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Андрей Михайлович Бодиско (1863-1922), сын декабриста (сидит крайний справа) с друзьями. Хабаровск. Начало XX в.

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Russian Ambassador Alexander de Bodisco, shown here at the time of his 1840 wedding to a Georgetown teenager, was the fi rst person to develop the estate that became Crestwood. He built a manor house, conservatory, bowling alley, stables and outbuildings. Source: General Photograph Collection, Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

Bodacious Bodisco

The new owner of the Argyle property in 1845, Russian Count Alexander de Bodisco, had been the Czar’s Ambassador in Washington since 1838. Bodisco used the Argyle tract as the site of his country or summer house.

The mansion was most likely the wood frame structure that was torn down in 1934 near the corner of 18th and Varnum Streets - although that house may have been rebuilt after a fire in 1849. The Baltimore Sun reported (January 6, 1849):

We learn from the Washington Union that the residence of Mr. Bodisco, the Russian minister, about three miles from that city, was destroyed by fire on Thursday morning at 3 o’clock. It is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary. The minister’s family had previously removed to Georgetown.

Nevertheless, the Washington Post recollected (August 18, 1889), with no mention of a calamitous fire, that Bodisco had «built a fi ne mansion, a conservatory, bowling alley, and numerous barns and outbuildings upon the plateau». And 10 years later (January 29, 1899), the Post looked back again, reporting that Bodisco «improved his country place on a style in keeping with his wealth and position. Th e large, oldfashioned mansion and extensive grounds mark his ideal of what a country home should be».

Bodisco was one of the most popular diplomats in Washington and (said the March 1878 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine) «the most sagacious and popular ambassador ever sent from Russia to this country». His nickname in the capital was «Uncle Sasha». He frequently entertained at the Russian legation - and, after his marriage, at the federal period house at 3322 O Street in Georgetown, which he purchased as a wedding present for his young wife. The home eventually came into the Heinz family, so that today it is the D.C. residence of John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry.

«Beauty and the beast»

Th e Ambassador was so well-regarded in Washington society that he weathered a scandal precipitated by his obsession with a 16-year-old Georgetown girl, Harriet Beall Williams. After a short but storied courtship, he married her in 1840 in a wedding attended by President Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster and future President James Buchanan. Henry Clay gave away the bride. At the time of the wedding, Miss Williams was «only seventeen but tall and splendidly developed» - as described in the 1869 book The Court Circles of the Republic, Or, The Beauties and Celebrities of the Nation by Elizabeth Fries Ellet and R. E. Mack. Going by the birth date on his grave in Georgetown, the Ambassador was 53 when he married, though news reports and memoirs kept placing his age higher and higher.

The legend goes that Alexander met Harriet at a Christmas party he hosted for his two nephews, and he was at once determined to marry her. According to the Washington Times («Christmas Romance of Old Georgetown», December 20, 1903), as he wooed Harriet, «he escorted her to school every morning and carried the pretty scholar’s school books» and «the was present when the hour for closing studies arrived to escort her to her home, and there was no more gallant and impassioned wooer in all the universe».

They often met along Georgetown’s Lovers Lane, then located on the Williams property. As the New York Herald reported, Baron Bodisco «was ugly, in fact preeminently so, and some people went so far in their disapproval of the marriage as to refer to the old fairy tale, «Beauty and the Beast».

It was widely reported that, as a newlywed visiting her husband’s country for the fi rst time, Harriet managed to charm the family of Czar Nicholas - despite, by some accounts, her social missteps, such as refusing an invitation from the Czarina because the occasion was on a Sunday. Each faux pas was instead looked upon as a delightful quirk.

A 1905 memoir goes so far as to say that Harriet «was one of the fi rst to draw the attention of foreigners to the beauty of American women»:

Before she was really of an age to appear in society ... Harriet Williams became the Baroness de Bodisco, and was carried abroad for presentation at the Russian Court. Her appearance in that critical circle created a furor, echoes of which preceded her return to America. I have heard it said that this young bride was the fi rst woman to whom was given the title, «the American Rose». (A Belle of the Fifties: Memoirs of Mrs. Clay of Alabama, Covering Social and Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853-66 by Virginia Clay-Clopton and Ada Sterling).

It was a life quite diff erent from her classmates at the Lydia English Female Seminary in Georgetown. In the November 1898 edition of Gentleman Farmer magazine, Mrs. W. S. Powell described the wedding and Harriet’s transition to a new life:

There was great excitement in the school when the famous Bodisco wedding came off; eight of the girls were bridesmaids, Jessie Benton coming fi rst with James Buchanan.... Jewels that had adorned the persons of hundreds of generations of Bodiscos were brought over the sea to deck the girlish bride, who stepped from the quiet life of the Williams home into all the gaieties of the capital, becoming at once a queen of society, dividing honors with the beautiful Harriet Lane, then, as the President’s niece presiding at the White House. Crowds would collect on the streets to watch Madame de Bodisco pass by on her way to the levees at the White House, whither she would go in pleasant weather in an open carriage, usually attended by mounted policemen to guard the diamonds worth half a million.

Numerous memoirs said Count Bodisco was involved in every detail of the wedding, from the multitude of celebrations to the gowns of the bridal party.

More than a century after their marriage, the Bodisco wedding made it into a popular work by Irving Stone. Th e author, who wrote such biographical novels as Th e Agony & the Ecstasy about Michelangelo and Lust for Life about Vincent van Gogh, included the Bodiscos in his 1948 novel Immortal Wife. The book dramatizes the life of writer and political activist Jessie Benton Fremont.

Here is Stone’s dialogue as Jessie informs the man she would eventually marry, John C. Fremont, that her friend Harriet Williams had become engaged to the Russian Ambassador:

«Count Bodisco?» he asked, with a puzzled, almost pained expression. «Isn’t he the pretentious one who drives to his Embassy every day in a snow-white barouche drawn by four black horses?»

«Yes, I suppose he is pretentious, but in a kindly sort of way that does no one any harm. He’s just trying to maintain the dignity of the Russian aristocracy in what some of the other ambassadors call a mudhole capital».

«But», he exclaimed angrily, «he’s an old man. He must be past sixty!»

«Just sixty. And Harriet is just sixteen. But he is so terribly kind, the Count Bodisco. He has been most generous to her parents. Just think, Lieutenant, last week Harriet wasn’t good enough to be the May Queen at this school, and in a couple of weeks she will be Countess Alexander de la Bodisco, cousin to the Czar, with a state wedding».

That Bodisco style

Th e wedding was just one place where Count Bodisco showed off his distinctive style. A letter by William Pitt Fessenden (who served in Washington as Senator from Maine and Treasury Secretary) refers to the Ambassador as «strapped in lace and glittering with orders - beruffled, bepadded, bestiffened, wigged, mustachioed and whiskered - a short, thick squat fellow, but civil and well bred».

Author John Robert Irelan concurred in his 1887 History of the Life, Administration, and Times of Martin Van Buren. He described a party Bodisco  hosted in the winter of 1839 (perhaps the very one where the Ambassador became enamored of Harriet):

The Russian Minister, Bodisco, was a pompous old European courtier, and prided himself on his superior social qualities.... Bodisco himself outdressed all his guests. He was arrayed much like a harlequin.

He wore pumps which glittered with precious stones, and silver lace with brilliants ornamented his blue dress. His guests were fed with gold spoons and forks from plateaus of gold with mirrors. The aff air turned the society heads and made the old bachelor very popular.

Bodisco organized many grand balls at his Georgetown residence. Th e Baltimore Sun reported on one he gave in February 1847 in honor of the Czar’s birthday: «The magnifi cence of the baron’s entertainments is proverbial, as some fi ve or six hundred invitations were issued, extending through all the diff erent degrees of high life, thronging the metropolis».

For some time after his marriage, the Ambassador would host weekly dinner parties, which ended with dancing and games of whist. «Emperor Nicholas … had a special allowance made for table money», wrote Benjamin Poore in the 1886 Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis.

However, one night «he sat down to play with those better acquainted with the game and he lost over a thousand dollars. At the supper table he made the following announcement in a sad tone…» «Th ese receptions must have an end…. Th e fund for their expend, ladies and gentlemens, is exhaust and they must discontinue».

It was wellknown in Washington that Bodisco owned valuable real estate in the United States, including the Argyle estate. In 1849, while the Ambassador was back in Russia, reports spread that he had been banished to Siberia because the Czar supposedly would not allow his representatives to own property in the countries to which they were accredited. The dispatches turned out to be a hoax.

Some more serious intrigue may have been going on. A Russian language encyclopedia (translated in 2009 by Crestwood neighbor Maria Sokurashvili) reports that Bodisco tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Czar and U.S. authorities to take control of parts of California from the «weakening hands of the Mexican government» - and then split the territory between the two countries. Until January 1, 1842, Russia did maintain an outpost at Fort Ross, a bit north of San Francisco.

It is unclear whether Bodisco ever threw any parties, carried out any diplomacy or hosted any games of whist at the Argyle property. Th e Sunday Star (March 6, 1932) did repeat a story that Bodisco «kept several Russian bears for his amusement» at his country home - but the reporter said he didn’t have any actual evidence of bears at Argyle.

The estate was the site of the birth of the couple’s youngest child. «Bodisco and Harriet had seven children», wrote Alexandre Tarsuidze in the 1958 book Czars and Presidents, «the youngest, William Basil, born at their country house just outside Washington».

Bodisco’s devotion to his wife may have cost him his life. Th e Washington Post (November 4, 1894) recalled that the Ambassador had waited in the wintry cold for Harriet to return to Washington from Europe on a ship that had been «greatly delayed». Th at exposure led to a fatal illness: «A side of his face was almost black; he had received a terrible wind blow. He never recovered, and died soon after».

The response from Congress was immediate. «Washington, January 24 … Th e Senate and House of Representatives adjourned over today as a mark of respect for, and to attend, the funeral of M. Bodisco tomorrow». (Baltimore Sun, January 25, 1854).

In 1860, Harriet went on to marry a younger man, British Army offi cer Douglas Gordon Scott - saying that it was the dying request of her husband for her to marry again. Th is time President Buchanan gave away the bride.

Shortly before his death, Bodisco sold the Argyle proper ty to Thomas Blagden. The deed - recorded October 22, 1853 - reveals that Blagden paid $25,000.

That high a price confi rms the many improvements Bodisco made to the property. In Crestwood in recent years, residents would tell stories of old stables in the neighborhood, calling them «the Russian stables» - holding out the possibility that some buildings from Bodisco’s time might have endured. In a 1988 real estate ad, the house at 1826 Varnum Street was touted as «part of the Tsarist Embassy at one time» and as having been «erected by the Count and Countess Bodisco in the mid - 1800s». An old  wood frame barn and carriage house on that lot did disappear from D.C. real estate maps after 1915, just before a modern home was built there in 1920.

Bodisco’s fi nal resting place at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown has at least one thing in common with his old country manor: it overlooks Rock Creek.

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Неизвестный фотограф. Портрет Михаила Михайловича Бодиско с женой Александрой Александровной, рожд. Исполатовой. Петроград. 1910-е. Фотобумага глянцевая, фотопечать чёрно-белая. 18,3 х 24,3 см.