Table Of ContentA Hilltop in Foggy Bottom
A Hilltop in Foggy Bottom
Home of the Old Naval Observatory
and the
Navy Medical Department
by
Jan K. Herman
Historian
Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
Department of the Navy
Washington, DC
1996
Fourth Printing
Acknowledgments
For their gracious assistance in the preparation of this
volume, the author thanks Elizabeth J. Miller, Curator of
the Columbia Historical Society; Brenda Corbin, Theo
dore J. Rafferty, Steven J. Dick, Gail S. Cleere, and
James DeY oung, U.S. Naval Observatory; Sharon Gibbs
and Lee Johnson, National Archives; Deborah J. Warner
and Melody Kosmacki, Smithsonian Institution; Vir
ginia M. Novinski and Nancy R. Keesee, Bureau of Med
icine and Surgery; James Parmenter, Kevin Kaya, and
James Beasley, Bethesda Naval Hospital; Ruth Stines;
and Mary Hall Kilpatrick and Lawrence P. Hall, grand
children of Asaph Hall.
II
I
I
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II
Lighthouse of the Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Maury Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Magnetic Observatory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
i
The Gilliss Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Golden Age (Part I) ............................... .' .. 29
The Golden Age (Part II) ................................. 41
Miasmatic and Other Influences ............................ 52
The Naval Museum of Hygiene 1894-1902 ................... 61
Where Medical College Left Off: The
U.S. Naval Medical School and Naval
Hospital1902-1917 ... ............... ... .............. 67
The Greatest Physician . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Controversy and Transition 1917-1942 ...................... 76
III
Lighthouse of the Sky
The headquarters of the Bureau of another age. From 1844 to 1893 this ing the rudiments of astronomy and
Medicine and Surgery sits atop a National Historic Landmark housed celestial navigation. A colleague ofh is,
prime parcel of Washington real estate the U.S. Naval Observatory, the work LT John M. Brooke, also saw duty at
overlooking the Potomac River and place of Navy scientists and mathema the Observatory. Later, as a Confeder
the city's marble monuments. Atfirst ticians whose skill and perseverance ate officer, he would convert USS
glance, one could easily mistake the made this institution one of the finest Merrimack into the famous rebel iron
grounds for a venerable, old college astronomical laboratories in the clad, CSS Virginia.
campus- a quiet oasis plunked down world. There are the ghosts oft radition and
in the middle of the bustling neighbor Before the telescopes, transits, chro the stories based on fact. One tells ofa
hood called Foggy Bottom. Stately nometers, and other instruments were gaunt, melancholy, and war-weary
oaks that germinated in the mid-1800's moved to the Naval Observatory's Abraham Lincoln seeking a rare
shade a grouping of turn-of-the present site on the heights above moment of solace studying the
century buildings and gardens. Georgetown, the men that labored heavens through the Observatory's
The centerpiece is a two-story, here had left their marks. 9.6-inch telescope. And the story of
cream-yellow brick structure crowned As the Observatory's first Superin another famous visitor-Emperor
by a white dome that gleams in the tendent, LT Matthew Fontaine Dom Pedro of Brazil-whose royal
afternoon sun. The bureaucracy has Maury, considered to be the father of wish was to observe the Moon through
dubbed it Building Two and air condi modern oceanography, published an impenetrable Foggy Bottom
tioners now protrude from many ofi ts among other works Wind and Current overcast.
aged windows. Yet there is a classical Chart of the North Atlantic, Abstract There was the memorable August in
grandeur reflected in the Doric-style Log for the Use of American Naviga 1877 when Professor Asaph Hall
pilasters that decorate the front and tors, and The Physical Geography of peered through the largest refracting
rear facades. the Sea, the first oceanography text. telescope in the world at the time and
The once three-chimneyed east wing From his office on the first floor, he discovered the two satellites of Mars.
is now minus its dark wooden shutters, resigned in 1861 to join the Confeder Such stories and traditions are
and the finely turned railings that acy. many and the significance and contri
adorned the flat roofline are gone. But In the late 1840's Assistant Surgeon butions of what John Quincy Adams
the wing still retains the look of the Alexander Y. P. Garnett attended the termed "The Lighthouse of the Sky"
comfortable residence it once was. Observatory's officers. Dr. Garnett, are truly remarkable. Yet the history
Weathered, red, sandstone stairs, like his patient, LT Maury, went of Peter's Hill, Reservation Number 4,
grooved by an endless procession of South in 1861 and spent the Civil War University Square, Camp Hill, and
feet, and ornate wrought iron railings years attending President Jefferson Observatory Hill, as this parcel has
speak of a time when carriages rolled Davis as his personal physician. successively been called over the years,
up the drive to pick up and discharge Passed Midshipman John L. neither began when the Observatory
scientists and government dignitaries. Worden, later skipper of USS Moni was built nor ended when it moved 49
Building Two is indeed a relic from tor, began his naval career here learn- years later.
The blu:f.fwhere Tiber Creek met the Potomac was seen on early maps as a like~l' sitefora
fort. When the Marines came to Washington in 1800, they bivouacked on Camp Hill
while awaiting the construction of their barracks.
The Hill of Many Names 1768, to be called Hamburg, but in a forest ambush at the hands of their
The hill upon which the Naval Med Funkstown, as it became known, enemtes.
ical Command sits today barely never materialized. Provincial LTCOL George Wash
resembles the high point of ground In March 1755 British troop trans ington, one of Braddock's aides,
that existed when the white men came ports sailed up the Potomac carrying escaped unharmed. Years later, Presi
to the Potomac Valley over 3 centuries two regiments of regulars. General dent Washington, would have plans
ago. The river was wider then, unsilted Edward Braddock had come to Amer for the hill above "Braddock's Rock."
and free-flowing as it passed the ica to do battle with the French and By 1790 the Hill belonged to Robert
mouth of Rock Creek just below their Indian allies. His destination was Peter, a Georgetown merchant with
·Georgetown. the French-held Fort Duquesne in extensive property in the area pro
It is likely that local Indians once western Pennsylvania. On 12-13 April posed by George Washington to be the
came here to hunt and procure water; 1755, the Hill played a minor role in Federal City. Pierre Charles L'Enfant,
at least one spring was producing as the unfolding drama as the redcoats French expatriate, Revolutionary
late as the 1870's. and their arms were ferried the few War officer, and now master planner,
Humidity, the river's proximity, hundred yards across the Potomac began laying out the new national cap
and the contour of the land all contrib from Virginia to a rock on the river ital's wide boulevards, parks, and pub
uted to the frequent late night and bank.* Above it they bivouacked for lic buildings. Peter's Hill figured in
early morning mists that not only gave the night. Three months later, General these plans, for Peter and several other
the neighborhood its descriptive name Braddock and half his men were to die landowners deeded part of their hold
- Foggy Bottom- but shaped the ings to the Federal Government "for
Hill's destiny as well. the use of the United States forever."
The first evidence of ownership was *There is no evidence that the British general The area between 23rd and 25th
a grant of 600 acres by King Charles II ever set foot on this rock that now bears his Streets and between E Street and the
to John Longworth in 1664. The plot, name. All that remains today is a stone well on Potomac River was designated Reser
known as the Widow's Mite, was later the eastern approach to the Theodore Roosevelt vation Number 4.
merged with another tract called the Bridge. Fifteen feet or so below the present How Reservation Number 4 would
grade is NBraddock's RockN submerged beneath
Vineyard and renamed Mexico. A 20th century litter. That the river once reached be used became a subject of contro
town was plaRned for part of this this point illustrates how much of today's shore versy. Secretary of State Jefferson
holding by its owner, Jacob Funk, in is filled land. thought the high ground would be an
2
Three leading figures in the
Observatory's early history
U.S. Navul Ohstrv:Hory
President John Quincy Adams, himself an amateur astrono
mer, lived to see his dream realized.
U.S. Nav. . l Oh~l·rvalor~
... LT Matthew Fontaine Maury, "Pathfinder of the Seas,"
became its first Superintendent.
L T James M. Gil/iss supervised the Observatory's construction,
saw that it was furnished with modern instruments, and sadly
watched as . . .
3
This 1792 map shows battlements on the site of Reservation Number 4. L' Enfant had such
an idea in mind when he laid out the District of Columbia, but there is no evidence that a
fort was ever builr.
4
