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- WASHINGTON'S ARTFUL LODGER
By Sarah Booth Conroy
February 27, 1993 at 7:00 p.m. EST
In 19th-century Washington, Wormley's Hotel was the place the elite went to meet, eat and sleep.
Wormley's was the most expensive hotel in town -- $5 a day, 50 cents more than the Willard, $2 higher than the Metropolitan. The enticements were not just the "superb Dinner Set, which can not be equalled in this country," as James Wormley's 1869 advertisement proclaimed, nor the "services of the best French and German Workmen in the country." Wormley's own reputation as a friend of the powerful and of the powerless was the magnet.
At last his story, a long neglected gem of the capital's history, is being told in an exhibition at the Heurich Mansion of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. "The Measure of a Man: James Wormley, a Nineteenth Century African-American Entrepreneur," open through April 30, was sparked by a handsome and rare 1885 portrait of Wormley, a gift to the society of descendant H. Minton Francis and his family. Other descendants, including Mavis Wormley Davis and Stanton Wormley, lent exhibits to the show, which includes documents, broadsides, engravings, lithographs and family heirlooms.
The importance of the exhibition, curated by Cheryl Miller, goes beyond Wormley's Hotel and the man himself. It shows the role of free people of color in historic Washington. By 1860, 78 percent of blacks in the capital city were free. Not that life was easy -- they were required to register and carry their documents, and to be off the streets by 10 p.m.
There was an exception to the latter rule -- drivers were not subject to the curfew. A number of free black men became carriage and wagon drivers, a major source of transportation for the town. An albumin print in the exhibit shows a row of drivers in handsome overcoats and tall beaver hats. A similar hat is shown in a glass case.
James Wormley's father, Lynch Wormley, earned his freedom working after hours as a laborer and then a hackney driver. An 1820 certificate shows he paid $400 to J.P. Cocke for his freedom, and he bought his own equipage not long after. Lynch Wormley's wife, Mary, was a free woman of color, which meant their four children were born free.
Lynch Wormley's daughter, Mary, opened a school on land he had bought in the block formed by H and I and 15th and 16th streets. Son William by 1871 was listed as a "man of wealth" because of his large livery. Andrew also had a hackney carriage.
James cleverly worked the club and hotel circuit, making friends as his horses trotted. His responsibility and affability paid off when he was appointed steward of the elite Metropolitan Club after its founding in 1863. The 1885 governors of the club are shown in a photograph lent by the Kiplinger Washington Collection.
Wormley benefited from the end of the Civil War, and the testing in Washington of the Radical Republicans' Reconstruction legislation. In 1866, black men were given the right to vote, and in 1869 segregation was banned in theaters and restaurants. That year, after Wormley and two other people of color were ejected from the National Theatre, its proprietor was served with a warrant.
In 1871, with financial help from Massachusetts Sen. Samuel Hooper, Wormley opened his "House" on I Street. Later, on the family property at 15th and H, he built a larger establishment providing catering, dining rooms and confections as well as lodging. Wormley was a patron of the arts, hiring local artists Henry Ulke and Peter Baumgrass to paint portraits of well-known Washingtonians for his establishment. When the Radical Republican Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, known as a collector of the decorative arts, died in 1874, Wormley bought the fancy furnishings of his famed house and opened his Sumner Parlor.
Wormley's Hotel also served as a conference center for the Civil Service Commission among others, as a reception room for the Arts Club and as a chancery for embassies. His lodgers included many members of Congress, Assistant Secretary of State John Hay and geologist Clarence King.
Wormley was known for his personal attentions to friends and clients. In 1868, he went to London with Ambassador to Great Britain Reverdy Johnson to supervise the preparation and serving of Maryland terrapin and stopped by Paris to buy the aforementioned superb dinner set. When Wormley went to the seashore, he lent the White House cooking equipment from the hotel. He arranged shipment of the horses of Clover and Henry Adams and lent servants for their acclaimed Lafayette Square salon. Engravings and lithographs show Wormley at Abraham Lincoln's side when he died and nursing Sumner in the days before his death.
After their father's death in Boston in 1884, at age 65, James Wormley's sons took over the hotel. William later became a member of the Colored Public School Board and was successful in having a Georgetown school named for his father. Son James, who fought with the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry Volunteers in 1864, was the first African American pharmacist here.
The family sold the hotel at the turn of the century. It was torn down to be replaced by a bank building, now occupied by Union Trust. But James Wormley's reputation still stands strong.
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