Mount Pleasant is a
neighborhood in the
northwestern quadrant of
Washington, D.C., the
capital of the
United States. The neighborhood is bounded by
Rock Creek Park to the north and west; and Harvard Street, NW and the
Adams Morgan neighborhood to the south; and
Sixteenth Street, NW and the
Columbia Heights neighborhood to the east. The neighborhood is home to approximately twelve thousand people, which is approximately two percent of the population of the city.
Today, Mount Pleasant is a diverse community of
affluent people,
middle class wage earners,
working class people, and
immigrants.
History
In 1727,
Charles Calvert, 5th Lord Baltimore (then governor of the
Maryland Colony) awarded a
land grant for present day Mount Pleasant to James Holmead. This estate also included the present-day Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights,
Park View, and
Pleasant Plains neighborhoods. James's son, Anthony, inherited the estate in 1750 and named it
Pleasant Plains. After the
United States Congress created the
District of Columbia in 1791, Pleasant Plains estate became part of
Washington County, a section of the District lying between what now is
Florida Avenue and the
Maryland border. The Holmeads began selling tracts of the Pleasant Plains estate until they had sold everything. Today, the family name is preserved in Holmead Place, a short street located west of Thirteenth Street between Spring and Park Roads NW, in what now is Columbia Heights. During 1794 and 1796
Robert Peter, Georgetown's...
Read More