Meridian Hill by Stephen R. McKevitt

Author:Stephen R. McKevitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

R OCK C REEK

Because the area that would become Washington, D.C., was situated just below the first waterfall that was encountered by exploration ships coming up the Potomac, the location was selected as a naturally good spot on the river at which to stop and start a settlement. By 1703, a small outpost had been established on the riverside just to the west of the mouth of Rock Creek. The surrounding area—the land that lay north of the small inlet that would become the Tiber Creek—was then known for a time simply as Rock Creek. With the formal founding of Georgetown in 1751, just below the local geological fall line, the land on the hills and ridge that lay to the northeast of the town became a bit more easily accessible. An early nearby path allowed people to move along the ridge; today, this path is known as Columbia Road. John Flint’s property lay just to the south of this nascent road.

Since it was on the ridge, this early route that eventually became Columbia Road very likely originated as a Native American trail; it offered a naturally good passage across the area because the ridge was a watershed divide, with no streams crossing it. The trail followed along the crest that separates the upper Rock Creek watershed from the lower set of streams flowing to the Potomac. After the European settlements were established and grew during the 1700s, the path of this trail developed as part of a route—initially known as Rock Creek Road—that ran between Georgetown and the cities to the north.

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