In 1877 Frederick Douglass bought Cedar Hill, a house on a hill in Anacostia, in a neighborhood whose deeds had once barred Black buyers.
He added rooms, kept a library of more than a thousand books, and built a small stone study behind the house he called 'the Growlery.'
Douglass died here in 1895. His widow, Helen Pitts Douglass, worked to preserve it, and it is now a National Historic Site.
Timeline
- 1877Douglass buys Cedar Hill.
- 1895Douglass dies at the house.
- 1962Becomes part of the National Park System.
The house itself was an argument — proof of where a life could go.
