Bicentennial

A BELATED BICENTENNIAL: Until February of 2003, the best guess of the Woodley Society was that Woodley had been built in 1803. That assumption changed during Intensive Study Week 2003, when a student accessed the Congressional Record. There he found the minutes of Philip Barton Key’s contested election of 1806. The first sentence of the quoted petition states, “That same time in the year 1801, Mr. Key became an inhabitant of the District of Columbia, at a country seat belonging to him, about two miles from Georgetown, in an airy situation commanding an extensive prospect.” There we had it, proof positive that the Keys moved into Woodley in 1801, so that the cornerstone was undoubtedly laid a year or so earlier. Suddenly the Woodley Bicentennial Commemoration was at least two years late.