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44-496: Primarily residential, Chevy Chase adjoins Friendship Heights , a popular shopping district. It is the home of the Chevy Chase Club and Columbia Country Club , private clubs whose members include many prominent politicians and Washingtonians. The name is derived from Cheivy Chace , the name of the land patented to Colonel Joseph Belt from Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore , on July 10, 1725. It has historic associations with

88-634: A 1388 chevauchée , a French word describing a border raid, fought by Lord Percy of England and Earl Douglas of Scotland over hunting grounds, or a " chace ", in the Cheviot Hills of Northumberland and Otterburn . The battle was memorialized in " The Ballad of Chevy Chase ". The area known as Chevy Chase includes several entities in southern Montgomery County : It also includes the neighborhood of Chevy Chase in northwest Washington, D.C. The United States Postal Service also uses "Chevy Chase" for some postal addresses that lie outside these areas:

132-742: A campus in Chevy Chase. For decades, a six-block stretch of Wisconsin Avenue in Friendship Heights and Chevy Chase has been the only place partially or wholly in Washington, D.C., with multiple traditional department stores , namely, Bloomingdale's , Saks Fifth Avenue , Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus . The latter two closed in 2020, as did the indoor shopping center at the Chevy Chase Pavilion. As of 2022, two department stores remain, both on

176-502: A clear and discriminating mind, and an industry that knew no relaxation when there was a duty to perform..." As one of his many responsibilities as clerk to the postmaster general, Bradley began to compile information for a complete postal service map, including routes, stations, and distances between each. Handicapped by his lack of training in the fields of topography and cartography, Bradley drew upon earlier maps by Robert Erskine and Thomas Hutchins . When Postmaster General Pickering

220-457: A county judge in Wilkes-Barre , he made the acquaintance of local judge Timothy Pickering . Bradley accompanied him as a personal clerk when Pickering was appointed postmaster general by President George Washington and moved to Philadelphia in 1791. Bradley was described by a contemporary as "an unassuming man, modest and retiring almost to diffidence, yet a lawyer of competent learning, with

264-777: A hotel at 7100 Connecticut Avenue; it opened it in 1894 as the Chevy Chase Spring Hotel and was later renamed the Chevy Chase Inn. "The hotel failed to attract sufficient patrons, especially during the winter months," wrote the Chevy Chase Historical Society, and in 1895, the Land Company leased the property for a year to the Young Ladies Seminary. Part of the original Cheivy Chace patent had been sold to Abraham Bradley , who built an estate known as

308-574: A number of offices, including the corporate headquarters of insurance giant GEICO (originally Government Employees Insurance Company) and the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain, and a concentration of broadcast media including the studios of WMAL-FM and WTOP-FM . As a result, heavy traffic is not uncommon. The Friendship Heights Station on the Red Line of the Washington Metro system serves the area, and

352-454: Is often considered to be part of Chevy Chase, D.C. ; The most substantial commercial aspects are the shopping plazas near the intersection of Wisconsin and Western Avenues. Found here are many department stores, as well as numerous boutiques, day spas, a multiplex cinema and other services which cater to the residents as well as visitors to the area. The area also features a variety of moderate and discount chains. The neighborhood also supports

396-614: Is served by Janney Elementary School, Alice Deal Middle School, and Jackson-Reed High School . The Maryland side of Friendship Heights is served by Somerset Elementary School, Westland Middle School, and Bethesda Chevy Chase High School. District of Columbia Public Library operates the Tenley-Friendship Library. After seven years in an interim location, the library reopened in 2011 at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Albemarle Streets. Abraham Bradley Abraham Bradley Jr. (February 22, 1767 – May 7, 1838)

440-506: Is served by the Montgomery County Public Schools . Residents of Chevy Chase are zoned to Somerset, Chevy Chase or North Chevy Chase Elementary School, which feed into Silver Creek Middle School, Westland Middle School and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School . Private schools in Chevy Chase include Concord Hill School, Oneness-Family School , and Blessed Sacrament School. Rochambeau French International School formerly had

484-862: The burning of Washington in 1814, many of the postal records and a few public officials were transferred for safety to the Bradley farmhouse, ten miles (16 km) north of the White House . In 1823, Meigs was in ill health, and was replaced by John McLean , also from Ohio. McLean, who was later to become an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court , proved an industrious and creative postmaster general. McLean, like his predecessors, kept Bradley as his chief assistant. Bradley and his brother Dr. Phineas Bradley managed an office of 30 postal clerks and served several thousand local post offices. Bradley's 1825 edition of his map included postal routes in

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528-540: The Bradley Farm. In 1892, Newlands and other members of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C., founded a hunt club called Chevy Chase Hunt, which would later become Chevy Chase Club. In 1894, the club located itself on the former Bradley Farm property under a lease from its owners. The club introduced a six-hole golf course to its members in 1895, and purchased the 9.36-acre Bradley Farm tract in 1897. In 1906,

572-619: The Chevy Chase Country Club barred "Negroes" and "one ethnic group of Caucasians" from membership. In response, Club president Randall H. Hagnar denied that the club excluded Black or Jewish people; he said that no members were African-Americans but that several were Jewish. In 1903, Lea M. Bouligny bought the old Chevy Chase Inn and founded the Chevy Chase College and Seminary . The name was changed to Chevy Chase Junior College in 1927. The National 4-H Club Foundation purchased

616-490: The Chevy Chase Land Company blocked a proposed subdivision called Belmont after they learned its Black developers aimed to sell house lots to other African Americans. In subsequent litigation, the company and its affiliates argued that those developers had committed fraud by proposing "to sell lots...to negroes." By the 1920s, restrictive covenants were added to Chevy Chase real estate deeds. Some prohibited both

660-485: The Chevy Chase Pavilion. As of 2022, two department stores remain, both on the Maryland side: a freestanding Saks Fifth Avenue and a Bloomingdale's in a multiuse center that also includes a Whole Foods Market , boutiques, and residential and office space. Along the D.C. stretch of Wisconsin Avenue are: On the Maryland stretch are: District of Columbia Public Schools operates public schools. Friendship Heights

704-540: The Chevy Chase farm and himself had a namesake son, also a Washington, D.C., attorney who assisted the Surratt defense team. Bradley's service to the country as assistant postmaster general is regarded as influential. Bradley's postal routes and schedules, enforced rigidly over 30 years, gave the Post Office Department a rapid and reliable engine for delivering information across vast distances, instilling in citizens

748-622: The Louisiana and Mississippi territories were well marked, and the postal routes of the new states of Kentucky and Tennessee fully developed. Like the original version, copies of this new map were printed and distributed to be displayed in every large post office in the United States. Bradley published a revision in 1810, but the War of 1812 made reliable mail delivery a much more hazardous enterprise. Return J. Meigs Jr. , former governor of Ohio ,

792-538: The Maryland side: a freestanding Saks Fifth Avenue and a Bloomingdale's in a multiuse center that also includes a Whole Foods Market , boutiques, and residential and office space. Along the D.C. stretch of Wisconsin Avenue are: On the Maryland stretch are: Friendship Heights Friendship Heights is an urban commercial and residential neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. , and southern Montgomery County, Maryland . Though its borders are not clearly defined, Friendship Heights consists roughly of

836-468: The budding village, soon to be a thriving seat of government; Phineas became one of Washington's first town councilmen. In 1802, Bradley and his wife Hannah had a son they would name Joseph Habersham Bradley after the Georgia postmaster and family friend. As a Federalist , Bradley desired the re-election of John Adams in 1800 . But when the new president, Thomas Jefferson , appointed Gideon Granger to

880-522: The city is extremely pleasant and it will probably become the greatest city in America ... Bradley to Joseph Habersham, June 11, 1800 Bradley found property rents and prices in Washington, D.C., unnecessarily high, roughly 500 houses scattered over a ten-square-mile tract, but believed the scale of the enterprise guaranteed the new capital's success. Bradley invited his brother, Wilkes-Barre physician Phineas Bradley , to join him in bringing his family to

924-480: The deed to the land, that only a single-family detached house costing a large amount of money could be constructed. The Chevy Chase Land Company did not include explicit bars against non-white people, known as racial covenants, but the mandated cost of the house made it impractical for all but the wealthiest non-white people to buy the land." Houses were required to cost $ 5,000 and up on Connecticut Avenue and $ 3,000 and up on side streets. The company banned commerce from

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968-530: The expansion of the Washington streetcars system. Newlands and his partners founded The Chevy Chase Land Company in 1890, and its holdings of more than 1,700 acres (6.9 km) eventually extended along the present-day Connecticut Avenue from Florida Avenue north to Jones Bridge Road. Newlands, an avowed white supremacist , and his development company took steps to ensure that residents of its new suburbs would be wealthy and white; for example, "requiring, in

1012-430: The importance of the connectedness they shared with their distant neighbors. The numerous maps Bradley published, while later discarded and redrawn by the new Jackson administration, created in their time a sense of the immensity of American territory. His 9.36-acre farm, which sat along present-day Connecticut Avenue , was leased in 1894 by Francis Newlands , a U.S. representative and land developer who had been seeking

1056-625: The incumbent president, John Quincy Adams , but when Andrew Jackson was elected instead, Jackson partisans called for Bradley's ouster. Jackson seems to have viewed the Bradley brothers as being corrupted by their high government salaries and their unique positions to decide the winners of lucrative mail contracts. First Abraham, then brother Phineas were removed from their positions in 1829, months after Jackson's inauguration. After his removal, Bradley made no attempt to defend himself from partisan attack, but he did make several public communications pointing out what were in his view defective actions by

1100-453: The national post office in his own home. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut , to the colonial family established by Guilford, Connecticut , pioneer Stephen Bradley, Abraham was the fourth consecutive scion to bear his name. His father, Abraham, was a Yale College graduate who listed his various employments as "a surveyor of land, master of a vessel, selectman, town treasurer, representative in

1144-655: The neighborhoods and commercial areas around Wisconsin Avenue north of Fessenden Street NW and Tenleytown to Somerset Terrace and Willard Avenue in Maryland , and from River Road in the west to Reno Road and 41st Street in the east. Within Maryland west of Wisconsin Avenue is the Village of Friendship Heights , technically a special taxation district. The portion in the District of Columbia lies in Ward 3, represented by ANCs 3E03 and 3E04. It

1188-470: The new administration in regards to postal service. Bradley became for a time secretary of the Franklin Insurance Company. When Abraham Bradley died in his home in Washington, D.C., May 7, 1838, he left eight children, including lawyer Joseph H. Bradley, best known for his successful defense of John Surratt , accused of attempting to assassinate Abraham Lincoln . The younger Bradley inherited

1232-467: The newly acquired states of Arkansas, Illinois, and Missouri, while still providing accurate cartographic information on areas such as Michigan , Minnesota , and Wisconsin territories. The completed map measured roughly four feet high and five feet wide, and included an inset map depicting the known extent of the North American continent . In the election of 1828 , Bradley and his brother supported

1276-426: The office of postmaster general, Granger kept the sober and reliable Bradley as his assistant. By the time of the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, Bradley's 1796 map was vastly outdated, so he prepared a new map with the help of British cartographer Aaron Arrowsmith . Produced in color in 1804, the new map reflected the enormous changes the service and the country had undergone in eight years. The Ohio Country and

1320-501: The office until 1828. In 1800, the seat of U.S. government was transferred from urban Philadelphia to the newly surveyed, mostly rural District of Columbia . Under Habersham, Bradley was assigned the task of moving the General Post Office Department files and furniture to a location in the nation's new capital. Bradley acquired a three-story house at the northeast corner of 9th and E streets NW, installed his family in

1364-506: The office's efficiency. In 1796, Bradley drew one of the first comprehensive maps of the United States; it "represented the first clear cartographic break in European-dominated map making and introduced a new, more distinctly American style of cartography to the United States." In 1800, Bradley oversaw the move of the federal government's post office from Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, to the new capital at Washington, D.C., briefly hosting

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1408-464: The primary eastern route. By this chart it could be determined that a letter posted in northernmost station at Brewer, Maine , could be expected to reach St. Marys, Georgia , in six weeks plus four days: 46 days of travel. Bradley spent much of his career improving, expanding, and refining U.S. postal maps during the rapid westward expansion of America in the early 19th century. Appointed assistant postmaster general by Habersham in 1799, he would serve in

1452-461: The property in 1951, turning it into the group's Youth Conference Center. For decades, the center hosted the National 4-H Conference, an event for 4-Hers throughout the nation to attend, and the annual National Science Bowl in late April or early May. The National 4-H Club Foundation sold the center in 2021 for $ 40 million; as of 2022, it is to be replaced by a senior living development. Chevy Chase

1496-451: The residential neighborhoods. Leon E. Dessez was Chevy Chase's first resident. He and Lindley Johnson of Philadelphia designed the first four houses in the area. Toward the northern end of its holdings, the Land Company dammed Coquelin Run , a stream that crossed its land, to create the manmade Chevy Chase Lake . The body of water furnished water to the coal-fired generators that powered

1540-579: The sale or rental of homes to "a Negro or one of the African race." Others prohibited sales or rentals to "any persons of the Semetic [ sic ] race"—i.e., Jews . By World War II, such restrictive language had largely disappeared from real estate transactions, and all were voided by the 1948 Supreme Court decision in Shelley v. Kraemer . In 1964, Arthur Krock wrote an article for The New York Times alleging that

1584-411: The site of the former Washington Women's Clinic. For decades, a six-block stretch of Wisconsin Avenue in Friendship Heights and Chevy Chase has been the only place partially or wholly in Washington, D.C., with multiple traditional department stores , namely, Bloomingdale's , Saks Fifth Avenue , Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus . The latter two closed in 2020, as did the indoor shopping center at

1628-609: The state legislature, justice of the peace, a zealous Whig , captain in the American Revolutionary War , judge of the court, town clerk, and something of a scribbler in prose and verse." The son, Abraham Bradley, showed promise as a student and graduated from the celebrated law school run by Litchfield attorney Tapping Reeve . Bradley moved to the Wyoming Valley of frontier Pennsylvania in 1788 and established himself in private law practice. While briefly serving as

1672-401: The station is also a major connecting depot for area bus services. Streetcar service, which once connected the neighborhood to Georgetown , was abandoned in 1960. Since the late 1990s, development has accelerated in the neighborhood, notably the construction of Chase Tower on Willard Avenue, a new Chevy Chase Center replacing the older 1980s-era complex of the same name, and new condominiums on

1716-422: The streetcars of the Land Company's Rock Creek Railway . The streetcar soon became vital to the community; it connected workers to the city, and even ran errands for residents. The lake was also the centerpiece of the Land Company's Chevy Chase Lake trolley park , a venue for boating, swimming, and other activities meant to draw city dwellers to the new suburb. Similar considerations led the Land Company to build

1760-402: The top floor, Habersham's and his own offices on the second story, and the clerks' offices on the ground level. We have not been able to open the office and to accommodate business until to-day. I left Philadelphia Wednesday the 27th of May and arrived here on the evening of the 29th. The President [Adams] left Philadelphia the 26th and arrived at Georgetown the first of June. The situation of

1804-518: The town of Somerset , the Village of Friendship Heights , and the part of the Rock Creek Forest neighborhood that lies east of Jones Mill Road and Beach Drive and west of Grubb Road. In the 1880s, Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada and his partners began acquiring farmland in unincorporated areas of Maryland and just inside the District of Columbia, for the purpose of developing a residential streetcar suburb for Washington, D.C. , during

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1848-558: Was an American lawyer, judge, and cartographer who was an assistant postmaster general for 30 years during the earliest history of the United States Post Office Department . The continuity brought by Bradley's long employment during the tenure of five United States postmasters generals helped establish the budding postal service as a reliable provider. While not trained as an artist or cartographer, Bradley created innovative and detailed postal route maps that improved

1892-523: Was appointed to replace the retiring Granger in March 1814; again the incoming postmaster general kept the first assistant. As the wartime threat to Washington, D.C., grew, Bradley began looking for a farm away from the city where he and his wife could raise their children; in 1814, Bradley acquired a 218-acre (0.88 km ) farm in Montgomery County, Maryland , near the tiny community of Chevy Chase . During

1936-425: Was succeeded by Joseph Habersham in 1795, Bradley's postal route maps and voluminous knowledge of the department made him an irreplaceable figure. In September 1796, Bradley published the first combined map of the post office stations, routes, and distances between. The map included a remarkable and innovative table that indicated times and days of the week to expect mail at various important postal coach stops along

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