Loughboro Road NW is named for the man who had it built in the early 1800s
We’ve lived on Loughboro Road NW for over 35 years and have occasionally wondered where the name comes from for this fairly short and twisty stretch of D.C. roadway. Recently on the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda, I came across a plaque near the junction of Massachusetts Avenue and Little Falls Parkway. It describes Loughborough Mill, a flour mill built by Nathan Loughborough. Notwithstanding the different spellings and the modest distance between the plaque and the D.C. road, is this the person our street is named after?
— Larry Gage, Washington
First off, let’s get the pronunciation right. It’s “LUFF-boro.” How do we know that? Because of a portrait of Nathan Loughborough painted by Charles Peale Polk. In it, Nathan is holding a letter addressed to “N. Luffborough Esq.”
Apparently, said Jim Johnston, a Washington lawyer and author who has written extensively about the family, Nathan’s last name caused him no end of trouble when receiving his mail. Writing it phonetically seemed to help.
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We’ll get to Nathan’s story in a bit — yes, the road is named after him — but first here’s another way that “Loughborough” and the mail intersect: In 1891, a report from the U.S. Board on Geographic Names criticized the Postal Service for a confusing lack of uniformity in the spelling of place names. To reduce delivery errors, Postmaster General John Wanamaker decreed that spelling would be simplified. Among his orders: The suffix “borough” would be replaced by “boro.” (Some of the orders were eventually rescinded. Pittsburgh was “Pittsburg” only from 1894 to 1911.)
So, that’s why the road in the District is “Loughboro” even though it’s named after a “Loughborough.” As for its namesake, Nathan (1772-1852) was a Virginian who worked under Alexander Hamilton in the Treasury Department. He must have been impressed by his boss. Nathan named his oldest son Alexander and his second oldest son Hamilton.
When the capital moved to Washington in 1800, Loughborough moved with it.
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He was a mover and a shaker. He lived in Georgetown, invested in the C&O Canal and was president of the Rockville Turnpike, the toll road that led from Georgetown into Maryland, roughly today’s Wisconsin Avenue.
One contemporary described him as a “large, portly, handsome man.”
In 1810, Loughborough built a mansion about where American University is now. It was called Grassland. He also built a road that ran between his estate and what is today’s MacArthur Boulevard, near the Potomac.
“That’s why that’s named Loughboro Road, because it ran to his house,” Johnston said. In fact, it ran beyond the house, continuing into the upper Northwest.
“When Nebraska got admitted to the Union — and each state got to have some avenue — they were running out of big, nice streets,” Johnston said. “So they cut off part of Loughboro Road and renamed it Nebraska Avenue.”
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Of course, neither Grassland nor Loughboro Road are anywhere near the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda. But Milton is.
Milton was another sizable property, near River Road and Little Falls Parkway. It’s between two creeks — Little Falls Branch and Willett Branch — perfectly positioned for a mill that used water power to grind flour and run woodcutting machinery. Nathan Loughborough purchased Milton and its accompanying tobacco plantation around 1820. There was already a small stone house there that had served as a trading post early in the 18th century. Nathan enlarged it considerably.
Loughborough was a Quaker. Quakers today have an abolitionist reputation, but plenty were enslavers, Loughborough among them. When the Civil War began, his son Hamilton supported the Union. But Hamilton’s son Henry joined the Confederacy. It was while Henry was in Richmond, recuperating from an injury that he met Margaret Cabell Brown, the woman who would become his wife — and write down much of the family’s history.
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During the war, the Union Army built a fort across from Grassland called Fort Gaines. They commandeered Milton (trashing the place, according to the Loughboroughs, who returned after the war).
Shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Nathan’s son Hamilton was visited at Grassland by authorities. They believed the Loughboroughs had hidden John Wilkes Booth there, helping the assassin escape.
They hadn’t, but the stress of the accusation supposedly brought on a stroke in Hamilton, who died a few months later.
The Grassland mansion is gone, but the Milton house survives. Only three families have owned it. Terry Beaty bought it in 1983. He told Answer Man the house is full of character — and history. Union soldiers penciled graffiti on the walls. One wrote the last stanza of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
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Johnston said it’s likely that among the founders of Macedonia Baptist Church on nearby River Road were descendants of African Americans who had been enslaved at Milton.
Among Nathan Loughborough’s strongly held opinions was his belief that he should not be required to pay taxes to the District of Columbia. In his legal suit against the U.S. government, he used a now-familiar phrase: “taxation without representation.”
The case went to the Supreme Court. Loughborough lost.
Questions, please
Have a question about something in the Washington area? Send it to answerman@washpost.com.
Twitter: @johnkelly
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.
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