Pope Francis of New Rome... Washington, DC (Tindall, Standard history of the city of Washington, 1914)

September 30, 2020

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We do not read of other white settlers visiting the site of the District of Columbia until the close of the Seventeenth Century, when a company of Irish and Scotch came over and started a colony in Maryland within the present limits of the District. Of the land ceded to these settlers three tracts lay within the boundaries of the City of Washington.

These refugees seem to have been good managers and to have succeeded accordingly. They called their new home New Scotland and worked their farms in peace and quiet, little dreaming that land where their produce grew would one day be the territory of one of the proudest cities of one of the greatest nations of earth’s history.

One of these early proprietors, Robert Troop, called his farm “Scotland Yard,” and it comprised what is now South-east Washington. Another, Francis Pope, named his place Rome, and called a small stream at the foot of his hill, Tiber River. It is told of this dreamer, that he predicted a greater capital than Rome would occupy that hill and that later generations would command a great and flourishing country in the new world. He related that he had had a dream or vision, in which he had seen a splendid parliament house on the hill, now known to us as Capitol Hill, which he purchased and called Rome, in prophetic honor of the great city to be.

His title to the land may be somewhat convincive of his prophecy, as it was deeded under the name “Rome,” June 5, 1663. It reads:

“Layd out for Francis Pope of this Province Gentleman a parcel of land in Charles County called Rome lying on the East side of the Anacostian River beginning at a marked oak standing by the riverside, the bounded tree of Captain Robert Troop and running north by the river for breadth the length 200 perches to a bounded oak standing at the mouth of a bay or inlet called Tiber.”

Tindall, William, Standard history of the city of Washington from a study of the original sources, Knoxville, Tenn.: Published by H. W. Crew & Co., 1914, pp. 17-18.

Online Source: archive.org/details/standardhistoryo01tind

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