DACOR Bacon House History: Academic Library




Most Recent Articles



DACOR Bacon House and Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown

Dec 9 2024
William Thomas Carroll and his wife Sally Carroll suffered two deaths in the family in early 1857 – their twenty-four-year-old son Willie Carroll and a favorite, Howard, only five years old. They may have reached out to Henry Parry, a manufacturer of marble monuments with offices on Pennsylvania Avenue between 18thand 19th Streets – not far from their home – to construct and erect a mausoleum at Oak Hill Cemetery, the new and beautifully landscaped cemetery in Georgetown overlooking Rock Creek. The bodies of their two sons were interred in May 1857, and by the end of the century some nine other family members were interred. A notable temporary interment in their mausoleum was Willie Lincoln, the beloved son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, who died in 1862. His body was removed in 1865 when Lincoln was assassinated, and the bodies were taken to Springfield. DACOR Bacon House has a long association with Oak Hill Cemetery. This article was first given as a talk Terence Walz gave on a guided tour of the cemetery in May 2023 which began in the Oak Hill Cemetery Chapel.


The President’s Wife Comes to Lunch at DACOR Bacon House, 1891

Dec 2 2024
Caroline Harrison, wife of President Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893), came to lunch in February 1891 as the guest of Countess Sally Carroll Esterhazy, who had returned to Washington in 1884 to live with her mother, Mrs. William T. Carroll, at her house at 1801 F Street. Mrs. Harrison was known for her interest in White House history, and she must have happily accepted the countess’s invitation to lunch, knowing of the Carrolls’ own historic associations. Accompanying the First Lady were ten other ranking Washington women.


Sarah Virginia Carroll, Countess Esterhazy Part I

Nov 18 2024
Sally and William Carroll had at least nine children, four girls and five boys, during their thirty-five-year marriage. Of the girls, Sarah Virginia, nicknamed Sally like her mother, was perhaps the best known. She grew into a pretty, vivacious young woman, with an interest in couture, like all the Carrol daughters, and had no trouble attracting attention. Married to an up-and-coming military officer at the beginning of the Civil War in a wedding attended by President Lincoln and his wife, she soon gained renown in the nation’s capital. Soon after the war, she was unexpectedly widowed, but she gained further notice when she married, three years later, into the Hungarian nobility, and became Countess Esterhazy. This biography is in two parts. The first deals with her youth and young married life as a general’s wife.

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Our Authors


Terence Walz is the resident historian at DACOR Bacon House. He is a historian of modern Egyptian history with a doctorate from Boston University. He is the author and editor of two published books and has recently contributed articles to the Journal of Supreme Court History and the website of the White House Historical Association. Dr. Walz’s work in international organizations led him to the DACOR Bacon House where he has been a member for six years. He has taken on the task of researching and documenting the history of the DACOR home, its history, and its inhabitants, particularly the first one hundred years. This archive is a growing collection of his work.



Elizabeth Warner, a lawyer by training and DACOR member, is researching the life of Virginia Murray Bacon, the last private owner of the DACOR Bacon House from 1925 to 1980. She is an adjunct professor at New England College, where she designs and teaches courses in law and political science. A long-term resident of the Washington, D.C. area, she also lived and worked throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia for 14 years, often in extremely challenging environments. In addition to articles about Mrs. Bacon, she has published material on human rights, international law and other subjects. Ms. Warner has law degrees from the University of Michigan and Georgetown University.