This area was once part of a large estate owned by Washington City merchant, land speculator, and councilman James Barry, who bought part of the St. Elizabeths tract in hopes of profiting as the city expanded eastward. By the end of the Civil War, some 40,000 refugees from slavery had arrived in Washington and often settled in terrible conditions. To provide housing and education, the U.S. government established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which in 1867 bought 375 acres from Barry's heirs to create a model community. The Bureau sold one-acre lots with building materials and required buyers to build a 14 x 24-foot two-room house with a peaked roof. Within two years, more than 500 African American families, including both refugees and established Washingtonians, had bought lots. Together they cleared trees and built houses, a church, and a school. After working all day, many families went out to Anacostia in the evenings to dig, saw, and hammer by candlelight. Most Barry Farm men held blue-collar jobs, often at St. Elizabeths Hospital or across the river at the Navy Yard or the Washington Gas Light plant, while some worked as government clerks, teachers, or professionals. Among the prominent residents were Frederick Douglass's sons Charles, Lewis, and Frederick Jr.; attorney and justice of the peace John Moss, the first African American judicial officer in DC; and Smithsonian Institution employee Solomon Brown. In 1871, black and white voters alike elected Brown to represent Anacostia in the DC House of Delegates for the first of three terms, and he introduced the measure that changed Barry Farm's name to Hillsdale.
