DANIEL MURRAY AND ANNA EVANS LIKELY MET THROUGH church-sponsored programs or entertainments, or thanks to one of their mutual acquaintances. They married in the early spring of 1879. They were a good-looking couple. Daniel, twenty-eight, was five feet, eight inches tall, of medium build and fairly proportioned, with closely trimmed hair and a full mustache, and his twenty-one-year-old bride, tall and slender, had “alert brown eyes” and a “soft, musical voice.” Both were light in complexion, Anna’s color described as “about as dark as a Spaniard’s.” As was the custom in the public school system, Anna, as a married woman, planned to leave her teacher’s position at the end of the academic year. St. Luke’s, still under construction, was not an option for the April 2 wedding. The ceremony took place at 15th Street Presbyterian Church, officiated by its new pastor, Reverend Francis Grimké, ordained just the year before.
Besides St. Luke’s and 15th Street Presbyterian, there were several other high-status African American churches in Washington, including Metropolitan AME and 19th Street Baptist, but according to a newspaper article headlined “Washington’s Colored Aristocracy,” 15th Street Presbyterian, established in 1841 by John F. Cook, Sr., was the first among equals: “the focus or pole around which the high-toned colored society revolves.” Features on the black elite usually ran in the black press (the Washington Bee or People’s Advocate), but this one was carried by one of the city’s mainstream newspapers, the Evening Star. Most of its white readers would be taken aback to learn that “There is an aristocracy among the colored people of Washington as well as among the white, and it is quite as exclusive. . . . These people have their own society, give balls, dinner parties, receptions, and other entertainments. . . . At a ‘high tea’ or ball given by this circle of the colored aristocracy one can find quite as much intelligence, quite as much beauty, and quite as much grace of manner as will be gathered at any of the swell receptions of white folks.”1
At this time there were nearly 60,000 black Washingtonians, making up a full third of the population. They formed a pyramid of three strata. The lowest band of poor and uneducated was the largest by far. The middle class was small but growing. The pyramid’s tiny tip represented those in the “colored aristocracy,” never more than a hundred families. Well educated, refined, accomplished, and prosperous, these men and women followed politics and current events, engaged in the city’s civic life, race-related issues in particular, and enjoyed socializing. With rare exceptions, they were significantly lighter in complexion than the black majority.
The Evening Star article identified leading men from this upper stratum who were associated with 15th Street Presbyterian Church, namely, George F. T. Cook and John F. Cook, Jr. (sons of the church founder, who had died in 1855), James Wormley, Hon. John Mercer Langston, Dr. Charles B. Purvis, Senator Blanche K. Bruce, and Professor Richard T. Greener. Taking a closer look at just these individuals up to the time of the Murrays’ 1879 wedding reveals much about the history and characteristics of Washington’s black elite society.2
The Cooks and Wormleys were long-established District families, pillars of the antebellum free black community. John F. Cook, Sr., had been a school and church leader, and his sons, educated at Oberlin College, had followed suit. George was the superintendent of the colored public school system. John pursued a career in municipal government and Republican politics. By this date, the elective city government that had previously allowed him to be voted in as alderman and city registrar had been replaced with a system of three district commissioners appointed by the President. Washington residents having thus lost the franchise, he was now appointed to office and was currently serving as district collector of taxes. He was one of the richest black men in Washington, most of his wealth held in real estate. He was married to Helen Appo, a daughter of one of Philadelphia’s black elite families.
James Wormley had been born free in the nation’s capital. An entrepreneur, he owned boardinghouses and stables, and became a celebrated hotelier. His luxurious Wormley Hotel, located near Lafayette Square, was one of the finest in the capital. The clientele was mostly, though not strictly, white, and included eminent men in government from across the United States and abroad. This was a time when many officials in Washington lived in hotels and a lot of government and financial business transpired in hotel settings. Wormley’s enterprises were considered safe investments, and he himself was a judicious investor. Through acquiring valuable real estate in the District he had eventually become worth $150,000, placing him among the wealthiest Washingtonians of color.3
Employment with the Freedmen’s Bureau had brought John Mercer Langston and Charles Purvis to the nation’s capital. Langston was the son of a Virginia plantation owner and his former slave, Lucy Langston. His parents had lived together openly, but both had died when he was just four. His father had devised an arrangement for his youngest son’s education before his death and by the terms of his will had bequeathed to him a considerable inheritance of land and other resources. Langston now had a national reputation and was US minister to Haiti.
Charles Purvis was born in Philadelphia into an affluent black elite family with notable abolitionists on the paternal and maternal sides of the family. His mother, Harriet, was the daughter of James Forten, a race activist and wealthy businessman. After attending Oberlin College, Purvis earned a medical degree from Wooster Medical College (later renamed Western Reserve Medical School). He enlisted in the Union Army as a surgeon and afterward worked at Freedmen’s Hospital adjacent to Howard University (where he would be promoted to surgeon in chief in a few years’ time). He was also on the medical faculty at Howard.
Like the Cook brothers and Wormley, Langston and Purvis were on-the-ground witnesses in the capital to the rapid changes Congress wrought in favor of their race. The 1866 Civil Rights Act, according black Americans the same rights of citizenship as their white counterparts, followed on the heels of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. To oversee compliance with the new order, the Reconstruction Act the next year divided the former Confederate states into military districts and formulated conditions by which Southern states would be recognized by Congress. The Fourteenth Amendment, granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and guaranteeing them federal rights, was ratified in 1868, followed by the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, certifying that the right to vote could not be denied because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The Force Acts of 1870 and 1871 banned the use of terror or force to prevent blacks from voting. From 1869 to 1873, a series of public accommodation laws for hotels, restaurants, bars, and places of entertainment was enacted in the District of Columbia. The 1875 federal Civil Rights Act ensured that the same safeguards against race-based discrimination in public facilities applied in every state.4
A setback followed when, to resolve the disputed presidential election of 1876, Republican nominee Rutherford B. Hayes promised to remove the last of the federal troops from the South in exchange for Democrats’ conceding a series of electoral votes that allowed Hayes to assume the presidency in 1877. Since some of the political strategizing had taken place at the Wormley Hotel, the compromise is referred to by historians—with unintended irony—as the Wormley Agreement. Despite the initiation of this “let alone” policy in the South, African Americans, looking back in 1879, could point to a “glorious harvest of good things,” as one ex-slave (the brother of Blanche Bruce) expressed it, and believe that the overall momentum was on their side. No one could have foretold that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 would be the last civil rights legislation passed by Congress for eighty years.
Senator Blanche Bruce was born in slavery; his white father was the owner of his mother. He was occasionally tutored along with his father’s legitimate son. Freed by the general emancipation at age twenty-two, Bruce took full advantage of political opportunities in Mississippi during Reconstruction. He also acquired a 3,000-acre Delta plantation. His term as a US senator from Mississippi, the second black man to attain that distinction, began in 1875. By 1879, sixteen black citizens had been seated in the US Senate and House of Representatives. Of the group of men named in the Evening Star article, Bruce was the closest to “self-made.” Except for the early tutoring his father had provided, his education had been limited to a few months’ study at Oberlin College. But he was a man of “unconquerable ambition.” He developed an air of self-assurance and the polished “manners of a gentleman of the old school.” And in 1878, he “married up.” His bride was Josephine Willson, the daughter of Joseph Willson, the author of Sketches of the Higher Classes Among the Colored Society in Philadelphia. After Josephine’s birth, the Willson family had moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and been key in establishing that city’s black elite. Josephine Bruce, described as “fairer than many a Caucasian belle,” was an accomplished linguist and a charming hostess. The Bruce home in Washington was a center of social life.5
Richard T. Greener went to preparatory school at Oberlin College and Phillips Academy Andover. In 1870, he distinguished himself as the first black graduate of Harvard University. After becoming the principal of Washington’s Preparatory High School for Colored Youth in 1872–73, he next earned a law degree at the University of South Carolina. He was welcomed back upon his return to Washington in 1877, especially by the city’s black intelligentsia, and was now the dean of Howard University’s law school.
Francis Grimké was not an unknown quantity when he became a pastor in Washington. He and his brother Archibald were born slaves on a plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. Their father, a white lawyer named Henry Grimké, who had acknowledged his paternity, sent Francis and Archibald to private school, and in his will left instructions for their freedom. Francis suffered a period of reenslavement, but eventually, with the financial help of their white half sisters, the famous abolitionists Sarah Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld, the brothers benefited from first-rate educations. Francis graduated as valedictorian from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Turning to the ministry, he completed graduate studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. He married in 1878, the same year he was ordained a minister. His wife was the former Charlotte Forten, a sister of Charles Purvis’s mother.
The stories of these eight individuals illustrate their ability, ambition, drive, and desire. The advantage they had relative to the many freedmen to follow, who may have possessed equal ability and determination to get ahead, was a head start. They were either scions of free, established, well-to-do families or had a leg up because their white fathers acknowledged their paternity and provided at least some schooling, which was extremely rare (the miscegenation was not). They enjoyed a head start not only in acquiring education and refined manners but in landing respectable livelihoods in a competitive environment. Despite the allure of Washington, in truth there was opportunity for only so many African American entrepreneurs, federal and municipal officials and clerks, ministers, teachers, professors, doctors, dentists, and lawyers.6
The “colored aristocracy” of Washington was protective of their head start. Theirs was an exclusive club, hard to break into, especially from the middle class. With its unique advantages, Washington was a Mecca for upper-class blacks from other cities. They were attracted for the same reasons that made it a comparative colored man’s paradise for the many: government jobs and protections and superior educational pathways for themselves and their children. “Would be’s” who fancied inclusion in the District’s black elite circles had to meet a combination of requirements. Being wealthy or light-skinned (“mulatto nobodies”) or even both was not enough. The more important question was “Who are your people?” Was the aspirant known to those already secure in the city’s “colored aristocracy” or introduced by one of its members? Did he stem from a family distinguished by virtue of including well-known abolitionists or war heroes? Did he have a first-class education or had he arrived in Washington to serve as a high official? One’s package of qualities determined whether one would be admitted to the capital’s black elite or not. As for money, without enough to buy a home worthy of being used for entertainment and the clothes and accoutrements that signaled a level of success and etiquette, one was done for. And although light skin was not enough, few were those folded in without it. One exception was Paul Laurence Dunbar; when the celebrated poet moved to DC, the smart set readily overlooked his very dark color.
Although class conscious and socially exclusive, the black elite never lost sight of the unifying goal of equality for all people of color. Dunbar employed his literary gift in articulating this: “In aims and hopes for our race, it is true, we are all at one, but it must be understood, when we come to consider the social life, that the girls who cook in your kitchens and the men who serve in your dining-rooms do not dance in our parlors.”7
Those in the “colored aristocracy” were not works in progress. They had proved their worthiness and could offer their own success as exhibit number one to counter criticism that blacks were not ready for full participation in the social contract. They were primed to think of themselves as Americans first and foremost, with no apology for color. Assimilation was the logical next step if there were to be one society. Attempts to categorize by race frustrated Charles Purvis, who resented the expression “leading colored doctor or lawyer,” averring, “We are all Americans, white, black, and colored.”
In the 1870s, the possibilities seemed positive enough for the New Era (a black paper with a national reach) to predict that “in the newer and better life upon which we have now entered, the color of the skin will cease to be a bar to recognition of gentlemanly qualifications here in the United States.” For instance, O. S. B. Wall joined the white First Congregational Church. When the pastor objected, the support of the parishioners was with Wall, and it was the reverend who had to go. The Walls, Langstons, and Bruces all had experience mingling in interracial society and occasionally entertained liberal whites in their Washington homes. Less occasionally they were entertained by them, as when the journalist and government official John Forney invited several prominent African Americans to a gentlemen’s party also attended by the President of the United States and several cabinet members.8
But few whites were as progressive as Forney. Many were willing to interact courteously with the best class of African Americans in work or business settings but drew the line at social equality. William S. Scarborough, a Wilberforce University professor, understood that “The white man does not know the Negro. . . . To know the Negro one must be with him, and of him, and see what he is doing and above all what he is thinking.” The remedy, according to John Mercer Langston, depended “on the ability to place oneself among those with whom one would associate.” That was easier said than done. As Scarborough pointed out, because of the sensitivity that came with the “growing refinement of the Negro . . . he naturally recoils from rebuff.”
The drawback in not seeking full inclusion with whites was that when it came to advancement, business and social functions fundamentally overlapped. It was at after-work get-togethers over meals or drinks that contacts were made and deals were struck. Left out of such opportunities for interpersonal networking, including membership in professional societies such as the American Medical Association, markedly added to the black man’s handicap.
For many upper-class citizens of color in Washington, progress depended on some kind of white patronage. That was certainly the case for positions in municipal and federal government. Being an independent business or professional man was not necessarily an exception. There were not enough well-to-do black clients to support the black lawyers in the capital, for example. Not only were wealthy white patrons the bread and butter of James Wormley’s enterprises, but it was his associations with white men that facilitated the large loans he needed to construct his hotel. Like others in the black elite, Wormley skillfully cultivated relationships with influential whites that were characterized by gentility and respect on both sides (if not altogether evenly). Francis Grimké admired Wormley’s style: “There was nothing obsequious about him in his contact with white people, as so many colored people are.” Veering into “toadying” was not dignified.9
Even as aspiring elites of color had their hands full trying to make progress in a white world, they faced criticism from the black majority. A mix of truths, half-truths, and untruths came hurling forth: You are snobbish show-offs and do not want to socialize with the rest of us. You decry prejudice by whites against yourselves but practice class and color prejudice against us. You want to run away from your race and wish you were white. You care only about your own advancement and do not want to help the down-and-out among us or raise the race as a whole.
Though the elite strongly supported black causes, they did not deny their class-consciousness and claimed the prerogative to socialize with whomever they pleased, following the natural tendency to associate with like-minded people of similar habits and interests. They were not without criticisms of their low-class counterparts, of course, but insisted that they did not want to distance themselves from the race so much as distinguish themselves from those who might add to its unfair generalization as a worthless and vicious culture. Joseph Willson observed as early as 1841 that the public “have long been accustomed to regard the people of color as one consolidated mass, all huddled together, without any particular or general distinctions, social or otherwise. The sight of one colored man with them . . . is the sight of a community; and the errors and crimes of one, is adjudged as the criterion of character of the whole body.” The black upper class has echoed this sentiment ever since. As Paul Laurence Dunbar admitted, “Some of us wince a wee bit when we are thrown into the lump as the peasant or serving class.”10
Though the degree of effort expended to uplift the race varied among individuals, many black elites acted upon a sense of noblesse oblige to assist the downtrodden by organizing and contributing to charities or by agitating for political and educational advancements. They were convinced that they also aided the overall cause by personal example. They saw themselves as cultural brokers: their success and gentility would inspire the black masses while proving to whites that, given education and opportunity, all African Americans would follow in their footsteps.
Blacks with lighter skin color, more European features, proper English, and impeccable manners put whites at ease and opened more doors. It was useless for those in the black upper stratum to deny their own color bias. It was obvious in their selection of mates alone. Nevertheless, those who valued their status in black elite circles did not wish to run from their race. They identified wholeheartedly with people of color. Many could have passed for white. Daniel Murray’s close friend Cyrus Field Adams lamented, “My trouble is, all my life I have been trying to pass for colored.”
People of both races mocked and caricatured the black elite for “putting on airs” and “affectation of erudition.” Their targets were sensitive to such barbs, by and large unfair exaggerations. They reacted by ensuring that their social events, though first class, were tasteful and elegant affairs, all signs of ostentation eschewed. They rejected the emotional displays prevalent in most black churches, for example. The services at high-toned churches were restrained and featured classical music. In their homes and dress they avoided gaudy finery. The precise manners of the upper class and the exemplary behavior they insisted on in their children were carefully cultivated.11
Daniel and Anna Murray were outstanding exemplars of this culture. Murray’s hometown newspaper noted, “Baltimoreans naturally feel proud of Daniel Murray for he takes his place among men. . . . He is a cultured and refined gentleman. Nothing of the coarse or vulgar, or cheapness in Mr. Murray.” Entering upon their married life, all signs were auspicious for an assured place in elite circles. Anna was not only related to former senator Hiram Revels, the first black citizen to serve in either house of Congress, but hailed from an impressive line of abolitionists who had played major roles in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and John Brown’s Raid. Her education at Oberlin College provided an immediate connection to many of the top elites in Washington. Daniel held a distinguished professional position at the Library of Congress. Part of the black intelligentsia, his acumen as a businessman in addition was already well established. Still, he would need to add to his real estate and construction ventures to cushion the nest egg that would allow him to pursue the upper-class lifestyle and purchase a house for entertaining. As hard as Murray worked, it did not keep him from the nonstop socializing that he and Anna indulged in during the first years of their marriage. The newlyweds were invited to one black elite occasion after another, including a number of weddings for which, unlike their own, much detail is available.
Daniel and Anna were among the guests at the matrimonial alliance of Spencer Murray and Margaret Myers on a September evening a few months after their own wedding. The “Misses Myers” present at the Bachelors Ball that Daniel and Spencer had helped organize five years earlier may well have referred to Maggie and her sister. The wedding of William Myers’s “lovely and much-admired” daughter was highly anticipated. The National Republican effused, “The elite of our colored fashionable societies are on the qui vive about a marriage to take place in this city. . . . The high contracting parties move among and are much respected by the leading colored citizens of Washington and Baltimore.”
St. Luke’s was still not completed, so the ceremony was held, through the courtesy of its rector, at St. John’s Episcopal Church, “the Church of Presidents” on Lafayette Square. Reverend Alexander Crummell officiated. The “various shades of complexion represented” in the audience impressed the commentator, who opined, “They drew a full house, of all classes of citizens regardless of race . . . and it was a beautiful sight to see.” The prominent white guests included Joseph Nimmo, the chief of the Bureau of Statistics, where Spencer Murray was employed, two former mayors of the city, and two of the current district commissioners. The bridegroom wore the “regulation suit of black, relieved by a white tie and kid gloves.” Maggie was costumed in white satin and tulle, decorated with orange blossoms. “A beautiful brunette,” her hair à la pompadour was covered by a delicate veil. The catered reception was held at the Myerses’ home, their parlors “thronged with many of the leading citizens of the community.” Spencer and Maggie left the reception in time to catch a late train for their Niagara Falls honeymoon. Daniel and Anna’s gift of a silver jewelry case lined with blue silk was one of the many valuable presents listed in the People’s Advocate the next day.
When Maggie’s sister Henrietta, described as “a Washington Belle,” married a few years later, the ceremony, performed by Reverend Grimké, and the reception were held in the Myerses’ parlors. It is telling to note that the Washington Bee pronounced that on this occasion “there was no unnecessary display of toilets or false demonstrations. It reminded one of the many fashionable weddings in the days gone by.” Though the nuptials of both Myers sisters were tasteful affairs, this sentiment shows that the sensitivity of black elites to any ostentation that might make them vulnerable to criticism sometimes resulted in conservative understatement.12
On the last evening of October 1879, the Daniel Murrays attended the party that O. S. B. Wall and his wife, Amanda, held to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The Wall home was next door to John Mercer Langston’s chalet-inspired Hillside Cottage. Happy to step from the windy night into “the light and warmth of their beautiful parlors,” the Murrays congratulated the Walls and added their gift of a silver butter knife to a table laden with presents. Captain Wall was a frequent host and sometimes reminisced about the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and how he and his cohorts had been cast into jail. “It moves one to tears,” recalled a listener. On that evening, Wall’s sister Caroline Langston was present and so was Mrs. John H. Smyth, while their minister husbands were serving abroad in Haiti and Liberia, respectively. Senator and Josephine Bruce, John Cromwell, Christian Fleetwood, William E. Matthews, and several professors from Howard University were in attendance, as were Milton Holland and his wife, Virginia, who lived nearby. Holland had been known to Langston and Wall since the time they had recruited him into the 5th Regiment, United States Colored Troops. Holland had distinguished himself at the Battle of New Market Heights, earning a Congressional Medal of Honor. He was now a rising clerk in the US Treasury Department. The anniversary party was characterized by stimulating conversation, a catered supper, and abundant wine and liquor. The evening was “enlivened further by music from the charming Mrs. Murray.”
Anna Murray may have given up her role as music teacher in the public schools, but she sustained “her reputation as a singer whose sweetness of voice is only equaled by her easy manner of bearing herself.” She presided at the piano at the Howard University commencement in May, one of her first public appearances as Mrs. Daniel Murray. Now she was slated to share the bill at a benefit concert in November with a famous headliner, Madame Marie Selika. The “wonderful colored Prima Donna” had entertained the President and Mrs. Hayes the November before, one of the first African American artists to perform at the White House. Christian Fleetwood directed the “Grand Concert” at Lincoln Hall, an auditorium available to all without regard to race, on November 3, 1879. There were about six hundred people in the racially mixed audience, “many of whom were whites of the most fashionable circles in the city.” As a vocalist, Anna apparently commanded quite a vocal range, as she was variously described as singing soprano, alto, and contralto.13
Meanwhile, St. Luke’s, according to one commentator, had moved “toward completion with all the rapidity of a chained snail.” The congregation was determined to hold the first divine service on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1879, even though there was work left to do. The church was Gothic Revival in style, made of blue stone quarried from the Potomac River. The design choice was Reverend Crummell’s, inspired by Anglican churches he had visited in England. He worked with the architect Calvin Brent to bring it to fruition. Evidence of excellent craftsmanship was everywhere. The finely proportioned building had a sharply pitched roof. The main entrance consisted of two pairs of lancet doors with a stone tympanum above. The large stained-glass window centered above the entrance, not quite finished, was composed of five narrow lancet windows surmounted by a tracery, giving the impression of a single pointed-arch window.
Anticipation was pronounced. Sneak peeks at ten cents each were allowed in the days leading up to the official debut. When the day finally arrived, worshippers began filling the pews two hours before the eleven o’clock service. Soon the seating for eight hundred was filled to capacity, “at least one-third of those in attendance being from the white membership of the several Episcopal Churches in the city.” The nave was divided into six bays separated by columns with Gothic-inspired foliated capitals. The chancel, three feet above the level of the main floor, was decorated with evergreens and the gift of a cross of ferns and wheat. Christian Fleetwood led the choir in singing the processional as Reverend Crummell entered. Daniel Murray must have reflected on his blessings that Thanksgiving day. The congregation had elected him vestryman of this magnificent new church, and he and his wife were expecting their first child.14
Murray was in a lighthearted mood throughout the holiday season. In December he worked on an article for the Evening Star entitled “The Ladies Law of Leap Year.” The feature ran a few days before the leap year of 1880 commenced—an interesting subject for one who had so recently surrendered his own bachelorhood. Murray reviewed the tradition that allows women to propose marriage during leap years, “a privilege which, during the other three years, is the sole prerogative of men.” It was Murray’s first published piece of writing, and it revealed a verbose style. He turned what should have been a puff piece into a ponderous read by including an erudite history of calendars.
The first day of 1880, Murray was out and about according to the New Year’s custom. Families opened their homes to receive friends and offer libations. The “flowing punch bowl” added to the festive mood on the streets as well-wishers called at one household after another. Many couples were among those making the rounds, but a social chronicler noted seeing “Hon. Frederick Douglass and brother Daniel Murray, solus” at one reception.
Anna did step out with her husband the next evening. Pinckney Pinchback from New Orleans, former Louisiana governor, was in town, and hosted a party at the home of Mamie and Robert J. Harlan, Jr., he the son of the eminent Colonel Robert James Harlan. The senior Harlan (President Hayes had bestowed his colonel’s commission), who was prominent in Ohio and national Republican Party politics, was visiting from Cincinnati. The extravagances of the holidays were in effect, and Governor Pinchback prepared eggnog spiked with so much alcohol that William Matthews insisted on “pouring in milk afterwards and bringing it down to the average.” In recognition of leap year, many single ladies were invited. It was an animated scene, and “ever and anon the wondrously rich voice of Miss Mattie Lawrence [one of the Fisk Jubilee Singers] or Mrs. Daniel Murray would break on the company in sweetest song.”
Not even a week later, another occasion took place at Harlan’s house, this one a dinner for twelve hosted by the younger gentlemen to honor Governor Pinchback and Colonel Harlan. Murray and others present at the January 2 party were joined this evening by provisions merchant James T. Bradford. He was one of Baltimore’s foremost businessmen and would, in a few years’ time, acquire a house in Washington and become an active member of St. Luke’s Church and a regular crony of Murray.15
Daniel (who had continued rooming with his sister Ellen until his marriage) and Anna were living in the 800 block of M Street when their son, Daniel Evans Murray—called Dannie by the family—was born on February 11, 1880. Soon thereafter, the family of three moved to Anna’s parents’ house at 1926 12th Street NW, presumably for help with the baby. Anna’s siblings Henrietta, Mary, and Bruce were all attending school, while Lewis, having completed his studies at Howard University, was now a working teacher.
Daniel’s brother Samuel Proctor had remarried in 1877 to Alice Harris of Baltimore, his junior by more than two decades, and moved back to 13th Street, right across the street from his siblings, Ellen and Daniel. By the birth of their son the following year, the Proctor family had relocated to the countryside near Rockville, Maryland. Samuel had bought a farm there and turned it into a summer resort. His daughter Eugenia was of course part of the household, and by the summer of 1880, when the Murrays came calling, the Proctors, like Daniel and Anna, had added an infant to their family.
Samuel and Alice Proctor received guests from the fifteenth of May until the close of the season in early September. Their large country house was situated on the crest of a hill. A wide veranda encircled the dwelling, and from the porch above one could view the village of Rockville below and the rolling blue-violet mountains in the distance. Some guests came for a prolonged stay, but, as the resort was only a sixteen-mile train ride from Washington, weekend or even day jaunts were also options. Proctor eventually added enough rooms to the house to accommodate thirty people. He provided all the comforts of home for “a class who are mutually agreeable.”
In mid-July 1880, Daniel and Anna Murray were part of just such a class gathered for a weekend outing at Proctor’s Resort, along with Charley and Mary Proctor, Christian and Sara Fleetwood, Bob and Mamie Harlan, Caroline Langston, and Virginia Holland. Actually, the wives of Murray, Charley Proctor, Fleetwood, and Harlan were already there, enjoying a longer stay when the others arrived by Saturday’s train.
After supper some strolled the landscape, dotted with shade and fruit trees and a cool spring. Others engaged in croquet or archery on the front lawn. When evening shadows arrived, Chinese lanterns illuminated the lawn, but eventually all retired to the parlor, where, to the strains of a Strauss waltz furnished by Anna, those so inclined twirled in dance. The company next attempted an amateur performance of H.M.S. Pinafore with Chris Fleetwood in the major role and Bob Harlan and Dan Murray alternating between several characters and supplying the chorus. The musical was fresh on their minds because the December before St. Luke’s had staged performances of the popular Gilbert and Sullivan operetta at Lincoln Hall, a fund-raiser for the church.
Sunday started with a religious service and was followed by a full day of amusements and fellowship, winding up with punch and a light repast at 8 p.m., served in “Proctor’s style.” As one who sampled his hospitality noted, an excursion planned to Proctor’s meant “There is a good time coming, boys.” Indeed, black-people-only occasions were at once relaxing and invigorating; whites would have poisoned the party. Come Monday morning, a six o’clock bell announced breakfast. Daniel Murray and other male guests rushed in the pink dawn to catch the train back to DC. These were working “aristocrats.” The fortunes of the wealthiest among them never compared to those accumulated by upper-class whites of the day.16
On August 6, Murray attended a Friday-evening stag party honoring the diplomat John H. Smyth, in town for a brief period. Such gentlemen-only occasions followed a familiar format: card playing, a late supper, then numerous toasts and responses, all accompanied by drinks and cigars. Murray was out again the next Friday night for a “truly grand scene” at Milton and Virginia Holland’s house. Like the Langstons and Walls, the Hollands had a handsome home on Howard University Hill. Theirs was modeled after a French villa with a mansard roof and an ample portico. It stood on an eminence entirely surrounded by spacious lawns. The commodious interior, elegantly furnished, included a library stocked with “a choice selection of the best works of the best authors.” On this occasion “men noted in literature, men of official station and of wealth” were gathered, “surrounded by charming ladies equally well known.”
Daniel and Anna attended two notable weddings in 1881. The first, “a wedding which called out the elite of our colored society,” took place the evening of April 8 at 15th Street Presbyterian Church, almost precisely two years after the Murrays had been married in the same church. The bride was Mamie Syphax. She sang soprano in the choir at St. Luke’s, where her cousin Douglas Syphax and his wife, Abbie McKee Syphax, were active members. Mamie was the daughter of Charles Syphax and the granddaughter of Maria Syphax, herself the offspring of Martha Washington’s grandson George Washington Parke Custis and his slave Ariana Carter. Custis had eventually freed Maria and given her fifteen acres on his Arlington, Virginia, estate.
Now eighty, the venerable matriarch came to the wedding from Arlington at the special request of the bride. “The spectacle of three generations being represented was as beautiful as it was rare,” reported the National Republican, describing the overall audience as a “select company, representing the beauty, wealth, and culture among our colored citizens.” (Compared to other mainstream newspapers, the politically oriented National Republican had a more inclusive tone in reporting on African American affairs, commonly using phrases such as “our colored citizens.”) “The bride, with her fair and clear complexion . . . was a picture of loveliness.” She wore white satin damasse—court en train—trimmed with old point lace and tulle, looped with a floral horseshoe composed of lilies of the valley. The groom was Albert K. Brodie, a Justice Department clerk and the son of Reverend George Brodie, the pastor at Metropolitan AME Church, who officiated at the ceremony along with Reverend Grimké.
December 28 brought the wedding of Dr. John R. Francis. Like the Syphaxes, Cooks, Wormleys, and Brents, the Francis family was prominent in Washington’s exclusive group of respected “old citz.” Dr. Francis, a surgeon and gynecologist, was growing a prosperous private practice. His bride, Bettie Cox, like Anna before her, was a grade school teacher expected to leave her position upon being married. “The 15th Street Presbyterian Church was the scene of one of the most fashionable marriages that have been here for years,” claimed the People’s Advocate, adding, “The audience room was filled with the elite of the city.” Dressed in a gown of white satin and French grenadine garnished with orange blossoms, the bride was escorted up the aisle by her uncle, Milton Holland, to a wedding march composed for the occasion. The reception at the home of the Hollands was a “brilliant affair.” Blanche and Josephine Bruce, she stunning in a canary silk dress designed by Worth, were among the impressive guests. The presents displayed in the second-floor library included an entire set of French china from best man William E. Matthews and a cream pitcher from the Murrays. This event closed a very active period of elite socializing for Daniel and Anna.17