The Green family of Rosedale owned burial plots in Holy Rood Cemetery; here are a few of their stories.
Ann Forrest Green (Forrest-Rosedale Collection)
The Revolutionary War veteran (and Washington real estate speculator) Uriah Forrest died in 1805, and his widow in 1843, at which time Rosedale––the farmhouse that still stands at 3501 Newark Street––passed to their daughter, Ann Forrest Green.
While her parents attended Georgetown Presbyterian Church, and were buried in Georgetown’s Presbyterian Burial Ground, Ann Forrest converted to Catholicism after her marriage to John Green (1782-1850). John Green was a purser in the United States Navy in the War of 1812, and served aboard Commodore Decatur’s flagship in the Second Barbary War (1815).
As a purser, Green narrowly avoided disgrace; detached from the brig Hornet in 1811, because his records ledgers and checkbooks were chaotic and incomplete, Green was rescued by another accountant’s reconstruction (1813-1814) of the missing accounts. Through the good offices of his uncle, Col. William Richardson (1735-1825), a veteran of the Maryland Line in the Revolutionary War, Green then obtained a clerkship in the Navy Commissioners’ Office, which he held for many years.
(Samuel Putnam Wald, The Life and Character of Stephen Decatur: Late Commodore and Post-Captain in the Navy of the United States and Navy Commissioner, 1821, p.368; Peter Force, The National Calendar, and Annals of the United States, Volume X, 1832, p.136; Register of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution in the District of Columbia, 1910; Louise Mann-Kenney, Rosedale, The Eighteenth Century Country Estate of General Uriah Forrest, Cleveland Park, Washington D.C., 1989; Christopher McKee, A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession: The Creation of the U.S. Naval Officer Corps, 1794-1815, 1991, p.376; Thomas L. Lalley, “The Early History of St. Ann’s Church, Washington, D.C.”, The Catholic Historical Society of Washington Newsletter, October-December 2003)
John Green, circa 1815 (National portrait Gallery, Corcoran Gallery, Forrest-Rosedale Collection)
After his death John Green’s portrait by C.B.J Fevret de Saint-Mémin was sometimes mistaken for that of Stephen Decatur. “Saint Memin’s inaccuracy in marking his portraits in the Corcoran Gallery collection has led to much confusion. A case in point is that of the portrait marked Stephen Decatur, which also bears the name of John G. Barnwell in the French artist’s handwriting, and it is, according to Mrs. Maria Green Devereux, who owned the original copper plate, really a portrait of her father, John Green, purser or paymaster in the United States Navy. Green was born in Somerset County, Md., in 1782, and died in Washington, in 1850, at his home in Cleveland Park.” (Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, Vol.LI, No.1, July, 1917, p.298)
John Green died at Rosedale on February 22, 1850, at the age of 72. His wife, Ann Forrest Green, died at Rosedale, September 13, 1870, at age 71. They are buried together at Holy Rood Cemetery (Section 41, lot 400).
St. Ann’s Church, circa 1890. (Tenleytown Historical Society)
Ann Forrest Green was instrumental in the founding of St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Tenleytown, for which the cornerstone was laid in 1867. (Thomas L. Lalley, “The Early History of St. Ann’s Church, Washington, D.C.”, The Catholic Historical Society of Washington Newsletter, October-December 2003)
John and Ann’s son, George Forrest Green, born at Rosedale circa 1829, married Maria Devereux (1821?-1902?) in 1861. He was for many years Water Register of the District of Columbia. In 1868 Green built Forrest Hill (3542 Newark Street), which he sold in 1886 to Grover Cleveland (who remodeled it, called it Oak View. President Cleveland’s 1886 purchase of part of Pretty Prospects––and a piece of Terra Firma along the western boundary––for his summer house, “Oak View”, added impetus to residential development, and his sale of that same property––at a handsome profit––to F.G. Newlands, of the “California Syndicate”, marked the birth of Cleveland Park.
George Forrest Green is buried in Holy Rood Cemetery.
“The President’s Washington Property”, New York Sun, May 28, 1886, p.2; “Cleveland’s Big Profit”, Washington Post, August 1, 1891, p.8; “Land Investors Well Rewarded For Confidence”, Washington Post, December 6, 1927, p.D1; Estates in Georgetown Bequeathed”, Washington Post, October 25, 1891, p.9; “Funeral On Friday For Aged Pioneer––George Forrest Green, of Revolutionary Stock, Dies, Nearly Eighty Years Old”, Washington Times, December 16, 1908, p.8; Washington Herald, January 13, 1909, p.7; “Green Funeral Tomorrow”, Washington Post, May 13, 1930, p.4; “Ann F.G. Wheat”, Washington Post, July 19, 1956, p.16)
George Forrest Green. Banker and official. Born at “Rosedale,” Georgetown, D.C., July 14, 1835. Died in Washington, December 15, 1908. Great-grandson of George Plater, second governor of Maryland. Grandson of Uriah Forrest, colonel of artillery in the Revolutionary Army.
Mr. Green was the son of John Green, of Cecil County, Md., a purser in the United States Navy, who served aboard Commodore Decatur’s flagship in the war with Tripoli, and of Ann Forrest Green. He was born at “Rosedale,” the family homestead above Georgetown, which was purchased and rebuilt by his maternal grand-father, General Uriah Forrest, about 1794. When a young boy he attended Morrison’s school, located, it is thought, in the neighborhood of what is now Franklin Park, Washington.
At about the age of 16, he received an appointment in the Navy Department, and remained there until 1861. Later on Mr. Green was connected with the banking house of Middleton & Co., of Washington, and continued with that concern until 1886, when he entered the service of the District government, afterward becoming Water Registrar. On September 30, 1905, because of ill health, he resigned and retired from active life.
He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati in the state of Maryland. In 1860, Mr. Green married Maria Devereux, daughter of William Devereux, at one time United States Commissioner to treat with the Indian tribes. He lived at “Rosedale” until 1868, when he moved to his new home, “Forrest Hill” (formerly a part of “Rosedale”), and which in 1886 he sold to President Cleveland, who renamed it “Oak View.”
Thereafter Mr. Green removed to Georgetown, and for twenty years, up to the time of his death, resided at 3018 Dumbarton avenue. Mr. Green was a life-long member of the Catholic Church and his funeral was held at Holy Trinity Church on December 18, Rev. Father Harlin, the pastor, officiating, assisted by Rev. Father Mallon, pastor of St. Ann’s Church, Tennallytown. He was buried at Holy Rood Cemetery, Georgetown.
Register of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution in the District of Columbia, 1910
John and Ann’s son, Osceola C. Green (1838-1895), born at Rosedale, married Eastmond Pile, daughter of Richard Parris Pile, of Eden Bower. He was a government contractor during Civil War, and in 1872 he became a real estate broker, and sat on the boards of the Bank of the Republic, the Traders’ Bank, and the Metropolitan Street Railroad.
When Osceola Green’s mother died in 1870 she devised the “new ground field” of Rosedale to Osceola. In 1888 Green sold this land to Gardiner Greene Hubbard, founder and first president of the National Geographic Society, who built Twin Oaks (3225 Woodley Road).
Osceola Green died at Rosedale, and was buried next to his mother in Holy Rood Cemetery (Section 41, lot 400).
“Osceola C. Green Dead”, Washington Post, June 18, 1895, p.1; “Funeral of Osceola C. Green”, Washington Post, June 20, 1895, p.10; William Wirt Henry, Ainsworth Rand Spofford, Eminent and Representative Men of Virginia and the District of Columbia, 1893, p.134; Samuel C. Busey, Pictures of the City of Washington in the Past, 1898; 1880 census; “Suburban––West Washington”, Washington Post, February 2, 1890, p.10; “Col. Richard Parris Pile”, Washington Post, May 23, 1901, p.7; “Social and Personal”, Washington Post, October 8, 1904, p.7)
Maria Green Devereux (1819-1902), daughter of John and Ann Green of Rosedale, died at the home of her brother, George F. Green, 3018 Dumbarton Avenue. She was a District of Columbia Regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the widow of William Devereux of the Indian Department, special and disbursing agent for fulfilling treaties with the Osages. (“Died”, Washington Post, December 10, 1902, p.3)
She is buried in Holy Rood Cemetery (Section 19, lot 204).
Fielding Lewis Jr.––the son of Mary Imogen Green, and the grandson of John and Ann Green of Rosedale––was a graduate of the Georgetown University Law School, and settled in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), where he died in 1908. His body was brought to Washington for interment in Holy Rood Cemetery. (“Body on Way Here––Fielding Lewis, Member of District Bar, Died in Oklahoma”, Washington Post, November 18, 1908, p.13)
Fielding Lewis was born at Marmion, King George County, Virginia, April 9, 1867, and was the only son of Fielding Lewis and Imogene Green Lewis and came to South McAlester, Indian Territory, (now McAlester, Pittsburg County, Oklahoma) about the year 1891 where he died on November 9, 1908.
He was a direct descendant of illustrious families of Revolutionary days, being the great-great grandson of Fielding Lewis who married Betty Washington, the only sister of General George Washington, the first president of the United States; his mother being the grand daughter of the third governor of Maryland, a grandson of General Uriah Forrest of revolutionary fame.
“Marmion”, where the subject of this article was born, was built in 1670 by Colonel William Henry Fitzhugh, who later sold it to Major George Lewis, son of Fielding Lewis and Betty Washington Lewis, and is now the property of Mrs. Carter Grymes, sister of Fielding Lewis, having been in the possession of the Lewis family from the date of its purchase from Colonel Fitzhugh to the present.
The boyhood days of Fielding Lewis were spent at Marmion where he was taught by private instructors, one of whom was Miss Virgie Patterson, who afterwards married Col. J. D. Bradford and came to South McAlester, Colonel Bradford being General Manager of the Choctaw Coal &c Railway Company, now a part of the Rock Island System. A about the age of fifteen years Fielding was sent to St. John’s Military School at Alexandria, Virginia, and after four years at that school he entered Georgetown University Law School in the Agricultural Department at Washington, D. C. He graduated from the law school at the age of 22 years and afterwards took a post-graduate course in the same institution.
Upon being admitted to the Bar he located in Richmond, Virginia, and engaged in the practice of law, remaining there only a short time. Colonel and Mrs. Bradford who were then living in the Indian Territory, about the year 1891, persuaded Lewis to cast his lot with them in a new and coming country of the West. Arriving at South McAlester he was at first employed in one of the departments of the railroad of which Colonel Bradford was manager.
He had been in the employ of the railroad company only a short time when he was appointed Deputy United States Clerk for the second division of the United States Court in the Indian Territory, serving under Joe W. Phillips, United States Clerk of said court. When the Act of Congress of March 1st. 1895, (28 Stat. 693) was passed and approved and the Indian Territory divided into three judicial districts with a judge over each district, an appellate court was provided for and Lewis was appointed the first Clerk of the Indian Territory Court of Appeals. He served as such clerk until a change in the national administration brought with it a change in the personnel of the court and consequently a new clerk. Leaving the office of clerk he entered the practice of law, forming a partnership with William J. Horton, at present an honored member of the McAlester bar.
Lewis having in the year 1896 married Lidy Elliot daughter of Col. and Mrs. Georg Elliot, U. S. A., was compelled on account of the health of his wife to leave McAlester and was away for almost a year and the partnership with Horton was dissolved. After his wife’s death in 1901, Lewis returned to McAlester and again entered the practice of law, forming partnership with J. G. Harley which was dissolved upon Lewis, election as Mayor of McAlester, in which office he served during the years 1902 and 1903.
After serving as Mayor he again engaged in the practice of his profession and was so engaged at the coming of statehood in 1907 Lewis was made Assistant Attorney General of Oklahoma under General West, the first Attorney General of the State. After serving as Assistant Attorney General for about a year or less he resigned and returned to McAlester and became a member of the law firm of Stuart and Gordon composed of Judge C. B. Stuart, now of Oklahoma City, and Judge James H. Gordon of McAlester, Oklahoma.
It was shortly after becoming a member of the firm of Stuart, Gordon & Lewis that he became ill and died as a result of ptomaine poisoning contracted from eating unwholesome food while on a business trip to the Southeastern part of the state.
(“Necrology”, Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol.5, No.3, September, 1927)
Elizabeth Rousby Quesenberry’s grave (Holy Rood Cemetery, section 19, lot 204).
Elizabeth Rousby Green (1823-1896), born at Rosedale, daughter of John and Ann Forrest Green, married Nicholas Austin Quesenberry of Virginia. During the Civil War the Confederate signal service operated a station on Mrs. Quesenberry’s Virginia farm, and John Wilkes Booth stopped there on his escape from Washington in 1865. An account of Mrs. Quesenberry’s brush with history was published by a family historian in the year she died; although rich in detail, it may contain embellishments.
(Regarding Confederate signal and intelligence services, and Booth’s connection to them, see Edwin C. Fishel, The Secret War for the Union, 1996; and Edward Steers, Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 2001.)
Extract from Genealogical Memoranda, by A.C. Quisenberry, 1896
Nicholas [Quesenberry], son of George, owned an extensive plantation on Machodoc creek, one mile from the Potomac river, in King George county, where his son Nicholas lived until his death in 1864. Nicholas married Miss Rose Green, of “Rosedale,” between Georgetown and Tenallytown, in the District of Columbia, and her brother was the original owner of “Oak View,” or “Red Top” (adjoining “Rosedale”), which was subsequently purchased by President Cleveland as a residence.
One of Mrs. Quisenberry’s sisters married a son of the Emperor Iturbide, of Mexico, who was a student at the Catholic University at Georgetown, D. C. Mrs. Iturbide’s son, Prince Augustine Iturbide, was the protege and declared successor to the ill-fated Emperor Maximillian, and is now the only legitimate heir to the throne of Mexico in case its present republican form of government should be abolished, which, indeed, is probable enough in that land of revolutions.
Another very interesting incident connected with this Mrs. Nicholas Quisenberry was recited at length in a letter from George Alfred Townsend, the great newspaper correspondent, published the Cincinnati Enquirer of August 1, 1884. From this letter such portions are here extracted as cover the main points of the story.
After the assassination of President Lincoln, in April 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin and his confederate, Herold, fled together, and at Port Tobacco, Maryland, they crossed the Potomac in a boat, for which Booth paid twenty dollars in gold, and landed in Virginia on the farm of a man named Bryan, a near neighbor of Mrs. Quisenberry’s. Mr. Townsend [ ] then tells the story as follows: Herold wanted to buy two horses, one for himself and one for Booth, and Bryan rather demurred to selling his, but said that Mrs. Quisenberry, who lived close by, had several horses, and wanted money. Herold therefore set off to this lady’s house, about a mile and a half distant.
Here a word about the topography of the country. The Potomac, opposite to Pope’s creek, Maryland, is only three miles wide, but both above and below it is much wider. Mr. Jones, in Maryland, had directed the two fugitives to enter Machodoc creek, and find the house of Mrs. Quisenberry. Machodoc creek is about a mile wide, and the first house on its northern bank is the lady’s mentioned.
Bryan, in his little hut, had no slaves, but Mrs. Quisenberry had a delightful cottage, and was highly connected, and would have been a superior woman anywhere. She was the daughter of a Mr. Green, of Rosedale, an estate between Washington and its suburb of Tenallytown. Her sister had married the son of the Emperor Iturbide of Mexico, and Mrs. Quisenberry’s nephew was, at the very time Booth stopped at this house, a protege, and perhaps adopted son, of the Emperor Maximillian. This little incident seems to connect, in some measure, the fates of two distinguished men, one of whom speedily followed the other to a violent death. The Emperor Iturbide’s son had been a student at Georgetown College, in the vicinity of which Mr. Green lived.
Mr. Quisenberry had been a Virginia planter, with slaves and good connections, and his house was not many miles from Washington’s birthplace. The house was a beautiful cottage, trellised and ornamented, and with a lawn in front of it reaching to the wide creek, hardly fifty yards distant, and on this lawn, among other cabins, was a small schoolhouse, fitted for the education of the children of the family who had a governess by the name of Miss Duncanson.
During the war the rebel government had established on Mrs. Quisenberry’s farm their permanent signal station to communicate with other rebels in Maryland, and hold open their mail route to the North and Canada. The signal officers, as a rule, were genteel men, and they all thought highly of their hostess, who was then about fifty years old. They occupied the schoolhouse, at least two of them did, and one of these was a Maryland gentleman named Thomas Harbin. This man was one of the original confidants of John Wilkes Booth in the scheme to abduct President Lincoln. Having been several times in his company, I can say of him, as of his brother-in-law, Thomas A. Jones, who “held the fort,” so to speak for the Confederacy, on the other shore — that while they do not conform to my ideas of politics, they materially softened my feelings on the subject of Mr. Lincoln’s abduction by the frankness and fidelity of their character. Harbin was a representative-looking Marylander, tall, almost gaunt, yet supple, with a smile ever on his countenance; dark-brown hair, high cheekbones, with somewhat sunken cheeks; but cautions, and thoughtful, and tender to women. He had as much respect for Mrs. Quisenberry and her family as if she had been the wife of Jefferson Davis. He took intense interest in the Southern cause, reported at Richmond, and was entrusted with the business of opening a mail route to the North.
On the opposite shore lived Thomas A. Jones, at a point where the bluffs of Maryland rise at least one hundred feet high. Jones’ first wife had been Harbin’s sister. It required no Masonic oath to bind these men together. They were the life of the Confederacy in its communication with Maryland and the North. Jones, in the earlier part of the war, had nightly crossed the river with passengers for the South. Arrested once on his return home from Richmond, he was sent to prison in Washington and kept there several months. When he was let out by some jail-opening commission, he returned home to find everything broken up by the war; and Harbin came to him, after he had refused a man named Grimes, and they agreed to keep the ferry open.
Every day toward evening a boat left Mrs. Quisenberry’s place and crossed the river in the gray light to a place where the rebel mail was deposited, under the bluffs of Maryland, in a stump. This mail was taken out, a pouch from the South substituted, and the boat stole off in the gray evening, unobserved, just as the Federal pickets were planted along the bluff, which was done about sundown. If Jones had kept the boat on his side of the river the Federals would have seized and destroyed it. And so the courier spirit lodged all day in Virginia, at Mrs. Quisenberry’s, and flew once, toward night, to Maryland, and silently returned.
Harbin had heard of the President’s assassination on Wednesday, five days after it occurred. He then knew that his friend Booth had done the deed. The family circle at Mrs. Quisenberry’s discussed the matter in all the Christian spirit of a Northern household. Miss Lucy Hooe, an interesting lady, now married, said at that circle: ‘This crime will hurt the Southern people more than the whole war has done. It has no good motive; was the ending of a man probably simple and honest, and its results will fall on us and our friends.’ They little knew while they were talking by the wood-fire that April day that the President’s murderer was steering toward them.
There was a sick person in the house, or neighborhood, and Harbin had taken a boat, in company with one of his military associates named Baden, and crossed Machodoc creek to the fine estate of Colonel Baker, who had hot-houses and raised oranges and lemons to make lemonade. On his return the wind blew up from the Potomac river and made the crossing almost dangerous, so that they had to creep around by the shores; and so they came to the lawn of Mrs. Quisenberry (who, by the way, was known to all the neighbors as Mrs. Quesenberry). Miss Duncanson, the governess, came down to the boat and said: ‘Mr. Harbin, there is a strange man here who has come to buy horses.’ Baden went up to reconnoiter, and returned, saying: ‘He says his name is Herold.’ Harbin’s heart sank a little. He knew Herold, and that he was one of Booth’s conspirators, and that probably the assassin himself was close at hand. He said nothing to the lady, however, but went up to the house, and there he saw Herold covered with dirt, filth and grime; unwashed, uncombed, the picture of a vacant-minded tramp.
He took him apart and asked: ‘Herold, where’s Booth?’ ‘He’s over here at the next farm, and you must go and see him, said Herold. Baden and Harbin took Herold down to the schoolhouse on the lawn, and had him washed and combed and made human. At the time Herold arrived Mrs. Quisenberry was not at home, but had gone on her horse, Virginia fashion, to some neighboring place. She arrived at home, however, while Herold was there, and was disposed to sell him horses, because the close of the war had reduced her to poverty, and she could not keep her horses. Harbin, with his thoughtfulness for the woman, took her aside and said: “You must not sell this man a horse. There are circumstances connected with him which make it my duty to tell you to give him nothing more than something to eat.” If the lady had sold Herold a horse it might have been to the prejudice of her liberty in the subsequent court-martial proceedings. Not a word was said by Harbin to any member of this family as to Booth being in the neighborhood until he had returned from his visit to Booth that evening.
Mrs. Quisenberry was at the time a widow. Her husband died during the war, and was buried at the little church at Hampstead, in the neighborhood. She had two sons and two daughters, all young. The Hooe farm, on which Booth’s boat landed, in the neighborhood, bore the name of Barnesfleld, and that which he had embarked from in Maryland, Brentsfield. The rebel signal camp had been on Mrs. Quisenberry’s farm for about eighteen months. Harbin had not been at her house for some little time, but at the close of the war, when Richmond was abandoned, he had returned there, and was waiting a few days with nothing to do.
Herold arrived at Mrs. Quisenberry’s house at 10 or 11 o’clock in the morning. He and Booth had landed in Virginia before daylight, and had gone quite early to Bryan’s house. About 2 o’clock he departed on foot, having partaken of food, and he carried with him a lunch for Booth. The day had become beautiful, though somewhat windy, and the fields were dry and all the frost out of them. Back of Mrs. Quisenberry’s house extend two large fields, reaching almost a mile, and thus he entered the woods and walked in them to the small clearing around Bryan’s house.
“Bryan told everything he knew in Washington, and Harbin, aware that he had put himself in jeopardy, concluded to stay [ ] at Mrs. Quisenberry’s house and not to run away. The scent came very close to him, but he was so gentlemanly and obliging that the very officers of the law became rather confidential with him.
When he had returned from his last farewell with Booth he told the folks at the house who their caller had been, and they conferred together. After Booth had been killed Lieutenant Baker and a detective and some soldiers came to the place to make inquiries for Wilson (Harbin’s assumed name). Harbin kept out of sight as much as possible. The officers said it was necessary that some one person should go up to Washington to testify before the Judge Advocate. Harbin rather pressed that he should go, though the contrary was his design.
Mrs. Quisenberry said she couldn’t go on account of her children. Baden quietly dropped the remark that he had an old mother in Washington whom he had not seen for four years, and the humane officers took him along instead of Harbin. Baden’s reward, however, was to be sent to prison for about six weeks. A steamboat came up Machodoc creek not long afterwards and Mrs. Quisenberry was informed that she would have to go to Washington. She demurred, but was told she could take her children along, and that her expenses would be paid by the Government; and she was allowed, while in that city, to stay at the home of her childhood, Rosedale, but came into the city every day to be examined.
The boat in which Booth had crossed the river was seized by the Government at Mrs. Quisenberry’s, and it is not known what became of it. Mr. Harbin says that Booth, in his belief, was never in Richmond during the war.
The rebel mail service which Jones conducted was almost as efficient as the United States mail at the present time. Washington, Baltimore, and New York papers were subscribed for by different [ ] individuals in the vicinity of Allen’s Fresh, the subscription price being paid by the Confederacy, and one person would go and call for the mail of all the neighbors. These papers would be deposited in the stump under Jones’ Bluff, and then the boat would come over, as described, in the gray of the evening, and leave rebel mail and take the papers out, and the next morning they would be in Richmond, going by way of Port Conway, Port Royal, and [ ]. This became the great route for blockade-runners and go-betweens, and finally Booth’s route.
Nicholas Quisenberry assured the author of this history [ ] that this account of the affair, so far as his mother was concerned in it, is substantially correct, except that Herold, when he came to the house, was almost in a state of physical collapse, through fright, and blurted out his whole story to those of the family who were at home, and even in the presence of the colored servants. When Harbin and Herold went to rejoin Booth in the wood, Nicholas, who was then quite a young boy, went along with them; and they carried an old-fashioned carpet-sack which his mother, out of humanity, had filled with food for the fugitives. Mr. Quisenberry said that they “found Booth sitting under a walnut tree in the woods — the wildest-looking maniac I ever saw.” Booth gave the boat in which he and Herold had crossed the river to young Nicholas. It was afterwards seized by the Government detectives, who paid him for it. It was taken to Washington and deposited at the Navy Yard, but for some years past has been one of the attractions at the National Museum.
When Booth and Herold, a few days later, were cornered in a barn at Mr. Garrett’s, in Caroline county, Herold proposed to surrender after the barn was fired, and Booth cursed him for a coward, and asked permission to shoot him. This Herold declined; and Booth then pushed him to the opening, saying: “Quarter for this man, he surrenders,” at the same time shooting himself and dying by his own hand. This story is somewhat different from the accepted version, but Nicholas Quisenberry had it from Mr. Harbin, who had it from Herold himself, during his imprisonment previous to his execution. Mr. Harbin was subsequently for many years a clerk at the National Hotel, in Washington City, and died at his home in that city in 1891. Before Booth shot himself he threw into the fire of the burning barn the carpet-bag which Mrs. Quisenberry had filled with food for himself and Herold, thinking, no doubt, to destroy it, and thus, almost with his last act, endeavoring to shield the charitable lady who had fed him in his need, for her name was embroidered in full on the inside of the bag. The bag, however, was rescued from the flames, and was the cause of getting Mrs. Quisenberry into what might have been serious trouble, from which she was rescued only by the strenuous efforts of her brothers, who were among the strongest and most influential Union men in the District of Columbia. Mrs. Quisenberry is still living and resides in Texas with her daughter Alice, who was married in the Oak View Manor, then the property of her uncle, Mr. Osceola Green, afterwards that of President Cleveland.
A.C. Quisenberry, Genealogical Memoranda, 1896
Additional Sources
Louise Mann-Kenney, Rosedale, The Eighteenth Century Country Estate of General Uriah Forrest, Cleveland Park, Washington D.C., 1989
Ann Forrest Green, James Nicholas Payne, The 1861 Diary of Ann (Forrest) Green of Rosedale, J.N. Payne, 1991
Priscilla W. McNeil, “Pretty Prospects: The History of a Land Grant”, Washington History, Fall/Winter 2002
________________________________________________________
Carlton Fletcher
The citation and acknowledgement of my research is greatly appreciated.
All rights reserved.
Questions and corrections may be directed to
The support of the Advisory Neighborhood Council (3B) is gratefully acknowledged.