On June 9, 1886, the Washington Nationals and the St. Louis Maroons met at Swampoodle Grounds in Washington. That same day, a dozen blocks southeast of the ballpark, following a funeral service that morning in Baltimore, Annie Atwell was laid to rest at Congressional Cemetery in a family plot with the remains of her daughter.Continue reading “Three Newspaper Clippings and a Genealogical Puzzle”
Tag Archives: Swampoodle Grounds
Revisiting Swampoodle Grounds
A week and a half ago I discovered Adolph Sachse’s “bird’s eye view” map of Washington, DC, circa 1883-1884, and I was able to find where my ancestors lived in Washington from the Civil War to the mid-1880s. There was something else I was interested in. Swampoodle Grounds. Swampoodle Grounds, also known as Capitol Park,Continue reading “Revisiting Swampoodle Grounds”
Swampoodle, in Color!
Two weeks of work, off and on, and I’ve finished my colorization of Washington’s 19th-century baseball field, Swampoodle Grounds. The “heavy lifting” — the field itself, the McDowell & Sons building over the wall in right-center, a couple of buildings toward center, the sky itself — was accomplished two weeks ago in a blitz ofContinue reading “Swampoodle, in Color!”
An Off-Season Project: Colorizing Swampoodle Grounds
Sometime between 1886 and 1889, in either late March or early April, in the late afternoon, a photographer set up a camera and took a picture of the Washington Nationals practicing at Swampoodle Grounds, with the Capitol dome looming over the right field wall (and the McDowell & Sons Steam Elevator building). At work, theContinue reading “An Off-Season Project: Colorizing Swampoodle Grounds”
Playoff Baseball, Thwarted!
I went to Washington today for the playoff game between the Washington Nationals and the Los Angeles Dodgers. As I did two years ago for the Nationals-Giants series, I chose the second home game, which, again like two years ago, turned out to be game two of the National League Division Series. The game wasn’tContinue reading “Playoff Baseball, Thwarted!”
Opening Day
In honor of Opening Day, I’ve changed my desktop background at the office (which was the Rock of Cashel in Ireland) to this image of Swampoodle Grounds, a 19th-century baseball field that, as you can see, was quite close to the Capitol Building, roughly (about a block away) from where Union Station stands now. Here,Continue reading “Opening Day”