DACOR Bacon House History: Academic Library




Most Recent Articles



Sallie Sprigg Carroll: DACOR Bacon House First Grande Dame: Chapter 5: Gilded Age Washington – Life in and Out of the House on F Street – Final Years

Nov 3 2025
By 1875, Sallie Carroll’s family had mostly moved out of the house, and she decided it would be financially advantageous to rent out the entire house and move to smaller rented quarters nearby. In the fall of 1875, she rented it to Nikolai Shishkin, the new Russian Imperial Minister to Washington, and he and his family moved into the house on F Street for three years. When they vacated and Sallie resumed life in her old home, she often had visitors and gave grand soirees. But in the 1880s, she started renting rooms in the house, and from time to time the whole house for the season. Many glittering parties were given by its occupants in gilded age Washington. During the final decade of her life, Sallie cut back her entertaining and rarely went out. She died in 1895 and was mourned by kith and kin. As her daughter Alide wrote her husband, “The house is like a body without a soul.” She was buried in a vault in the Carroll mausoleum in Oak Hill Cemetery next to her husband who had died thirty-two years earlier.


The Carroll Family and the Civil War, Part 2

Oct 27 2025
In the middle of July 1863, the Carroll family, including its warriors – Col. S. Sprigg Carroll, Lt. Charles H. Carroll, and son-in-law Brig. Gen. Charles Griffin – gathered at the mausoleum at Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, to bury their patriarch, William Thomas Carroll. His death caught them off guard – they were vacationing in Sharon Springs, New York, when a telegram reached them. The remainder of the war saw the family tossed between triumphs on battlefields and terrible private losses, ending with victory for the Union, the death of President Lincoln, and of Sally Carroll’s aged mother.


The Carroll Family and the Civil War, Part 1

Oct 20 2025
On April 12, 1861, as Fort Sumpter was bombarded and the Civil War commenced, the Carrolls’ youngest child, a six-month old boy named William Cuyler Carroll, died and was interred in a vault in their mausoleum at Oak Hill Cemetery. A Southern family – both the Carrolls and the Spriggs came from old Maryland slave-owning families – they nonetheless remained strong supporters of the Union, unusual among Washingtonians of their standing. Four months into the war, their two sons were in Union regiments, and their daughter Sally was being courted by an up-and-coming Union military officer. This posting offers a look at the Carrolls during the first two years of the war, 1861-63. It is written as part of the bicentennial program at DACOR Bacon House, “Foggy Bottom and the Civil War,” to be presented October 30, 2025

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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.