Booth's mistress, Ella Starr, and other "unknown" Booth ladies!

[Cliff Roberts]

Hi Jenny, and congratulations on the impressive job of research you’ve done on the Starr family, including the discovery of a great photo of Ella Starr’s residence in 1865. According to the Historical Society’s description, the photograph by Mr. Bishop was taken between 1924 and 1928. He was positioned just south of C. Street, facing north down 13 ½ Street NW, with Ohio Avenue veering off to the left (west). The Starr house at No. 62 Ohio Ave in 1865 (changed to 1353 Ohio after 1868) is indeed the 3-story white brick building immediately adjacent to the 4-story dark brick building at the corner. It has long been suspected that the corner lot was vacant during the 1860’s, causing some to correctly describe the Starr home as being “on the corner.” Evidence that the corner lot remained vacant as late as 1877 may be derived from the obituary of Charles Fenton Spates, who died on January 29, 1877; the notice states that his funeral will take place “from his mother’s residence, 1353 Ohio avenue, corner of 13 ½ street.”

Below is an earlier street-level view of the house, this one taken on April 16, 1912, by noted reformer and photographer Lewis Wickes Hine.


Red light resorts on Ohio Avenue near 14th St. and young messenger who was showing me around. Original Hine caption. Library of Congress Photo Collection

In this view, the camera is facing east along Ohio Avenue, with the 3-way intersection of 13 ½ Street NW and C Street in the distance; you can just spot a trolley car beginning to head down C Street. Note the first-floor bay windows beneath a second-story balcony on the Starr house, which suggests structural changes were made to the building’s façade prior to the date of the Bishop photo. Also, the 3-story building on the north-east corner of 13 ½ and C streets does not appear in the Bishop photo. The messenger boy lounging against the fence is identified by Hine as 17-year-old Griffin Veatch, his guide on a tour through Washington’s notorious Hooker’s Division; the boy was pointing out various brothels where landladies would pay him for steering customers to their doors. Hine took a second photograph of Veatch that day, this one facing east on C Street, just around the corner from 13 ½ Street. The photographs were meant to document unsafe conditions under which children were forced to work at that time.

The 4-story residence next to the Starr house stands on property almost certainly once owned by well-known Washington madam Mary Ann Hall, the “M A Hall” shown on the 1887 Hopkins map you posted. According to reports, Mrs. Hall owned several properties in the city, including her large brick house at 349 Maryland Avenue. Located conveniently near the U. S. Capital Building, this was considered the finest brothel in the city, offering 1864 clients a choice of 18 ladies in sumptuous surroundings. She never married and died a wealthy woman in 1886.



Here’s another birds-eye view of the Starr house taken in the 1920s from atop the Washington Monument. This enlargement of a photograph found at the Library of Congress was used by archeologist Donna J. Seifert to illustrate the location of several of the properties along Ohio Avenue and 13 ½ Street which she and others excavated in 1989. In a report of the excavations, she devotes an entire chapter to “Mrs. Starr’s Profession,” using information provided by James O. Hall. This report and several others by Seifert can easily be found and downloaded from the Internet by Googling her name.

Finally, below is another illustration showing some of the active brothels and illegal saloons in Hooker’s Division, which appeared in print sometime around 1901. Grace Emerson is listed as operating an illegal house at 1353 Ohio; also listed are houses at 1355 Ohio and 1357 Ohio.



As noted earlier, this entire neighborhood south of Pennsylvania Avenue was razed in the 1930’s to make room for construction of government buildings in an area called the Federal Triangle. The spot where the notorious Starr house once stood is now part of the inner courtyard of the Ronald Reagon Building.