Hi Brightwood:
Please attend Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas Day on September 16 at Fort Stevens. Mrs. Thomas, a free Black woman, lived in Brightwood in the 1800s and owned the land known today as Fort Stevens. Her story and that of Fort Stevens/Brightwood is fascinating and one that all Brightwood residents should know and respect. Please see the attachments for more details.
I look forward to seeing you on September 16, 2023 from 11 am - 2 pm!
My best,
Commissioner Kim Patterson
ANC 4A05, Brightwood Neighborhood
Elizabeth Proctor Thomas was born free in the early 1800s. She lived in Brightwood, a community of free Blacks in northwest Washington, D.C., known then as Vinegar Hill. Elizabeth’s property was of significant size and value (88 acres) with a barn, garden, orchard, and a two-story wooden house (today's Fort Stevens). And because of its location on a hill, her land was the major tributary leading into Washington from the north.
As such, with the advent of the Civil War, Elizabeth would lose her farm to the Union army when they took the land to build what would eventually become Fort Stevens. As she later told a reporter, soldiers “began taking out my furniture and tearing down our house one day.”
“I was sitting under that sycamore tree with what furniture I had left around me. I was crying, as was my six-months-old child, when a tall, slender man dressed in black came up and said to me, ‘It is hard, but you shall reap a great reward.’”
It was President Abraham Lincoln.
When Jubal Early’s Confederate army marched to Washington and stood at the very gates of Fort Stevens, Elizabeth Thomas did not flee with other refugees. She did not hide from civilians. She stayed. Affectionately nicknamed “Aunt Betty” by her soldiers, she continued to cook and do laundry for them. When battle was imminent, she carried ammunition back and forth on the fort's walls. And as the President stood on the fortifications, she kept her old shotgun by her side to kill any “Rebs” who would try to harm her Lincoln.
Even after the war, Elizabeth continued to be a civic leader, doing much to shape the DC community. Her warmth and courage were respected by many. In fact, for many years after the war, when the Grand Army of the Republic held their reunions in the city, they would do so at her house – with the African American woman who was brave enough, who cared enough, to fight beside them to save the city.
Special thanks to National Park Service Ranger Kenya J. Finley and Patricia Tyson of the Military Road School Preservation Trust and Female RE-Enactors of Distinction.
