(continued from page 14) the residence of Capt. William Easby, an early Washington ship-builder. Before it was razed in 1931, it was considered the city’s oldest surviving hotel.
In 1808, John Kearney, dresser at the naval hospital, published a notice in the National Intelligencer that on every Saturday and Wednesday, between 10 a.m. and noon, the hospital would be open to physicians and students of medicine who might be desirous of observing the treatment of patients. (This hospital may be the same apothecary shop previously mentioned.) At the beginning of the War of 1812, Dr. Edward Cutbush, naval surgeon, was ordered to Washington, where a rented building was provided at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 10th Street, southeast. The rent paid was $200 a year.
This hospital was in use only for a short time and was discontinued when another one was established at the Washington Navy Yard, but discontinued in 1843, when the sick were transferred to the Marine Headquarters. The casualties during the early part of the Civil War caused the accommodations at the Marine Barracks to be insufficient, and on June 8, 1861, temporary naval hospital wards were set up by the Secretary of the Interior at the Government Asylum for the Insane until October 1, 1866. This asylum, known today as St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, was located in the southern Maryland countryside across the Anacostia River beyond Uniontown (see 1862 Topographical Map), approached over a wooden bridge at the foot of 11th Street to what today is called Congress Heights.
This site is sponsored by the Friends of the Old Naval Hospital
Last updated November 22, 2008
