American University, chartered by Congress in 1893, was guided in its development by Methodist Bishop John Fletcher Hurst as a center for training future public servants, and its modern schools in business, law, public affairs, communications, and more continue that wide-ranging vision. Its ties to the nation’s capital have extended beyond location: during both world wars, the U.S. military used the campus as training grounds, bringing soldiers and sailors into daily life in Tenleytown, and in 1963 President John F. Kennedy chose an American University commencement speech to call on the Soviet Union to craft a historic nuclear test ban treaty. The university stands on land once owned by descendants of the Addison-Murdock families, Tenleytown’s largest landowners; in the early 1800s, John Murdock’s country estate, Friendship, welcomed distinguished guests including George Washington. During the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, Murdock’s tract, including today’s Ward Circle and Katzen Arts Center, became Fort Gaines, headquarters of the French Algerian Zouaves, where Abraham Lincoln and Mary Lincoln dined with Colonel de Troibriand on French cuisine, prompting Lincoln to call it the best meal he had had in Washington and to remark that if the men could fight as well as they could cook, the regiment would do very well indeed.