Gilbert Vanderwerken (5 February 1810 – 22 January 1894) was a businessman and manufacturer of
omnibuses in the 19th century.
Biography
Vanderwerken was born in 1810 in
Waterford, New York. He left home at the age of 17 to become an apprentice to a stagecoach builder in
Newark, New Jersey. In 1830, he opened his own coach-building business in Newark, but it went bankrupt during the
financial depression of 1837.
Vanderwerken relocated to Washington, D.C., between 1848 and 1850 to take personal control of Washington's first successful omnibus line. The Vanderwerken Company line, closely following the horse-drawn coach routes of the early 19th century, traveled from
Georgetown to the
Navy Yard via
M Street and
Pennsylvania Avenue for a one-way fare of 12.5 cents. The omnibus, seating twelve passengers, bore the names of persons, historical events, or pictures of other fashionable modes of transportation on the side panels. The stables were located in a former tobacco warehouse at 3222 M Street in Georgetown. The
Washington and Georgetown Railroad
The Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company (or Washington and Georgetown Railway Company) was the first streetcar company to operate in Washington, D.C., United States. It was incorporated and started operations in 1862, using horse-drawn car ...
leased the omnibus line on July 1, 1862, and soon replaced it, donating the vehicles to the
Army Medical Department.
Living in Washington, D.C., Vanderwerken purchased of Virginia property as pastureland for the horses. About 1852, Vanderwerken improved the farm by having a dwelling erected on "a hilltop in a grove of fine oak trees at the northwest corner of Little Falls and
Glebe Roads." The dwelling was intended to be used as rental housing and as a summer retreat for the family. On his property, he also established a quarry business, the Potomac Blue Stone Company. The stone blasted from the palisades was used to build
Healy Hall of
Georgetown University and