History of Grace Church

Prelude to a Parish

Georgetown began life as a seaport founded by Scots traders to ship Maryland tobacco to Glasgow and other ports. As a part of the colony of Maryland, it was founded in 1751 and named for George ii, then king of England. Its origins predate Independence in 1776 and the creation of The District of Columbia as prescribed by the Constitution (Article 1, Section 7) ratified in 1787. Determination of the site of the District came in 1790. At that time Georgetown had over 8,000 residents, 750 of which were slaves.

The seaport was at the foot of High Street, the present Wisconsin Avenue NW, and was overlooked by Brickyard Hill on which sat Peter’s Square. A prominent hostelry, Suter’s Inn, stood on the present location of Grace Church and was patronized by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Pierre L’Enfant. The portion of Georgetown below the present M Street NW. consisted largely of warehouses, small shops, boardinghouses, and the establishments found in any brawling seaport.

Envisioned as not only a seat of government, but also of commerce and manufacturing, the fledgling city of Washington had modest beginnings. It could only boast two governmental structures, The Capitol, which was comprised of a portion of the present Senate side, and the partially completed White House, into which President John Adams relocated in December of 1800, for the initial convening of The United States Congress in that same month.

Plans for establishing a major seaport and manufacturing hub were also tentative and never materialized on the envisioned scale. Congress underwrote the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal which opened in 1831. It never reached its intended terminus on the Ohio River or established a Trans Appalachian connection to the growing countries interior. The creation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad surpassed the capacity of the canal, and it was obsolete almost immediately as the preferred route to the interior.

Nevertheless, the canal found a niche, bringing coal from western Maryland and Virginia as well as wheat from the lower Potomac Valley which was, in its day, the breadbasket of the Central Atlantic. Warehouses, foundries and flour mills served the Georgetown port. Canal boat workers, sailors, wharf workers; foundry men and millers comprised the population of lower Georgetown.