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GOMMEMORATIO~.

TURKEY BUZZARD POINT it was; Greenleaf Point* it is now. The change came with Greenleaf himself. Truly the new name is more grateful to the ear and more becoming this lovely scene where weds the Potomac and the Anacostia. From the heights of the Alleghanies and the Blue Ridge the streams chase through the wood and cascade over the rock to join either arm of the Potomac. The waters gathering strength in their winding course in fiercer gambols break through gorges and leap over boulders. E'er the Point is reached the waters cease their caprice; pass it with dignified pace; join the other waters, and majestically sweep on to the sea.

It is sunny noon of a September day; already the summer green is declining to autumn gayety; Greenleaf now first treads this spot which is to keep his name with the flight of time; it is a greensward encircled with gracefully bending trees reflected tremblingly in the translucent waves as in a burnished vase.

From this vantage-ground to him this picturesque panorama presents: immediately east of the respectable stream, James Creek,t Carrollsburgh, in it an only mansion, brick and wide, on the bank of the Annakostia, the home of the founder, Charles Carroll, father of Daniel Carroll of Duddington; directly across, another point, Geesborough and a landing; farther south on the other shore, wreathes of smoke and the spire of Christ Church, aristocratic Alexandria; on the same side and

*tn the Washingeon Gaze~Ce, !7~'S, It is invarlabi Greenleaf Point; in the !nI~ll'gencer, iSco and after, Greenleaf's Point. The English visitor, ~eid, Writea it "Green Leaf's Point."

tjames Creek originally called St. lames Creek in I75~Geo?ge WaC~ston'3 manwscr:~C.

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nearer, the Custis plantation, Abingdon, and a glimpse of the old homestead in the grove; on the city side of the Potow mac, the pretentious manor house of the proprietor, Notley Young; somewhat farther on the settlement of Hamburgh, in which distinctly, the house of little brick from Holland, residence of Peter Funk, its founder; and beyond the Key of All Keys, (the great rock,) dimly, the tops of masts at the Wapping, Georgetown, and the college on its heights; and, up the river for Georgetown, ships with cargoes of cloth from London, silk from Marseilles, liquors from Rotterdam, sugar from Havana, coffee from Port-au-Prince, wares from every mart; and, for the town in Governor Bladen's honor, a few craft with tea and other commodities.

Green leaf enjoys the view; and decides this wedge between the rivers, beautiful for residence and useful for shipping, the Battery of the Nation's City to rival in beauty and utility that of the Empire City where~he now resides.

And he further decides when he shall be in possession of the vast fortune he is to realize from the sale of the three thousand lots, the contract for which the clerk up at the Commissioners' is now engrossing he will build on this spot and this sward shall be his lawn, these trees his shade and this supreme view, his own.

And a few years after in financial stress he lets go all his holdings in the federal establishment all except this dedicated spot. And in the indenture is the reservation "Except square 506, square next south of 5o6 and square next south of the square last mentioned;" three squares on the bank of the:

Potomac beginning one square south of the present Arsenal wall thence southward. And when the stress was still greater he sold to his close friend, William Deakins, junior, from whom he could redeem, the two squares northward. And when the stress was direst sold the remaining square to his wealthy brother-in-law merchant, John Appleton, with the hope of eventual recovery.

The life of James Greenleaf is commemorated in another and as appropriate direction. In company with the solid blocks of residences constructed by James Green leaf; in architectural style of the Georgian period and cultured as far as brick can be, is the Greenleaf Building, the public school, on Fourth between M and N streets, southwest. From its loca

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I 21-COMMEMORATION

tion on the Point the school mi~ht be called Greenleaf yet the real reason is a more worthy fitness.

He was a scholar and a ripe and a good one.

He was a linguist. He had in store the languages of Holland, France, England, Germany, Spain and Italy; and, of the classic, Greek and Latin. He was most erudite and a most masterly letter writer. The Greenleaf family, bole and branches, has honorable distinction in book-knowledge and exalted station yet in another way, James Greenleaf is the peer of them, all.

Though leam'd, well bred, and though well bred, sincere.

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Wealth he had an& better, learning; learning he had and better, culture; culture he had and better, character. Judge Wylie began his practice when Greenleaf was more vividly in the mind; and the Judge told me: " Greenleaf was a great lawyer and a noble character."

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