The Force School on Massachusetts Avenue: Alma Mater to Quentin Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh

Every neighborhood needs a school, and what was once referred to as the “Fashionable West End“ (now the Dupont Circle area) was no exception.  In 1880, the twelve-room Force Elementary School was erected on the south side of Massachusetts Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets and was named for renowned soldier, journalist, politician, and book collector Peter Force.  Its distinguished alumni included the son of a president Theodore Roosevelt and aviator Charles Lindbergh.

Force School at 1740 Massachusetts Avenue, circa 1960.  Historical Society of Washington.

The school was named for Peter Force.  A descendant of French Huguenots, Force was born near the Passaic Falls in New Jersey in 1790 and grew up in New Paltz in Ulster County, New York, and afterward moved to New York City and learned the printing trade.

1865 Mathew Brady portrait of Peter Force.  Library of Congress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Force served in the Army as a lieutenant during the War of 1812.  Three years after the war, he moved to Washington, D.C. and served as editor of the National Journal until 1841.  As a member of the Whig Party, he served as a city councilman and alderman, and was elected mayor of Washington twice.  Peter Force died in 1868.

Over the course of his life, Force assembled what was probably the largest private collection of printed and manuscript sources on American history in the United States.  In 1867, a year before he died, the Library of Congress purchased his library for $100,000 and it is still called the Peter Force Library.

The Force School’s district covered a wide swath from I Street and Pennsylvania Avenue to Corcoran Street, and from Fourteenth Street to Rock Creek.  By 1896, the school had 600 students enrolled in the relatively small building. 

Probably due to the large number of children, the school was never very popular with its neighbors along Massachusetts Avenue.  School buildings were generally considered a detriment to adjoining properties, especially in residential sections of the city.  Massachusetts Avenue neighbors complained it was impossible to keep the children from running over lawns, keeping the area in shabby condition.  A playground was later added to the rear of the school that helped to appease some of the neighbors. 

One neighbor who was not so easily appeased by the addition of the playground was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.  In 1896, Lodge, who lived across the street from the school at 1765 Massachusetts Avenue, introduced an amendment to the District appropriation bill to transfer Force School to another section of the city and sell the land for fashionable residences.  The action was pushed vigorously by his neighbors.  But, the bill was strongly opposed by the District Commissioners and was defeated.  

Quentin Roosevelt (age 13)

Lodge must have eventually come to terms with the school in his neighborhood, as it was later attended by Quentin, the son of his closest friend, Theodore Roosevelt.  Quentin Roosevelt attended Force during his father’s second term in the years 1906 to 1908 before leaving for the Groton School in Massachusetts.  Teddy wanted Quentin to attend public school, as he said it was the true school of democracy.  One day at school when the teacher asked the class to state the occupations of their fathers, Quentin’s nonchalant reply was: “My father is just it.”
 
Quentin was shot down behind German lines in France during World War I, and was the only graduate of the school to die during the war.  On Armistice Day in 1919, the graduating class planted a tree in the school yard in his honor.   

Col. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Asst. Secy. of the Navy, addressing the midyear 1923 graduating class of the Force School in front of the tree planted in honor of his brother, Quentin.  Library of Congress.

Charles Lindbergh attended the Force school, as well as the Sidwell Friends School, while living in Washington with his father, Minnesota Congressman Charles Lindbergh Sr.  In 1911, eight-year-old Count Guy de Buisseret, the son of former Belgian minister to Washington and at the time to the imperial court in St. Petersburg, Russia was sent back to DC to attend Force School.

The building was abandoned as a school in 1939, and after that it became home to a series of organizations.   Force School was raised in 1962 to make way for the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced Studies.  The Quentin Roosevelt tree fell along with the building.

1740 Massachusetts Avenue today.  Google Maps.

 

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Copyright © 2013 Steohen A. Hansen.  All Rights Reserved.