In May 2012, the BHHC received an email from James Benson, in Altadena, California. He was interested in information about his great grandmother, Margaret (Maude) Benson, whom he visited in Berwyn Heights as a child in the 1950s. Further correspondence established that the Bensons lived in an American Four Square at 8403 58^th Avenue (formerly Huntley Avenue) at the intersection with Goucher Drive. In its early days, the house stood next to the tracks of the electric streetcar line that served Berwyn Heights from 1910 to 1921. Thanks to Mr. Benson sharing information about his family and additional research, a very interesting story emerged.

Margaret and her husband Fred Hodges Benson moved into town with their three children Howard, Clarence and Margaret Flora sometime between 1910 and 1912. Previously, the family lived in Washington D.C. where Fred Benson worked for the U.S. Treasury Department, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. In October 1909, Benson and several other investors incorporated the Berwyn Heights Building & Improvement Company (Berwyn Heights Company) for the purpose of developing the Town and attracting new residents.  This came at a time when a new electric streetcar, the Washington Spa Spring & Gretta Railroad (WSSGRR), was being built to service the area. The first cars started to run from the corner of 15^th and H Street, not far from the Treasury Department, to Bladensburg in 1910, and service was extended to Berwyn Heights in 1912.

The year 1915 found Fred Benson leading the effort to establish a citizen association in Berwyn Heights. According to the minutes of the association, “on January 28, 1915 at the request of F. H. Benson a number of residents and property owners of Berwyn Heights met at the residence of Mr. Benson and decided to form the Berwyn Heights Association primarily for the betterment of walks and streets and incidentally the general improvement of conditions in which the local community were interested.” Those present voted to elect Fred Benson President of the Association, a position to which he was re-elected every year until 1921 when he suffered a stroke. He continued to serve as honorary President until his death from a 2nd stroke in 1923.

Author: Kerstin Harper
Sources: James Benson’s Ancestry.com family tree; Library of Congress digital archive of historic newspapers; Town of Berwyn Heights’ Minutes of the Berwyn Heights Association

The Historical Committee during the last year has been discussing plans to redo it’s first street marker, Waugh Avenue, which contains several inaccuracies and mistakes. Readers are invited to comment to improve the next marker:

WAUGH AVENUE MARKER II

James E. Waugh, after whom this street was initially named, was a driving force behind the creation of this community. He was born on July 14, 1841 in Georgetown, D.C. and on February 15, 1858, married Rachel Sarah Victoria McKelden. Waugh began his career as a grocery merchant, worked for a time as a clerk in the Treasury Department, and then went into the real estate and insurance business.

At the onset of the Civil War, Waugh organized a company of volunteers, the Eagle Guards, for the defense of the capital city. He served as First Lieutenant and then as Sergeant under Captain Degges until the unit dissolved in June 1861. Waugh was also a member of the Masonic Order of the Knights Templar, Columbia Commandery No. 2, in which he served as Eminent Commander in 1876, and an honorary member of the National Rifles.

In 1886, Waugh, with Washington businessman David Lamb, began to buy up land east of the B&O Railroad between the Branchville and College Lawn stations to create a new suburban development. In 1888, Waugh and business partners Edward Graves and Benjamin Charlton had the land surveyed and platted under the name of Charlton Heights. In 1889, they incorporated the Charlton Heights Improvement Company (CHIC), which built a score of houses and basic infrastructure and began to sell properties.

Sales in the development were slow and CHIC failed in 1892. Waugh died of a stroke in 1895 in his Charlton Heights home near Edmonston Road.

Author: Kerstin Harper
Sources: BHHC Waugh pamphlet; Don Skarda’s History of a Small Town; Ann Harris Davidson’s Then & Now: Berwyn Heights; Library of Congress digital archive of historic newspapers

In the Berwyn Heights town office hangs an old map of the town. It shows essentially the same municipal boundaries and layout of streets as today. But all the street names are different.

Berwyn Road was named Waugh Avenue, Pontiac Street was La Belle Avenue, and Ruatan Street was Keleher Avenue. Initially, the streets were named after people. Who were they and how are they connected to the Town’s history?

These are the questions  the Berwyn Heights Historical Committee began to explore when it started to meet in May 2003. The answers led back to the colorful cast of characters who set out to create a fashionable suburb for wealthy Washingtonians. The Committee’s historical markers seek to capture their lives and  their contributions to our town.