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Posted by Stephen Hansen

The Story of St. Thomas Church: A Rise From the Ashes

The story of St. Thomas church at 1772 Church Street, NW began in 1886 when Reverend John Abel Aspinwall moved to Washington, DC.  Aspinwall was the son of William Aspinwall,  president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company who had built the Panama Railroad across Panama.  Due to poor health, John Aspinwall resigned as the rector of a church in Bay Ridge, Long Island, where he had been serving as rector for 21 years.   After a three-year rest, and perhaps in search of another wealthy congregation, Aspinwall came to Washington, purchasing a mansion at 17 Dupont Circle.  Upon his arrival, he became active in the formation of St. Thomas Parish and served as its first rector.  The parish’s first congregation began meeting in 1890 with a mere handful of people, worshipping in the abandoned Holy Cross Episcopal Church on Dupont Circle (now the site of the Sulgrave Club today at 1801 Massachusetts Avenue).  That parish had closed due to financial troubles a few years before (most of the weal
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Posted by Stephen Hansen

Map of Historic Sites

Map by Matthew B. Gilmore for Stephen Hansen.


Links will be provided for articles as they are posted.

1.    Western Burial Ground (Holmead’s Cemetery), Florida Avenue and Twentieth Street.
2.    Guy Graham, 1700 block of Connecticut Avenue.
3.    Ridgeway Tavern, Twentieth Street between R and S Streets.
4.    Douglass Gardens, Connecticut Avenue, S Street and Florida Avenue.
5.    William O’Neale’s farm, 1600 block of Connecticut Avenue.
6.    Hopkins Brickyard.
7.    Stewart’s Castle, Dupont Circle.
8.    Curtis Hillyer/Mary Townsend, 2121 Massachusetts Avenue.
9.    British Legation, 1300 Connecticut Avenue.
10.  William Galt/Gardiner Greene Hubbard/Edson Bradley, 1328 Connecticut Avenue.
11.  Phillips Row, 1302–1314 Connecticut Avenue.
12.  Samuel Carter, 1316 Connecticut Avenue.
13.  William Helmsley Emory, 1301 Connecticut Avenue.
14.  Beldon Noble/Stanley McCormick, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue.
15.  Miller-Hopkins houses, 1347 Connecticut Avenue and 1826 Massachusetts Avenue.
16.  Force School, Massachusetts Avenue between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets.
17.  James Blaine/George Westinghouse, 2000 Massachusetts Avenue.
18.  Charles Van Wyck, 1800 Massachusetts Avenue.
19.  Holy Cross Church/Henry Wadsworth, 1801 Massachusetts Avenue.
20.  David Yulee, 1305 Connecticut Avenue.
21.  Azor Nickerson, 7 Dupont Circle.
22.  Alexander Graham Bell, 1331 Connecticut Avenue.
23.  Charles Bell, 1325 Connecticut Avenue.
24.  Dupont Circle Park with Du Pont Statue and Fountain.
25.  Marguerite Lammont Du Pont, 1321 New Hampshire Avenue.
26.  Anastasia Patten, 2122 Massachusetts Avenue.
27.  A.M. Gibson/Reverend John Abel Aspinwall, 17 Dupont Circle.
28.  St. Thomas’ Parish Church, Eighteenth and Church Streets.
29.  Church of the Covenant, Connecticut Avenue and N Street.
30.  John Field/George Hearst, 1400 New Hampshire Avenue.
31.  Alice Pike Barney, 1626 Rhode Island Avenue.
32.  Theodore Roosevelt, 1215 Nineteenth Street.
33.  Grace Litchfield, 2010 Massachusetts Avenue.
34.  Levi Leiter, 1500 New Hampshire Avenue.
35.  Thomas Franklin (“T. F.”) Schneider, 1539 Eighteenth Street.
36.  Sarah Whittemore, 1526 New Hampshire Avenue.
37.  Christian Heurich, 1307 New Hampshire Avenue.
38.  William Boardman, 1801 P Street.
39.  Julia Grant, 2111 Massachusetts Avenue.
40.  Duncan Phillips, 1600 Twenty-first Street.
41.  Thomas Nelson Page, 1759 R Street.
42.  John Watson Foster, 1323 Eighteenth Street.
43.  William Clark/Winthrop Murray Crane, 1915 Massachusetts Avenue.
44.  Larz Anderson, 2118 Massachusetts Avenue.
45.  Thomas Walsh, 2020 Massachusetts Avenue.
46.  Elinor Patterson, 15 Dupont Circle.
47.  Thomas Gaff, 1520 Twentieth Street.
48.  Clarence Moore, 1746 Massachusetts Avenue.
49.  Perry Belmont, 1618 New Hampshire Avenue.
50.  Sallie Hitt, 1511 New Hampshire Avenue.
51.  Emily Wilkins, 1700 Massachusetts Avenue.
52.  Nicholas and Alice Roosevelt Longworth, 2009 Massachusetts Avenue.

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