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 Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...

. 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. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, 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 Pennsylvania Avenue is a primarily diagonal street in Washington, D.C. that connects the United States Capitol with the White House and then crosses northwest Washington, D.C. to Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown. Traveling through So ...

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 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 Healy Hall is a National Historic Landmark and the flagship building of the main campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Constructed between 1877 and 1879, the hall was designed by Paul J. Pelz and John L. Smithmeye ...

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

and St. Elizabeths Hospital. During the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

, the Vanderwerken family remained in Georgetown, having agreed to allow Union General Winfield Scott Hancock use of the house known as Falls Grove as an army hospital. In return, Hancock guaranteed protection of the buildings and fine grove of trees. The General used the two-story carpenter shop as his headquarters. Because of the strategic location of the property, it also became the site of Fort Ethan Allen and Fort Marcy. The property on which Fort Ethan Allen was constructed was returned to the heirs of Gilbert Vanderwerken following the war. Fort Ethan Allen was ordered abandoned in the fall of 1865, and soon thereafter was dismantled. Much of what could be salvaged from the fort was sold by the government at

public auction A government auction or a public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a governmen ...

. The land under Fort Ethan Allen belonged throughout the war to Vanderwerken. After the war, as partial payment for the use of his land, Vanderwerken was given some of the lumber from the fort. The lumber reportedly was used to build Bellevue, the home of Vanderwerken's daughter and son-in-law, Alfred and Jane Grunwell. Bellevue is located at 3311 N. Glebe Road.

References

External links

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/24/AR2007022401112.html * https://web.archive.org/web/20070929101403/http://www.bellevueforest.org/BFHistory.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Vanderwerken, Gilbert 1810 births 1894 deaths American transportation businesspeople Businesspeople from Virginia Businesspeople from Washington, D.C. Businesspeople from Albany, New York People from Arlington County, Virginia People of Virginia in the American Civil War People of Washington, D.C., in the American Civil War 19th-century American businesspeople