Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
September 11, 1817
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 88
Notes:
As the British attacked Washington in August 1814, the Americans burned the Navy Yard to keep it from falling into enemy hands. An eyewitness, Mary Stockton Hunter, described the burning of the Navy Yard: "No pen can describe the appalling sound that our ears heard and the sight our eyes saw. We could see everything from the upper part of our house as plainly as if we had been in the Yard. All the vessels of war on fire -- the immense quantity of dry timber, together with the houses and stores in flames produced an almost meridian brightness. You never saw a drawing room so brilliantly lighted as the whole city was that night." "The Burning of Washington, D.C.," New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin (1924): 80–83
