1950s, when prostitution migrated here from downtown DC, men in cars from around the region seeking women caused traffic jams. This trade flourished because prostitutes were often bailed out of jail within hours and returned to the streets. In addition three police districts intersected at 14th and L Streets, so instead of making arrests, officers often simply shooed prostitutes and their customers into someone else's district. “You don't want your crime rate to go up,” one officer told a reporter in 1989, “so you make them go somewhere else.” On one notable summer night that year, a police sergeant trying to send them “somewhere else” marched 24 women all the way to the 14th Street Bridge. Undaunted, the women returned in cabs.
At one time, Rock Creek hosted a large number of flour mills, saw mills, and other industries. The force of the creek's waters, dropping more than 160 feet over 33 miles, gave the mills their power. The region's farms provided abundant raw materials. Wagon path allowed farmers to transport their grain to the mills and their flour to market. The nearby port of Georgetown offered access to more distant customers. It was a near-perfect combination.
Born in Ashtabula County, Ohio in April 1852, Granville Eades Waters came to Texas in 1871. He settled in the north central part of the state before moving to Shackelford County in 1876. The next year, he wed Rennie Harris, daughter of a Waco mayor. The couple settled in a log cabin near Deep Creek, a few miles north of Hulltown (present Moran). With their five sons, they faced the hardships of frontier life; the closest post office was in Fort Griffin, and the nearest railroad connected Dallas to Fort Worth.
After Hulltown (later Moran) was founded in 1883, nearby Dennis and Johnson cemeteries were the only burial grounds. In 1896, Moran citizens elected local business leaders Matthew D. Bray, Aaron J. Thomas and John W. Despain as trustees for the purpose of laying out and supervising a public burial ground. On March 19, 1896, the trustees bought a 2 1/3 acres two miles east of Moran from Mr. and Mrs. M.C. Townsend for $29.16. Additional acreage was later acquired in 1951 (from L.L. Harris), 1953 (from Jim Tom Brooks), and 1981 (from Brenda Martin). The oldest marked grave belongs to Lucy Brazell Snider, who died on February 22, 1896. Several Moran pioneers, including G.E. Waters, C.B. Snyder, Jim Cottle, R.A. Elliott, M.D. Bray and many others, as well as numerous military veterans, are among more than 1,800 individuals buried here.
Darien
Originally part of Stamford, this area became Middlesex Parish in 1737. It was incorporated as the Town of Darien in 1820. Settlement had begun about 1700 when the first roads were cut “in the woods.” In 1703 a school district was set up in Noroton. Five years later Scofield’s Mill (afterward called Gorham’s Mill) was built on Good Wife’s River. By 1744 a meetinghouse was completed and the Reverend Moses Mather became first minister. During the American Revolution, Middlesex Parish was frequently raided by local Tories who had fled to Lloyd’s neck on Long Island. They disrupted services at the meetinghouse on July 22, 1781, captured Dr. Mather and forty-seven other men, and transported them across the Sound. Dr. Mather with twenty-six of his parishioners suffered five months in foul British prisons in New York City before those who survived their confinement were exchanged and returned to their homes. 
District Description:
Erected about 1828 under direction of Charles Bulfinch, Architect of the Capitol, this gate house stood until 1874 with another (now at 15th and Constitution Avenue) at the west entrance to the Capitol Grounds.
