Frederick Douglass is one of the most studied figures of the Civil War Era. He rose to prominence as an escaped slave, an Abolitionist, a women’s rights activist, an author and newspaperman, a recruiter for the United States Colored Troops, an advocate for civil rights, and a planner for the future of the Black community.
He was a slave in Maryland. He escaped to New Bedford in Massachusetts and later moved to Rochester. He stayed there until after the Civil War.
During the Civil War, Douglass went frequently to Washington to meet with Abraham Lincoln and members of Congress. After the Civil War, three of his children lived in Washington and when his house burned down in Rochester he decided to move. He moved to a house on Capitol Hill and after Reconstruction, he decided to move to a bigger house in Anacostia.
The house was named Cedar Hill and Douglass lived in it after the end of the Reconstruction Era from 1877 until his death in 1895. The house was set at the height of land on the fifteen acre estate. He lived there with his wife Anna Murray Douglass, and with family members like his adult children, their children, and various family members who were down on their luck.
The house is located at 1411 W St SE Washington D.C., DC, United States, Washington, District of Columbia 20020.
The visitors center is a small museum in brutalist style that is partially underground. There was a short movie and the staff there was helpful. To go on the tour you must have tickets. The site is closed on Monday and Tuesday. You can find out other times when the site is closed here.
Tours are given at:
- 9:00 am
- 12:15 pm
- 1:15 pm
- 3:00 pm
- 3:30 pm
- 4:00 pm (April through October only)
The are limits on the number of visitors that can go on a tour. While you can show up at the site and sign up for the next tour, some may be sold-out or all might be sold-out for the day. It is better to reserve a spot on a tour at this site. Typically, you should book a tour a week or more before arriving. The tours are free, but to book in advance, there is a one dollar convenience fee.
Parking is free at the site.
There is a life sized statue of Douglass inside the visitors center backed by quotes from the Black leader.
When Douglass moved into his house, many of the gains of African Americans were being erased throughout the South. The Republican leadership, which had backed expanding Black rights since 1863, had cooled in its support as Blacks were deprived of the right to vote in many parts of the South after 1875 by the Democrats. The old Abolition elements of the Republican Party were also dying out. Younger Republican politicians claimed to support Black civil rights, but devoted most of their time to instituting the new civil service system and defending American capitalists against the growing unions in industry. While the Republicans had consigned Blacks to a secondary role in national life, Douglass remained a loyal partyman. The Democrats offered no refuge for African Americans and this leading Black man campaigned for James Garfield. Garfield won by ten thousand votes over Winfield Scott Hancock. Douglass was invited to march beside the incoming president James Garfield.
In the summer of 1881, Garfield endured the prolonged agonies of dying from an assassin’s bullet. That same year, Frederick Douglass published his Life and Times.
On the walls of the visitors center are displays on Douglass’s life as a slave, his escape, his Abolitionism, the Civil War, and his leadership position after the war.
There is also a display on how Douglass became a great orator.
The house was built between 1854 and 1859 for the architect John Welsh Van Hook. It was originally a fourteen room home, but Douglass added seven additional rooms. Ottilie Assing, a German journalist and a putative lover of Douglass, visited the house frequently. She wrote that it was “one of the most beautiful places…on top of a hill, with magnificent old trees.” From the house, one could see the Anacostia River and the Capitol.
Frederick Douglass and his wife lived at the estate. His five adult children would often use the house as a base. They had twenty-one children of their own who they brought with them to see their grandfather. His grand daughter Fredericka Sprague Perry called him “the best play fellow” his grandchildren could ever have hoped for. Frederick would crouch down and carry his grandchildren on his back like a horse. He also let the girls braid his hair. The children would then decorate his hair with colored ribbons. Frederick also taught the children how to play Croquet on the lawn of his estate.
There are several interpretive signs around the property.
The sign says:
The Sage of Anacostia
An East-of-the River View
President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Douglass to the prestigious position of U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia in 1877. Soon after, Douglass purchased the country retreat of bankrupt Uniontown founder John Van Hook in a mostly white neighborhood and named it Cedar Hill. His sons lived in the adjacent, mostly African-American, Hillsdale community.
From his hilltop porch Douglass could look out across his acres of fruit and vegetable gardens and down upon the official Washington that so often disrespected him because of his race. Active in local as well as national affairs, Douglass hosted gatherings at Cedar Hill, spoke frequently at local churches, and served on Howard University’s Board of Trustees. Succeeding U.S. Presidents appointed Douglass as DC recorder of deeds and ambassador to Haiti.
The “Sage of Anacostia” died at home on February 20, 1895. His widow, Helen Pitts Douglass, left Cedar Hill to the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association upon her death in 1903. Despite volunteer maintenance and fundraising, the house fell into disrepair. Eventually Congress answered community demands and appropriated funds for the National Park Service to acquire and restore the home. It opened to the public in 1972. The visitors’ center entrance is a short distance ahead on W Street.
There is a short hike up stairs on the hill to the house. On the way up, there is a commemorative sundial. These are not accessible for those with mobility issues. However, there is a more circular path that can be accessed.
The house still looks as it did in the 1890s.
You can only go into the house on a tour. Tours have set times. If you are in the visitors center, staff will notify you that it is time to go to the house. If you are strolling the grounds, try to be on the porch ten minutes before the tour. There are several rocking chairs you can sit on there.
The Ranger will meet you on the porch. Our Ranger did an excellent job of explaining the sites inside the house to us, as well as answering our questions about Douglass’s life.
From the front porch we could see the whole neighborhood.
The entryway with a stairs. This is where Douglass died.
To the left of the entryway is the formal parlor. This was not a family room. It was designed to receive visitors. Many people came to see Frederick Douglass, from fellow freed slaves to politicians, newspaper reporters, philanthropists, women’s rights advocates, and other Abolitionists.
In June of 1881 Douglass returned to the Eastern Shore of Maryland where he had grown up. He went to the Wye plantation owned by the Lloyd family who had enslaved him. This was the first time he had seen the plantation since 1825. The young grandsons of the man who had enslaved Douglass escorted Douglass around the plantation. Douglass wrote that “A more tranquil and tranquilizing scene I have seldom met in this or any other country.” He seemed almost romantic in his description of the slave labor camp.
In the photo below you can see a statue of Mercury. The god was a traveler who brought news. He was also a thief, and Douglass stole himself from his “master.”
Douglass wanted visitors to see him as their equal. He adopted the decorating ideas of late Victorian fashion. In this room, as in the other rooms at Cedar Hill, you are seeing the actual furniture, art, and tools that Douglass owned.
The bust behind the Ranger is the Abolitionist Wendell Phillips in the photo below.
The photo behind the Ranger is Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick’s first wife. She was a free Black woman who helped Frederick escape slavery in 1838. She later joined him in New York where they married. She died in 1882.
Anna’s mother was freed just a month before she was born. Had this manumission been held up, she would have been born a slave and might not have helped Frederick escape.
This photo is Frederick’s second wife. In the District of Columbia it was legal for people of different races to marry, but it was looked down upon by both Blacks and whites.
This was Douglass’s hat rack, which fascinated everyone on my tour.
Next is Frederick Douglass’s study. The pictures on the wall were here when he was alive. The Seal of the United States is on the back of his chair. The desk was also his own as were the pens he used to write.
Douglass had a contentious relationship with Lincoln during the early years of his presidency. Lincoln opposed slavery, but he did not see the Civil War as a way to end slavery. After 1862 Douglass became an admirer of Lincoln and helped him by supporting the recruitment of the United States Colored Troops. Two of his own sons served in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry. .
Frederick Douglass’s books are still in their bookcase.
Douglass had over one thousand volumes in his library.
You can see in the photo below of Douglass working that the study still looks the same as it did in the 19th Century.
Douglass was an avid cane collector.
There were two parlors in the house. This was the family parlor. This was a place of play for his grandchildren, and a place where Douglass could interact with his wife, his children, and his grandchildren.
Douglass had a bookcase for his grandchildren coinciding with their reduced height.
Douglass never learned to play the piano, but he did learn to play the violin. The piano was played by his daughter, his grandchildren, and his second wife.
The statue is of a Greek slave.
Adjoining the family parlor is the dining room. The table setting was owned by the Douglass family.
The large chair at the head of the table was Frederick’s chair. He was six foot two inches tall and weighed over two hundred pounds.
The photo on the wall shows Frederick Douglass and the other members of the inaugural commission for President Harrisson.
The table is set for a small family dinner. Douglass would also use a leaf to expand the table if guests were visiting.
The Douglass’s chinaware.
A pantry.
Then the manual labor rooms on the first floor.
The laundry room. The servants did the laundry for the household. If Frederick was on a speaking tour, he would send home his dirty clothes to be washed here and they would be returned to him by mail.
The irons that were applied to Frederick’s clothes.
Next is the kitchen. Douglass had three servants; a coachman, a maid, and a doorman.
A table for the preparation of food.
Frederick Douglass was a traveling man. This room was where he stored his trunks which he used to travel around the country and the world for his speaking engagements.
Then you will tour the bedrooms on the second floor.
Here is the men’s guest bedroom.
Here is Frederick Douglass’s bedroom. Those are his shoes, size eleven.
This room was a private bedroom for Frederick’s second wife, Helen. She was Douglass’s secretary and a staunch feminist. The interracial marriage was met with opposition from the white press. Blacks also questioned why Douglass did not marry a Black woman. Douglass responded that his first wife was the color of his mother and his second wife was the color of his father. Helen died in 1903.
This bedroom was for Frederick’s first wife Anna Murray. She was confined to this room after having a series of strokes. She died in this room. No one slept in this room after she died. It was set aside as a memorial for her.
To protect the bedroom furniture shades are drawn which makes it dark.
Helen’s room includes a sewing machine.
The view from the second story hallway window. You can see the Anacostia River and beyond that the National Mall.
Wendell Phillips was a Boston Abolitionist. His bust is in the formal parlor on the first floor. After the war, he became a primary advocate for the extending the right to vote to Blacks. He wrote the preface to Douglass’s story of his life as a slave.
After touring the house, proceed behind it to Douglass’s Growlery, Named after a structure in Charles Dickens’s novel Bleak House, this small stone hut was a place for Douglass to go to “growl”. This was where the civil rights leader could read and develop his own ideas. The Growlery is a reconstruction at the same location of Douglass’s structure and incorporating stones from the original hut.
The building had a chaise lounge, a stool, and a desk. The desk was reportedly given to him by Senator Charles Sumner.
The plaque says:
Where do you go when you do not want to be disturbed? Frederick Douglass came to this tiny stone cabin that he called the Growlery. Coined by Charles Dickens, the word “Growlery” literally means a place to growl.
Douglass kept his Growlery simply furnished with a desk, stool, and couch. He retreated here to do some of his deep thinking, reading, and writing in seclusion.
The structure in front of you is a reconstruction. It was rebuilt in 1981 on the Growlery’s exact location using materials salvaged from the original building.
Frederick Douglass wrote his Life and Times in the Growlery.
On February 20, 1895 at 7:00 PM Douglass fell in the front hallway of his house. He had had a heart attack and by the time a doctor reached him he was already dead.
Cedar Hill was placed under the care of a Black women’s organization after Douglass’s second wife died. They preserved the original furnishings and many objects connected to the family. The National Park Service took over Douglass’s home in 1962 during the Civil Rights Era.
After we went to view Douglass’s home, we went to one of Washington’s many fine Ethiopian restaurants. We ate at Feru Restaurant at 1128 H St NE, Washington, DC 20002. The small restaurant is decorated with the art of Africa.
The menu offers a fair amount of meat dishes, but we chose a vegetarian platter. It included lentils, yellow peas, chickpeas, collard greens, green beans, carrots, cabbage, and potatoes.
My wife ordered Ethiopian coffee.
The National Park Service has a video tour of the site:
