When a friend and fellow museum graduate student asked me if I wanted to go with her one afternoon to try to find traces of the ruins, I could not possibly resist.
The island is small, but the task was a bit daunting.
When Mason’s bank collapsed in 1833, he was forced to give up the property to cover his debts (although society people politely said the family was driven out by mosquitoes). The mansion was abandoned as a family home, and over the years the island was used as a Civil War encampment, a boating club, a jousting ring, a dancing saloon, a pavilion to watch balloon launches from and a picnic spot. In 1869, a fire devastated the interior of the Mason house and the island was slowly left to nature. One reporter for the Washington Times commented in 1902 that “the interior aspect of Analostan is desolate in the extreme,” with the ruins of the Mason house “hidden in the dense growth of trees which has overrun the island”.
Sometime around 1905-6, another fire felled the roof and left the house in an even more ruinous state, its once lovely facade only a memory. In 1913, the Washington Gas Light Company purchased the island, but plans to build a plant there did not come to fruition. The island was eventually purchased in 1931 by the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association, who planned to donate the site to the United States government. Despite the considerable historical significance of the ruins, plans were made to remove what was left of the walls, along with all of the non-native plants, some introduced by Mason, in order to keep in a natural, wild state. The remains of the Mason House and any artifacts were hastily and perfunctorily excavated and documented by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Historic Area Building Survey, before they were destroyed and buried in 1936, in an attempt to return the island to a more natural appearance, suitable for a forested memorial island.
Seventy years had passed since that last act of deliberate destruction, what could even be left? A 1972 Historical Society of Washington, DC piece by Mary E. Curry notes, “The ordinary visitor has no idea of where to look for Mason’s home” and furthermore, two attempts by history students to locate the exact site in 1970 and 1972 failed.
Nevertheless, the prospect of adventure kept me undaunted. The 1818 map above, while a bit stylized, shows the house sitting on the southern portion of the island, and further contemporary descriptions of the house place it on the highest ridge in that portion. With that information, and the 1936 survey map of the basic foundation and surrounding outbuildings, my friend and I set off for the island. It is easy enough to walk to the highest ground, so upon arriving at the trailhead, we basically plunged into the undergrowth, heading uphill, making fairly good progress. Along the way we disturbed a box turtle, who we dubbed General John Mason, and also the blue-plastic tarp home of some transient who clearly wished to be left alone.
Nevertheless, the prospect of adventure kept me undaunted. The 1818 map above, while a bit stylized, shows the house sitting on the southern portion of the island, and further contemporary descriptions of the house place it on the highest ridge in that portion. With that information, and the 1936 survey map of the basic foundation and surrounding outbuildings, my friend and I set off for the island. It is easy enough to walk to the highest ground, so upon arriving at the trailhead, we basically plunged into the undergrowth, heading uphill, making fairly good progress. Along the way we disturbed a box turtle, who we dubbed General John Mason, and also the blue-plastic tarp home of some transient who clearly wished to be left alone.
We eventually found ourselves on a plateau and I noticed some unusual large stones strewn about–naturally placed stones generally don’t have corners and signs of human manipulation. Some nearby trees revealed a hidden cache of bricks tangled and gripped among their roots. This then, was the former site of the house. There was nothing left of it above the surface except the occasional bit of stone or brick and the strange feeling of intruding on some other time and place. Examining our survey map, we paced off to where the outbuildings lay, and were excited when we nearly tumbled into an open cellar-hole for the Ice House, exactly where it was supposed to be. Although partially obscured by tangled vines and shrubs, it was clearly a square and lined with fieldstones to a depth of about six feet. From here, it was easy to see the ever so faint traces of the retaining wall.
Current appearance of the cellar-hole for Mason’s Ice House, National Park Service
Heavy rains over the years must have washed debris right up against it, for close examination of the stones of the base of it soon revealed a tiny ceramic sherd, clearly from the historical period, as it had a white glaze with blue edging. This could have been some of the Mason family’s china, broken and washed away from some garbage pit, or a disturbed bit of leftover from the hasty archaeological survey, although the artifacts were supposed to have been buried in a concrete vault near the house foundation. Additionally, there were more bits of glass and other potential artifacts in the same area.
Ceramic sherd from the base of the retaining wall on the Mason site
We were beyond thrilled–we had managed to stumble across a forgotten site, supposedly difficult to locate and even find artifacts. Looking around at the thickly forested area, it was hard to believe that something as refined as a Neo-classical plantation with fruit trees and terraced gardens ever existed in the same space. The last two hundred years were merely the briefest blip in history, all traces nearly gone. It did serve as a warning to the curious: the dusts of the past are never far from being motes in the eye of the present, if you know where to look.
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