Charles Carroll Glover (1846-1936), Washington’s greatest benefactor, once owned most of Glover Park west of Huidekoper Place.

Charles Carroll Glover began his career in banking in 1866, as a teller at Riggs & Company. In the Panic of 1873, when many banks failed, Glover became chief administrative officer of Riggs; he was just 27. By 1896 he was president of the leading bank in the nation’s capital.

Along the way Glover was also director of the Washington and Georgetown Railroad - the ancestor of Metro - and president of the Corcoran Gallery. He was instrumental in the building of the National Cathedral, and in the completion of the Washington Monument. Glover lobbied tirelessly for his causes, and, as banker to congressmen and presidents, Glover did not want for what is now called “access”: he was often a guest at the White House. Theodore Roosevelt’s children played at Glover’s country house despite the fact that Glover was not of Roosevelt’s party.

In the years immediately after the Civil War there had been serious talk of moving the nation’s capital to another city; St.Louis was mentioned. To forestall this disaster, local business leaders set out to improve the city at such expense that any departure of the government would become unthinkable. Street grading, the extension of new streets north of Boundary Road (now Florida Avenue) and west of Rock Creek, and the provision of water and sewage lines to these new streets, were part of the plan.

Unfortunately, new streets were often laid out without regard for municipal coherence, and suburban subdivisions proliferated with no provision for public amenities. The few remaining areas of natural beauty - such as the valley of Rock Creek – threatened to become dumps. This was the situation that Glover used his influence to change. In 1891 he persuaded Congress to extend the order of L’Enfant’s original streets and avenues all the way to the District line. The effect of this on the present appearance of the District can hardly be overstated.

The extension and development of Massachusetts Avenue was a particular favorite of Glover’s projects, and after about 1909 it became his commute downtown from Westover, his house at 4300 Massachusetts Avenue, at what is now Ward Circle. When he provided a site for a new British Legation in 1928, the prestige of Massachusetts Avenue rose accordingly, and “Embassy Row” was born. Fittingly, the Massachusetts Avenue bridge over Rock Creek now bears Glover’s name.

Inspired by the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1870, Glover was determined to do something similar for the national capital. By assembling parcels of land, and then selling them to the United States, Glover created over 3200 acres of parkland for the District of Columbia. When the government would not pay for more land, he simply made a gift of it.

In 1904 he donated land that he felt was crucial to the integrity of the park on the east of Rock Creek between Massachusetts and Connecticut Avenues. In 1924 he gave the newly instituted National Capital Parks Commission 77 acres in the valley of Foundry Branch, which, with the addition of 28 from Anne Archbold, became Glover-Archbold Park. Glover is considered the father of the National Zoo, of Rock Creek Park, and of Rock Creek Parkway.

Charles Carroll Glover conceived of Washington as a city of inspiration, transcending the needs of commerce; reclaiming for the public tracts of land coveted by private interests was a vital part of this conception. It was Glover who envisioned the twenty-year project of dredging of the Potomac mud flats, land which the big railroads had had their eye on. Glover managed to persuade President Cleveland, on his last day in the White House, to sign the Potomac Park bill. Instead of a railroad yard Washington got the noble setting for the future Lincoln and the Jefferson memorials.

As Glover assembled the land for parks, and urged Congress to secure condemnations and make the necessary appropriations, he encountered resistance from legislators who were unwilling to spend money on improvements to a city in which they had no constituents. The Washington press commented: “There has been much opposition to the [D.C. parks] measure, chiefly conducted by bumptious new congressmen from remote districts, who innocently supposed that the first duty of a true statesman was to hold down the District and to make a record as defenders of the groaning masses against its selfish and rapacious schemes.”

One such defender was Thetus Sims of Tennessee. Having been in Congress more than fifteen years, he was not, strictly speaking, new, but when he accused Glover of profiting at public expense by selling the government land for parks at exorbitant prices, the banker evidently found the congressman too offensive for words, and when an occasion presented itself one day in Farragut Square, knocked him down. Because Sims had made his accusation on the floor of the House of Representatives, Glover found himself charged with contempt of the House. His assurance that he never had any intention of showing any disrespect to the House as a whole was apparently sufficient to win an acquittal.

There were also those who took a dim view of Charles Glover’s banking practices. The United States Treasury was right across the street from Riggs Bank, which Glover must have felt entitled him to have his own desk in the Treasury, and to be the first to hear of impending changes in monetary policy that might affect his bank. This convenient arrangement came to an abrupt end with the Wilson administration, which had come into office with a promise of banking reform. For good measure, the new administration also decided to investigate Riggs Bank for any other improprieties. Glover attributed these irksome attentions to personal malice on the part of President Wilson’s Comptroller of the Currency, John Skelton Williams. Did Glover strike Comptroller Williams––this time in Lafayette Square, with his walking stick––and was he again summoned before Congress to apologize, as historian Constance Green has it?

Green seems to have blended elements of the Glover-Sims affray––the assault in a public place and the apology before Congress––with the Glover-Williams feud, which was actually fought in the courtroom. Riggs Bank brought a civil action that named top Treasury officials as defendants, and the Treasury retaliated by bringing a criminal action against Riggs, charging that it had filed a false affidavit in the civil case. Testifying on Glover’s behalf were former Presidents Taft and Roosevelt, who affirmed what everyone in Washington already knew: the defendant, a man of integrity, was the foremost benefactor of his city. The members of the jury, deeming the government’s case to have been purely malicious, took just nine minutes to acquit, then crowded around to shake Charles Glover’s hand.

Carlton Fletcher

(The information in this article originally appeared in the
Glover Park Gazette
in May and June, 2004. All rights reserved.) Sources:

Hartford, William J.. 1902 “Charles Carroll Glover”, Successful American, Writers’ Press Association, Vol. V, No.6, June 1902, pp.331-3;

Washington Post, January 25, 1913, p.5: “There has been much opposition to the measure, chiefly conducted by bumptious new congressmen from remote districts, who innocently supposed that the first duty of a true statesman was to hold down the District and to make a record as defenders of the groaning masses against its selfish and rapacious schemes.”

In the Case of Charles C. Glover for Assault Upon Representative Thetus W. Sims, House of Representatives 63rd Congress, 1st Session, Report No.6, April 26, 1913;

“The Riggs Bank Case” Outlook, Vol.CIX, pp.953-54, April 28, 1915: In The United States vs. Charles Glover, William J. Flather, and Henry H. Flather, 1916, the Comptroller of the Treasury, and the Secretary of the Treasury, accused Riggs National Bank of financial malpractice, including borrowing money from the bank on “dummy notes”.

Interview, Louis Brownlow, “The Riggs Bank Case”, Literary Digest, Vol.L, pp.939-40, April 24, 1915: The bank got an injunction, and brought a case in its defense. Its complaint, brought before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, asked that the Comptroller of the Treasury, and the Secretary of the Treasury, be enjoined from using their positions to wreak personal revenge on the bank.

Washington Star May 23, 27, 1916 Glover, accused of perjury for signing a false statement, has ex-presidents Taft and Roosevelt as a character witnesses. p> Washington Star, May 27, 1916: Jury acquits glover in nine minutes, attributing the government’s suit to malice.

Constance Green, Washington, A History of the Capital, 1800-1950, pp.33,173.

Elkington, Steven, Charles Carroll Glover and the Parks of Washington, D.C., An address presented before the Historical Society of Washington, September 25, 1990

Charles C.Glover Papers, Historical Society of Washington.